Europe was definitely in need of these resources during the Cold War. From what I've seen of the plans we had to defend Europe it still wouldn't have been enough to defend West Germany from the overwhelmingly massive Soviet armored fist that would have rolled over it all like a speed bump.
However, now that the Cold War is over and the Soviet Union is gone the nature of the defense relationship between the US and Europe has changed. It has changed in a way the does not benefit the US in anyway, but practically gives Europe everything. It has also lost its purpose entirely. Europe cuts back its defense budget and relies on us to do everything. They didn't even try to stop the obvious massacres that were happening in the Baltic regions during the 90's when we thought they would take care of them. We still have NATO around even when there is no legitimate use for it. Very few countries in NATO actually spend the required amount of funding that the organization requires them to be in the group.
My country gives Germany as well as several other European countries billions of dollars a year for defense. What do we get in return? For the most part, just a complacent attitude of how we do everything wrong around the world. Sure you guys send us help from time to time in conflicts, but I've talked to commanders out in the field and whenever **** goes down the only people who get things done are the British, the Canadians, the Australians, the Dutch, the Kiwis (New Zealand), Belgium, and some Ex-Soviet Eastern European countries that I will not name. There could be more that I'm just not thinking of, but for the most part these are the major contributors. The rest of the countries didn't want to be there and didn't help much. Germany especially didn't want to participate in any of the conflicts. I can honestly understand their reluctance.
Meanwhile, Russia realizes that its military capacity for conventional warfare is diminishing so they have turned to making the best nuclear ballistic missiles available, which is more of a deterrent than an offensive capability. They feel threatened by NATOs expansion eastward and, honestly, who can blame them? The Soviet Union is gone, what purpose does NATO serve now? To them NATO = the US. If we were to draw down our presence in Europe then Russia would have little political ammunition to excuse any aggressive posture that they take. The more assets we have in Europe, the more the Russians can say that we are an enemy. Right now Putin is more concerned with trying to increase Russia's GDP and solve the ridiculous host of other problems that his country has.
The European militaries have been and are continuing to be hollowed out in favor of relying on us. No where was this more evident than in the 2011 military intervention in Libya, which was primarily carried out for European interests, most notably Italy. (Italy receives about 25% of their oil and 10% of their natural gas from Libya, and they aren't the only Europeans that rely on them for energy). Granted, the Libyans did get their freedom and we did succeed in stopping a massacre. Those both played a part in why we did it, but we always look out for our own interests when we start a conflict. This time we were looking out for Europe's.
We launched 110 tomahawk cruise missiles (each which costs anywhere from $1M to $16M depending on the block model) into Libya and sent several UAVs, EA-18G jammers, F-15E and F-16 fighters, and an assortment of other weapons to take care of the major fighting and destroy major weapons systems. After we had done all of that we handed it over to the EU because it was their show. They still needed to ride the US logistics supply bus to get to the fighting, which is literally just south of their continent. European air forces ran into the most ridiculous problems. When they got to the fighting they ran out of bombs and other munitions. They ended up using canisters of concrete with a laser seeker mounted on the front to drop them and literally crush targets (which I found surprisingly innovative by the way). They didn't know how to do a lot of the close in support missions like CAS/precision ground strike missions. They didn't have the equipment to do it either in many cases, which we were all too happy to supply them with. The countries involved in the fighting against Libya included:
Belgium
Bulgaria
Canada
Denmark
France
Greece
Italy
The Netherlands
Norway
Romania
Spain
Turkey
United Kingdom
Jordan
Qatar
Sweden
United Arab Emirates
I'm NOT saying that any of these countries lack brave men or good character. By the way, Germany didn't want any part of this and refused to participate. My ultimate point is simply this: EUROPE COMBINED ITS RESOURCES AND STILL COULDN'T DEFEAT A THIRD WORLD COUNTRY THAT IS LOCATED LITERALLY RIGHT TO THEIR SOUTH WITHOUT HELP FROM THE UNITED STATES. By the way, the military contributions of Britain and Canada combined were greater than that of Italy's.
This is not what pisses me off though. What REALLY pisses me off is the fact that the European Union shuts down in August. You all go on holiday/vacation and don't work at all in the summer. Most Europeans have no idea what an American work-day is like since American citizens work ridiculous hours compared to those of most countries of the world. We wouldn't have to be doing that right now if we weren't paying for your defense and trying to be the police of the world for over the past 20 years since the Soviet Union fell. We simply cannot keep paying for this and this relationship cannot last forever this way.
The US is growing increasingly impatient with Europe's inability to act on its own. In my opinion, we still have too many troops in Germany and this is not enough of a reduction. We can still remain allies with Europe, but they need to start pulling their own weight, which they just are not doing right now.
Great post thanks, I never though of it like this but it rings true. Our government portrays our assistance as in our interest but it is not, not anymore.
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