Therefore many future crises will go unanswered unless the Europeans themselves do the work; some future operations will last longer, and perhaps involve more bloodshed, because they will be fought without the benefit of American military might. ...
Europe looks weaker than it is because too often it wants to fight wars as the US does, not as the Europeans can. The Libya example is illustrative. In an operation in which the US did not want to lead or play a major role, it nonetheless fired nearly all of the cruise missiles that destroyed Libya’s air defences in advance of allied strike missions, provided the great majority of the aerial tankers and nearly all of the surveillance and electronic warfare elements on which allied flights depended, and flew 25 per cent of all sorties. Without American support, the Libya operation could not have been fought in the way that it was. But that does not mean that it could not have been fought at all. The conflict would have taken longer, inflicted more civilian casualties and damage, taken more allied casualties, and been (as the British say) a much closer run thing. ...
The European governments’ hesitation has much to do with the perceived risks of a ‘European way of war’. The US throws enough money, weapons and people at conflicts to guarantee an overwhelming advantage for itself; it also has the technology to do much of the fighting from afar and therefore in relative safety. Wars fought without America’s weapons bring troops in closer contact with the enemy, and last longer, than those fought to the American doctrine. And the more lives are lost, and the longer the fighting lasts, the harder governments find it to keep public support.
There is some interesting stuff there. I said Europe could defeat Libya without us. I've long pointed out that Europe had a problem in the post-cold War world because in the Cold War there job was to fight in place against a Soviet invasion. And the idea that Europeans wouldn't want to undertake a war without our capabilities is fascinating. Given how European governments and people complain about how we fight kills civilians, it is understandable that European governments would be hesitant to show their people how waging war with Europe's sensitive militaries would go as far as civilian casualties. Already, I argued that the civilian toll in Libya's drawn-out war was pretty darned high compared to Iraq's civilian toll. It was just easier to ignore the toll without Americans at the front.
Mostly, I want to point out how the authors argue that Europe can still fight and win but admit what the price of not having our capabilities would be. When people complain of our large defense spending compared to the rest of the world, arguing we can slash our spending and still be superior, they ignore a number of things. One, they ignore that unlike any other country, we have to have the capabilities to move and sustain a large military long distances to fight. That costs money.
And it ignores what we get for our money. Note how the authors say that with less capable militaries, wars fought by Europe would last longer, involve more bloodshed, inflict more collateral damage on property, and risk losing the war--either on the battlefield or by losing domestic support (although this ignores that we still fight in Afghanistan and fought long years in Iraq without losing so much support that we had to retreat).
This is what we get for our defense budget. And that's aside from the humanitarian missions that our military can undertake as a side benefit of our capabilities for deploying and sustaining forces around the globe.
Still, the European angst is a bit amusing. Life without America was an appealing notion for Europeans to contemplate back when we were willing to fight for Europe. Living through it is another thing altogether. Even more amusing, the authors still think President Obama did them a favor by making Europeans confront the reality that they need to defend themselves. It will take a little longer for the shock that no Europeans will confront that reality with enough defense spending to set in.
Europeans will find that an America willing to fight is more Europe friendly than an America more like Europeans in its view of miltiary force. Who knew that Europe got something from our defense dollars, too?
