We spend enough on defense. What Europe needs is integration. More spending will just result in more of the same.
Red_Beard6969 on
You do realize Europe is not one country?
Bicentennial_Douche on
It’s almost like USA is a single country, whereas EU is a collection of independent states…
FWIW, in reality EU has two models of tanks: Leopard 2 and Leclerc. Italy had Ariete, but they are moving to Leopard 2.
Facktat on
I call this feature. While it’s probably true that this is inefficient and reduces our ability to attack someone, it also makes it basically impossible to defeat Europe because there isn’t a central military you can take out.
Also I am not even 100% sure how inefficient this is. Scaling up systems only increases efficiency up to a certain point. Just look how “efficient” the EU apparatus works and ask yourself if this is what you want to build your territorial defense on. What we really need is integration.
High-Tom-Titty on
The difficulty is sharing proprietary tech to companies that are your direct competitors, even if they’re in allied countries. It will happen slowly though as more companies merge.
Except if you count all the old Soviet T-72s/T-80s etc.
Werkstadt on
You still getting your panties wet for a federal europe?
translucentdoll on
It will eventually trickle down too
And then that one model will be stupid expensive and then that corporation will have a monopoly and off you go again
The_Last_Cast on
Well, turns out the European Defence Community wasn’t such a bad idea in the late 40s eh? Too bad we had the early 40s too…
Chiliconkarma on
Yesterday we were told about how Blackrock wanted EU banks to unite.
The desire to unite and simplify all things come with the potential for external forces to dominate and influence the production and use it against EU.
Having only 1 type of weapon also allows for planning against it. Disallows for things like the israeli focus on extra layers of defense on their tanks.
mrCloggy on
There is a difference in the approach of military hardware, the EU looks if the existing stuff is still useful/serviceable, and only buys replacement/expansion if and when needed, while the US insists on having the latest and shiniest for everyone and throws away all the existing hardware, regardless of usefulness [example](https://apnews.com/united-states-government-united-states-congress-4416606e329b4c8baa755aad333d73db).
For fighter jets, ‘local’ economies play a role, obviously, but some countries also like the ability to use a short stretch of highway as runway and do road-side maintenance and rearming.
Illustrious-Low-7038 on
I think the problem isnt the duplication, its that the quantity isnt sufficient to justify them.
_Sumiii on
HAHAHA where did they get some of these numbers
Historical-Kale-2765 on
The EU doesn’t have a common standing army. It doesn’t even have any real clauses or protocols for military cooperation between the nation’s standing armies.
asciiCAT_hexKITTY on
The solution is clearly to force everyone to use American tech because everyone has the same requirements as everyone else.
pawnografik on
Does America *really* only have 1 kind of tank?
I mean it looks good on paper but I can hardly believe it.
Historical-Kale-2765 on
“Tank” is an incredibly generic term.
M1 Abrams suggests MTB so Main battle Tank. Of which there is really only a couple, definitely bellow 10 in the EU. It is possible that there are more types in Eastern an balcan member states, which were inherited from the USSR, but those are being put out of service, and are definitely not on the production line any more.
Same goes for fighter aircraft? Do we mean gen 3-4-5 fighters? Fighter bombers? Stealth fighters? Are multi-purpose aircraft included here?
Stabile_Feldmaus on
As per the Letta report all of these double structures amount to 100 Billion € a year of wasted money that the EU could spend on buying new equipment.
2polew on
OP compares a fucking continent to ONE country.
Next we will do a comparison of types of mopeds between Asia and city of Birmingham. Stay tuned
Blesshope on
It’s not necessarily bad, if one type of equipment has a flaw which the enemy can use, then having a more diverse set of equipment will help mitigate that advantage.
Also, having a more diverse equipment park allows for more specialized equipment as well, making it more difficult for the enemy since they need to be able to counter more threats.
The downside of this is of course that logistics becomes more challenging and can also become vulnerable.
Thankfully, basically all EU states are following NATO standars even if they are not members of NATO. This helps with logistics a lot.
barker505 on
It’s a tricky one. The potential economies of scale are obvious, but no country wants to give up its armaments industry as it’s strategically essential.
So how do you get around it? Perhaps European -wide conglomerates which are obliged to have factories, engineers and workers in every major EU arms manufacturer. That way every country retains production and the skills to produce, but we get joint procurement from these companies and reduce costs(maybe).
Bacon___Wizard on
Breaking news: continent with many countries… has many countries. More at 11.
Clueless_Nooblet on
Well the USA is one nation state. The EU is a completely different entity.
relapsing_not on
i don’t even know what strategic goals a united europe would pursue. support ukraine ok that’s a given and you didn’t need a united army for that. then what? fuck with the UK because they had it coming? take back constantinople maybe?
thc_Champion1322 on
Are you saying that Europe has more weapons of war than the USA alone?
TheDungen on
That’s one way to view it. Another is that we allow competition.
Vourinen22 on
diversity… no?
Altruistic_Mall_4204 on
yep, and french model are generaly better
Von-Douchebag on
Well of course a lot could be done in a lot of areas, such as joint acquisition of some equipment to bring down cost. Especially the NATO countries in Europe concerning regularly used items.
However, the larger systems are often decided by the need of the country. It makes no sense for countries around the Baltic Sea for example to have systems made for open sea such as the US and European coastal countries, when the goal is defence of their own boarders. The countries is simply not as big as the United States to make “one system fit all needs”. Or as it makes no sense for countries without mountains to have the same requirements as a country with a lot of mountains. Or a warmer country to have the same requirements as the cold Nordic countries. There is no reason to pay for a system with adaptation which you have no need for.
Same goes with personnel, the US can have complicated systems which requires a lot of resources, while many European countries simply cannot, because of the population/active soldiers.
It is hard if not impossible, to argue that one country should have equipment worse suited for their environment than another, for less potential cost in the future.
It is also hard to start a pontential process of the same equipment when the budgets differs as much as they do between countries.
mmoonbelly on
You’re assuming that European countries really trust each other (Eg France and Britain have nuclear weapons for defense against non-European nations and not primarily for defense against each other)
nikobark on
These stats look completely fake, like which tf are the 20 fighter aircraft models in Europe???
ipeih on
I don’t buy the 17 different tank types when half of Europe uses Leopard 2 variants, with Leclerc, Arietes, K-2s, Abrams and T-72 variants there too, with some cold war legacy stuff for the rest…
Xchaosflox on
Nah
Fine_Gur_1764 on
This shouldn’t be Europe vs. USA – Europe isn’t a united military organisation.
The issue is more that *NATO* (which includes the USA) has this huge diversity of equipment, making interoperability more difficult.
IkkeTM on
Yes, but think of all the strengths and weaknesses our opponents need to familiarize themselves with.
Grundl235 on
could be strength
Divinate_ME on
It’s almost as if you were comparing 1 country to 27 countries, if I didn’t know better.
VisionZR on
How inaccurate would you like a post to be? “Yes”
Fck-New-Normal on
Stop pushing idea of “united global army”!
EyoDab on
At least half the the ones counted for EU are undoubtedly soviet versions which aren’t even produced anymore. Destroyer/Frigates in particular is one in which arguably it’s the US that has too few of them, forcing them to be generalists. It also doesn’t say anything about how easily any of these can be produced, or their cost-effectiveness. It also ignores inefficiencies in the US process, such as what happened with the Zumwalt. It also ignores the problems caused by the US having only a handful of competitors in the field, which causes problems in and of itself.
That’s not to say the EU shouldn’t strive to act more as one than just as a collective, but this post is disingenuous.
xerlivex on
The enemy won’t know what hit them!
redMahura on
This is an incredibly dumb infographic
waldleben on
and thats why we need a united european military. preferrably of course as a part of a European Federation but that can wait.
NorthVilla on
I actually think the European model, with a bit more funding and central coordination, can be better and more competitive than the US model.
US defence contractors are famously over-centralised and over bloated these days.
45 Comments
https://institutdelors.eu/en/publications/european-defence-part-2-industries/
We spend enough on defense. What Europe needs is integration. More spending will just result in more of the same.
You do realize Europe is not one country?
It’s almost like USA is a single country, whereas EU is a collection of independent states…
FWIW, in reality EU has two models of tanks: Leopard 2 and Leclerc. Italy had Ariete, but they are moving to Leopard 2.
I call this feature. While it’s probably true that this is inefficient and reduces our ability to attack someone, it also makes it basically impossible to defeat Europe because there isn’t a central military you can take out.
Also I am not even 100% sure how inefficient this is. Scaling up systems only increases efficiency up to a certain point. Just look how “efficient” the EU apparatus works and ask yourself if this is what you want to build your territorial defense on. What we really need is integration.
The difficulty is sharing proprietary tech to companies that are your direct competitors, even if they’re in allied countries. It will happen slowly though as more companies merge.
17 tank types? No way.
Leopard 2, Leclerc, Challenger 2, Abrams, Ariete, K2?
Except if you count all the old Soviet T-72s/T-80s etc.
You still getting your panties wet for a federal europe?
It will eventually trickle down too
And then that one model will be stupid expensive and then that corporation will have a monopoly and off you go again
Well, turns out the European Defence Community wasn’t such a bad idea in the late 40s eh? Too bad we had the early 40s too…
Yesterday we were told about how Blackrock wanted EU banks to unite.
The desire to unite and simplify all things come with the potential for external forces to dominate and influence the production and use it against EU.
Having only 1 type of weapon also allows for planning against it. Disallows for things like the israeli focus on extra layers of defense on their tanks.
There is a difference in the approach of military hardware, the EU looks if the existing stuff is still useful/serviceable, and only buys replacement/expansion if and when needed, while the US insists on having the latest and shiniest for everyone and throws away all the existing hardware, regardless of usefulness [example](https://apnews.com/united-states-government-united-states-congress-4416606e329b4c8baa755aad333d73db).
For fighter jets, ‘local’ economies play a role, obviously, but some countries also like the ability to use a short stretch of highway as runway and do road-side maintenance and rearming.
I think the problem isnt the duplication, its that the quantity isnt sufficient to justify them.
HAHAHA where did they get some of these numbers
The EU doesn’t have a common standing army. It doesn’t even have any real clauses or protocols for military cooperation between the nation’s standing armies.
The solution is clearly to force everyone to use American tech because everyone has the same requirements as everyone else.
Does America *really* only have 1 kind of tank?
I mean it looks good on paper but I can hardly believe it.
“Tank” is an incredibly generic term.
M1 Abrams suggests MTB so Main battle Tank. Of which there is really only a couple, definitely bellow 10 in the EU. It is possible that there are more types in Eastern an balcan member states, which were inherited from the USSR, but those are being put out of service, and are definitely not on the production line any more.
Same goes for fighter aircraft? Do we mean gen 3-4-5 fighters? Fighter bombers? Stealth fighters? Are multi-purpose aircraft included here?
As per the Letta report all of these double structures amount to 100 Billion € a year of wasted money that the EU could spend on buying new equipment.
OP compares a fucking continent to ONE country.
Next we will do a comparison of types of mopeds between Asia and city of Birmingham. Stay tuned
It’s not necessarily bad, if one type of equipment has a flaw which the enemy can use, then having a more diverse set of equipment will help mitigate that advantage.
Also, having a more diverse equipment park allows for more specialized equipment as well, making it more difficult for the enemy since they need to be able to counter more threats.
The downside of this is of course that logistics becomes more challenging and can also become vulnerable.
Thankfully, basically all EU states are following NATO standars even if they are not members of NATO. This helps with logistics a lot.
It’s a tricky one. The potential economies of scale are obvious, but no country wants to give up its armaments industry as it’s strategically essential.
So how do you get around it? Perhaps European -wide conglomerates which are obliged to have factories, engineers and workers in every major EU arms manufacturer. That way every country retains production and the skills to produce, but we get joint procurement from these companies and reduce costs(maybe).
Breaking news: continent with many countries… has many countries. More at 11.
Well the USA is one nation state. The EU is a completely different entity.
i don’t even know what strategic goals a united europe would pursue. support ukraine ok that’s a given and you didn’t need a united army for that. then what? fuck with the UK because they had it coming? take back constantinople maybe?
Are you saying that Europe has more weapons of war than the USA alone?
That’s one way to view it. Another is that we allow competition.
diversity… no?
yep, and french model are generaly better
Well of course a lot could be done in a lot of areas, such as joint acquisition of some equipment to bring down cost. Especially the NATO countries in Europe concerning regularly used items.
However, the larger systems are often decided by the need of the country. It makes no sense for countries around the Baltic Sea for example to have systems made for open sea such as the US and European coastal countries, when the goal is defence of their own boarders. The countries is simply not as big as the United States to make “one system fit all needs”. Or as it makes no sense for countries without mountains to have the same requirements as a country with a lot of mountains. Or a warmer country to have the same requirements as the cold Nordic countries. There is no reason to pay for a system with adaptation which you have no need for.
Same goes with personnel, the US can have complicated systems which requires a lot of resources, while many European countries simply cannot, because of the population/active soldiers.
It is hard if not impossible, to argue that one country should have equipment worse suited for their environment than another, for less potential cost in the future.
It is also hard to start a pontential process of the same equipment when the budgets differs as much as they do between countries.
You’re assuming that European countries really trust each other (Eg France and Britain have nuclear weapons for defense against non-European nations and not primarily for defense against each other)
These stats look completely fake, like which tf are the 20 fighter aircraft models in Europe???
I don’t buy the 17 different tank types when half of Europe uses Leopard 2 variants, with Leclerc, Arietes, K-2s, Abrams and T-72 variants there too, with some cold war legacy stuff for the rest…
Nah
This shouldn’t be Europe vs. USA – Europe isn’t a united military organisation.
The issue is more that *NATO* (which includes the USA) has this huge diversity of equipment, making interoperability more difficult.
Yes, but think of all the strengths and weaknesses our opponents need to familiarize themselves with.
could be strength
It’s almost as if you were comparing 1 country to 27 countries, if I didn’t know better.
How inaccurate would you like a post to be? “Yes”
Stop pushing idea of “united global army”!
At least half the the ones counted for EU are undoubtedly soviet versions which aren’t even produced anymore. Destroyer/Frigates in particular is one in which arguably it’s the US that has too few of them, forcing them to be generalists. It also doesn’t say anything about how easily any of these can be produced, or their cost-effectiveness. It also ignores inefficiencies in the US process, such as what happened with the Zumwalt. It also ignores the problems caused by the US having only a handful of competitors in the field, which causes problems in and of itself.
That’s not to say the EU shouldn’t strive to act more as one than just as a collective, but this post is disingenuous.
The enemy won’t know what hit them!
This is an incredibly dumb infographic
and thats why we need a united european military. preferrably of course as a part of a European Federation but that can wait.
I actually think the European model, with a bit more funding and central coordination, can be better and more competitive than the US model.
US defence contractors are famously over-centralised and over bloated these days.
is this /r/NonCredibleDefense ?