[Comrade Ogilvy]

Lastly, say we are a united earth, and say we are not alone in the Univirce? Say we do not bicker amugst ourselves... much. What will that alien race do when they show up with warships and all we have are civilian shuttles? It is arogent to belive that they will just "ask" for whatever they want, and not just take it if they can. Will not a country that needs oil BADLY invade a small and week country with lots of oil just so it can survive?

I think all of us will agree that the US is acting in its best interests. I cant stop my government from doing it, you cant stop yours. The simple fact is all governments do it. But speaking as a US citizen, I would rather the US won the cold war rather than the the USSR, or say China, imagine the will these countries would be posing upon us.

[Kov]

And the same I would have thought when I was occupied by the USA... thus is war and politics. However, I somewhat fail to grasp the relevency of this to this topic.

[Demosthenes]

Boys, I deleted those last two posts. Please refrain from that type of thing in the future. I prefer to keep the debate at as high a level as possible, those last two posts are a continuation of semi-hostilities from another topic, please stay on topic while you are here.

[Akazu]

I'd like to see EU military spending increase. In the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s, Europe proved to be something of a toothless giant. Plenty of economic muscle without the military clout to match. Britain is arguably the strongest country militarily in the EU, yet even the UK managed to contribute a mere 4% of bombs dropped, and 4% of sorties flown in the Kosovo conflict of '99. If Europe wants to influence the rest of the world for the better, which it does, it needs the tools to do so. For a start, it needs more aircraft carriers, and far, far more R&D.

Granted, the EU is making moves to rectify the situation - the new giant cargo aircraft, the Eurofighter (a decade behind schedule, though a decent aircraft), a (tiny) integrated European Defence Force, and a proposed EU Foreign Minister, to direct the EU's militaries more effectively. But the problem is, they just don't spend enough. Multilateralism and co-ercion is good at times, but you need the military clout to solve the crisis if it doesn't work. It's nice to see joint US-UK projects, like the Joint Strike Figher, though. They keep Britain 'in the loop', and provide Europe with a way of keeping up with the US, technology-wise.