151 comments on EU oil imports set to grow by 29% by 2012
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
User login
Personnel
Editors
Contributors
Peak Oil Primers
Archives
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
Vital Trivia
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
GAIA Host Collective
Who is a military threat to Europe, by the way? European countries taken together have more soldiers than the US, and enough high-tech toys to put out small fires. For anyone with conqueror ambitions, the bomb is a sufficient deterrent. Not having an army suitable for conquest is one temptation less for the ruling elites.
Not meaning to make it sound like charity. I understand the strategic importance for the US to have been present when they were. However I think Europeans of late, due to the anti-Americanism, take for granted the defense edge they have which is provided by American forces.
More soldiers may be useful, but how well trained? Britain certainly has some well trained units, but how does say Spain, or Greece compare?
As for toys... how many of those toys were sold to the Europeans after American tax dollars funded the research. Granted there are weapons divisions in Europe, but most of their toys were bought from American defense contractors.
I'm not trying to take anything away from European defense forces. They have some fine soldiers, and are worthwhile allies. But don't go marginalizing the benefits that the US has provided Europe simply because you disagree with the current actions of the US.
I'll also be really curious what Russian removal of resources will do to promote European hegemony under the EU banner. I could easily see the EU becoming a LOT more Imperial once resource rich countries start looking after themselves, and all those diplomatic deals start to fall through. What would a few cold winters or record breaking summers without steady energy do to motivate the EU towards militarism? Ugly thought, but certainly not unthinkable.
The reason being nationalism, and also the Americans refuse to sell us the latest stuff-- the only country that gets that is Israel (which then sells it to China ;-). They won't even let British companies have it-- you know the people standing beside you in Iraq. (we are seriously talking about pulling out of the Joint Strike Fighter over access to the software).
It's inefficient, we run higher costs because we don't have your economies of scale and volume platforms. The separate national fiefdoms bugger us. But we do have our own weapon systems technology (in some areas clearly superior eg conventional submarines, some forms of artillery and light armoured vehicle etc.).
We (UK) use your nuclear systems, but we were offered the chance to co-develop with the French, and went with the US.
Put it another way, there is no 'Europe' on defence, what there is is different nations of different force projection capability. Its unsurprising the world didn't want the Germans to develop force projection (but they had the best armoured forces in NATO).
We don't spend as high proportions of GDP on defence, but then our labour costs are generally lower, too. What we don't get is your economies of scale.
I do think Europe is likely to strike its own deals with oil-producing states, not necessarily to the US's liking.
A lot of oil producers don't want to be dependent on the US alone, either as a customer or as protection. Hence the Saudis buy their air force from us (the BAe Al Yamamah II project) not from the USA.
This has bearing on the Palestinian problem, and also Venezuela, amongst others. Interests will diverge.
Anti-Americanism that is partially motivated by a different view on the effectivity of armed intervention. So I think the difference in strategical choices motivates the anti-US-sentiments rather than the other way around.
Conquering and occupying an already much more militaristic Russia or parts thereof? Whoever thinks that would work, let alone yield a net energy benefit deserves to become history instantly. Besides, the Baltic and the Black Sea are very nice blockade points even without large forces.
In any case, for the foreseeable future (which is short) Russia and the EU have needs and abilities that are complementary. There's no use in rushing to make enemies.