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fisk
Posts: 9145
Location: Von Oben
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 Posted: Sun, 28th Sep 2014 22:51 Post subject: What is your opinion on your country having an army? |
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Recently there was a media stir in Sweden because Russia had jets flying into our territory. Sweden has a rather pitiful army (to say the least) and there is no realistic notion where Sweden could ever defend an attack from a country like Russia, but these attacks has created some life in an otherwise dead horse about spending more funds in raising an army.
Where do you stand on spending billions of tax money on having an army to defend your country from foes?
Personally I don't see it viable for a nation such as ours, if we were to create an army, let's say with 850000 trained infantry soldiers on standby like we had in 1988, we would first of all have to raise taxes by quite a fat margin, have mandatory conscription again (like we had before 2006) and most likely, since our economy comparatively is shit, we would have to cut financing from the public sector, so education, infrastructure, medical care and such would have to go.
All for maybe withstanding a possible Russian attack that may or may not come, and in all honesty... if Putin would want the Baltic sea as his personal jacuzzi, there isn't jack shit Sweden, Norway or Finland can do to stop him (yes, we love to mention Talvisota in this regard, but this is not 1939.).
So what do you think about your nation, if for example USA went and installed "democracy" or Russia came and "freed its citizens", do you think that tax finances are well spent in having a strong defense force? Or do you think, like I do, that such notions are a bit of a joke.
Yes, yes I'm back.
Somewhat.
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| Posted: Sun, 28th Sep 2014 23:01 Post subject: |
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First of all, I don't think it's feasible to have individual armies vs. threats as serious as Russia. That's what NATO is there for, and for good reason, because NATO as a whole can be dynamic, when it comes to infrastructure, engagements, active personnel, etc.
I do believe, that we have not seen the end of wars, and there will always be military conflicts. It is naive to believe, that there would never be aggressors. Thus, military protection is needed, and what you really need is allies, in case of Sweden, that ally is the US.
And the way I see it, the moment the US starts to withdraw from the world, and starts to be less open regarding interventionism, chaos erupts. It is clear as day to me, that if the US had a more ballsy president, then Putin would never dare do, what he does now. Even Bill Clinton wouldn't have allowed for such aggression.
Overall, I think Obama is a failure as president, and he's a failure specifically, when it comes to foreign policy.
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| Posted: Sun, 28th Sep 2014 23:44 Post subject: |
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A country needs an army to protect itself. In your case, I'm not talking about all-out war with a behemoth like Russia, but a modern small air force can intercept enemies and preserve the country's borders, the nation's dignity/selfrespect.
There is a balance to be achieved between actual threats, available budget etc.
A prosperous country of 10 million people should be protected.
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| Posted: Sun, 28th Sep 2014 23:51 Post subject: |
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WAR!!!
What is it good for?!?
Absolutely nothing!
But on a bit more serious note, I do agree with you that it wouldn't help much if we were to increase our army here in Sweden. Such a powerhouse like Russia or the US would steamroll us completely. 
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Morphineus
VIP Member
Posts: 24883
Location: Sweden
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| Posted: Sun, 28th Sep 2014 23:57 Post subject: |
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With Belgium we are kind of in the same situation. Slightly higher population, but a small army.
I do like the focus of the Belgian army tho, they specialize in certain fields and most of the land component is being used for humanitarian/rebuilding and educating purposes. It's not so much about being a defensive force.
The F16 squadron usually has statistics that put them at the top. I think it's vital small armies are more into specializations and work under a European or Global mandate. Where instead of just filling numbers they can excel and contribute by their expertise in specific fields.
The missions Belgium does I'm usually for, and think it's well spend money even if it's to clean up another nation's mess.
In the case of Sweden, they don't have enough to justify a defence force on their own. They need to think in terms of specializations and help from their allies. Raising taxes won't ever be enough to raise a decent army. So I'd say: why even bother.
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Invasor
Moderator
Posts: 7638
Location: On the road
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| Posted: Mon, 29th Sep 2014 00:09 Post subject: |
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Russia attacking Sweden? Sounds as plausible as nazis on the moon for me. Ok, maybe a bit more plausible, but still... 
About the army, I was against any extra budget the brazilian army ever demanded. The army is useless. Brazil is building a nuclear submarine, the annual budget for it is huge and has been going for over a decade (still another decade or two to go), all that for what? How is a fucking nuclear submarine useful for Brazil? Or the dozens of new swedish aircraft (fighter jets) brazil recently bought, with or without it the country is still lost in a war. Meanwhile, the soldiers have no ammo to practice most of the time (no kidding), because that ain't important... Fuck the military for all I care. (But yes, I am aware that our world is a fucked up place and a defensive army might be necessary one day)
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Nalo
nothing
Posts: 13522
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| Posted: Mon, 29th Sep 2014 00:10 Post subject: |
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Last edited by Nalo on Wed, 3rd Jul 2024 06:17; edited 2 times in total
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tonizito
VIP Member
Posts: 51432
Location: Portugal, the shithole of Europe.
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| Posted: Mon, 29th Sep 2014 00:43 Post subject: |
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Finland had a pitiful army, but stopped 1 million russian troops in their tracks.. 
| Lutzifer wrote: | | and yes, mine is only average |
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| Posted: Mon, 29th Sep 2014 01:46 Post subject: |
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IMO => 
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kumkss
Posts: 4835
Location: Chile
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| Posted: Mon, 29th Sep 2014 02:58 Post subject: |
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The military here in Sweden does so much more than just thumping at the ground with the stock of their weapons as they hold the border. They fought the forest fire we had here in August for one. Without them we wouldn't be better off.
While we may not have enough manpower to effectively fight off the modern russian army, other nations have got our back covered, while I'd like to see Sweden in this case indeed trying to specialize on a certain area, Denmark on another and so forth for a more effectice combined arms capability to stave off a potential invasion from Russia, which is not likely at all to happen. What could they possibly want to gain from Sweden?
Military service in general is only a benefit. I wish it'd be compulsory over here, it tends to harden you and generally just make you a better person. We'd be much better off with more resources diverted to the military.
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Werelds
Special Little Man
Posts: 15098
Location: 0100111001001100
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| Posted: Mon, 29th Sep 2014 09:33 Post subject: |
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As an offensive or defensive force on its own? No.
But our military has been there for pretty much every major conflict, in most cases to aid in the aftermath. And some of the work they've done is great, which is mostly non-combat. Our F16s are probably the most used ones.
Where it falls flat with the military is shit like the Joint Strike Failure, or cases like the US, where the budget for the military overshadows that of education, healthcare and...well, everything. The US spend more than half their budget on the military, which is just nonsense. Meanwhile their own country is slowly declining on all fronts. If I look at the Dutch budget allocation for example, the military is like the 8th on the list. Education, sports, social security all have budgets multiple times that of the military, as they should.
I do think NATO should be more proactive though, but politics will never allow that. As Morph said, within NATO there's a few countries who specialise in certain aspects and that's what could make NATO as a whole great. The problem they have is that there's always _one_ country in charge of an operation (shouldn't be a country in the first place); if it gets to that operation after all countries have carefully weighed their political ties. This leads to problems such as all the crap around Kosovo.
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couleur
[Moderator] Janitor
Posts: 14362
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| Posted: Mon, 29th Sep 2014 11:23 Post subject: |
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The army my country has can basically be beaten by the next bigger german citys police force. (We have about 350 active soldiers)
But we did have missions in ISAF, KFOR and others together with the NATO, of which we are a founding member.
I believe instead of wasting money on our military we should be investing more in education to meet requirements of high-tech jobs and battle unemployment. But as a member of the Nato, we are obliged to contribute a minimum. We even have a boat docked in Bruges even though we dont have a coast.
"Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance. Dare to know! (Sapere aude.) "Have the courage to use your own understanding," is therefore the motto of the enlightenment."
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ClaudeFTW
Posts: 5074
Location: Bucharest, Romania
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| Posted: Mon, 29th Sep 2014 14:10 Post subject: |
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I was actually very surprised by how modern our vehicles, transports and defensive gear is. Our tanks are actually pretty modern considering they've been in production since 1986, and modernized recently. Our navy sucks, though, so do our planes, but this is to be rectified, we're supposed to get F16's some time in the near future. And we really need to invest in a new infantry rifle, though, the Kalashnikov replicas we're using are getting old and are nowhere as realiable as an AK74, on which they are based.
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I usually stream stuff: http://www.twitch.tv/claudeftw
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| Posted: Mon, 29th Sep 2014 15:46 Post subject: |
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An army is useless untill you need it. Human kind will never live in peace, so there'll always be a potential for war. Besides that, if you can't contribute to something like NATO, you also should/would have no influence on such a body. I doubt any country wants to be in such a situation.
I think a huge combat ready army is useless personally. I'm more a 'fan' of small versatile armies which can also be used for other purposes in the country.
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| Posted: Mon, 29th Sep 2014 18:12 Post subject: |
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| Werelds wrote: | | The US spend more than half their budget on the military, which is just nonsense. Meanwhile their own country is slowly declining on all fronts |
Defense spending in the US is 18% of the budget:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Federal_Spending_-_FY_2011.png
That figure is going to decrease in the next decade, and the hope is Europe will step up to fill in the gap.
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couleur
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Werelds
Special Little Man
Posts: 15098
Location: 0100111001001100
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| Posted: Mon, 29th Sep 2014 19:40 Post subject: |
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| tainted4ever wrote: | | Werelds wrote: | | The US spend more than half their budget on the military, which is just nonsense. Meanwhile their own country is slowly declining on all fronts |
Defense spending in the US is 18% of the budget:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Federal_Spending_-_FY_2011.png
That figure is going to decrease in the next decade, and the hope is Europe will step up to fill in the gap. |
My bad, the chart I looked at was for the discretionary spending (where military sits at a whopping 57%  ), but even so the US military budget is ridiculous. It's pretty much on par with all the rest. You can combine like the next 10 on the list of highest military budgets and still not match the US. |
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matta666
Posts: 1061
Location: Manchester
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| Posted: Mon, 29th Sep 2014 23:09 Post subject: |
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I like the idea of a European army. Germans kick ass.
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| Posted: Tue, 30th Sep 2014 00:20 Post subject: Re: What is your opinion on your country having an army? |
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| fisk wrote: | Recently there was a media stir in Sweden because Russia had jets flying into our territory. Sweden has a rather pitiful army (to say the least) and there is no realistic notion where Sweden could ever defend an attack from a country like Russia, but these attacks has created some life in an otherwise dead horse about spending more funds in raising an army.
Where do you stand on spending billions of tax money on having an army to defend your country from foes?
Personally I don't see it viable for a nation such as ours, if we were to create an army, let's say with 850000 trained infantry soldiers on standby like we had in 1988, we would first of all have to raise taxes by quite a fat margin, have mandatory conscription again (like we had before 2006) and most likely, since our economy comparatively is shit, we would have to cut financing from the public sector, so education, infrastructure, medical care and such would have to go.
All for maybe withstanding a possible Russian attack that may or may not come, and in all honesty... if Putin would want the Baltic sea as his personal jacuzzi, there isn't jack shit Sweden, Norway or Finland can do to stop him (yes, we love to mention Talvisota in this regard, but this is not 1939.).
So what do you think about your nation, if for example USA went and installed "democracy" or Russia came and "freed its citizens", do you think that tax finances are well spent in having a strong defense force? Or do you think, like I do, that such notions are a bit of a joke. |
I'm pretty sure the moment anyone decided to fuck with you, the states would be on your front door ready to defend. |
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| Posted: Tue, 30th Sep 2014 01:11 Post subject: |
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^Sweden is not part of NATO, but they've recently been forging closer ties with the US military. Last month they started working on an alliance with NATO allowing NATO troops to deploy in their country in case of emergency.
Sense Amid Madness, Wit Amidst Folly
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ixigia
[Moderator] Consigliere
Posts: 65092
Location: Italy
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| Posted: Tue, 30th Sep 2014 02:27 Post subject: |
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Our army sucks and I'm happy that way. Just imagine if the few funds that we can generate here went on that stuff, we'd be even more failed than we are now.
Even when we had one, we still were everyone's bitches anyway, so what's the point.
Also the fact that we have no oil/natural resources, but only debts, certainly doesn't make us a desiderable fish xD
(We can still make guns, though!)
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| Posted: Tue, 30th Sep 2014 11:33 Post subject: ***** |
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*****
Last edited by Areius on Fri, 19th Sep 2025 16:19; edited 1 time in total
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matta666
Posts: 1061
Location: Manchester
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| Posted: Tue, 30th Sep 2014 13:49 Post subject: |
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In honesty, I'd like less spending. Our ruling classes seem to think we are more powerful than we actually are.
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Morphineus
VIP Member
Posts: 24883
Location: Sweden
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| Posted: Tue, 30th Sep 2014 13:59 Post subject: |
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Aye, those high speed choochoo's were really great! NOT! 
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| Posted: Tue, 30th Sep 2014 15:09 Post subject: |
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fuck the army, we should settle our differences at a table with a lot of wine,beer and food, and i think that in the end all the people had their differences setlled without need for violence.
you watch in the news at prime tv war and people dying, thats ok to watch, see a porn movie, noo, thats too much.
| Sin317 wrote: | | while you can't "turn gay", you can cut off your balls. believe me, you'll never think of women again. |
| zmed wrote: | | Or just a defense mechanism. If you fart, you'll most definitely smell it so your brain tells you it ain't bad as strangerfarts. |
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Invasor
Moderator
Posts: 7638
Location: On the road
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| Posted: Wed, 1st Oct 2014 14:15 Post subject: |
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Noone here mentioned Ukraine?
Ask them if they needed a functional army ...
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