Straffo,
First, please understand that my objective is not to beat up the French simply for being wilfully French. My point was to criticize their decision to sell arms to the country (China) that is currently the greatest potential threat to the country that defends them. (the USA).
To argue that the USA doesn't defend Europe, and that the Europeans do is simply nonsensical. Europe depends on NATO for its defense, and NATO is in fact the American Armed Forces, with some European assistance. This is what allows the European nations to spend such a small amount of their total GDP on their armed forces.
For instance, despite the fact that the French defense budget has increased dramatically over the past few years to the current high of $39.2 Billion in 2004 and the French deployed 34,000 worldwide last year, this spending is still dwarfed by the US defense budget of well over $400 Billion and a total troop deployment into the hundreds of thousands for the same year. It is not the threat of French intervention worldwide that keeps nations like China and North Korea within their borders, and it certainly wasn't fear of the dreaded French Foriegn Legion or even French Nukes that caused the USSR not to roll its armored legions into Western Europe.
How is France considering repaying the US for its past and present largesse? By selling weapons systems, and more importantly weapons technology to China, a country that spends over $70 Billion on its armed forces, and which might already be able to dominate in a single theater war with the US forced to cover so many areas at once.
Surely you aren't seriously going to defend this policy? Selling to India and Pakistan is dicey, but its hardly the same as selling to a country that has expressed a willingness to engage the US or NATO in a head-to-head conflict. By Comparison, it would be like selling weapons to the Japanese in 1940.
- SEAGOON
