Originally posted by pendell
I believe the reason many European countries could
afford the goodies instead of arms is because of the
existence of NATO, which deterred aggressors. The
principal mainstay of NATO's deterrence was the US
nuclear umbrella. Thus, in a sense, the B-2 made it
possible for there to be *more* social spending, since
the money that was used to build the nuclear deterrent
would have otherwise been spent on maintaining a large
conventional army in Europe.
Respectfully,
Brian P.
Note that most countries in Europe put 1-3% of their
GDP to army funding. That´s the similar precentace
that in US, but beacuse of huge diffrences between
GDP, amount of money is smaller. Still you are partially
right, during cold war NATO was good ally to many
European countries, but it still didn´t mean that all
western contries have social services.
There is also many diffrences between Scandinavia-style
social service and Germany style. In scandinavia
style society offers pension and social services to
all, even those who are poor and haven´t been able to
work.
In Germany style society relys to saving, family help
and pension organizations, so it´s closer to US style.
Still those social services and miltary funding are
based on high taxes around here and both are done
with minimal funding, so we don´t have much fancy
weapons and many contries such as Finland rely to
compulsory military service and large reservs.
I´am myself student of social services, so i
could chat about these things endlessly
Cold war and USSR:s changes to take over whole Europe
is probably debaded to death around here so i dont
push it.