The Euros are depending on “soft power” by choice. Otherwise they have less money for the welfare state and short work week they love so much. That is their choice. You, like Euros, want to believe that Iran and NK are just nice happy little countries who pose no menace to their neighbors or more distant regions such as Europe. Ok. Whatever. You, like so many of your politcal perspective, are in the first rank of those who excel at rationalization. If you aren’t afraid of Iran, then good for you.

This thread started with your question as to why the US needed such a gosh darn big military and I explained to the best of my ability and more eloquent spokespersons can why it is so.

And why would the Europeans, or anyone else…

A) Ever need to fight a conventional war in Iran?

B) Ever need to “confront” a Nuclear Iran.

You’re making it sound like you’re expecting a confrontation with Iran, but lets look at it another way.

When was the last time Iran attacked, or invaded, anyone?

I believe it was Saddam who invaded Iran and started that war.

I don’t know of any other wars in which Iran was involved, and they have never, in all their rhetoric over the past few months, never suggested aggressive action against one of their neighbours, or even the US.

I’m not apologizing for the Iranians and their lack of willingness to cooperate with the IAEA, but the fact is, they have never threatened anyone overtly with their conventional military…

You say the Middle East is a threat to Europe?

Again, what country in the Middle East is threatening Europe militarily? Turkey is doing everything it possibly can to BECOME part of Europe. Iraq was never a threat and is even less so in a military sense… Syria? They have a bunch of Russian missiles… but are they alone a reason for greater military spending in Europe? The Syrian armies would probably fall to pieces like the Iraqis did and the Baath would retreat into insurgency.

Africa?
Again… where is the need to fight a large conventional war? Name one country that you feel could or would require an invasion in order to effect change.

It’s ludicrous. There is no need, in this day and age of modern military warfare, to have a huge conventional force able to invade and control entire countries.

It just doesn’t make sense, and rather than decreasing the possibility of conflict, it increases it because countries like Iran and Syria and North Korea feel threatened enough to build up their defenses even though in any real conflict they’d be absolutely hopeless.

Sorry, forgot the link.

The rest of the European troops – some of whom are unionized! – do not have the training or tools to fight alongside America in a hot war. They might be good for peacekeeping, but not for winning a war against a conventional foe. God save the Europeans if they ever felt the need to confront a nuclear-armed Iran. U.S. defense spending will be over $400 billion in 2005. I wish it could be less, but one reason it can’t is that the United States of Europe is spending less than half of what we are. And the U.S. and E.U. really are the pillars of global stability.”

Thomas Friedman, NYT, Mar 6, 2005

The first part of this speech very succintly spells out the EU perspective.