http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/mil_exp_per_of_gdp&id=EUR&id=us

(and which in fact is certainly higher when the “black budget funds” are taken into account), not to mention the highest number of armed forces personel per capita:

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/mil_arm_for_per_cap&id=EUR&id=us

I look forward to the day when we can leech off the European defense umbrella, so we can spend *more* in other sectors!
Having said that, should such an improbable (in a nice utopian kinda way) scenario occur, I would wager that three things would happen:
1. There would be a slight increase in military spending in the EU.
2. A pan-European army would materialize in no time (or at least a “Europe of the willing” type army).
3. Discussions concerning a possible Russian entry to the EU in some form or the other and/or tighter military cooperation between EU and Russia, would begin.

What if the United States vanished (for the purposes of the experiment, completely and utterly) but the world was otherwise unchanged? What would European governments need to do to keep Europe more or less as it is - prosperous, engaged in global trade, democratic, stable? What are Europe’s security needs, without any reference to the United States?

With some kind of grip on that question, you can come back to talking about the world in which the US does exist and plays an active role in European affairs.

Then, ideally, you can also talk about the things that Americans and Europeans can be doing together, because that is what the vast majority of the Washington policy community would like to be talking about.

Navel-gazing about the transatlantic relationship is a frustrating exercise for the folks over there, because the core of Europe is supposed to be solved as a security issue. Indeed, a great deal of time, money and effort has been expended over the last decade to ensure that the core of Europe that is not a security problem should grow to include most of the continent, not just parts of western Europe.

I made the reference to NATO expansion to illustrate a point. However, I actually support the dissolution of NATO, and the fiction that America and Europe are “allies”, as the trend seems to be that eventually we will be enemies.

The sad fact remains, though, that for many Eastern Europeans, NATO membership actually does mean something more than just a badge of “modern, civilised, free countries”. And, as someone who lived (as a child) less than 200 km from the border with the Soviet Union, I’m more ready to empathise with Eastern Europeans. Shoud there ever be a threat from Russia, - should a fascist like Zhirinovksy, or a Lukashenko, take power after Putin - the Eastern European states most likely would not get any real and direct support at all from the Franco-German axis, or rest of Europe. After all, it has happened time and time again….

Yet I still must agree with you. NATO is an anachronism, and should be abolished.

vaara: Switzerland is a completely parasitic entity within Europe, so your use of that country as a metaphor to the rest of Europe in comparison to the world is quite appropriate.

If it was a valid military organisation - or indeed a practical tool of American hegemony - the Americans would hardly have declined NATO assistance in Afghanistan.

In truth it serves as little more than a diplomatic association which allows the EU-members-in-waiting a badge to mark them as ‘modern, civilised, free countries’.

And the American umbrella is largely a myth anyway. At a strange conference I attended in London in October 2000, NATO’s then SACEUR, Joe Ralston, said that the ABM shield was needed by America as if Paris or London, for example, were threatened with nuclear attacks, Washington would be unlikely to aid them unless America were guaranteed safety.

In other words, NATO’s mutual defence clause is a diplomatic fiction.

Cutting US military expenditure to a third of its current , from $400B to $133B would:
a. Reduce US expenditure to less than European - $190B in 2002.
b. Reduce Expenditure/capita to around $350, about 26th, half that of France, and something similar to Luxembourg.

So, if they did, what would happen? I’d assume they’ld have to axe all of the missile defense, mothball the Stealth programs, and make commanders ask permission from their mums before firing off those expensive tomahawks. They might have to refocus away from the expensive toys, and back towards traditional military expenditure, and bring their army manpower numbers up to something comparible to Europes, which, one might argue is half of their current problem in Iraq. In fact the whole scenario doesn’t seem to have a single downside……

Security and militaristic expansion are two different matters entirely. That the EU must guarantee its own safety, either within the framework of defensive aliances or outside, is logical. However what benefits would expansionism bring to the average EU citizen, other than facilitating penis-comparison matches on Internet between netizens with nothing better to do?

It would be a shocking success if Europe does turn inward and finds peace for the first time since, what, millennia ?

Sooner or later competing entities will be vying for regional dominance; the question remains do we want to see Iran emerge as a major military power (it certainly has the resources to do so), or the Sunni theocratic states of the Arabian Peninsula, or see Pakistan and India come to nuclear blows, or have China adopt an expansionist policy to divert dissent at home.

Can Europe handle those issues? Most likely Europe will turn inward, and imagine itself as the arbiter of all that is decent and civilized, and issue moral proclamations that have no effect whatsoever on the antagonists.

The fantasies that will be entertained will be those of the Europeans, who will imagine that their opinion still matters in the world.