Nice picture. But I don’t think it amounts to proof for your argument. :smile:

First, the Bundeswehr was established in 1955. The ECSC was founded in 1951 when Germany was under Allied military occupation and was completely demilitarized.

Second, the whole Bundeswehr leadership from corporal to general were handpicked for their allegiance to the European project.

Third, the “Bundeswehr nukes” were in fact short-range US missiles that were under NATO-US control and were stationed in Germany only to prevent the Germans from developing their own nuclear program.

Fourth, in the real world, it makes absolutely no difference that the Bundeswehr “had nukes”. The point is that in a war with France, for example, Germany would have faced France’s allies in addition to France itself.

The Bundeswehr was expressly designed with a defensive role in mind and its armed forces were smaller than those of France. It had no capability for large-scale offensive warfare at any time in its existence. This would have been the primary war deterrent.

As regards economic cooperation, this could have happened even without ECSC/EU membership. Wars between France and Germany only took place because of overambitious leaders like Napoleon. But the situation had vastly changed after the war.

It follows that there is no logical necessity for peace to be a product of ECSC/EU membership.

And, as already shown, the countries that formed the core of the ECSC, France and Germany, joined under external pressure. England only joined in 1973, twenty-two years after the Treaty of Paris of which it had not even been a signatory!

Second, the whole Bundeswehr leadership from corporal to general were handpicked for their allegiance to the European project. — Apollodorus

:roll:

"Ich gelobe, der Bundesrepublik Deutschland treu zu dienen, und das Recht und die Freiheit des deutschen Volkes tapfer zu verteidigen."

Hardly allegiance to the European project, but if to "loyally serve the Federal Republic of Germany and to courageously defend the right and the liberty of the German people" is according to you the European project, so be it.

The Bundeswehr was expressly designed with a defensive role in mind and its armed forces were smaller than those of France. It had no capability for large-scale offensive warfare at any time in its existence. — Apollodorus

Apollorodorus...that is too thick! :snicker:

In the 1980s, the Bundeswehr had 12 Army divisions with 36 brigades and far more than 7,000 battle tanks, armoured infantry fighting vehicles and other tanks; 15 flying combat units in the Air Force and the Navy with some 1,000 combat aircraft; 18 surface-to-air-missile battalions, and naval units with around 40 missile boats and 24 submarines, as well as several destroyers and frigates. Its material and personnel contribution even just to NATO’s land forces and integrated air defence in Central Europe amounted to around 50 percent. This meant that, during the Cold War, by the 1970s, the Bundeswehr had already become the largest Western European armed forces after the US armed forces in Europe – far ahead of the British and even the French armed forces. In peacetime, the Bundeswehr had 495,000 military personnel. In a war, it would have had access to 1.3 million military personnel by calling up reservists.

Yeah, according to you an 1,3 million strong army with 7 000 tanks and 1 000 combat aircraft has "no capability for large-scale offensive warfare".

I remember in the conventional arms reduction talks the Soviets officially saying that "West Germany can produce tanks as they can produce sausages".

Ich gelobe, der Bundesrepublik Deutschland treu zu dienen, und das Recht und die Freiheit des deutschen Volkes tapfer zu verteidigen

Sure. That's the official pledge of all rank and file!

But anyone from corporal upward were vetted for political views, etc. It is wrong to imagine that someone from Finland fully understands how Germany was operated.

Plus, you still fail to understand the difference between offensive and defensive warfare.

How do you even imagine that half a million German troops would have been sufficient to overwhelm half a million or more French troops, in addition to British, American, and other Allies???

Surely, you understand that offensive warfare requires superior capabilities that the Germans didn't have?

Or perhaps you imagine that NATO was going to sit and watch the Germans beat the French?

And, of course, in case of German offensive war on NATO, the first thing to have been taken out of German reach would have been the US-made and -controlled tactical missiles, leaving the Germans to face French and British nukes! :grin:

sure, but the impetus to libertarianism has nothing to do with economic prosperity in general or with GDP in particular...the impetus to libertarianism is individual freedom from governmental interference. To a libertarian, this is a more important issue than prosperity or economic health. Not sure whence the introduction of libertarianism into an economic argument...

I do not want anyone to be killed off. I am not so naive as to believe that people aren't going to make war in this world, and I may have take sides to defend what I believe in, but that is far from wanting people who infuriate and offend me and who go against the values I believe in to be executed.

All I was asking from you was some kind of acknowledgement that the Franco regime needs to be condemned, not viewed as "someways bad, someways good" because he killed communists, whoever else he killed - and even whatever those different communists believed, given how many different stripes there are. Dictatorship=bad. Do you agree, or is what you think more qualified? Because if it's more qualified, that's not good, and you aren't a consistant democrat.

Well, I don't know what you are trying to accuse me of. Perhaps you are upset that Labour lost the elections and are trying to take it out on me, even though I have absolutely nothing to do with it - beside the fact that I pointed out to you that Labour was a socialist party which you attempted to deny :smile:

And no, I don't recall advocating dictatorship either. On the other hand, Stalinist Russia was a dictatorship and Labour saw it as a model for Britain ....

Right - thank you: I'll take you saying you don't advocate dictatorship as saying that you would condemn Franco. That's all I wanted - at least by this stage.

I highly doubt one will get any decent critiques from people who are anti Russia anti China and pro western capitalism.

The eurocentrism and lack of awareness of the horrible corruption of capitalism is remarkable.

Cue the dogmatic clichéd nonsense about critiques of capitalism being an endorsement of communism,and the ignoring of the atrocities of Western capitalism.

Communists transformed the most backwards and impoverished country in Europe into a technological and military super power that killed Hitler and launched humans into space. They did so in the space of a single generation.