July 27, 2024: Americans are once more complaining that European NATO members depend too much on the United States and not enough on their own resources for defense. This is particularly true when it comes to soldiers trained, equipped, and available for combat. Part of the problem is that Europeans have not been at war since 1945 while the Americans were involved in the 1950-53 Korean War, where over 35,000 American soldiers died, the 1955-1975 Vietnam War where 58,000 American soldiers died, and the 2001-2021 War on Terror in which 7,000 Americans died.

Conscription was in effect in the first two wars. During the Korean War 1.5 million men were inducted into the military and conscription continued after from 1954 to 1961 with another 1,5 million men conscripted. During the Vietnam War 2.2 million American men were conscripted. In the 1970s the United States dropped the unpopular conscription and has relied on volunteers for the last 51 years. This worked during the 2001-2021 war in Afghanistan and the 2013-2017 war in Iraq. Only 2,460 American soldiers died in Afghanistan and 3,500 in Iraq. Because of the major terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, which killed 3,000 American civilians, the United States embarked on the Global War on Terror, which lasted from 2001 to 2021, and led to 7,000 American military deaths. Europe was spared all this violence during the Global War on Terror except for a few terror attacks that killed or wounded fewer than a thousand civilians and security personnel.

Europe suffered from Soviet backed terrorist attacks during the 1949-91 Cold War, but since the 1980s there has been no more of that. Europe is at peace, but now considers the Russians a threat because of the unexpected Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. European NATO members have been major suppliers of military aid to Ukraine. The United States, which is also a NATO member, has supplied more than half of that aid. But while the United States has an army and marine corps of 630,000 well trained and equipped troops, European nations are less well prepared to defend themselves. The number of European soldiers available has declined precipitously since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The war in Ukraine has forced European nations to rethink their military situation. Although conscription was largely gone by 2021, once Russia invaded Ukraine the Europeans realized they had been too optimistic about how long peace would last and how low they could allow their military readiness to decline. The violence in Ukraine compelled perpetually neutral Sweden to go ahead with reintroducing conscription in 2024.

The number of American army and marine corps infantry troops is more than that of all NATO European nations combined. Another problem is uncertainty about what military manpower can do. The United States has been having little success in getting its European allies to organize their armed forces to be more effective. This is a problem for the United States. For a long time the European nations have taken for granted that the United States would always show up to supply key military capabilities. During the Cold War (1947-91) the U.S. accepted this. Since the 1990s the U.S. has increasingly resented this burden and has been uncharacteristically undiplomatic over the last few years in discussing logistical and equipment shortcomings of its NATO allies.

Decade old examples of how this works could be seen in Mali and Syria. In 2013 the French led liberation of northern Mali was greatly assisted by French warplanes using smart bombs to attack known terrorist bases. This was devastating and led to the rapid collapse of resistance to the French ground forces. But most of the air support would not have been possible without American aerial tankers. There was a similar shortage of aerial reconnaissance aircraft, especially those that could do electronic monitoring to listen to terrorist communications on the ground. In 2013 NATO was under growing pressure to support the Syrian rebels with air support, as they did the Libyans two years earlier. That is not possible without American assistance.

Libya in 2011, was supposed to be just a European operation. NATO was persuaded to take charge of the bombing campaign to fulfill a UN order to stop the Libyan dictator from murdering his own people. While NATO agreed to do this, they found, once more, that they didn’t have sufficient military capability to get it done with European resources alone. The U.S. still had to supply most of the refueling and intelligence aircraft, as well as send more smart bombs because most NATO nations don’t have very large stocks of these weapons.

This is not a new problem. During the Cold War the U.S. constantly, and usually quietly, complained of how unprepared most NATO members were for actual combat. These nations were quite relieved when the Cold War ended in 1991. But then came the need for peacekeeping in the Balkans throughout the 1990s. The U.S. was implored to pitch in because the European NATO nations couldn’t handle this themselves. Then came September 11, 2001. NATO members offered to help in Afghanistan and, to a lesser extent, Iraq. But it was more promise than performance.

European reluctance to send troops to Iraq or Afghanistan was more than just the result of political differences. While all of Europe has nearly as many troops as the United States, they have far fewer fit enough to ship to a combat zone. This was a problem first noted in the 1990s, when there was a big demand for peacekeepers in the Balkans. The Europeans couldn't fob this one off on the Americans and had to come up with combat ready troops. The Europeans had a tough time finding soldiers ready and able to go.

European armed forces are full of people in uniform who have a civil service mentality. That is, they think and act like civilians, not soldiers. Belgium discovered, for example, that 14 percent of its troops were obese, compared to 12 percent of the general population and unfit for many of their duties. Much noise is always being made about getting all the troops in good physical shape. While that is possible, it is less likely that the mentality of the troops will be changed.

During the Cold War, Europe got most of its troops via conscription. Young men came in for two or three years and then left. Anywhere from a third to half the troops were long term professionals, who served for twenty or more years. But even before the Cold War ended, many of the European military professionals were losing their combat edge. When the Soviet Union disappeared in 1991, there was no longer any compelling reason for a European soldier to think and act like one. It was just a job. A government job that was not, or should not, be terribly demanding.

Europeans spend a much higher proportion of their defense dollars on payroll, leaving little money for training, new equipment, and maintenance. It also meant an older, on average, bunch of troops. Going to war and winning requires lots of young, physically fit young men who have undergone months of combat training. Europeans turned their armed forces into another job creation program. There are some exceptions, like Britain and France, demanding that the troops remain fit and maintaining high training standards. Most European nations maintain a few elite infantry units, but these don't add up to much in terms of numbers. Only Britain and France have large rapid reaction forces that can be sent overseas on short notice. The United States has the largest such force, and many European nations are trying to expand theirs.

America also has a leadership advantage on the ground. The U.S. has long maintained an up or out promotion policy, which forces people out of the service if they are not promoted within a certain amount of time. The U.S. also maintains high standards for new recruits. This makes it possible to maintain more combat capable units. The U.S. is able to field more combat troops, and far more combat power, than an equal number of European soldiers, sailors, and airmen.

The Europeans are still producing more excuses than solutions, and that is not expected to change, no matter how much the Americans complain. In fact, it is getting worse. European nations are rapidly downsizing their air forces, and not just in numbers of aircraft, but in money spent on training. For over seventy years the U.S. could depend on European pilots to be well trained and competent. But now Europeans are cutting flying hours and the U.S. has to adapt to Europeans showing up in modern aircraft with poorly trained pilots.

The wartime reality displayed in the Ukraine War left European soldiers with an idea of what is real and what is a counterproductive peacetime delusion. As the Russians discovered, delusions about how much resistance the Ukrainians would produce against an invader, were difficult to calculate. Russians overestimated their abilities and underestimated how much resistance the Ukrainians could generate. Too many misguided delusions can get you killed.