12:01AM
Chart of the day: dropping defense budges in Europe
Monday, July 19, 2010 at 12:01AM 
Apologize for grubbiness of scan. WSJ online version didn't include the charts, and all I had was my marked up version.
Point is simple enough: none of our traditional allies feature anything but seriously declining defense budgets, and with our own budget coming up huge strains, it's clear we need new friends if we're going to continue playing the role of military superpower. Indispensable? Yes. Sufficient? No.
tagged US Military, global trends, security | in Chart of the day | Email Article | Permalink | Print Article
US Military, global trends, security | in Chart of the day | Email Article | Permalink | Print Article 
Reader Comments (2)
The article does not reflect the fact that there is a genuine discussion going on, for instance in the Netherlands, about the function of the military in todays world. In the Netherlands, more thought is being spend on transforming the Dutch military into a force that can do more and more Uruzgan-type missions, i.e. the 3D approach and SysAdmin work. Big ticket items, like the JSF are more and more under scrutiny. In terms of budget, the numbers may go down, but more should be looked at what EU countries want to do with their military instead of absolute size.
Intersesting to see that their combined personnel costs are acyually greater than ours, though we of course are off the charts on ops and R&D.