Talk:List of countries and federations by military expenditures/Archive 1

message: To say the EU has a rapid reaction force which allows a 200+ billion budget to be put up is absoultey nothing but an ego trip. That rapid reaction force does not get 200 billion in funding. It would'nt even get 1/20th of that. Your just standing there with a calculator and adding all the countries in the EU together which is simply dead wrong in all ways of looking at it. Considering that 200 billion is out of control of the EU leaders, its up the actual countries in Europe your contrbuting nothing but garbage. Your not adding the EU, your adding the continent of Europe with that number. I have no problem with the funding the rapid reaction force gets, which is the real information. 
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.115.217.48 (talk • contribs) 
:Don't waste your breath; I've been trying to convince these two here of that same fact, but they remain bound to their pro-EU POV. Parsecboy 16:18, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Can't we add a note at the top of the page or near the EU entry, saying that the EU figure is the sum of its member states? It seems that a lot of people would like to see the EU in the list comparing with the other nations, as you can see by the many edits adding it back to the main list. --giandrea 00:32, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I thought that was just you and Eurocopter, again, not "a lot of editors". Parsecboy 14:49, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

text: OK, now it's evident the consensus is that the EU should be in the list, tomorrow I'm going to put it in the main list too with a note that it is the sum of its member countries. --giandrea  14:37, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with that. If no new comments are posted until tommorow, we shall put the EU back as it initially was.By the way, the note should be added at the bottom of the list.Eurocopter tigre 20:42, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You're apparently having a different discussion than the one in which I'm participating. There has never been, at least on my part, an argument that the EU should not be on the page. Just that it should be in a separate list, along with NATO, AU, etc. So far, there is no consensus to place it back in the countries list, so hold fast to making any reverts just yet. Parsecboy 02:00, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Except...the EU is not a country. Has the constitution been passed? No. Do the member states allow a central government to make their decisions for them in all matters? No. It's not a "young country". It's not any kind of country. It's not the largest economy "by far"; it barely exceeds the economy of the U.S. Well, if you want to add supranational organizations to the list, the EU has at most the 3rd largest budget, behind NATO and the US. Parsecboy 12:25, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Parsecboy, as you can see at the bottom of the page, there are at least 4 new users suporting the adding of EU in the list. I also see that only you and chiswick are opossing this now. I really think there is consensus to put the EU back, and I will put it back, no matter how long you and chiswick disagree with that.Eurocopter tigre 21:50, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

text: NJguy, I allready discuss this things whit Parsecboy and I don't want to repeat them. Please read the "EU has its own military" and RfC sections. Eurocopter tigre 17:00, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: IGNORANT

message: The E.U. is not a country and does not have a military like real nation states. Lately there has been a European bias on wikipedia where the E.U. is listed on all positive lists like GDP, GDP per capita, and military expenditures but not negative things like national debt, which the E.U. would undoubtedly be ranked #1. The E.U. was never ranked until about a week ago when some european on an ego trip decided to add it. Also the E.U. is not listed on the CIA world factbook list of countries by military expenditures and since the only reason the E.U. is even ranked on things like GDP is because it is given an "If ranked" in the CIA world factbook, and since the E.U. is not listed in the CIA world factbook it should not be listed here.
User:Daniel_Chiswick 14 March, 2007
Your right the Eu should not be put up, however you are wrong about a few things. The US has a much better gdp percapita than the EU and a gdp that is the same and growing twice as fast
Stop adding the E.U., it is not on any official lists and whoever is adding it is because they have some sort of ego trip. The E.U. was never listed and just because you added up all the military expenditures of the 27 E.U. members that doesn't mean that it belongs on here. User:Daniel_Chiswick 23 March, 2007
P.S. Do not even waste your time adding it again because I will delete it because it is vandalism, and if you continue I will request that this article be locked. User:Daniel_Chiswick 23 March, 2007
: The EU should be here not ranked, as a figure of the total spending of its country members, I'm for keeping it. A note should be added that it's just a figure on the line of the note on the page List of countries by population. --giandrea 03:04, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think we should keep it because this represents the estimate for the European Union calculated by adding up the military expenditures of its 27 Member States.I see no problem to keep it as long as is not ranked (USA:1, EU:-, UK:2). There is also a solid source about the EU military expenditures at the end of the article. Eurocopter tigre 11:59, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree we should keep it not ranked for satistical purposes. --giandrea 18:18, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

text: I would not consider use of a calculator original research. The nature of the EU implies that its military forces may act as a singular unit in some instances. Regardless of that, the nature of it to be considered its own entity in many other areas seems to advocate doing so here. Please stop removing this data until you have a consensus for removal. Currently, you do not have that consensus. --Auto(talk / contribs) 00:26, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The EU is not a country. No matter how many twist and turns are given the fact remains that it is not a country therefore, by definition, it does not belong in this list. Joelito (talk) 02:11, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The CIA does list the EU in its factbook and gives the following rationale: "The EU is not a federation in the strict sense, it is far more than a free-trade association such as ASEAN, NAFTA, or Mercosur, and it has many of the attributes associated with independent nations... Thus, inclusion of basic intelligence on the EU has been deemed appropriate as a new, separate entity in The World Factbook." Signaturebrendel 07:40, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: European Union

message: Personally I think secondary sources should be used (with references noted, obviously) for countries not mentioned in the CIA Factbook - omitting Russia, for example, seems rather silly. The name of the article suggests a complete list of the expidentures of all the militaries of the world, and I think the article should reflect that. MMad 20:59, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, it should. I hope another column on "Source" can be added to the table. But meanwhile, you can update the table and list the reference under the column "Date of information". --Vsion 22:48, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it would be good to have several sources either as a new column or a different list - this is like other articles such as the GDP list which shows both IMF and world bank figures -- Astrokey44|talk 08:38, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Sources other than the CIA Factbook

message: I think the wiki links for each country should point to the articles about their militaries (like Military of South Korea) instead of the countries themselves.  It makes more sense, considering this article is about their military budgets.--KrossTalk 07:34, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  relinking 

message: The expenditure figures for Japan (and China) need updating so that there is compariable data for the top 5. David 22:22, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Japan 

message: Come on, Russia has to be added to this list. It will probably be in the top 5 or so. And can we get more accurate figures for Japan and France please? David 19:41, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Russia's military budget varies greatly depending on the source but according to the US DoD it is the second highest in the world at $65 billion USD . Edrigu 16:50, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Russia?! 

message: What I want to know is why Switzerland, Australia, Luxembourg, and Sweden spending so much money on defense? They do nothing much militarily, do they?
:Australia was a major contributor to the 2003 invasion of Iraq as well as other conflicts and has to spend a lot of money on military anti-terrorism measures due to its northern neighbour Indonesia. As for the other countries, just because they don't go invading other countries every 5 minutes doens't mean they don't like to be able to defend themselves and contribute to peacekeeping. Are you american by any chance?--Joe 1987 17:02, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As far as Sweden goes: The foreign policy of Sweden is based on the premise that national security is best served by staying free of alliances in peacetime in order to remain a neutral country in the event of war. In order for the foreign policy to be credible to the outside, it used to be deemed necessary for a perhaps "unusually" large military for a country the size of Sweden and which has not been to war or civil war since 1814. Today, there is a trend for the military expenditures to decline. Martin Ulfvik 02:16, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why so much? 

message: Why are UK and Russia joint 3rd place?--Joe 1987 16:59, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Russia doesn't have a rank on this article at the moment as we need a correct figure for its defence budget first. However, it would be around the 3rd/4th position. David 16:26, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  3rd place 

message: While it definitely isn't much compared to, say, the U.S. in absolute terms, most almanacs list Eritrea as having the highest military spending as a percentage of GDP. 205.188.117.69 03:22, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Eritrean Military spending 

message: I thought Japan didn't even have an army, how come they rank 4th in military expenditure195.229.41.163 07:05, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Japan has a huge military. Edrigu 16:53, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

text: The number is deceptive as Japan has a larger national budget than most countries due to the greater GDP. The article of Military budget of the People's Republic of China has relative expenditures and Japan's budget is less than half of what UK spends. If Japan increase spending to UK level, it will be around 100 billion dollar rather than current 40 billion dollar. So the fact that Japan is at 4th is not that Japan has a huge military but everyone else is overspending and dropping Japan from 2nd spot.--Revth 05:35, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Japan

message: People keep putting in $64 billion for some reason. Can I have a source for this? This seems way too high for the British.UberCryxic 23:09, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Britain

message: According to Azerbaijani goverment the military expenditures will be 796.8412 million AZN thats about 900 milion USD. It has been announced by Today.Az news source, see here. Could somebody perhaps edit this. Baku87 09:18, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Azerbaijan 

message: I am from canada and I find it hard to believe that russia only spends twice as much as we do.  For the love of god, we wanted to help the US in afghanistan and we didn't have enough planes to transport our troops down there.  Are these figures corrected for purchasing power parity? also what is military expenditure?  If DARPA gives MIT $20 million for research is that military expenditure?  maybe we should clear this up before trying to compile a full list of country's military expenditure Paskari 23:05, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Canada vs. Russia

message: on this page it says the expenditure was 64 billion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_armed_forces
:Some prats keep changing the figures to far too high ones. The real figure is 33.4 billion pounds a year, which is roughly 65 billion dollars at current exchange rates. David 20:37, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  contradicting information about britsh expendidture 

message: Can someone answer the question whether the roughly $400-500 billion listed as the US "defense budget" includes spending, submitted as "supplemental budgets" to Congress, for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (currently about $8 billion per month: yes, per month)?
Also, note that the US figure does not include the roughly $6 billion per year Dept of Energy spends on maintaining our nuclear weapons stockpiles. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jselanikio (talk • contribs) 11:40, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Iraq/Afghanistan 

message: My position is that only the funding contributed towards the ERRF and the supporting agencies should be included, as the other option would effectively list the European member countries twice. It would also falsely represent the military of the European Union, as the separate member states' militaries are not in any way affiliated or controlled by the EU apparatus. The same standard should hold true for the NATO figure as well.Parsecboy 19:06, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Statements by editors previously involved in dispute

message: Japan and Italy need their defence spending amounts being updtated to 2007 amounts. I've looked around on the net to try to find the 2007 amounts for them both but I've not had any luck yet. It would be good if someone could find the 2007 amounts for Japan and Italy so they can both be updated inline with other countries. Signsolid 15:26, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Need to update defence spending amounts for Japan and Italy

message: Can the minority of editors such as Eurocopter who keep adding the EU into the countries section instead of into the organisations section please stop adding it. They are vastly outnumbered by people wanting to remove the EU from the countries section yet keep adding it against the will of the vast majority. It seems they keep adding it because most of the editors who are adding it are from backwater ex-Warsaw Pact EU states or France and hate the US and love the Franco-Neo-Soviet Empire that is the EU and sympathise with Stalin and the Soviet Union and so by having the EU in the countries section it portrays the EU as the new communist anti-America superpower rivalling the US and UK. It's high time the sane majority stop these mad raving Stalin lovers and halt their Stalinist attitude of ignoring the vast majority and enforcing what they want anyway.
: For God's sake we discussed this things for ages. If you would read the talk page you'll see that more users support the adding of the EU. I'm not usually wasting my time talking with rassists and idiots (my opinion, generally). Users making such affirmations and personal attacks should be immediatly blocked. The "Franco-Neo-Soviet Empire" (EU) is a result of your sick imagination and your ultranationalists ideas, along with the comparations of the EU with Stalin and/or Soviet Union. And, I remind you that the UK is part of the EU (I don't think UK will ever rivalling with EU). Maybe it is better to control yourself and think twice between making such comments. Eurocopter tigre 14:23, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  By the way, you are allowed to make 3 reverts a day; it's obvious that you need to study more about wikipedia and learn counting. Oh, and sign your comments.Eurocopter tigre 14:37, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

text: I told you I'm not wasting my time with such persons. I lived in UK for 3 months and I admire and respect your country, culture and civilisation, but I would say that such a person like you don't deserve to call itself "Citizen of the United Kingdom". I'm very proud to be romanian and I would never give the Romanian citizenship for the British one. By the way, Romania was communist for 42 years, Britain was imperialist for hundreds of years. If you will study a little about Romania (or why not, visit it) i'm sure you will change your opinions about it. Eurocopter tigre 15:30, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Eurocopter, you do realise what a complete and utter obnoxious prat you're making yourself out to be? And as for attacking the UK - ask yourself why you're in the UK. Is it because you need the money from working here? Why can't you do that in Romania? Maybe, just maybe, you should stop belittling the British. From what you post here I find it hard to believe that you "admire and respect" the UK at all. David 16:02, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry , I removed all that comments. I was really angry because of that user comments regarding my country. If you will have a look, you shall see that he is the first one attacking me and my country. Again , I apologize for my comments, but I was really angry by his ones. And, by the way, I studied in UK for 3 months, I wasn't working there. Eurocopter tigre 17:01, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

text: That's ok Giandrea, I'm usually not talking with such persons but this time he really maked me very angry. Eurocopter tigre 17:23, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: THE EU IS NOT A STATE, HAS NO MILITARY, HAS NO DEFENCE SPENDING