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In my view the only benefit to an EU Army would be as a way to demilitarize EU member states so that they can't start a war with one another as they no longer h
by ericmay 5y ago
In my view the only benefit to an EU Army would be as a way to demilitarize EU member states so that they can't start a war with one another as they no longer have a military to directly control. Recreating NATO (and dissolving decades of institutional investment) and calling it the EU Army and then excluding the United States from backing you up just does not seem like a smart idea. Partnering with the U.S. is a good and desirable thing and is always a matter of choice. It just sometimes seems like it's not a choice because scenarios in which you are not choosing the United States are almost non-existent.
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- glogla 5y agoIn War NATO makes sense as command structure. But I can imagine "EU Army" structure for things like equipment procurement, trainings and so on for the economies of scale and better alignment. It makes little sense for small EU countries to do that by themselves, when the whole of Slovakia will have like 6 fighter planes and 20 IFVs. At the same time, procurement is pretty political, since many countries are deep in weapons trade, so maybe it wouldn't work.
- jupp0r 5y agoIt would also be a path for abysmally inefficient defense departments like Germany's to make sweeping changes while still keeping face.
- adwn 5y agoMaybe we could get rid of the Gorch Fock [1] while we're at it. A sailing ship in the 21st century, causing repair costs well in excess of 100 million EUR, and killing sailors in training. JFC. A lot of people had to pay a lot of taxes to finance that shitty exercise in futility. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_training_ship_Gorch_Fock_(1958) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_training_ship_Gorch_Foc...
- waffleiron 5y agoI am not in the navy but I assume there is a good reason tall ships are used for training as quite a few countries do, just a few examples: Portugal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NRP_Sagres_(1937) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NRP_Sagres_(1937) US Coast Guard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USCGC_Eagle_(WIX-327) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USCGC_Eagle_(WIX-327) Italy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_training_ship_Amerigo_Vespucci https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_training_ship_Amerigo_... Russia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS_Mir https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS_Mir Peru: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAP_Uni%C3%B3n https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAP_Uni%C3%B3n See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Training_ship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Training_ship
- jupp0r 5y agoThe USCGC Eagle was actually built in Nazi Germany and seized by the US after world war II.
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- waffleiron 5y agoI really like how the steel hull looks on these boats, specifically the Eagle and the Peruvian boat. It's seems so out of place, my mind just expects to see a wooden hull.
- Semaphor 5y agoJust make sure us Germans don’t run procurement, or we’ll start outspending the USA for less equipment.
- makomk 5y agoThe last politician in charge of German defence procurement failed upwards and is currently the (unelected) President of the European Commission thanks to some clever political wrangling, so odds probably aren't great on that front...
- catchclose8919 5y agoNATO does it's thing in the MAD game... but it's involvement in any European regional conflict can only be problematic or ineffective. Eg. a non-NATO EU army could get more involved in Ukraine, and maybe other wars int the Middle East and Africa to, if it weren't tied down to the big heavy NATO that would always go "but muh, can't do that, because global nuclear war".
- ericmay 5y agoThe MAD thing really just applies to Russia (China too I guess?). France was in Africa pretty recently as a non-NATO involvement [1]. The United Kingdom faced off against Argentina in the 80s as well [2]. What do you envision a non-NATO EU army would be doing in Ukraine that isn't currently being done? Without the United States backing up the EU wouldn't Russia just threaten EU member states and make them back off? It kind of seems to me that NATO is what's keeping Europe from breaking out into a war outside of just Ukraine. Why wouldn't Russia invade Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia? What would Germany do about it? What if Russia sank France's aircraft carrier? Would they still continue the fight? Not to mention the ability of the U.S. to do logistics to help European countries supply weapons to Ukraine to help them fight. Hell, nobody in Europe believed Russia was going to do it while the United States and United Kingdom were screaming bloody murder about it. [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/why-has-france-been-war-decade-west-african-desert-2022-02-17/ https://www.reuters.com/world/why-has-france-been-war-decade... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falklands_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falklands_War
- pmoriarty 5y ago"The MAD thing really just applies to Russia (China too I guess?)." And North Korea, and soon possibly Iran. It's not clear how much longer the nuclear genie can be kept bottled up. Belarus is already asking for its nukes back from Russia. It's likely that other countries that feel threatened may start pursuing their own nuclear programs now that they see how vulnerable non-nuclear nations are to attack. In the long term, technological advances will concentrate ever more power in the hands of the few, and MAD may start applying to other technologies, not just nukes.
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- dotancohen 5y ago> demilitarize EU member states so that they can't start a war with one > another as they no longer have a military to directly control. And how would those demilitarized states defend against coups d'état? If your answer is the police then I ask how does the police decide which side to take? And do you really want police armed sufficiently for that purpose? And trained? At that point, you've got an Army with full police-level access to citizen records, investigation capability, and internment options.
- djrogers 5y agoPresumably it would be in the interest of the EU to prevent coups within their member states, so the EU Army would defend against them. That would have the advantage of removing the most common source of coups - a corrupt military leadership.
- dotancohen 5y agoAnd when Germany is no longer satisfied with Greek loan defaults due to the Greeks simply not taxing their population? Do you think that Germany will let Greece tank the Euro without exhausting every option on the table, including replacing Greek politicians if necessary? If this sound far-fetched to you I implore you to look at the last decades' relations between the countries.
- dwighteb 5y agoI’m not against an EU military in principle, so my question isn’t loaded, but genuine curiosity. What would prevent an EU Army from possibly forming a corrupt military leadership?
- dotancohen 5y agoIt's a good question, and probably has no good answer. As it is, a current corrupt European military is constrained to a single nation, and would have to coup that nation before conquering the continent. There would be no such natural constraint for a unified EU military.
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- dudul 5y agoWhat would have happened during the war in Iraq with a EU army? A few countries, including France who would presumably be the major contributor to this hypothetical army, didn't want to go.
- paganel 5y agoAnd for good reason.
- dudul 5y agoI agree, but that wasn't my point
- nradov 5y agoThe same thing would have happened. Even with an EU military, member states would still maintain their own national militaries and could deploy them independently. Just like how NATO didn't participate in the Iraq war but several member states did.
- dudul 5y agoSo it would be pointless if each member can decide to deploy their troops the way they want, might as well keep national armies.
- nradov 5y agoThe point is in having a standing general staff and standard operating procedures, reinforced by periodic joint training exercises. This allows for taking action much faster, with lower risk of errors versus starting from scratch for each operation. In practice a prospective EU military would probably just copy most aspects of NATO, just with a slightly different set of missions and member states.
- gip 5y agoI think the best path forward for Europe should be to have both. Keep NATO as a strong alliance and build an EU Defense component as a non-alliance. That will make things much more complicated for whoever wants to endanger European security in the future.
- petre 5y agoIt's the best idea. Build an EU force so that Austria and other non NATO members such as Sweden and Finland can participate.
- logifail 5y ago> Build an EU force so that Austria and other non NATO members such as Sweden and Finland can participate Austria is an odd example, given that it's completely surrounded by "friendlies". What would the Austrians gain by joining NATO? It's fairly clear what they would lose, which is the ability to stay out of a future NATO conflict. Thought experiment: let's imagine the UK or the US were to somehow kick off a hot war with - let's say - Chinese forces, on/around the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. Do any of us seriously believe that the UK or the US just press some magic "Article 5" button and troops from all over NATO just grab their weapons and set off round the world to join in the fighting? Looking back at the history of NATO's Article 5 it's clear it has more holes than a Swiss cheese. It's political theatre.[0] [0] https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_110496.htm https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_110496.htm
- gip 5y agoArticle 5 only applies if a country is attacked. So if the US or UK are attacking, it doesn't apply. However if China attacks the UK in Asia, then article 5 applies and NATO countries will coordinate to respond to that, militarily of not. This is called deterrence. > Austria is an odd example, given that it's completely surrounded by "friendlies". This kind of thinking has produced the current nightmare IMO. The unwillingness to invest in common security has enabled Russia.
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- jdhn 5y ago>Recreating NATO (and dissolving decades of institutional investment) and calling it the EU Army and then excluding the United States from backing you up just does not seem like a smart idea. Why is that? I personally would love to see an EU army formed with no backing whatsoever from the US (this would probably mean that NATO would have to be dissolved).
- t-3 5y agoDo you really want to have to worry about the US acting as an enemy? Our policy has always been "if you aren't with us, you're against us."
- jdhn 5y agoThen that's something that will have to be accounted for. Personally, I'm tired of paying for Europes security and want us out of there as soon as possible.
- sofixa 5y ago> Do you really want to have to worry about the US acting as an enemy That's already on the cards, as Trump so helpfully demonstrated. Also, the US cooperates with Japan, SK and other countries without them being in NATO, so I don't see why they'd consider an EU Army as an enemy if they're strategically alined - and if they're not, it won't change anything because the Americans will do whatever they want anyway. So yes, all for an EU Army that doesn't rely on the US.
- dragonwriter 5y ago> Also, the US cooperates with Japan, SK and other countries without them being in NATO The US has bilateral treaties in which the US undertakes NATO-like commitments to Japan and South Korea, and bilateral or multiteral (e.g., AUKUS, Rio Treaty) agreements with US-outward or mutual defense provisions with others, sure. Are you imagining a similar relation with the EU replacing NATO, and, if so, how is that substantively different from just keeping NATO?
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- necovek 5y agoFWIW, having a joint (and much respected) army in pre-1990 Yugoslavia did not stop the country dissolving in a pretty bad civil war (or you could say war between neighbours depending on what kind of federation/union you consider Yugoslavia to have been). Sufficiently fueled nationalistic sentiment can break through any attempt to "hide" it. Not even financial interdependence could keep the country together (plenty of companies depended on sourcing parts in other republics).
- runjake 5y agoPotential reasons not to rely on the US: - They become your military adversary. - Some autocrat-minded person gets elected as President of the US and refuses to provide the EU money, services, and weapons until the EU complies with some demand against it's own interests. - Perhaps in combo with the second item, the US could lead the EU on, to further it's interests, and let the EU down at the worst possible times.