SPD Seeks Ability to Act
Please note the SPD calls for the introduction of an Independent EU Army subordinate to the European Commission.
“Our aim is to improve the EU’s ability to act, regardless of the tiresome questions of sovereignty,” Fritz Felgentreu, defence policy spokesman for the SPD told the newspaper Welt am Sonntag.
Why? To Do What?
Eurointelligence had some choice comments in its take Muddled Thinking on EU Defence.
This is one of those ideas where you don’t know where to begin dismantling it. Our first thought was this: are they trying to do to defence what they did to the eurozone? Create a dysfunctional system in the vague hope that future generations will fix it, except that this time we are using live ammo and killing people? Have they considered what might happen if the European Commission charged into battle and lost? The British are still traumatised by the Charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimean War. An army is not an inter-institutional working group that meets on Tuesdays.
The paper also reveals a shocking lack of understanding of the EU’s security priorities in the early 21st century. The biggest threats to our security right now do not stem from invasion by a foreign power, or our refusal to participate in a war in the Middle East or Africa. Our list of priorities would include the following: defence against cyber threats from Russia and China; a restoration of the Iran nuclear deal; the co-ordination of the fight against terrorism; the push against empire-building in our neighbourhood; and a defence of EU companies and individuals targeted by the US for secondary economic sanctions. It is rather difficult to think of an EU security interest for which you would need a European army.
The moment you have an army, some nutcase politician is sure to want to deploy it, and not for defense either.
Look at the endless wars the US has been in for decades. We blew trillions of dollars in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria.
We arm unstable regimes in the Pakistan and the Mideast and have repeatedly threatened to blow up Iran.
The US is not any safer for any of it.
Now the SPD wants the EU to go down the same path, taxing the citizens when there are far more pressing needs.
The EU does not need and cannot afford an independant army.
Mish
I’m all for it. Let them defend themselves against invisible enemies. And we may need to ally with them against China at some point.
Like Tengen said, an army to keep the own population in check,when pandemic related issues run out of hand, not to mention (more) social economic uprisings etc …
….when you come to think of it , underneath our, keeping up appearances veneer, we are just as primitive as the Neanderthals or WORSE even, if we still need armies, ‘siphilized’ and informatized as we are….
Of course the E.U. needs an army. Many of the member states are too weak and small on their own to provide for effective national security or security for Europe. It’s only by pooling resources can they hope to achieve this. Donald Trump changed the equation. His rhetoric and actions woke Europe up. The U.K. leaving the EU. just adds to that need.
Two big reasons Europe is pushing for a European army
THANKS a lot Trump, we indeed have to get our asses out of that outrageously expensive and ever so OBSOLETE, CRIMINAL NATO rip off ! Do you warmonging IDIOTS here and at the other side of the pond, really think Russia is about to invade us, and therefore we need an awful lot of tanks,and planes and ships and rifles (why not swords) ? Hahahaha, how fckn primitive ; ALL you need these days is some well aimed missiles and that’s it !
An EU army would become a massive black hole, a sponge soaking up and diverting financial resources from everything else. Once established it will just keep on growing. The bureaucracy surrounding it would dwarf everything else. European Nations will become less independent and their people will have less sway in determining their own fortunes. It’s a great danger to peace in my opinion.
“The EU does not need and cannot afford an independant army. “
So do you prefer they continue to rely on US funded NATO?? At this point the EU is much better off moving towards defense independence than relying on NATO and an unstable US. Where possible, it is better that the US step back internationally, at least until we regain credibility, which could take some time. This doesn’t mean abandoning existing commitments, friends and strategic interests. Lots of judgment and expertise required here, as opposed to shoot from the hip, or turn tail and run approaches.
An EU army means one thing, that the commission is at the table and turned to to
enforce “Law to Remedy the Distress of People and the” Union.
Some here think european countries are not adventurous, politically and militarily ? They tend to coordinate behind US policy, or use it. France and Germany are the main participators, whether in sales, policy or action, Spain and Italy not far behind. The moral hazard is obvious, witnessed at so many other levels in EU.
Covid-19 mink variants found in humans in Netherlands, South Africa, Switzerland, Faroe Islands, Russia and Utah [US].
Not to mention Denmark.
These are politicians pursuing political ends.
Decoded, the message is that the EU is sick and tired of being a vassal of American geopolitics and wants to be able to set its own course. Since geopolitics is governed by military muscle, that is what the EU wants. Not for any particular military end, since there are no rational military conflicts to be engaged in.
As it is, Europe wastes a good deal on NATO but the only thing it buys is subjugation to the American overlords in charge of policy.
As for EuroIntelligence’s little list of actual security concerns, it is just a tiresome litany of the BS that Western Imperialism always rattles by rote as rationalizations for hidden agendas: Russia, China, Iran, cyber-attacks, terrorism — same old.
I’ve been expecting an EU army for a while, I think France floated this idea a few years ago too. The purpose is not to project power outward, but for internal use to keep their own populations in check.
As it stands now, US assistance would be needed to quell riots in most of the EU countries.
Ya’ll think this is an army being set up to oppose the world super-powers and go adventuring around the world, re-establishing the glory days of empires.
It’s a proposal for multi-national SWAT team.
Which might come in handy in a world of trans-national terrorism.
Given that the US is unreliable.
You are correct to point out that this is not framed as being an expeditionary force, but I will mention two words that bound to tempt the multi-layered bureaucracy:
Mission creep
It’s a joke. Germany sees it’s future as a sort of gigantic Switzerland. It is, like Switzerland is now, surrounded by buffer states none of which want to invade it. It allows them to trade with anyone in the world without having to pay for the stability that permits this trade to begin with. Now the big thing in Germany is to pay some operating expenses of NATO in lieu of actual combat forces and claim that as helping to protect Europe. The important thing is that they can then be able to escape actual risk of military operations and the avoid the economic, political and personal fallout that defence operations entail. They would not have any “skin in the game” and leave the risks to other countries on the frontline. It is a very cynical policy but that is what realpolitik is. At least they don’t preach to us. That is a good thing. Other countries in the EU know it. The French see themselves as protecting Europe’s southern flank, the UK the sea lanes, Scandinavia the northern flank. Poland the eastern flank and Germany in the center protecting nothing not even themselves. They are in a good position and they know it and they won’t change. Why should they? From time to time they make some noises but it just PR.
All they have to do is contribute their percentages to NATO.
They don’t do that so where is the money suddenly coming from?
ECB will print it and give it to France to fund their defence.
See the Bastille day parade with Merkel and the Dutch bloke there.
Watch the Turks or Russians whip their asses when push comes to shove. Armies do best, and fight hardest, when defending their own not defending some supra-national bureaucracy of stuffed shirt politicians who’ve never done a proper job.
Reading the original German…
The force is intended to be a “rapid reaction force” with 1500 troops at first and 8,000 (including logistics and medical) in the future–under the direction of the EU.
Realistically, this would make, at the most, 500 troops available at first for action (growing to 2,500 in the future).
Not a giant army–certainly much smaller than most military arms of EU members.
I can see the political attraction of an arms-length military force for individual EU member to deal with certain “difficult” problems.
Of course it wouldn’t displace the need for all of the present and most likely dangers to security, but it does address a limited set of limited physical problems.
They’d probably end up no more well armed than a US large-city SWAT team.
Not to worry, it’s only 2,500 (soon to be 250,000) because 2,500 won’t be enough to fight any wars.
From 2015, worth a read, they will get an army, ultimately a war will suck them in, then you get to see if the EU survives when the body bags start coming home.
My take is the old Franco-German conflicts are ended but will be replaced by others on a larger geographic scale.
US-EU, Russua-EU, China-EU, Africa-EU, Mid-East – EU type conflicts.
Once the EU has an army, it will use it.
No Western nation outside the US is now a super-power and the sooner realised the better for all concerned.
Mogerhini was an x-communist if there can be such a thing.
Key phrase is “police action”, not expeditionary force.
If we fessed up to all the bad things we do as a country it would make Russian inference in our election look as silly as using Facebook to attack us!
Keep in mine that our new President has been part of that system for almost 50 years now.
This is from a writer who is German and retired military, normally he holds alternative views regarding Iran and Russia, his view :
Great article, thanks for posting
A German defending Russian imperialism. How fascinating. As for defending and promoting democratic rules and open system of global trade a few mistakes are to be expected if not required when opposing totalitarian regimes ,e.g., Russia and China. Polite, moralizing theories or behavior will not halt or rollback the regimes in Russia and China.
You ain’t a playa in today’s world unless you have a captive army to back you up!
Sure, there’s lots of extra “money” laying around to pay for this.
Exactly. Almost all the countries are over their debt limits, some way over, with a lot of spending planned now. In other words they are increasingly pliable, the old political and social order is diluted, sold out or confused, the military has gone from national service to paid.
The reply (some behind closed doors) :
Cut spending, introduce efficiency (combined military), pool funding (federal issuance), relieve yourself of heavy responsibility (to EU you will have a veto you might not want or be able to use) – you will have twenty times the strength for less cost (which means you get paid some of the savings). It makes sense, it’s what the population (will) agree to. Etc.
The proposed army is used to quell resisters to the Great Reset.
It’s all part of the drive towards a Federal Europe.
Maybe they could invade countries that want to leave the EU…Is is too late to stop Brexit?
Hey!!! -:)
It’s all part of the drive towards a Federal Europe.
Not to mention NATO already exists. But suggesting the creation of an independent EU army would imply the withdrawal from NATO. Europe can’t afford to forgive the German’s for WW1 and WW2 to the point of rebuilding a military of continental size.
Please, oh please, let US commitments to NATO dissolve.
NATO is obsolete. The Russians are not going to storm into western Europe.