Britain will veto EU army, says Defence Secretary

[Deleted]

a. That isn't possible as many of the EU members in the east will not have their security concerns taken as seriously as the west. And lets be honest...what security concerns does Western Europe have to contend with that their own national military and police forces can't handle on their own (eg anti terrorism)?

Increased coordination in spending as well as the ability to deploy highly specialized 'commands' like strategic airlift.

b. The EU is too divided for that to happen. Greece will reject the formation of the EU army if the Aegean is not defended and the western EU countries show little interest in defending the eastern European boundaries and waters.

This may or may not be true, but not what Ulmita was getting at, what he was getting at would be reducing US influence over the EU.

c. Political leverage against whom? The United States, Russia, Turkey, Israel, etc already are economic and military powerhouses.

Currently speaking, the US is the EU's army - As for a putative EU army, it would be orders of magnitude stronger than all of those - Turkey and Israel wouldn't even be comparable.

Is Germany willing to shoulder the economic load (again) with France providing the backbone of the EU army? This isn't realistic if you think about it.

Depending on how it is constructed (and again, what has been suggested is not what is being discussed).
A possible scenario for a full army would be similar to the current EU budget, where 1-2% of BNI is directed towards a EU wide coffer (thus everyone paying equally, just like it is in the general budget) - And manpower would presumably be a volunteer base, open to anyone with a EU citizenship.
Most likely the EU defense contractors would be mostly western, and the soldiers mostly eastern (due to pay differences)

d. Western Europe will never see eye to eye with Eastern Europe. Eastern Europe is still tense because of conflicts with neighbors within Europe and external. This is why the Balkans are a powder keg. Western Europe in comparison are looking for a problem to a solution at this point.

It would seem the west is coming around to the east's position.

NATO isn't weakened with the formation of the EU. It means the United States doesn't have to provide millions of dollars to prop it up and can kick out members that do not contribute to NATO and admit those that are serious to their commitments.

The US wants to provide Billions of dollars propping up the EU - If it doesn't, the EU would be forced to get their own Army, and then the US would not have the world hegemony it does today.
A EU that spent 3% of its GDP on an efficient joint army, would be a peer with parity to the US - and worse, a Eurasian Hegemon.

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i'm completely retarded when it comes to economics, mind translating and summing up that article for me? Germany made money on the Greek crisis. Okay? Point being?

The article assumes that one of the reasons that Germany can borrow so cheaply is because Greece made investors scary and they went to Germany.
But the thing is this low cost of borrowing has been a thing for almost a decade now.

[Mayhem]

What? I don't advise Germany.

Do you think I have a hotline to Merkel? Or that she frequents this site, waiting for me to post in order to formulate her international strategy?

I meant to suggest that germany goes against EU law...

[Damosapien]

People who want an EU army are either severely ignorant of history (it ended democracy in greece and rome) or bad actors...

[Mayhem]

People who want an EU army are either severely ignorant of history (it ended democracy in greece and rome) or bad actors...

Come on, give us a bit more than that. What EU army ended democracy in greece and rome?

[Independent voter]

An EU army could've thwarted Putin's tactic of having his ally Assad terrorize the Syrian Sunnis, making them refugees and driving them into Europe like cattle. Putin is KGB, they got training in how to weaponize refugees in year one.

An EU army could've acted unilaterally and created safe zones in Syria for the Sunni civilians. Refugee crisis averted.

But there's a lot of money to be made off an EU army, I'm not sure how the spoils would be evenly distributed. Just making the uniforms alone could make some company millions of dollars.

[Slant]

An EU army could've thwarted Putin's tactic of having his ally Assad terrorize the Syrian Sunnis, making them refugees and driving them into Europe like cattle. Putin is KGB, they got training in how to weaponize refugees in year one.

An EU army could've acted unilaterally and created safe zones in Syria for the Sunni civilians. Refugee crisis averted.

But there's a lot of money to be made off an EU army, I'm not sure how the spoils would be evenly distributed. Just making the uniforms alone could make some company millions of dollars.

You act like Europe doesn't have armies now... it's not the first uniform being made. Instead of making French uniforms, they'll be making EU uniforms. This isn't a new opportunity that produces something that wasn't there before. It's a consolidation of existing constructs, thus saving money overall. I'm thinking instead of 3-4 jet fighters, transport helis and so on, we'll have 1-2, produced in France or Spain. Instead of 5 MBTs, we'll have 1-2 produced in Germany or England. Instead of 26 uniforms produced in every country, I'd expect to have 2-3 uniforms made somewhere in eastern Europe. And so on, and so forth. This move would not increase the budget, but it would kill a couple companies while boosting others.

[Ulmita]

An EU army could've thwarted Putin's tactic of having his ally Assad terrorize the Syrian Sunnis, making them refugees and driving them into Europe like cattle. Putin is KGB, they got training in how to weaponize refugees in year one.

An EU army could've acted unilaterally and created safe zones in Syria for the Sunni civilians. Refugee crisis averted.

But there's a lot of money to be made off an EU army, I'm not sure how the spoils would be evenly distributed. Just making the uniforms alone could make some company millions of dollars.

Conspiracy theories arent allowed here.

[Deleted]

An EU army could've thwarted Putin's tactic of having his ally Assad terrorize the Syrian Sunnis, making them refugees and driving them into Europe like cattle. Putin is KGB, they got training in how to weaponize refugees in year one.

An EU army could've acted unilaterally and created safe zones in Syria for the Sunni civilians. Refugee crisis averted.

But there's a lot of money to be made off an EU army, I'm not sure how the spoils would be evenly distributed. Just making the uniforms alone could make some company millions of dollars.

Yes but what part do aliens play in this? Have you considered that?

[caervek]

An EU army could've thwarted Putin's tactic of having his ally Assad terrorize the Syrian Sunnis, making them refugees and driving them into Europe like cattle.

Well, no it couldn't because that's tinfoil nonsense :P

An EU army could've acted unilaterally and created safe zones in Syria for the Sunni civilians. Refugee crisis averted.

Syria is not in Europe. An EU army would be no less wrong in invading Syria than the USA would be.

[Deleted]

want to give Merkel n Juncker a huge army, what could possibly go wrong?

[Slant]

want to give Merkel n Juncker a huge army, what could possibly go wrong?

Not much really. They're both very invested in protecting Europe.

[Deleted]

Not much really. They're both very invested in protecting Europe.

They r the main threat to Europe.
They could use army to secure having open borders n torpedo europe...

[Deleted]

That's like breaking up with your partner, refusing to leave the house and then wanting a say in what's for dinner.

Dear Britain,
You left. Shut the fuck up.

It's Britian being pricks back to the pricks who said they would make life hard for Britain if they dared leave.

[Ulmita]

It's Britian being pricks back to the pricks who said they would make life hard for treat Britain as anyother non EU country if they dared leave.

fixed it for you

[owbu]

So their new tactic to get trading talks in before they actually do the whole leaving thing is vetoing stuff until people start talking to them?

[Damosapien]

Come on, give us a bit more than that. What EU army ended democracy in greece and rome?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peloponnesian_War
Look at the prelude to this war

As for Rome, the Marian reforms, they took loyalty away from Rome by making the army much larger and adding soldiers from other areas of the Roman republic. What followed was one general after another noticing their power and instead of beating off the barbarians the reforms were to help defeat, turning their power on Rome itself. The Marian reforms were the starting step going from republic to empire.

[Deleted]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peloponnesian_War
Look at the prelude to this war

As for Rome, the Marian reforms, they took loyalty away from Rome by making the army much larger and adding soldiers from other areas of the Roman republic. What followed was one general after another noticing their power and instead of beating off the barbarians the reforms were to help defeat, turning their power on Rome itself. The Marian reforms were the starting step going from republic to empire.

Sorry, I really fail to see the link with the Romans in here.
Who would be the Roman empire in this case, again?

[Deleted]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peloponnesian_War
Look at the prelude to this war

As for Rome, the Marian reforms, they took loyalty away from Rome by making the army much larger and adding soldiers from other areas of the Roman republic. What followed was one general after another noticing their power and instead of beating off the barbarians the reforms were to help defeat, turning their power on Rome itself. The Marian reforms were the starting step going from republic to empire.

The example doesn't work.

If you view the various countries of the EU as the "generals", then we are already in the Marian reforms, because they all have power over there own armies.

[Deleted]

If an EU army tried to conquer us, we wouldn't make them slaves when we'd won. Who the hell would want a French slave? They'd always be on strike, more trouble than their worth.

Yeah and then british people says that French are arrogant and all kind of bullshit.

By the way, how to be slaves of slaves? Since you are US slaves ..... you need to create a new word for that.

Just seing how brexiters argument that UK have leverage in EU négociation by basically trying to fuck everybody with various threats and stuff, shows how a bunch of bitches you all are.... so yeah! Keep insulting french people! We have nothing good to learn from you.

[Deleted]

Yeah and then british people says that French are arrogant and all kind of bullshit.

By the way, how to be slaves of slaves? Since you are US slaves ..... you need to create a new word for that.

Just seing how brexiters argument that UK have leverage in EU négociation by basically trying to fuck everybody with various threats and stuff, shows how a bunch of bitches you all are.... so yeah! Keep insulting french people! We have nothing good to learn from you.

Apparently the French don't understand banter