
Europe Is Ready for Its Own Army (2019) - kenneth
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/09/05/europe-is-ready-for-its-own-army/
======
yulaow
I saw a lot of EU policy makers moving towards an "independence from USA" goal
in the last 2-3 years.

The army is just one, but even in software some of the research projects in
which part of my group is coordinating/participating with the EU are gonna
receive an unbelievable amount of money in the next ten years to build a
complete internet infrastructure independent from any us software and
hardware. I'm talking about 10-50x more funding than usual until now, and it's
gonna grow.

I cannot say a lot because most of the projects are tba and under a formal
"keep it secret" clause right now, but one of the main ones related to eu
cloud infrastructure is supposed to get around 100 billions euros in 5 years
and involve around thirty big software companies and universities in eu.

It's really a good time to be a sw researcher here right now.

~~~
phire
The 2016 US election has done major long-term damage to the US's position as a
superpower.

Even if the next election "puts everything back to normal", this whole episode
has made everyone question the wisdom of relying on the US for anything.

~~~
cossray
Being from a developing nation, we had been fed a certain narrative about the
US. It was the epitome of all the virtues humanity could conceive. Circa 2010
the advent and prevalence of cheap smartphones and social media across the
globe (including third world countries), turned a new leaf on access to
information from the hitherto filtered mainstream media. This removed the veil
on the actual social, political and economic life in the US (in the eyes of my
contemporaries and I). The 2016 elections and the circus it has been since
then, tossed away the veil altogether. In the last 4 years, with utmost
respect, I do attest the US has lost something at the global stage: at least
its charm and probably much more.

~~~
yostrovs
It's probably your age. Mass media, particularly in Europe, has been laughing
at Americans'stupidity for generations, predicting all kinds of terrible
things. They laughing off of people like Reagan, the Bushes, Sarah Palin, etc,
had been going on for many decades before the 2016 election and your
acquisition of the internet.

------
peteretep
France will never let the Germans have any say over the Nuclear deterrent.
France will never accept the idea that the working language is English or that
French troops might have to take orders from a Romanian. The Brits clearly
don’t trust the French or German intelligence services enough to let them into
the FIVEYES club. French, Brits and the Dutch are the only ones with veteran
militaries. Nobody will be willing to give up veto power and nobody will
accept anyone else having it anyway. Western European voters are never going
to accept Johnny and Jean-Pierre dying to save Boris the Bulgarian Slav from
Boris the Russian Slav. Europe is too internally racist, prideful, and
Nationalistic in its current form for this to work.

Hope I’m wrong, but history is on my side with this

~~~
brosinante

      Europe is too internally racist, prideful, and Nationalistic in its current form for this to work.
    

As a european, I have to say, what a ridiculous statement.

~~~
peteretep
What’s your nationality?

~~~
BjoernKW
Why is a label in my (or their) passport relevant to this discussion?

~~~
peteretep
Because I suspect a Romanian or Bulgarian or Greek has witnessed dramatically
more racism than a Dutch or Swedish person.

~~~
interdrift
I'm Bulgarian living in the Netherlands and I literally never witnessed racism
(first because i'm white duhh?) and 0 discrimination. I'm on the high end of
education tho so yeah :)

~~~
jowdones
I'm Romanian living in Romania and in physical conversations while not drunk,
people are cautious. But drunk (e.g. Okto berfest) or under anonymity of
Internet forums, the dark side of humanity did surface out. Of course it's a
small percentage of people but racism and xenophobia is alive and well.

~~~
interdrift
well yea but i usually joke about bulgarians stealing stuff or etc. if someone
says it seriously then it's clear they're retarded so...no point in
continuing. anyway, we are earning our glory brother, slowly but surely!

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lqet
In my opinion, this is only likely to happen if there is a concrete, immediate
and easy to grasp threat to Europe, like Russian or Turkish troops crossing
the border. An abstract threat is not enough to overcome the strong
nationalistic tendencies in Europe. A historic example of this is the Mongol
invasion in the 13th century [0]:

> Warring European princes realized they had to cooperate in the face of a
> Mongol invasion, so local wars and conflicts were suspended in parts of
> central Europe, only to be resumed after the Mongols had withdrawn.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasion_of_Europe#Euro...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasion_of_Europe#European_tactics_against_Mongols)

~~~
ivan_gammel
Think of refugee factor. Inability for Europe to project enough power in
regional conflicts in Middle East and Africa is now one of the biggest sources
of internal political instability. AfD, Northern League and the likes are
entering coalition governments and no one in mainstream political parties is
happy about that. Everyone in Western Europe wants to solve the problem of
refugees outside EU borders and this requires coherent foreign policy and
military power to support it. So, yes, Europe is ready and if there will be
any new major conflict in neighboring regions, it will accelerate the process.

------
Someone
Trump may have accelerated it, but I think this process has been going on for
way longer. There have been some far-going experiments in cooperation.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-
German_Brigade](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-German_Brigade):
operational since 1989, German troops stationed on French soil since 2009.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I._German/Dutch_Corps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I._German/Dutch_Corps):
30,000 troops (mostly German, I would guess, but several time with a Dutch
commander)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeNeSam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeNeSam):
Belgian and Dutch navy cooperation since 1948, with a joint commanding officer
since 1996
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admiral_Benelux](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admiral_Benelux)).
Chances are this, eventually, will lead to a merger of armies, navies, and air
forces of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.

------
gremlinsinc
Wouldn't it maybe make sense for the EU to possibly establish their own quasi
representative democracy? Maybe each nation-state keeps it's current
government. The head of the government becomes a 'chancellor' i.e. President
among other Presidents.

Every 2 years the Chancellors elect from among themselves who will lead (be
the deciding vote on ties and conflicts of opinion). This would still give
some autonomy but also congruity and fix issues where one party does not agree
by having a designated decision maker. But all policies enacted by the EU
would need to be binding and accepted by all nations as law.

------
huffmsa
It's time for the EU to either become a real institution or go away. Building
an army and taking responsibility for its own defense is a step towards
realism.

Merkel is in favor because she's tied her county's future to fossil fuels
coming from Eastern Europe. She knows the US has little incentive to strong
arm Russia into keeping the pipeline open.

I see little downside to the improvement of global affairs with a stronger EU.
Competition and self-sufficient agents are always good.

~~~
elfexec
> It's time for the EU to either become a real institution or go away.

It is a real institution.

> Building an army and taking responsibility for its own defense is a step
> towards realism.

They are planning to create the army outside of the EU framework.

> She knows the US has little incentive to strong arm Russia into keeping the
> pipeline open.

Man, you really are uniformed about everything EU related. The US is trying to
stop pipelines from Russia to Germany. The US doesn't want germany being
reliant on russian gas. The US wants germany reliant on american gas. We are
even planning on sanctioning companies working on building pipelines from
russia to western europe.

[https://apnews.com/a038942bb9f0f1af239c6a56a54ae408](https://apnews.com/a038942bb9f0f1af239c6a56a54ae408)

> I see little downside to the improvement of global affairs with a stronger
> EU. Competition and self-sufficient agents are always good.

If you think competition and self-sufficieny are always good, shouldn't you be
against the EU? The EU is the opposite of competition and self-sufficiency.
It's 28 nations cooperating rather than competing and becoming dependent
rather than self-sufficient.

~~~
lmm
> Man, you really are uniformed about everything EU related. The US is trying
> to stop pipelines from Russia to Germany. The US doesn't want germany being
> reliant on russian gas. The US wants germany reliant on american gas. We are
> even planning on sanctioning companies working on building pipelines from
> russia to western europe.

All that seems to support the grandparent's view?

> If you think competition and self-sufficieny are always good, shouldn't you
> be against the EU? The EU is the opposite of competition and self-
> sufficiency. It's 28 nations cooperating rather than competing and becoming
> dependent rather than self-sufficient.

It's easy to imagine those 28 nations would otherwise become client states of
the US or China. An integrated EU could give its members more independence at
the global level, as paradoxical as that sounds at first glance.

~~~
huffmsa
The US wanting to shut the pipeline is pretty textbook "not incentived to keep
it open" but people read what they want to read.

And yes, a unified Europe makes it like the American federation. Perfectly
capable of infighting, but gets to swing a unified weight at the international
level

------
Merrill
>While Secretary General, Ismay is also credited as having been the first
person to say that the purpose of the alliance was "to keep the Russians out,
the Americans in, and the Germans down,"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hastings_Ismay,_1st_Baron_Isma...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hastings_Ismay,_1st_Baron_Ismay)

NATO has outlived its purpose, and a new European defense arrangement is
needed.

------
michaelt
I don't know if this will come about, but Brexit must have made it more
likely; an EU army is the kind of thing euroskeptics would have hated.

------
hopia
Most European nations are already members of NATO. Despite recent political
speeches I see little interest in developing some kind of duplicate defense
framework on top of the existing NATO structures.

------
skissane
A perennial idea, going back to the aborted European Defence Community (EDC)
of 1952. The EDC was supposed to be a military counterpart to the EEC
(European Economic Community, which would go on to evolve into the EU). It was
seen as necessary to rearm West Germany to defend against the threat of Soviet
invasion, but the defeat of Nazi Germany was only seven years earlier, and
many were afraid of what would happen if a rearmed West Germany experienced a
resurgence of Nazism. The proposed solution was that West German troops would
be part of a European army, the command of which would be dominated by France.
The whole plan failed when the French Parliament refused to ratify the treaty,
believing that it ceded too much sovereignty to an international body. In the
end, it was decided to let the West Germans control their own army instead.
The feared Nazi comeback never happened.

------
adventured
This is an inherently silly article. It's premised heavily on Trump. He's
around for a maximum of one more four year term. The only guarantee is that
whatever President comes after Trump, will be a supporter of NATO and the
former political approach to allies that has defined the post WW2 era. Trump
is a one-off. There is no next Trump, the entire US political landscape top to
bottom is overwhelmingly dominated by the anti-Trump types, there isn't a
single other major political candidate (one that could actually win the
Presidency) anywhere in the US that is like him. Most of Trump's biggest
supporters in Congress are anti-Trump types when it comes to entities like
NATO (Lindsey Graham for example is a McCain-like globalist hawk that loves
the old systems, including NATO).

> A world where an American president declares NATO, the cornerstone of
> American defense policy since World War II, obsolete.

Trump has zero interest in eliminating NATO or reducing it. It's just another
case of Trumpian bluster. Nine times out of ten it's empty bluster, as
everyone has noticed at this point. The article is taking the obvious -
Trump's belligerent angling & needling approach to negotiation - and
pretending it means something (Trump wants to do away with NATO) other than
what it obviously does. The article author realizes that's incorrect and uses
it anyway out of convenience to support the silly premise they're floating.

Back in reality Europe can't afford its current military expenditures (and
neither can the US of course), and there is no scenario where an EU army of
any consequential scale comes into existence. What it's going to almost solely
consistent of, is coordinated industry (arms manufacture, research and
compatibility), not an actual EU army.

~~~
cwingrav
I'd like to believe that. I'd like to believe this is a blip. But you're
forgetting that the American people, about half, voted for him, and about half
still want him, even after all he is doing.

> Trump has zero interest in eliminating NATO or reducing it. It's just
> another case of Trumpian bluster.

It could be, but he has said it. And his people repeat it. It's a part of the
mindset of a large percentage of Americans.

------
m0zg
Prediction: they'll run the numbers, scratch their heads, and begrudgingly
start paying 2% of their GDP to NATO like they signed up to do. Shit's
expensive, and Europeans are taxed through the nose as it is.

~~~
zuminator
Nobody's paying 2% of their GDP "to NATO," not the US, not anybody else.
NATO's entire budget is less than €2.4 billion. The agreement is for NATO
member nations to aim to move toward spending at least 2% of their GDP on
defense by 2024. So spending money on a EU-wide army would be one method of
attaining that goal.

~~~
Fjolsvith
"The United States has met the target, and dedicated 3.36 percent of GDP
(around $664 billion, according to NATO figures) to military spending in
2016." [1]

1\. [https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/patrick-
goodenough/us-p...](https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/patrick-
goodenough/us-pays-2214-nato-budget-germany-1465-13-allies-pay-below-1)

~~~
zuminator
I didn't state otherwise. In fact,the US has spent over 3% of its GDP on
defense for over 15 years. However, only a portion of that is spent in Europe.
And a tiny fraction of that is spent on NATO. Let's not conflate national
defense budgets with the NATO budget with the overall cost of the defense of
Europe. They're all totally different things.

~~~
m0zg
If US were to withdraw from NATO, a significant chunk of this money would have
to come out of Europeans' taxes. As a US taxpayer paying six figure taxes, I'm
completely in favor of reducing the part of my tax that does not go towards
protecting the United States.

------
bromuro
Why not dismantle the armies instead?

~~~
majewsky
Prisoner's dilemma. Dismantling the armies only works if you get all countries
in the world to do it at the same time.

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nmca
Seems superficially similar to roam research, which has been good to me so
far.

------
Causality1
This is going to completely shatter the US' political power in the region
while simultaneously doing absolutely nothing for Europe's real defense.
Europeans throw violent protests if they have one less vacation day a year;
there's no way they would tolerate giving up 15% of their taxes, i.e., 15% of
their entitlements, to build and maintain a real military force capable of
taking on the likes of Russia.

~~~
huffmsa
The US has an entire Western hemisphere it can and should be doing more to
unify and improve.

Like Trump said in 2016, it's time to turn our resources back home. Rebuild
our own infrastructure, social programs, etc.

~~~
krapp
>Like Trump said in 2016, it's time to turn our resources back home. Rebuild
our own infrastructure, social programs, etc.

Like a lot of Trump's rhetoric, this sounds nice, but the proof is in the
pudding. I don't think we were spending infrastructure and social welfare
resources on our military to begin with, so not doing so doesn't necessarily
free up resources. The US is fully capable of doing all of these things, it's
not short on resources.

Also, it's now 2020, and Trump is toying with war in Iran, moving new troops
into Iraq, increasing military expenditure by billions of dollars, repealing
and cutting funding for social programs and AFAIK not actually rebuilding our
infrastructure at all in any significant way.

~~~
akmarinov
Not even one wall...

