Call for EU army

[empip]

...An influential Polish member of the European parliament has called for the EU to develop "hard power" and spend more money to build a European army.

Foreign affairs committee chairman Jacek Saryusz-Wolski also wants the European parliament to have the final say on deployments under the EU flag.

The French have said beefing up the EU's military capability will be a key part of their six-month presidency.

The BBC has been told their plans also include a new EU military headquarters.

Other items on the French list of proposals involve calling upon all EU countries to increase spending on defence to meet a new target of perhaps 6% of Gross Domestic Product...

Well I guess they're on course to corner our dosh, so power would be the next step... French aircraft, warships ... British squaddies, with 40 or 50 zloty from Poland (gross that is).

 

[tim west]

Im not really one for having armies but instead of one country having superior power, better it is spread over many countries as a policing force holding control over other countries aggression.

In saying this im still of the understanding that decisions of war are carried out by countries leaderships and war still carries the horrible cost towards life.

 

[Shytalkz]

It won't happen. If the other forces were any match man for man with ours, there might be an outside possibility, but they aren't so there's no incentive for us to dilute our capability and way of doing things.

 

[JohnD]

You'll be saying next "One of our boys is a match for ten of theirs" and "God is on our side"

Now that NATO's purpose has disappeared, the time for Europe to reassess its needs and options is long overdue. This might or might not be integrated forces. The Franco-German brigade was an interesting step, but due mostly to the need to put in place institutions to stop those two countries having a major war every generation.

 

[tim west]

I wonder if the expansion of china as a mega superpower in the near future has anything to do with it?

 

[Shytalkz]

You'll be saying next "One of our boys is a match for ten of theirs" and "God is on our side"

Puhleez. I'm no bible-thumping fundamentalist, but, pound for pound, UKAF are one of the best and the SF are the best, in the world. But we wouldn't win against hundreds and thousands of the slitty-eyed little warriors, whose leaders use them as cannon-fodder, of course.

 

[empip]

I see a greater danger, in not too many years our identity will be gone in a regionalised UK.
Europe, has a fair few nations without a recent history of success in war, a bit iffy if they begin flexing our muscles for us... They will, power follows wealth as night follows day.

 

[JohnD]

Almost all European nations have been defeated, invaded and occupied, mostly more than once, in the last hundred years. The experience has left some of them determined to prevent it happening again.

I suppose a large conscript army tends to be less professsional that a small volunteer one, especialy if it lucky enough not to do much fighting.

 

[tim west]

But i suppose an EU army deployed somewhere is a way of showing the disapproval of all nations backing up that force, so from a diplomatic exercise its doing its job?

 

[JohnD]

EU nations (should) have common interests and goals (but it's hard to get them to agree)

It would be unacceptable for two EU nations to be fighting on opposing sides. It is tricky when different EU nations have opposing sympathies even in a peacekeeping role.

The EU "should" have done more, earlier, in the Balkans. NATO was US dominated and European problems are a European responsibility.

It seems more realistic to me to think of EU forces operating under an EU mandate, bit like the UN is supposed to work.

 

[Shytalkz]

I suppose a large conscript army tends to be less professsional that a small volunteer one, especialy if it lucky enough not to do much fighting.

Absolutely no doubt about it. That's why UKAF resist the calls for chavs and other pondlife to be conscripted; those that are in it want to be there (for the most part). I'm sure that if NS had been about when I was younger and I'd been conscripted, I wouldn't have been too chuffed with it and certainly wouldn't have enjoyed the experience, as I did.

We did a month's exchange with the Italian Army when I was in. What a shower of ****e they were. And from their pov, they couldn't understand why anyone would want to volunteer for it. Their pay was even more appalling than ours, they got next to no leave - and the powers-that-be wonder why they're a pants army...