I can’t read the article since it’s behind a paywall, but agree with the headline. Although many countries trust more the U.S.A. than many of the other fellow EU countries, a EU army could be a future reality (and necessity) if those threats from dictatorships and authoritarian regimes will go on and on, and since the U.S.A. will switch their focus more and more to the Pacific area.
No, it doesn’t, what it does need if full integration into NATO, meeting NATO budget spending goals, building more bases, holding more drills, educating its people of the importance of the military, and hopefully having a willingness to forcefully depose tyranny in the world, being battle-tested to fight in any theatre of war with minimal loses.
> [China’s state broadcaster revealed on Sunday that the PLA deployed J-16 fighter jets as escorts for Chinese and Russian bombers during last week’s joint aerial strategic patrol in the Asia-Pacific region by the two major powers](https://twitter.com/globaltimesnews/status/1530918471516983297)
Every military contingent the US deploys in Europe is one it can’t deploy in the Pacific. NATO should start thinking on a global scale.
[This article](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/31/world/australia/china-united-states-pacific.html) vividly captures how China is gaining ground not only among its neighbors but deep into the Pacific. And the US is neglecting it, despite years of talk. Call it institutional intertia. Meantime you can’t visit Europe without stepping on a US government official (again; institutional inertia)
Our combined defense spending is on par with China but we waste it on duplication and inefficiency. A European army would be a win for the taxpayer first and foremost. A NATO based on continental blocs ([as proposed by US Democrats](https://youtu.be/WDILnjT0I-4?t=19)) would strengthen the alliance and allow it to focus on China as well. Finland and Sweden joining is a step in the right direction but we have a long way to go. Europe needs to develop its own full spectrum capacity.
European militaries do have a genuine procurement, system proliferation / duplication, and ‘not invented here’ problem.
Undermining NATO and inviting US disinterest, which an EU army would do, may not be the best way to resolve those issues.
Paywall:
> Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has forced leaders of the European Union to confront an uncomfortable reality: Europeans have neglected their own security for far too long. Europe has for decades been content to be a soft-power superpower — focusing on peacekeeping, democracy and prosperity within the union. It has been all too comfortable delegating its security concerns to the United States, which provides military cover through its NATO commitment.
> Now, in response to the war to its east, the E.U. has shifted gears — unanimously approving crippling sanctions on Russia, providing weapons and humanitarian support to Ukraine, and in several cases announcing significant expansions of national defense budgets. It is unclear, however, whether this welcome taking-up of responsibilities will extend to larger reforms of Europe’s notoriously fragmented and uncoordinated military structures, which contribute to the continent’s lack of military potency.
> In March, for instance, the E.U. announced that it was authorizing the creation of a 5,000-person “rapid deployment” force, independent of NATO (a move in the works well before the Ukraine conflict). But in discussing that development, the E.U.’s high representative for foreign affairs, Josep Borrell, was quick to rule out any bolder moves: “We do not want to create a European army,” he said. “It is not about creating a European army.” But the gravity of the situation in Eastern Europe makes it clearer than ever that is precisely what should happen. Establishing an E.U. military would not only provide important protection from aggression of the sort on display in Ukraine; it would also be a logical next step in European integration.
> First, and most important, establishing an E.U. military would provide a degree of security independence from the United States — all the more important, given recent political trends in America. Overreliance on American protection has had catastrophic effects on E.U. security. IRIS, a French think tank, put the point with brutal honesty in a 2020 study: “The European Union is incapable of protecting its citizens or protecting itself as a political unit,” it said, “and even less able to defend itself as a geopolitical actor.” Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, then Germany’s defense minister, made a similar argument the same year: “Without America’s nuclear and conventional capabilities, Germany and Europe cannot protect themselves. Those are the plain facts.” And those assessments remain true two years later. When Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the move into Ukraine, he did not seem impressed or concerned with the military forces of the E.U. nations, many strategists noted; he was concerned mostly about American might. Even full-fledged EU members like Finland and Sweden are now upending decades of military non-alignment and seeking to join NATO, recognizing that E.U. membership alone does not provide enough protection from Russian aggression.
> President Donald Trump’s disdain for NATO was clear: He even reportedly discussed with aides withdrawing from the alliance. Under President Biden, the United States has reassured partners in Europe and beyond of its commitment to them. But Trump’s example demonstrated to Europe — or ought to have — that the ability to rely on the United States may now vary from presidential election to presidential election. And not all of America’s inattention toward Europe can be blamed on Trump. Before Ukraine erupted, the Biden administration had made clear its desire to shift U.S. focus to China and the Indo-Pacific. Given this state of affairs, the E.U.’s union of liberal democracies would be wise to dramatically increase its military effectiveness as it contends with an imperial Russia, an expanding Chinese superpower, and destabilized African and Middle Eastern neighbors.
> The second argument concerns efficiency. Currently, the 27 member states of the E.U. can field an impressive 1.3 million active-duty military personnel, roughly on par with the size of the U.S. armed forces (approximately 1.4 million) and significantly bigger than Russia’s military (850,000). The combined military expenditure of the E.U. states is an impressive $225 billion, more than twice the size of Russia’s military budget of a little over $100 billion and roughly three-quarters of China’s $290 billion. Yet these numbers do not translate to effectiveness. In fact, the planning, development and procurement of defense technology by 27 sovereign countries has produced an enormous amount of inefficiency. While the U.S. military uses just 30 weapons systems, the E.U.’s militaries use some 180, six times as many. While the U.S. armed forces use just one main battle tank, the E.U. fields — depending how you count — 11 to 17 different models. Pointing to facts like these, then-European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker suggested, “We are spending half of the American budget when it comes to defense, so we should be efficient at 50 percent of the U.S. We are only 15 percent as efficient.” Integrating European militaries — and centralizing the procurement and development of technology — would doubtlessly increase E.U. military, budgetary and personnel efficiency.
> The third argument concerns responsiveness. When the Afghan government collapsed last summer, NATO states scrambled to get their citizens and Afghan allies out of the country. Only the quick and determined deployment of some 6,000 U.S. troops prevented an already catastrophic situation from becoming even worse. And while some European countries sent their own small troop contingents to evacuate citizens, Europeans largely acknowledged their inability to run such an operation on their own. This assessment was shared by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who remarked, “Only the United States could organize and execute a mission of this scale and this complexity.” Such emergencies are sadly likely to recur, so the E.U. would do well to increase its own capabilities for rapid response on a large scale. While the 5,000-member rapid-response force should help, its modest size will immediately limit its potential use. Only a larger E.U. military under a centralized command could provide both the numbers to react to a variety of threats and the logistics for quick deployment and resupply on the ground.
> The last argument concerns the development of a European identity. The E.U. prides itself on its diversity of languages, cultures and histories. This heterogeneity does come at a price, though. Most E.U. citizens define themselves by their country of birth first; few consider themselves Europeans primarily. What’s more, roughly 40 percent of E.U. citizens have never left their home country. The E.U. military could foster the formation of a European consciousness, a necessary condition for a more confident European stance in geopolitics. This would especially be true if there were a period of mandatory service — perhaps six to nine months — for citizens ages 17 to 26. (Many E.U. countries had mandatory military service of some kind during the Cold War.) Such service could take a decidedly European approach: Women and men, after their schooling is complete, could choose to perform their service either as civilians — for example in hospitals, kindergartens or nongovernmental organizations — or as soldiers in the E.U. armed forces. Either way, deployment (civilian or military) beyond one’s native country should be encouraged.
> How would such a force be administered? It would be a challenge, but we propose that the E.U. military be overseen by a new E.U. foreign and security council (composed of members of the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament, and headed by a new commissioner for defense). This body would have to unanimously agree to any deployment of E.U. soldiers abroad.
> However, an attack on any one or multiple E.U. member states should automatically activate the armed forces for defensive operations. To further assure its members, the E.U. could enshrine this automatic mechanism by updating the E.U. Treaty’s Article 42.7, which currently calls somewhat vaguely for a mutual “obligation of aid and assistance” in case of an attack. The E.U. armed forces would thus become the bloc’s first line of defense.
> Initially the armed forces could be a separate, 28th military in the E.U. (as others have proposed), supplementing the 27 national armed forces. Over time, it could take on more and more of the duties of those forces (in the long run, perhaps all of them). In the early stages, the force would focus primarily on securing the bloc’s eastern border and on crisis interventions.
> Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — and the cruel and inhumane way it is waging this war of aggression — has laid bare the shortcomings of E.U. foreign and security policy. The E.U. response to this crisis must match its gravity. While the first chapter of European integration centered on securing peace and prosperity internally, the next chapter should build up the capability to defend against external threats. An E.U. military could transform the union from a dependent soft power into a sovereign superpower of global relevance. In the words of E.U. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen back in 2018, when she was Germany’s minister of defense: “The time is ripe for an army of Europeans committed to peace on our continent and in the world. Deeds must now follow words.”
We need to become independent from the US and NATO, creating our own defense alliance without North American countries
We should name battle groups “Legions” just for the chad factor
IV Legion Balkanika
III Legion Iberica
And so on..
Sovereign nations will not give up control of their militaries. Especially when different countries have different security priorities (e.g. instability across ME and North Africa and migrant flows for W&S Europeans vs. Russia for N&E Europeans).
The US tax payers would welcome this. And it’s macrons wet dream. Win win.
No
Wot? Nobody uses on-premise anymore, everyone uses the cloud
Due to the Ukraine crisis I read quite a bit of defence articles and I think we need a european army also due to necessity. I can’t imagine how it makes sense to sustain such small armies with such diverse set of equipment. No wonder those things cost so much…how can you develop and manufacture items like the german howitzer if you produce so few. Lithaunia ordered 21 and the netherlands 57 for example, germany 185. The french one was ordered 72 times by its army, denmark is thinking about ordering 19.
​
If we combine and get only one howitzer, but order 500 of it, we can mass produce it and get it way cheaper. These things are probably artisanal items in these low numbers. Europe has so many howitzers, just get two systems and buy a lot and produce them like cars.
Damn right it does. It’ll be cheaper and more effective
There is no political body that would be trusted to control it. Especially not if it were created to replace national armies. Meanwhile, if it doesn’t do that, it will be merely another ressource drain – 28 armies instead of 27. And such a body cannot exist, because different nations, especially eastern and western europe, would never agree on what to do with that army in the first place. Would eastern europe accept it if the west overrules them on low military spending? Or decides not to send arms to ukraine? Obviously not. Eastern europe does not trust western europe to protect their security, and you can’t blame them. Poland does not even trust the german military industry any more.
In my opinion, the only way to go forward with a european army, or european integration in general for that matter, is to form a core-union of western states with similar attitudes and interests. These constitute the majority of financial and industrial power anyway, so most EU ressources would be pooled there already. Such an entity would not aid eastern europe in the current situation, but it would clear the way forward to prepare against future chinese and other threats – which, I can only hope, we’ll be more willing to face after the russian fiasco.
15 comments
Yes we have own army , its called NATO
I can’t read the article since it’s behind a paywall, but agree with the headline. Although many countries trust more the U.S.A. than many of the other fellow EU countries, a EU army could be a future reality (and necessity) if those threats from dictatorships and authoritarian regimes will go on and on, and since the U.S.A. will switch their focus more and more to the Pacific area.
No, it doesn’t, what it does need if full integration into NATO, meeting NATO budget spending goals, building more bases, holding more drills, educating its people of the importance of the military, and hopefully having a willingness to forcefully depose tyranny in the world, being battle-tested to fight in any theatre of war with minimal loses.
> [China’s state broadcaster revealed on Sunday that the PLA deployed J-16 fighter jets as escorts for Chinese and Russian bombers during last week’s joint aerial strategic patrol in the Asia-Pacific region by the two major powers](https://twitter.com/globaltimesnews/status/1530918471516983297)
Every military contingent the US deploys in Europe is one it can’t deploy in the Pacific. NATO should start thinking on a global scale.
[This article](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/31/world/australia/china-united-states-pacific.html) vividly captures how China is gaining ground not only among its neighbors but deep into the Pacific. And the US is neglecting it, despite years of talk. Call it institutional intertia. Meantime you can’t visit Europe without stepping on a US government official (again; institutional inertia)
Our combined defense spending is on par with China but we waste it on duplication and inefficiency. A European army would be a win for the taxpayer first and foremost. A NATO based on continental blocs ([as proposed by US Democrats](https://youtu.be/WDILnjT0I-4?t=19)) would strengthen the alliance and allow it to focus on China as well. Finland and Sweden joining is a step in the right direction but we have a long way to go. Europe needs to develop its own full spectrum capacity.
The army of the Netherlands should completely merge with the German army, said the Dutch Defense Minister [the other day](https://www.telegraaf.nl/nieuws/1966198138/ollongren-wil-legers-van-nederland-en-duitsland-helemaal-integreren). “In the final picture it no longer matters who has a little Dutch flag or a little German flag on their sleeve”. This is the future.
European militaries do have a genuine procurement, system proliferation / duplication, and ‘not invented here’ problem.
Undermining NATO and inviting US disinterest, which an EU army would do, may not be the best way to resolve those issues.
Paywall:
> Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has forced leaders of the European Union to confront an uncomfortable reality: Europeans have neglected their own security for far too long. Europe has for decades been content to be a soft-power superpower — focusing on peacekeeping, democracy and prosperity within the union. It has been all too comfortable delegating its security concerns to the United States, which provides military cover through its NATO commitment.
> Now, in response to the war to its east, the E.U. has shifted gears — unanimously approving crippling sanctions on Russia, providing weapons and humanitarian support to Ukraine, and in several cases announcing significant expansions of national defense budgets. It is unclear, however, whether this welcome taking-up of responsibilities will extend to larger reforms of Europe’s notoriously fragmented and uncoordinated military structures, which contribute to the continent’s lack of military potency.
> In March, for instance, the E.U. announced that it was authorizing the creation of a 5,000-person “rapid deployment” force, independent of NATO (a move in the works well before the Ukraine conflict). But in discussing that development, the E.U.’s high representative for foreign affairs, Josep Borrell, was quick to rule out any bolder moves: “We do not want to create a European army,” he said. “It is not about creating a European army.” But the gravity of the situation in Eastern Europe makes it clearer than ever that is precisely what should happen. Establishing an E.U. military would not only provide important protection from aggression of the sort on display in Ukraine; it would also be a logical next step in European integration.
> First, and most important, establishing an E.U. military would provide a degree of security independence from the United States — all the more important, given recent political trends in America. Overreliance on American protection has had catastrophic effects on E.U. security. IRIS, a French think tank, put the point with brutal honesty in a 2020 study: “The European Union is incapable of protecting its citizens or protecting itself as a political unit,” it said, “and even less able to defend itself as a geopolitical actor.” Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, then Germany’s defense minister, made a similar argument the same year: “Without America’s nuclear and conventional capabilities, Germany and Europe cannot protect themselves. Those are the plain facts.” And those assessments remain true two years later. When Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the move into Ukraine, he did not seem impressed or concerned with the military forces of the E.U. nations, many strategists noted; he was concerned mostly about American might. Even full-fledged EU members like Finland and Sweden are now upending decades of military non-alignment and seeking to join NATO, recognizing that E.U. membership alone does not provide enough protection from Russian aggression.
> President Donald Trump’s disdain for NATO was clear: He even reportedly discussed with aides withdrawing from the alliance. Under President Biden, the United States has reassured partners in Europe and beyond of its commitment to them. But Trump’s example demonstrated to Europe — or ought to have — that the ability to rely on the United States may now vary from presidential election to presidential election. And not all of America’s inattention toward Europe can be blamed on Trump. Before Ukraine erupted, the Biden administration had made clear its desire to shift U.S. focus to China and the Indo-Pacific. Given this state of affairs, the E.U.’s union of liberal democracies would be wise to dramatically increase its military effectiveness as it contends with an imperial Russia, an expanding Chinese superpower, and destabilized African and Middle Eastern neighbors.
> The second argument concerns efficiency. Currently, the 27 member states of the E.U. can field an impressive 1.3 million active-duty military personnel, roughly on par with the size of the U.S. armed forces (approximately 1.4 million) and significantly bigger than Russia’s military (850,000). The combined military expenditure of the E.U. states is an impressive $225 billion, more than twice the size of Russia’s military budget of a little over $100 billion and roughly three-quarters of China’s $290 billion. Yet these numbers do not translate to effectiveness. In fact, the planning, development and procurement of defense technology by 27 sovereign countries has produced an enormous amount of inefficiency. While the U.S. military uses just 30 weapons systems, the E.U.’s militaries use some 180, six times as many. While the U.S. armed forces use just one main battle tank, the E.U. fields — depending how you count — 11 to 17 different models. Pointing to facts like these, then-European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker suggested, “We are spending half of the American budget when it comes to defense, so we should be efficient at 50 percent of the U.S. We are only 15 percent as efficient.” Integrating European militaries — and centralizing the procurement and development of technology — would doubtlessly increase E.U. military, budgetary and personnel efficiency.
> The third argument concerns responsiveness. When the Afghan government collapsed last summer, NATO states scrambled to get their citizens and Afghan allies out of the country. Only the quick and determined deployment of some 6,000 U.S. troops prevented an already catastrophic situation from becoming even worse. And while some European countries sent their own small troop contingents to evacuate citizens, Europeans largely acknowledged their inability to run such an operation on their own. This assessment was shared by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who remarked, “Only the United States could organize and execute a mission of this scale and this complexity.” Such emergencies are sadly likely to recur, so the E.U. would do well to increase its own capabilities for rapid response on a large scale. While the 5,000-member rapid-response force should help, its modest size will immediately limit its potential use. Only a larger E.U. military under a centralized command could provide both the numbers to react to a variety of threats and the logistics for quick deployment and resupply on the ground.
> The last argument concerns the development of a European identity. The E.U. prides itself on its diversity of languages, cultures and histories. This heterogeneity does come at a price, though. Most E.U. citizens define themselves by their country of birth first; few consider themselves Europeans primarily. What’s more, roughly 40 percent of E.U. citizens have never left their home country. The E.U. military could foster the formation of a European consciousness, a necessary condition for a more confident European stance in geopolitics. This would especially be true if there were a period of mandatory service — perhaps six to nine months — for citizens ages 17 to 26. (Many E.U. countries had mandatory military service of some kind during the Cold War.) Such service could take a decidedly European approach: Women and men, after their schooling is complete, could choose to perform their service either as civilians — for example in hospitals, kindergartens or nongovernmental organizations — or as soldiers in the E.U. armed forces. Either way, deployment (civilian or military) beyond one’s native country should be encouraged.
> How would such a force be administered? It would be a challenge, but we propose that the E.U. military be overseen by a new E.U. foreign and security council (composed of members of the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament, and headed by a new commissioner for defense). This body would have to unanimously agree to any deployment of E.U. soldiers abroad.
> However, an attack on any one or multiple E.U. member states should automatically activate the armed forces for defensive operations. To further assure its members, the E.U. could enshrine this automatic mechanism by updating the E.U. Treaty’s Article 42.7, which currently calls somewhat vaguely for a mutual “obligation of aid and assistance” in case of an attack. The E.U. armed forces would thus become the bloc’s first line of defense.
> Initially the armed forces could be a separate, 28th military in the E.U. (as others have proposed), supplementing the 27 national armed forces. Over time, it could take on more and more of the duties of those forces (in the long run, perhaps all of them). In the early stages, the force would focus primarily on securing the bloc’s eastern border and on crisis interventions.
> Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — and the cruel and inhumane way it is waging this war of aggression — has laid bare the shortcomings of E.U. foreign and security policy. The E.U. response to this crisis must match its gravity. While the first chapter of European integration centered on securing peace and prosperity internally, the next chapter should build up the capability to defend against external threats. An E.U. military could transform the union from a dependent soft power into a sovereign superpower of global relevance. In the words of E.U. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen back in 2018, when she was Germany’s minister of defense: “The time is ripe for an army of Europeans committed to peace on our continent and in the world. Deeds must now follow words.”
We need to become independent from the US and NATO, creating our own defense alliance without North American countries
We should name battle groups “Legions” just for the chad factor
IV Legion Balkanika
III Legion Iberica
And so on..
Sovereign nations will not give up control of their militaries. Especially when different countries have different security priorities (e.g. instability across ME and North Africa and migrant flows for W&S Europeans vs. Russia for N&E Europeans).
The US tax payers would welcome this. And it’s macrons wet dream. Win win.
No
Wot? Nobody uses on-premise anymore, everyone uses the cloud
Due to the Ukraine crisis I read quite a bit of defence articles and I think we need a european army also due to necessity. I can’t imagine how it makes sense to sustain such small armies with such diverse set of equipment. No wonder those things cost so much…how can you develop and manufacture items like the german howitzer if you produce so few. Lithaunia ordered 21 and the netherlands 57 for example, germany 185. The french one was ordered 72 times by its army, denmark is thinking about ordering 19.
​
If we combine and get only one howitzer, but order 500 of it, we can mass produce it and get it way cheaper. These things are probably artisanal items in these low numbers. Europe has so many howitzers, just get two systems and buy a lot and produce them like cars.
Damn right it does. It’ll be cheaper and more effective
There is no political body that would be trusted to control it. Especially not if it were created to replace national armies. Meanwhile, if it doesn’t do that, it will be merely another ressource drain – 28 armies instead of 27. And such a body cannot exist, because different nations, especially eastern and western europe, would never agree on what to do with that army in the first place. Would eastern europe accept it if the west overrules them on low military spending? Or decides not to send arms to ukraine? Obviously not. Eastern europe does not trust western europe to protect their security, and you can’t blame them. Poland does not even trust the german military industry any more.
In my opinion, the only way to go forward with a european army, or european integration in general for that matter, is to form a core-union of western states with similar attitudes and interests. These constitute the majority of financial and industrial power anyway, so most EU ressources would be pooled there already. Such an entity would not aid eastern europe in the current situation, but it would clear the way forward to prepare against future chinese and other threats – which, I can only hope, we’ll be more willing to face after the russian fiasco.