Joint eu military

[EiZei 0]

Or just tell the stuck ones to get the hell out?

[Grizzlie 0]

I think this duscussion is not silly. It shows us how hard is to build union of countries.

[Donnervogel 0]

I think this duscussion is not silly. It shows us how hard is to build union of countries.

My history teacher showed me a terrifing fact. There is no large supranational union that was made in a democratic way. Mostly it was one state conquering the others or forcing them into the union (eg. Italian national state, German national state, even most of the USA was undemocraticaly taken from the native people)

I hope we (I say we because in 2005 i'll be EU citizen too) can prove this fact wrong ;)

[Grizzlie 0]

With unions is like with kids . Little union=little problem, big union=big problem.

But over 50 years of peacefull existence of EU gives us a little hope

[Tamme 0]

One good thing about our bloody history is that we sure ain't going to start a war over this.

[Postduifje 0]

Look at it from the bright side. We have one huge thing in common, we all fought each other once. I think it's better there was no outcome about the constitution, we were simply not ready for it.

[denoir 0]

To continue Blake's discussion from the other thread thread

Quote[/b] ]So when is the deadline on final opinions in this issue - will it have to be unanomyous decision between the countries or will some countries be granted with special 'independent defence' only?

Well, first of all, there's the constitution which has to be approved by the member countries and then ratified. Then we'll have an formal alliance i.e if an EU country gets attacked, the others have a duty to help out. This will in practice mean the formal end of neutrality for several countries.

Then there's the thing that was started in October last year. Or better to say, became obvious last year, when it suddenly dawned on the US ambassador Nicholas Burns, that Europe has been hatching devious plans for defending itself without American help.

"It'll be the end of Nato!" he fumed, and demanded an emergency meeting of ambassadors, at which the Germans and French somehow managed to pretend their plans for an EU military headquarters were totally compatible with American interests.

The truth is that it's been in the working for quite a while, and it's quite surprising that it took Burns so long to notice what was going on.

Anyhow, this new 'defence club', if you wish to call it that way is a typical EU construction. Due to the huge differences in opinion such a thing could not be proposed as a solution for everybody, but just for those that are willing. The plan is of course to in the future when it's all set and done to lobby the rest to join. That's basically how the EMU started also. The big difference here is that Britain is overtly positive to a common EU military, which solves a lot of the politics. Still, it's quite a long way to go. I'd guess at least 10-15 years before a truly unitied EU military is introduced.

Quote[/b] ]

If this some kind of European Brigade/Division/Corps is set up in my opinion it would probably be bad to have companies/batallions set up from single nationality, because then if crisis would emerge (heaven forbid) member countries would argue 'whose boys are going to bear the brunt' so dividing them to smaller detachments would be better. Like one company rather formed of several nationalities, one platoon from one country for example and company CO would just be from anywhere, but being best man for the job.

These troops would naturally have to be composed and trained together rather frequently so if situation developes they would function fluently despite nationality/operating procedure barriers.

IMO the best way to go is as is done today in many international missions. You have multinational brigades (MNB's) that consist of 3-5 national so called "Task Forces" that are batallion strength. They all operate under the same chain of command and with a common top HQ. The load of burden is decided on the basis of military need, not on politics. Furthermore there are a number of specialized task forces that fall under the direct command of the HQ and that are entirely international.

This is a concept that has worked very well so far and it's actually nothing new. The Roman legions were following basically the same structure as did the Napoleonic armies as well as Austria-Hungary, which had a multinational miltiary force.

As a matter of fact, the concept of purely national forces are quite new, having its roots in the 19th century. Before that a military force was made up of different nationalities that were separate, but under the same chain of command. (For instance Sweden had Finnish regiements for most parts of its history).