Juncker calls for EU army, says would deter Russia

[Bosonic]

Source: Reuters

The European Union needs its own army to face up to Russia and other threats as well as restore the bloc's foreign policy standing around the world, EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told a German newspaper on Sunday.

Arguing that NATO was not enough because not all members of the transatlantic defense alliance are in the EU, Juncker said a common EU army would also send important signals to the world.

"A joint EU army would show the world that there would never again be a war between EU countries," Juncker told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper. "Such an army would also help us to form common foreign and security policies and allow Europe to take on responsibility in the world."

Juncker said a common EU army could serve as a deterrent and would have been useful during the Ukraine crisis.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/08/us-eu-defence-juncker-idUSKBN0M40KL20150308?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=twitter

[Demeter]

1. Great idea! The Germans have these nifty new tanks

They outfitted painted custom-fitted broomsticks for the gun turrets...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11338382

[paleotn]

2. Ouch! That's got to sting German pride....

....That's also what happens when they rely on US military might (read our tax dollars) to protect them ever since the end of WWII. Particularly since the fall of the Soviet Union.

[paleotn]

3. Long overdue....

... even in the 21st century, planet earth is a dangerous place. With their wealth and technological prowess, the EU shouldn't need US protection. And we could certainly use the tax dollars for more constructive things.

[Pooka Fey]

8. France is pulling its weight against radical Islam in Africa

Last edited Sun Mar 8, 2015, 04:51 PM - Edit history (2)

Article from Dec. 15th, 2013 http://www.npr.org/2013/12/15/251171604/once-again-french-troops-intervene-in-africa

In January, the French military intervened in Mali to help liberate large swaths of the country from radical jihadists. Now, for the second time this year, France has sent troops into an African country to quell violence.

Last week, French soldiers went into the Central African Republic to stop sectarian killings. In news reports from the Central African Republic, crowds yell, "Vive la France!" as they run out to greet convoys of French soldiers.

France also intervened in Ivory Coast in 2011, to back a democratically elected president. The actions have prompted some to wonder if the country is slipping back into its old role of gendarme of Africa.

Marchal says the memory of Rwanda, where 1 million Tutsis were killed while French soldiers stood by, is another reason France chose to intervene in the Central African Republic.

What is going on now, is that France (and the French taxpayers) are feeling like her army is "carrying the water" for all of Europe. That is why Germany needs to step up.

[RiverNoord]

4. It was inevitable. Only a matter of time.

Looks like it took the bizarre Russian invasion of Crimea and eastern Ukraine to start the substantive dialogue.

Once a lot of countries join up with each other to have a common currency and even a parliament, a military isn't far behind.

NATO will probably be irrelevant or dissolved within 20 years.

[Pooka Fey]

5. I can't see this ever happening.

France only came back into NATO in 2009 under Sarkozy, after being out of it for 43 years, since DeGaulle had finally had enough of France being subservient to USA foreign policy.

The French people, though still deeply grateful for their liberation in 1944, were also becoming tired of US soldiers still running around France in their military jeeps and trucks after 20 years of peace.

De Gaulle's defiant gesture, which caught Washington unaware, came at a time when U.S.-European security revolved around girding against a possible Soviet attack from the East. It meant in theory that the French military and its nuclear arsenal would no longer take orders from the American general commanding NATO forces. In addition, de Gaulle ordered out thousands of U.S. troops stationed on French soil and at NATO headquarters, then in a Paris suburb.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/11/AR2009031100547.html

Many French see Sarko's 2009 decision as a huge mistake, and now discuss pulling out of NATO again - especially due to the Ukraine crises. I have no idea if this is serious or not.

An EU army seems completely unlikely. The French press has discussed the need for Germany to invest massively in their own army, now that 70 years has passed since the end of WWII.

[Demeter]

6. I wouldn't fret, Pooka. The EU is busted flat out broke

and the euro is doomed. Shelf-life of not even 5 years left.

[Pooka Fey]

7. Just as busted flat out broke as the USA

Last edited Mon Mar 9, 2015, 06:14 AM - Edit history (1)

But no way are the individual European nations going to go away into irrelevancy. France won't, no question. Nor Germany.

The EU is a new political and economic entity created for a very noble ideal - to end war between the European nations. Looking at the 20th century and the consequences - shattered cities, shattered economies, - no one could argue against putting together a European structure that would prevent wars.

In practice, there are problems about sovereign national interests and balancing the different economies between the North, South, and former Soviet countries.

If the euro goes away, France will return to the Franc, Germany to the Deutschmark, etc. It would be an economic catastrophe at the beginning however, I saw a documentary about it.

[Demeter]

11. The Euro is already an economic catastrophe

The Germans want it all--and they insist on getting their own way. They are killing the Eurozone with their greedy and contradictory demands upon their neighbors. And they are killing the German worker.

Every other nation has given German policy-makers the benefit of the doubt...but the trial period is over, and the paint is coming off. Germany is waging economic war on Europe. They are all losing, though.

Noble ideas and bad economic policy means total economic destruction and can trigger a shooting war, if some stupid country (like the USA) thinks a shooting war is in its best interest...

Waiting to take the logical step (breaking the euro as presently constituted) is just ensuring more destruction, and accelerating destruction.

And if China and Russia and India get their act together, the USA is irrelevant, too.

[Pooka Fey]

13. Agreed, the Euro isn't working

Last edited Sun Mar 8, 2015, 01:39 PM - Edit history (1)

But earlier than 18 months ago, nobody even dared to suggest this. Now people are talking about it more seriously.

Germany is starting to look really bad, I would say however that the villain is the European Central Bank, but Germany is profiting unfairly in the common market. Agreed.

The situation in Greece is appalling.

[geek tragedy]

9. This would be a great replacement for NATO. nt

[Warren Stupidity]

10. Actually a good idea and also scrap nato while you're at it.

NATO's post Cold War mission creep has resulted in it becoming the vehicle of US foreign policy adventures, providing a cloak of internationalism while circumventing the United Nations, and enabling neocon ambitions of global hegemony.

The more the EU functions as a cohesive european nation, the more obvious it will be that NATO has long outlived its legitimacy. In addition, an EU military would be the appropriate force deterrent to any Russian imperial ambitions. This is their back yard, not ours.

[Demeter]

12. We are in agreement

I will cherish this moment, likely never to be repeated.

[Pooka Fey]

15. I can't believe it either, but I agree with 3 of your ideas in this post

Last edited Mon Mar 9, 2015, 06:14 AM - Edit history (1)

on the NATO post Cold War mission creep etc...(paragraph 1)

Paragraph 2, I have to disagree with an EU Army plan because I think it's a fantasy. My other posts on thread give my reasons.

Regardless of the validity of their reasons for wanting to concentrate on rebuilding European economies after 1945, the EU nations have ignored foreign policy --- including Russian language learning essential for diplomatic relations and analysis. I read that point in another article about this recent House of Lords report on Ukraine.

The UK report is titled "The Sleepwalkers" - a scathing reference to the book by historian Christopher Clarke about how Europe "sleepwalked" into WWI in 1914. Déjà vu, because the current crisis is occurring on the 100th anniversary of WWI.

Sleepwalkers
Posted by The SAIS Observer Staff on February 22, 2015 in Opinion

By JOSEPH VERBOVSZKY

BOLOGNA — In a bristling recent statement, the British House of Lords accused Europe of “sleepwalking” into the Ukrainian crisis. This slamming of European foreign policy should come as little surprise for anyone following the crisis. What is surprising however, is the British incredulity and shock that this “sleepwalking” occurred in the first place. Undoubtedly, the House of Lords has hit upon something much deeper than recent European foreign policy, stretching all the way down to the roots of the European Project itself.

Since 1945, Europe has, in fact, been in a relatively constant state of sleepwalking. First, as a fragile and terrified Europe navigated the nightmarish landscape of nuclear threat in the Cold War, and then through the manic years of the 1990s and 2000s when delusions of prosperity and the “End of History” blinded a relatively more sinister reality. In the aftermath of World War II, the founders of what would become the EU envisioned a sort of United States of Europe in which war would be impossible. However, their political vision proved equally impossible. After many failed attempts at various political and military unions in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the founders considered it far simpler to sell a European political union as an economic union.

http://saisobserver.org/2015/02/22/sleepwalkers/


http://www.amazon.com/Sleepwalkers-How-Europe-Went-1914/dp/0061146668/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1425837184&sr=8-1&keywords=christopher+clark+the+sleepwalkers+how+europe+went+to+war+in+1914

Cheers

[Pooka Fey]

14. What are the language logistics of the EU army plan, exactly?

Last edited Mon Mar 9, 2015, 06:12 AM - Edit history (2)

Individual European countries are not like U.S. States - like New York and Florida. Although the language is the least of the differences, which language of the X number (I don't even know how many) is someone from Brussels going to choose for the common language of the EU Army?

NOT ENGLISH - that pig will never fly.

And this guy is from Luxembourg, that nation is 1/4th of the size of Rhode Island - I just did the conversion. President of the EU is more administrative than political. There is no EU constitution. France killed that bad idea in May 2005 and the Netherlands killed it one month later. As far as having any political pull over the individual countries of the EU, the EU President has NONE.

The Treaty was signed on 29 October 2004 by representatives of the then 25 member states of the European Union. It was later ratified by 18 member states, which included referendums endorsing it in Spain and Luxembourg. However the rejection of the document by French and Dutch voters in May and June 2005 brought the ratification process to an end.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_establishing_a_Constitution_for_Europe

I just read the OP not the whole article, but this sounds like hidden NATO-like Neo-Con crap, to me. Useful in the Ukraine crisis?

That's one view - LOL

[Blue_Tires]

16. And who the hell is going to fund this EU army?

The Euro NATO members don't even keep up their spending commitments to *that* organization...

[geek tragedy]

17. Same as every other EU expenditure--Germany and France nt