So remind me again why having a European army was such a terrible idea

[MrsBede]

We clearly have fuck all influence over American policy and are not a big player on the world stage (surprise surprise) so why was it/would it have been so dreadful to be at the helm of a powerful European coalition with military capacity?

Napolean?
Hitler?

They were both helm of a powerful European coalition with military capacity

Why should we be able to influence American policy?
If this is in reference to Afghanistan, there is nothing we can do to ‘solve the problem’, as many decades of history have shown.

Oh yeah, I forget the EU was run by a dictator with no democratic processes. You're right .

Because, to be frank, nobody wants to fight and die for "Europe".

Some will be prepared to do that for their own country, but when it comes down to it, very few would be prepared to do so for the EU.

And given that the EU members bicker over the tinest thing, trying to get them to agree on military operations sounds is not very likely.

'Ou dois-je tirer'
'Right, 100 yards'
'Je ne comprends pas'
'Du hast verpasst'
'Awesome.'

because then we'd be drafting soldiers to the EU under a central control - we don't have enough spare soldiers for that! There shouldn't be any "EU Army" that's under the control of a central body (especially not one that has Merkel or Macaron in!).

What would an EU army do right now? Send more soldiers to their deaths?

They'd still be deciding who would be in overall charge. Macron would definitely think it should be him

Who would be in charge?
Where would they train?
Which language would they speak?

What you are suggesting is treason.

@arethereanyleftatall

'Ou dois-je tirer' 'Right, 100 yards' 'Je ne comprends pas' 'Du hast verpasst' 'Awesome.'

Quite! Or did you assume they'd all speak English OP?

This wouldn't work.

The EU is mainly a economic alliance. Military conflicts/ war is down to individual countries.

Largely, that’s what NATO is for.

And/or UN Peace Keeping forces. Look at what a great job they did in Srebrencia

Most, but not all, European countries are members of NATO - along with the USA and Canada.

Five EU countries (Ireland, Austria, Liechtenstein, Finland and Sweden) are not members of NATO and are officially Neutral countries - and as such would not (or constitutionally cannot) participate in a EU Army.

Because the EU isn’t accountable to the public. No EU citizen can actually vote for their president and as such putting an army into their hands is basically a Hitler / Napolean type situation.

it would be mayhem in my opinion - fine in theory but much like the ppe, border and vaccine debacle of 2020, it would fall apart in the face of a true crisis. Every country for themselves and politicians would ultimately act in their own countries interest.
Who would lead?, what if countries had different policies on different scenarios? What if that gave rise to conflict with one country pulling it's troops? What if some countries refused to pull their weights, leaving it all to France and the UK.
Who exactly would be willing to sign up to fight and die for the EU?

The UN works better as it is peacekeeping rather than war and so maybe easy to collaborate.

Because we'd have no control as to when and where our armed forces entered into a conflict. Nor when they left.

I'd also be very uncomfortable with the prospect of National Service being compulsory and not even UK based.

Whoever was in charge (and without a doubt they wouldn't be British) would also have far too much power.

We're haven't managed to get full interoperability across NATO, the chances of achieving better with NATO-lite (which is what it essentially would be) are low.

Unifying a defence policy would remain just as challenging as all other aspects of political union.

NATO does not attempt to do that - it's a mutual self-defence alliance

The UN is also relevant in terms of endorsing international action - and EuroArmy would be negotiating approvals in the same way as NATO but with less clout

@arethereanyleftatall

'Ou dois-je tirer' 'Right, 100 yards' 'Je ne comprends pas' 'Du hast verpasst' 'Awesome.'

How do armies manage to function in countries like India where there is no common language?

Because it would be another thing managed and run by germany/France, over which we would have dwindling influence but be expected to contribute a lot financially.

Being under the EU flag, it would predominantly exist to further EU agendas/defend EU interests, which arent always aligned with UK. Among other things we have far less significant land borders for example, and we also have to consider our historical ties with the commonwealth nations.

The UK does co-operate and work with EU countries with defence- eg there are currently UK troops assisting the French army in west Africa.

Do EU countries actually want an EU wide army anyway?

It would have been very interesting if we'd had an EU army at the time of the Falklands.

You don't need a European army to be stronger and more independent

You just need European countries to invest more in their own armed forces and security, but that's not really a popular move these days

There will never be a European army, there's literally no point thinking about it

The Lisbon Treaty refers to military cooperation, so largely NATO. Is that what you meant @MrsBede?

I'm very much in favour of cooperation. An army as a distinct body would be problematic, but was never on the table anyway.

How do armies manage to function in countries like India where there is no common language?
Hindustani. Even though there are different languages there is quite a lot of overlap between Hindi, Urdu and even Arabic so people can get by.

We could do an EU army in English, and probably everyone except the French would accept that. It's a crap idea for many other reasons though - not least the colossal waste of money.