khaosworks | Who do you think you are kidding, M Chirac? (Reply)

'Old Europe' presses ahead with plans for an EU army
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in Brussels
(Filed: 30/04/2003)

"Old Europe" threw down the gauntlet at the feet of Britain, the United States and the Atlantic Alliance at a mini-summit yesterday, unveiling plans for a new Euro-army with its own military headquarters.

France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg - described by some in the US as the "Axis of Weasel" - vowed to press ahead with a full-fledged defence union, brushing aside warnings that the move would entrench the European Union's bitter divisions over Iraq and could lead to the break-up of Nato.

A new rapid reaction force would be built around the existing Franco-German brigade, taking in Belgian commandos and units from Luxembourg. It would answer to a headquarters in the Brussels suburb of Tervuren and be ready for joint operations next year.

Jacques Chirac, the French president, insisted that the plans would bolster Nato by making Europe a more credible partner for Washington, and denied there was an attempt to set up a rival to Nato's operational command. "The aim is not to decouple European Union and Atlantic Alliance defence efforts," he said.

But M Chirac gave out mixed signals when he gently rebuked Tony Blair for advocating a "one polar world" and warning of a new Cold War if Europe tried to become a rival power to America.

"Quite naturally a multi-polar world is being created, whether one likes it or not. It's inevitable. For balance to exist, there will have to be a strong Europe. Relations between the European Union and the United States will have to be a partnership between equals," said M Chirac.

This was basically inevitable. I'd been suggesting in discussions with

logam and one of my colleagues that an European Army was probably the next step and a needed step for the EU to become the federation it apparently wants to be. Sovereignty as a concept is fast vanishing with the removal of borders in Europe - and eventually, even the local "state" governments will be largely irrelevant when faced with the onslaught of the bureaucrats in Brussels.

Whether or not this is a good thing depends, as always, on your point of view. From a military standpoint, it simply makes sense. NATO is so heavily American dependent that given the current state of affairs with the US, it is just going to make Europe a second-class citizen on its own continent to continue with such a strategic arrangement. NATO itself is ideologically outmoded anyway - the EU continues to suck up more and more countries with gusto which were, just a few decades ago, on the other side of the Iron Curtain. There is no longer a Warsaw Pact to guard against. There is however, a very large, scary white man on the other side of the Atlantic waving a very big stick and rampaging around the clubhouse.

From a nationalistic standpoint, it's frightening. European MPs are practically unknown to their own constituents, yet the laws they pass are superceding national laws by treaty. Also, a lot of what goes on in that parliament is kept secret. How long, then until an EU member state starts balking at the interference from the Brussels crowd and they start sending the country's own troops in to quell the dissent? Yes, my friends, if this sounds familiar, it's the American Civil War all over again, except it's really about state's rights this time. One hopes that as the borders, already blurred beyond belief, start merging and the EU proclaims itself a sovereign power as a whole, that the citizenry will start becoming interested in the federal level and actually be allowed in the vote.

From a historical standpoint, it's kind of exciting and not-exciting at the same time. It's like witnessing the birth of a new United States, except done in that plodding, boring, watching paint dry, old-lady-falling-into-ruins way that we expect from Europe. What'll be really interesting is to see if the UK will want anything to do with this, despite Blair caving in to the establishment of a Rapid Deployment Force last year. Britain has always traditionally stood alone, what with the hostility to the euro and to giving up any inch of their soverignty to those bastards across the Channel. My gut has always told me that Britain will never be a part of Europe, not willingly.

So keep an eye on Europe - it may lead to a new, fresher, and more dynamic power, and a welcome check to US hegemony. Or it may lead to a totalitarian mess that will erupt into civil war. Then again, no one said revolutions were easy.