That he wants NATO nations to spend more and work towards that goal they all signed up to work towards? Sounds like he's responding to a more aggressive Russia and wants the rest of NATO to respond in kind? Sounds entirely reasonable to me?
European Army
- Thread starter Tombstone
- Start date
Caporegime
No. Ukraine. Of which Crimea is a part.
The elected president of Ukraine was overthrown by his own people in a revolution sparked by his refusal to sign an association agreement with the EU. The new government restored Ukraine's constitution to its status between 2004-2010, thereby preventing the corruption and authoritarianism that had allowed former president Yanukovych to exercise unreasonable power.
The Russian-sponsored Crimean independence referendum was unconstitutional under Ukrainian and Crimean law, and therefore illegal. It was also rigged; it did not provide the option to retain the status quo, so the only options were 'return to Russia' and 'return to the 1992 constitution' (which would facilitate a break into full independence from Ukraine). The option 'remain in Ukraine' was simply not offered.
The referendum was rife with irregularities:
* transparent ballot boxes
* ballots not placed in envelopes (so they were fully visible through the box walls)
* Ukrainian TV channels were made unavailable for Crimean residents, and some were replaced with Russian stations
*OSCE and UN observers were denied access, and attempts to enter Crimea for this purpose were met with violence
* the only observers permitted to oversee the referendum were those approved and backed by Russia
* only 34.2% of Crimea residents participated in the referendum
* many ballots had been pre-marked to support the pro-Russian option
* Russian citizens were allowed to vote
I could go on and on.
Don’t know whether to laugh or cry at this, it’s like the U.S. banning Brits from visiting D.C., as they burnt the White House in 1814, during the War of 1812, or getting the shakes if a Danish Navy ship was spotted off Northumberland, in case it was full of Vikings, intent on rape and pillage.
I texted my son, (resident in Germany for years), on this particular subject, he said, “You’re having a laugh dad, most of the guys that I know over here, would be happy if they could control their wives, let alone Europe.”
I’d skate lightly over posts like that, without being unkind, the author doesn’t appear to have a grip on reality.
Soldato
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haha, brilliant
Soldato
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NVM
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Re my post # 64, I took another look at the discussion on the U.S. forum of a possible European Army.
One guy had posted, “As I see it, it’s a lock, (American for absolute certainty), that the Muslims will take over Europe within two years, do we really want a Muslim army over there?”
To which another American, (I guess), had replied, “Will we care? We’ll be the United States of Mexico by then.”
One guy had posted, “As I see it, it’s a lock, (American for absolute certainty), that the Muslims will take over Europe within two years, do we really want a Muslim army over there?”
To which another American, (I guess), had replied, “Will we care? We’ll be the United States of Mexico by then.”
Soldato
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I guess the most important question is when would be the best time to invade?
Also the same country that provided helicopter medical evacuation teams that due to their ROE were unable to evacuate if there was a potential of enemies in the area... in Afghanistan...
Soldato
Plus NATO could't be used to to control any internal decent within the EU if a member decided to tell the rest "No!" at some point.
Using the NATO analogy the military "needs" a leader and the terms used in setting up NATO state that the civilian committee must vote on any action so supposedly it is impossible that one single country, even the US, gets the only say, so the "leader" is the committee.
However, with the EU the set-up hasn't been written up yet, so it may ape NATO or it may write it's own T's & C's which could be vastly different so, as no-one knows yet which way the EU Army would be set-up, people are worried that it could be commanded by a single EU "leader" (currently Junker) for example.
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While I understand your point - the exact same thing was said RE Germany 1914 just before WW2 - I mean there are whole books written on that premise in around 1937 or something how politics was different that the Germany of the day wasn't comparable to Germany of pre-WW1 and that increased global communications and economy meant there absolutely wouldn't be another big war, etc. heh.
Yeah getting agreement on it is another matter but a lot of that isn't hard to work out what theoretically should happen - though the French have significant legacy complications with their military when it comes to the French language which would probably make it hard to keep things purely to English they teach English fairly early on these days due to the better potential employment wise, etc. and the Germans mostly approach this kind of thing in a functional manner so if English was the most efficient way to make it work they'd probably go with that.
Small arms wise it would almost certainly be something based on the G36 platform but probably a new design with improvements.
For light armour it would make most sense to adopt the Ajax and Boxer - the Boxer theoretically can be configured to fit some of the new AA platforms like MANTIS, etc.
There are some complications when it comes to MBTs as AFAIK there is still a lot of bits of the top tanks that haven't been shared with other countries and missing from export versions, etc. most of the MBTs currently in use are coming to the end of their useful life though so a new shared design would probably make the most sense - theoretically there could be a base chassis that each nation bolted their own "top secret" armour, etc. onto but then that kind of defeats the usefulness of interoperability in the field.
Aircraft wise while a bit contentious Anglo-French designs tend to be pretty decent if allowed to develop properly and the Germans don't seem to have any problem adopting them.
As for radios another one where there is a chance for something new - most of the current setups seem to have a lot of inadequacies - I was watching a drill the other day where they had no problem raising a unit 15 miles away but in the end had to send someone running to a group around 1/3rd of a mile away because for all the trying were only getting messages one way and that wasn't even a combat situation.
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Soldato
And before that about the Entente Cordiale and the Central Powers.
And the point several people have raised about using troops from different nations to crush dissent in your own nation is far from hypothetical. It's been done since at least Roman times. Indeed, Bashar Al-Assad used it in Syria this very decade.
But the situation before nukes and the situation in the post-nuke era aren't really comparable, are they?
Totally different landscape now with that one invention alone.
Soldato
About as much use as a chocolate fire guard.
Soldato
We can hope. But some people are doing their best to get around the "mutually" part of "mutually assured destruction".
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2006-03-01/rise-us-nuclear-primacy
(I know I've linked that before here, but it really is a very good article).
That article is a little out of date now (2006), Russia is modernising it's nuclear weapons and has been for a few years
True nukes have changed the world forever but it isn't the first time an invention has massively shaken things up (for example the telegraph) and there is always the potential of an effective way to bypass their impact - hence the ABMs treaties, etc.
The German military is a joke, they are poorly equipped and poorly trained. They basically have a token force and rely on the US to defend them as well as pick up the bill for it.
Now the US is cutting back, Germany is getting worried that they might actually have to pay for their own defense. So want to offload the costs on to the rest of the EU instead. Sure France seem enthusiastic now, but they won't be taken for mugs for long.
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