European Union, Military Superpower!?!

For all the criticism the EU receives, the American Empire is much more repulsive. The world knows this, and as such, would welcome the EU as a competitive superpower.

Ok, Ok....let's all just be honest.

Really, the E.U. is merely the main front in the Franco-German Cold War. They are vying for continental supremacy, just as they have for the last 1000 years. Each one wants to be top dog, so now they are trying to do politically what they could not do militarily. The rest of Europe is just being used as patsies.

Hopefully the Evil American Empire(geezzz) stays out of it, either way.

I would have to disagree with you. Other EU member states benefit greatly from EU membership, as well as contribute, and influence the EU. Ireland benefited greatly from EU membership. And i wouldn't underestimate the influence of Italy and Spain.

If all of the countries could agree, it could happen.

I doubt if it will happen, no country wants to loose its independance, and these EU countries are pretty safe in terms of National Security with NATO, but the WOT has brought a new form of fear from the unknown terrorist, and if they are looking for security from this then they need to look with in there own country and borders to stop this type of conflict.

My question is how will this new EU country be run, and who will run it.

Will France and Germany force it rule on it, since they are the power in Europe.

What about Russia, in or out?

What about the UK, in or out?

- No, really it isn't.

It's not even a little tiny bit like it.



- Oh for God's sake. This is ludicrous. Talk about ignorance.

If you really think the past post-war 60yrs is anything like the previous 1000yrs (a period where for most of it neither 'France' nor 'Germany' even existed! ) I think you need a lot of further study, to say the least.



- Do you have the first clue about how the EU works or how the states that make it up work....and how that all relates one to the other?

I seriously doubt it if this is what you are determined to insist. No single country is 'top dog' in the EU, nor can be.

It is exactly as a mechanism to stop the old petty 'competitive nations' inevitable squabbling and the appalling repeated consequences of it that the EU came about.

It might be hard for you to understand but we have 'been there and done that' so many times at such staggeringly appalling cost that we all genuinely wish no repeat (save for the small nutter element in the UK and the tiny fringe in parts of the rest of the continent; who couldn't care less about that as they think, no matter what, that it couldn't happen again)



- Yes, please do, stay well out of it and take all your troops home and leave our countires while you're at it, I mean, the wall came down and the Russians all went home 15yrs ago, as more and more time goes by it's looking more and more like an occupation.

Thanks but no thanks.



- When we all agree and work together all things are possible.



- Why should this equate to any kind of 'loss of independance'? Is NATO membership a loss of independance in any practical sense that anyone should worry too much about too?



- Quite.



- Well the level of 'threat' thanks to the "WOT" is highly debateable (particularly when set against the actual terrorism many European countries have actually faced over the last five + decades) but in any case what makes you think they don't?

With most European countries being land-locked Europe has traditionally always been more interested in looking within the country rather than having rigid border controls.



- Er, what new EU? There is no "new EU".

The EU will function exactly as before. With the agreement of the nations forming it's constituent parts.



- Where are you getting this from? "Rule!?

Are you so immersed in the idea of brute dominating power that the idea of meaningful and genuine agreement and co-operation is so foreign to you? Wow. That's a bit sad.



- Out.

Russia is not a member of the EU and unlikely in the extreme to become so for a very very long time, if ever.



- Don't be silly.

In.

The UK is a full member of the EU and has been since the early 1970's.

The anti-EU parties in the UK are tiny and stand no chance whatsoever of securing an 'let's get out of the EU' vote.

Labour are a pro-EU party, watch them win the next election handsomely next spring/summer.


[edit on 11-11-2004 by sminkeypinkey]

Why is one super power a bad thing?

all the high points in civilization have been with one super power in control:

babylon
greece
rome
the turkish empire
great britian in 1800's
US now

as opposed to the balence of power nonsense that causes the endless wars through the ages:
almost every european war ever
imperialist wars
WWI
WWII
the cold war and all its forms (Korea, vietnam ect.)

why would you want two superpowers simply for the sake of having two, isnt one enough?
Why E.U?

Yes...and Hitler made the trains run on time.

I don't have a problem with another superpower. But call a spade a spade. The EU will be its own country. And it will be a superpower militarily and economically. Everything is flowing in that direction.

And I know world history, I'm not an idiot. France has been France for almost a thousand years. And it's easier to say Germany than to say the elevenish countries since the Holy Roman Empire.

[edit on 11/11/2004 by soulforge]

- It need not necessarily be a 'bad thing' it's just that inevitably they all seem to work out that way for far too many.

Great for those who benefit, terrible shame for those benefitted from.



- Just because this might have been true for some of the time when these powers dominated does not mean it is the truth of all of the time of these powers dominated.

....and since when did any of these 'powers' not have rivals or wars?

How come you seem to imply (later) that there was/is no or little conflict during these periods? There was, for centuries at times, endless wars indeed.

Oh and tough luck if you are the one(s) dominated though, huh?



- Well your last illustrations show (Korea and Vietnam) show what a nonsense the first part of this post is. I mean if they count as part of a time of instability what about now?

Has American dominance not failed to stop war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa?

Just as British dominance did not stop a host of long wars of subjugation.

Just as the story of every other 'super power high points' you list all had many many years with many many long wars.



- Because the EU makes sense for it's members, benefits us all enormously....... and it genuinely enables us in Europe to tell the USA where to get off when we need to.

By clubbing together we don't need the USA; we are absolutely not reliant on the USA or anyone else. We are well resourced and do approx 80% of our trade internally. When we do need to look beyond ourselves we tend to have excellent relations abroad and can manage very nicely than you.

But let's be clear. If the US really wants equitable trade and engagement in a genuinely free spirit and not to try and dominate us then great, really, no doubt we can do business and we can all benefit. Fantastic, it's what free trade is all about

But

If you think you are going to push us around tell us what to do - to solely suit you and your interests - and exploit us, well you know what you can do.

We'll tell you to merrily 'get lost!' just as you would us were the situation reversed.

[

[edit on 11-11-2004 by sminkeypinkey]

i never said the superpowers wernt involved in wars.
they would have never been superpowers to begin with had that been the case. what im trying to say is the wars that took place under superpowers were smaller and less deadly. there was "relativly" more peace- thus the "high points of civilization"
wars under one superpower, example: romans wiping out barbarian tribes
americans bombing taliban

wars under balence of power are vastly more deadly and as a whole there is less peace throughout the world, example: WWI, WWII
Napoleons stuff, ect.

there will always be war and death, just more of it under the 2 power system.

and it seems as if the people in europe make a bigger deal of the US than deserves to be made. do you wake up everyday thinking "my how the U.S. has made my life misreable..."i think alot of people have their pantys in a bundle over nothing. the U.S. is not that bad. hitler anyone?
oh wait people in europe compare bush to hitler, so...

i just think people take the U.s. too seriously. I dont think were that oppressive and i imagine a two superpower world to be much more harmfull to everyone,everywhere.

it seems like people have just traded in their nationalsim in europe, in exchange for a european nationalism. is that much better? is it worth starting an army for? so the big bad US cant boss people around?
i dont know

- Oh Gawwwd, here it is. The 'can't do an EU thread without giving Adolf & Co a mention' moment.

What has that got to do with now and the EU, never mind post-war Germany?



- I realise you have problems understanding the concepts behind the EU, they are pretty unique afterall but the EU will not "be it's own country".

Think about it. How could anyone in a totally agreed democratic structure get the French to stop being French or the Germans to stop being German.....Jayzuss, some of you Americans really have no clue, have you?



- Well OK. This is slightly different.

I'd say we already are a 'super-power' economically. Wow.

But, as I said before, compared to the USA or Russia we are not a military superpower and have no intention of wasting billions upon billions in the pointless persuit of becoming one.

You guys can ruin yourselves at that dumb game all on your lonesome.....hey, maybe you can get a few politicians to stand up and scare yous all rigid over China or something, maybe they'll play that one with you but I doubt it.



- OK, fair enough but let's not make idiotic comparisons then.

This period in history is like this period in history. Full stop.

We have never been here before and the situation is completely unique.



- Well taking account of the smaller population sizes I think you must be mistaken.



- I think you'll find the recent 100 000 dead in Iraq and the God knows how many tens of thousands in Afghanistan is relatively a lot of dead people. Even if our media can't bring itself to even bother attempting to report the truth of it.



- WW1 & 2 fitted the trend of mankind devising ever more effective ways of wiping each other out in ever larger numbers but I think you'll find that applies beyond the 'balance of power' situation you describe.....the US civil war for a start springs to mind. A horrific death rate, considering.



- I think the 'system' is in many way irrelevant. Many would argue that the post WW2 'balance of power system' contained the worst potentials we had at the time regardless of what 'small wars' went on.



- No.

The point is Europe is not so naive as to imagine the USA is our cuddly benefactor always looking out for us - so, cor imagine that, we don't have to - because that's really just an extension of him looking out for himself. Pull the other one.

We aren't over-doing anything. We're just not stupid either.

You guys have your interests, they are not ours, we have our own.



- Imagine away.

We'll stick to our systems of cooperative self-sufficiency and self-reliance as our best way in this world.

Like I said, if you want genuine co-operation, engagement or honest competition, fine, we can do that and we'll all benefit I'm sure.

The trouble is the USA has a history of being far more interested in domination and selfish self interest and we aren't going to tolerate that any longer. We don't have to. Sorry and all but, tough, there it is.



- Er, what?
How can you have such a thing as the individual - let's not forget existing nation states 'trading in' their 'nationalism' for a 'european nationalism'!?

Wow. Do you really believe that?! How does that work?

It is no such thing.
It is a clear and obvious realisation that we all benefit when we work together, being so close to each other we can and do productively work together, that truely we share common interests and that we really can maintain the peace in an area notorious for repeated frequent ruinous wars.



- What? What do you mean 'starting an army'?
There will be no 'new armies' just existing units allocated as available to the new structure should they be deemed required and necessary.

We already got a load of armies, and airforces and in some cases navies too.



- Er, no. Don't be silly.
That is not why the EU force is being proposed, actually. I suggest you investigate why it has been proposed and why the USA (even Bush & Co) originally supported the idea.

But no doubt your right-wing commentators and politicians will soon enough be working on your public to inflate the 'European threat' if China is too obviously absurd a 'threat' or they won't even play the game with you guys.

Don't hold your breathe though cos we won't be playing either.



- Clearly.

"The point is Europe is not so naive as to imagine the USA is our cuddly benefactor always looking out for us - so, cor imagine that, we don't have to - because that's really just an extension of him looking out for himself. Pull the other one. "

i think you have crawled a bit to far up the "european union propaganda tree" and your afraid to come down.

sure every country looks out for its own intrests. but the US does a great job of being the most benevolent "opressor" the world has ever seen.

the US has been your "cuddly benefactor" before, remeber WWII? no?
well japan attacked the united states and we then declared war not just on japan, but also germany. why? well certainly not for our well being, we lost many troops and ran up a large national debt, but we did keep our ally britain from being anhilated by hitler.

you think the US is oppressive? imagine if hitler had won and facist germany was the superpower today, its not that far fetched really. one things for certain britain would not have lasted without the US intervention in WWII. but we did.

i worked with some irish people this summer. they didnt like bush of course but they also didnt like the EU all that much, not everyone in europe is in love with it like you appear to be. i remeber hearing that alot of anti EU political memebers got voted in last election.

im just saying i dont think its as good idea as you are building it up to be and i think it will bring alot of hardship to the world. but well see, history will tell.

TheRepublic are you from Maryland?

EU doesn't have to be a military superpower to become a new Empire No.1 in the world.
We do it differently.
15 years ago the berlin wall fell, before that eastern block was in constant conflict with western europe and on the verge of WWIII. Now, they are part of EU.
Croatia was devastated by war in early 90s. A bit of EU cooperation, economical, finantial aid, legislative aid and democracy development turned it from a crazy country run by a dictator into potential EU candidate. It all happened without war, insurgents, killings.
Same program is on the way in Bosnia, Serbia, Macedonia, Kosovo.

What is done there, will be done in other parts of the world.
We do not conquer those countries, we make them equal to other developed countries. They keep their sovereignty, their political parties, army, police etc, etc, but are still part of a Union. That makes life a LOT easier and more comfortable.

- I call it accurate fair realism....and I can promise you that as a resident of the UK there is no "EU propaganda".
Most of the EU stories we get here are from a foreign (US) owned press attempting to further US interests here and in Europe with a relentless torrent of anti-EU stories, a grossly slanted propaganda deluge which has gone on for years here.



- We'll do without any oppression, benevolent or otherwise at all, thank you very much.



- Well there is also the small matter of Germany declaring war on the USA. I have no doubt that was pretty relevant to the issue.

Let's cut the crap about this.
The USA got into WW2 (late: late to a WW again) because she was attacked and believed it was in her interest to involve herself. She fought Germany first because that too made sense in regard to US interests.



- So the war you fought in persuit of your own interests (obviously in this case our interests coincided; of course they did, very clearly in this instance) was not free!?
Well duuuuh. Such is WW.
It broke us......thanks to you guys fleecing us as payment for the 'help' you 'gave us'.

(now in fairness I don't blame the US demanding the UK's gold reserves to pay for what we bought, most thought we were on our last legs too but, let's not kid ourselves here, you did not act as 'friend' at every turn to us back then.)

.....and er, no. Actually you didn't stop "britain from being anhilated by hitler". I know that is what you guys believe but this is a fairy tale totally divorced from the reality of the situation; it is simpy not true.

Does the 'Battle of Britain' mean anything to you?

Britain had managed to defeat German attempts to "annihilate" us on our own (and in 1940 it was absolutely no thanks to the USA)....and as Germany had subsequently embarked on the unwinnable war with Russia they never were going to "annihilate" the UK.



- Yes, it is. Sometimes.
Maybe not so bad as some but yes the USA frequently - particularly now - acts purely in its own interests and sometimes against ours.



- If you say so, maybe it's not far-fetched (although personally I disagree, I can see no circumstances in which nazi Germany ended up overall 'winner' in WW2) but, they didn't and they aren't; what has this to do with anything?

This relativism is amusing.
Having someone threaten my life and rob me daily of Ł100 000 is much worse than 'just' being robbed annually of Ł1000 but either way I'm being abused and robbed and I'd rather not be, at all, thank you very much.



- Sorry but this is just wrong. We withstood the German onslaught alone in 1940....and they were never again to be in a position to come back again after this.



- I didn't ever say everyone is enthused about the EU either. European people tend to be far less enthusiastic about these things anyway.

What I have been doing is attempting to correct the most daft and glaring incorrect or inaccurate comments about the EU.
I'd call that "denying ignorance" (remember that?) not some idiotic notion about 'being in love' FFS come on man, wise up.

What is this? You make a stack of inaccurate claims about the nature of the EU and how it relates to the national govs it comprises of (something many Americans seem to have some very strange ides about) and if I dare to claim 'foul' you start a bit of the daft personal attacks?! "In love"?! Jayzus, are you sure .



- You heard about some. Not a lot. Because there are not a lot of them.



Well yeah I'm sure it will.

But I think what you describe as 'building up' I would call merely telling the accurate story.

I mean the truth of the situation does matter doesn't it?

......or do you prefer a load of silly self-serving fantasy that is just plain wrong? (ignorance?)



[edit on 11-11-2004 by sminkeypinkey]

paperclip,

you have your soverignty now, but it will be slowly taken from you and then you will find your self in a bind. this wont happen till after you become the superpower, and you will.

why will this happen? because it happend here in the states. we the states were supposed to have our own sovernity to make our own decisions with the federal government just there to protect us. this obviously isnt the case anymore and the federal goverment takes supream command over all other forms in the US.

they took our state soverignty away slowly and now its gone. if our state disagrees with the federal government on anything they will say, "thats fine you have your soverignty" and then cut our funding for roads or some other economic penalty to beat us into submission.

so in the EU you have soverginty now becuse the bond is too new, give it time and they will drain it away. i think its sad i belive more in europes soverignty more than some people over there.


also yes i am from maryland (the southern part)

Then the rest of the world can complain about those arrogant Europeans instead of us arrogant Americans.

Watch out, though, the arrogant Chinese are on the way up. Don't forget to complain about them!

- This is pure idle speculation that ignores the situation as it is simply to fit your 'vision'.



- When are you Americans going to get it through your heads that the EU and the nation states that comprise it are nothing like analogous to the USA and its states?



- That's your problem, you let that happen to you.
It is just not relevant to us here in Europe. It is not the same.



- .....and you think the experience of your states and federal gov (a mere 200yrs or so old) applies to nations much much older and more 'established'? The idea is laughable.....and would be laughed at all across Europe in each and every one of the separate nation states that compose the EU.

The EU is 'us', who is this scary 'they' you imagine as some sort of separate entity waiting to take something away from us?

.....and how is your ridiculous fantasy actually supposed to work?
The EU is actually steered and controlled by either the government ministers of the democratic (volunteer member) nation states, their nominees or the democratically directly elected from those nation states.



- I think it is very sad you think you know more about how things actually are here in the EU when plainly you do not.
Save your sorrow for yourself.

"That's your problem, you let that happen to you.
It is just not relevant to us here in Europe. It is not the same."

of course...
i always liked this quote


There is the moral of all human tales;
'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past,
First Freedom, and then Glory -- when that fails,
Wealth, vice , corruption, -- barbarism at last.
And History, with all her volumes vast,
Hath but one page,

We have already let our state's sovereignty be taken away, and with no real move to change it back.

So honestly, I don't have a problem with the EU doing what it wants to be doing.

We are capitalists after all.

As long as they are not doing anything to threaten our national security, its fine by me, and last time I checked, being top dog was not included in national security as far as "America" went.

“The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.”

U.S. Constitution

Ooops, messed that up.

I'm not sure if the intention is soley military.

Europe in general doesen't really keep large military forces.. unless your talking about Russia... but Russia is not part of the EU.

I think the EU is an experiment to create full cooperation between border countries... one currency.... as you see is improving the ability for people to work in other countries.

It's a test of a fully open and advanced society... something the USA still needs to work on. As warmongering and propaganda often does not go well with foreign people... but peace and progress does.

And no the EU is not going to dissolve the idea of individual countries in Europe.. the nationalism might lessen as it should anywhere... but I think Europe is doing the right thing.

[edit on 11-11-2004 by RedOctober90]

[edit on 11-11-2004 by RedOctober90]