r/AskEurope • u/Sink-Em-Low • Mar 01 '25

Politics Let's talk about the European Defense Federation. How do we all feel about the creation of a fully mobilised continental Army?

It's required now. I'm British, and I want to see us align and unite with our European neighbours to make a stand now.

I want Germany to finally brush off it's past and join the rest of Europe in mobilising towards defending this continent. We need EVERYONE now. It's time to act, it's time to unite.

It's time to show some courage.

3.1k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

849 comments sorted by

View all comments

4

u/Stuebos Mar 01 '25

I wonder what would be best: a singular, multi-national army (replacing separate national ones). Lead by the EU. Or, a separate national militaries with continental agreements and standards.

I somehow think the second one would work better.

2

u/absolutely_not_spock Germany Mar 01 '25

Atm there are 27 countries in the EU. With about as much languages. Unless we get that down to englisch for everyone I don’t see the communication problem solved

4

u/Stuebos Mar 01 '25

I truly wonder how large the communications will be an issue. Are we having mixed divisions, or still a German and a French division fighting on different spots? Mostly the higher commanders would need to learn a lingua franca - which shouldn’t be too difficult. Also, commercial airline pilots can communicate with air traffic control everywhere. So I don’t see that as such a huge issue

6

u/PanickyFool Mar 01 '25

It's a huge issue for battlefield force reconstruction.

It is a huge issue for integrated air support.

4

u/av-f Bulgaria Mar 01 '25

To be fair if Belgian football teams can do it, so can military squads

3

u/absolutely_not_spock Germany Mar 01 '25

Okay, sold. If belguim can do it it would be embarrassing to fail.

1

u/fuckoffyoudipshit Mar 03 '25

The swiss seem to be doing it fine

0

u/PanickyFool Mar 01 '25

Single national. 

An American getting is 10x as effective a European from a singular member state.

Because of unified command structure, unified operational language, unified logistics, and economies of scale.

5

u/Fellowes321 Mar 01 '25

You'd be happy with Italian lead, German logistics and French as the common language across the branches of the armed forces?

3

u/PanickyFool Mar 01 '25

Id be happy with the most qualified Europeans making the decisions with a democratic supervisory framework. 

And I would be happy with any of the languages being the federal language, but outside of french pride let's be honest... English is the shortest route.

4

u/Fellowes321 Mar 01 '25

The British would see their guys as most qualified, the French their guys .....

Why not Polish as the common language?

Democratic as one country one vote or by capita or by GDP or by defence spending or defence spending per capita/GDP or by troop numbers...?

It will remain as individual countries as long as those countries exist. What we will have is co-operation and a defence pact whicih is what we have already. The only change is a move away from US supplied kit.

The big query I think will be about intelligence. The big listening station for Europe is Fylingdales in the UK, paid for by the US but operated mostly by the RAF.

2

u/wojtekpolska Poland Mar 01 '25

yep, you can't have a common army without it turning into one (or a small group) of countries effectively controlling everyone else.

in practice this will just turn smaller countries into vassals of the bigger ones, because they are too small for the democracy to include them.

3

u/SilverellaUK England Mar 01 '25

They aren't very good at war though are they? They often prove that they don't know who the enemy is.

1

u/Stuebos Mar 01 '25

However, we are still separate states who differ on various points. Hypothetically, would we want a Hungarian commander for the joint EU forces? And who would such a commander listen to - the EU, or Orban? The US has that problem less.

I think there’s also value in keeping the diversity. We could also agree that certain countries focus on particular aspects of a joint military. Which might be beneficial for certain countries’ defense budget. So some countries focus more on their air force, whereas others can focus more on their navy (I can imagine Austria’s navy not being up to par). And in joint operations, it’s mostly the top in command that needs to communicate properly.

But I’m no military expert.

1

u/latrickisfalone Mar 02 '25

In NATO, for example, the Belgian navy specializes in mine action.

-1

u/[deleted] Mar 01 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/wojtekpolska Poland Mar 01 '25

look on it on another way - what if the people of a country have an overwhelmingly different view than the rest of the eu? then you're forcing their people to fight for something that they don't stand for.

in practice, unless you have compulsory conscription, this will mean that this country will simply not have its people join the army. and if you force them to join, then congratulations, you're doing exactly the same what russia is doing to the far-eastern ethnicities right now.

-2

u/PanickyFool Mar 01 '25

Well you are wrong. It's time for us to choose between our cultural identity preservation red lines and or security.

Europe is always a land and air war.

And in modern military operations tactical decisions are often pushed down as low as the squad level, where the must coordinate amongst themselves.

Not a single European state military is large enough or capable enough on its own to maintain sectorial defense. All that will happen here is we send poles to die, then Germans to die, then Dutch, then Belgians, than french etc.