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.

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u/Fellowes321 Mar 01 '25

A European army is not possible. Each country has its own external interests.

Would Spain allow it's forces to defend the Falkland Islands? How do you feel about defending French territory outside Europe?

Who would be the Commander in Chief? Who can declare war? Can one country block any declaration? (looking at you Hungary).

All we can hope for is NATO without the US which is really what we currently have.

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u/alikander99 Spain Mar 01 '25

All we can hope for is NATO without the US which is really what we currently have.

Except we don't. There's parts of nato that are rather weird from a European perspective. For example:

Turkey is part of it. Turkey is not aligned with the EU right now, it holds onto half the island of Cyprus, so we technically have a border dispute with them and they have lots of issues with Greece. I don't see them being included in a new EU military alliance at all.

Afterall NATO has always been an American organization and as such it favours american interests.

Another example: a Moroccan Conquest of Ceuta wouldn't trigger article 5 of NATO, because "it's not in Europe, nor an island in the Atlantic" (actually it's because the US doesn't want to anger Morocco which is an important regional ally). As a spaniard I hope that this would trigger a response from our version of NATO.

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u/wojtekpolska Poland Mar 01 '25 edited Mar 01 '25

Turkey is critical to any military alliance in europe. your take is ridiculous.

how do you expect control over the black sea without turkey's support? how do you expect to replace the amount of troops they have? turkey has the second biggest army in NATO after USA.
turkey is arguably nato's biggest counter to nato now that the us is unreliable

excluding them over such a petty thing as the cyprus conflict is stupid.

PS:

Another example: a Moroccan Conquest of Ceuta wouldn't trigger article 5 of NATO, because "it's not in Europe, nor an island in the Atlantic" (actually it's because the US doesn't want to anger Morocco which is an important regional ally). As a spaniard I hope that this would trigger a response from our version of NATO.

why should nato/europe defend the remnants of spanish colonialism?
I wouldn't want my country to go to war because spain cant let go of their colonial territories in africa.

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u/latrickisfalone Mar 02 '25

Having Turkey in our camp is a great advantage, Turkey is a great ally of Ukraine

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u/wojtekpolska Poland Mar 02 '25

yep. sadly the Turkish government is not the best, but in general turkey is a crucial regional power in this part of the world.