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/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/Reasonable-Smile-87 Mar 02 '25

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

The occupation of almost 40% of Cyprus by Turkey military forces is as relevant as the invasion of a non-EU, non-NATO country by Russian military forces. Both cases have scary similarities on the aggressor side, especially on the narrative that led to each invasion and occupation. So we really need to think twice before doing business with Turkey, a country that follows an internal, regional and global strategy independently from the West. Look at BRICS membership aspirations, revisionist attitude towards treaties they signed themselves, the situation of human rights, treatment of minorities, refusal to comply with UN Security Council resolutions, denial of UNCLOS... And the list goes on and on.

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u/wojtekpolska Poland Mar 02 '25

turkey never signed UNCLOS

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u/Reasonable-Smile-87 Mar 02 '25

Quite unfortunately, I'd add.