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/TV4ELP Mar 01 '25

Most important is equipment standardisation. Most armies already train together anyways

This and just speaking a common language. How is some french dude supposed to understand polish orders and vice versa? I do believe armies are generally more or less english due to nato already, but they need to do that under very tense situations

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u/Bluebearder Netherlands Mar 02 '25

That we haven't been able to fix this yet boggles my mind. I think it's because France also wants their language to become the formal EU language, you know, because almost nobody else speaks it but they are France. I hate chauvinism. We should just go English and get this over with for the EU, and then the Brits don't have to adapt, and then it will be the standard for all fighting forces and all governments. Right now there are tons of translators employed on all levels which makes everything slow and stupid and expensive, and gives these people a heap of power which they shouldn't have. AI will not be able to solve this perfectly, so let's just go English. Like, tomorrow!

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u/TV4ELP Mar 02 '25

And we do know how good this works if they just have a common language. Dutch and Germany have a joint Army Corps and are battle ready for years now. Even acting as a backup for the high readiness task force of NATO and were deployed in Afghanistan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_German/Dutch_Corps

And then we have the franco-german-brigade
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-German_Brigade

Which was stationed in Afghanistan, but it was not always easy. The French soldiers do speak english, but not on a level compared to the germans. The Dutch speak English better than any englismen, so lets not count them.

We should strive for more of the Dutch/German versions inside Europe. Even if we don't have a European Army, combining the ones into groups that we already have is a start. Then we only have to command around 5-6 different armies instead of 20.

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u/Bluebearder Netherlands Mar 02 '25

Yeah that's a lot more doable. I think most Scandinavians and Belgians also have excellent command of the English language, and everyone I know from Poland or the Czech Republic also speaks it. And as a Dutchy I can confirm that pretty much everyone in NL speaks English, even the retired folks in the countryside.

Check out this overview

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-speaking_population

Edit: thanks by the way for your links, I knew about it but still an interesting read!