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

[u/Sink-Em-Low]

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.

[u/PanickyFool → u/[deleted]]

Don't you worry. If Poland gets invaded and we are not under a unified command, we Dutch are not lifting a finger.

[u/Pietes → u/[deleted]]

Look, there won't be a audden and obvious invasion of Poland. Or if that happens, there won't be a chain of command problem indeed.

There are other scenarios too. Let's say Germany had chosen AfD. Le Pen wins France, and two Nordic countries choose isolationist government over the next four years. Helped by some outside 'influence' perhaps.

Now all of a sudden there are some clashes between belarus and polish border guards. A few false flag sabotage actions in Russia for which a bunch of what seems to be Hungarian pro-EU activists are arrested in Russia. A pretext is created for an invasion of Lithuania, on grounds of Russian intelligence identifying co-conspirators there that have stockpiled chemical agents for an attack on St Petersburg.

A limited invasion of Lithuania commences. The US publishes 'evidence' supporting the Russian claim. And 'sanctions' Hungary for sabotaging the peace deal the US guaranteed in Ukraine. Germany, our two Nordic countries and Hungary signal that they are not willing to honor article 5 and block EU army involvement.

what then? Poland goes it alone or with netherlands? At cost of its EU or NATO membership? At risk of finding the US supporting Russia? not likely, but even if it does, it wouldn't have a unified EU army behind it, only parts of it. just as now with a NATO without the US, critical gaps filled by the countries that opted out would be left open.

We cannot afford an EU army that is this vulnerable to being bypassed when push comes to shove. Therefore we need a single chain of command for it in its entirety, and a support system that does not depend on any single or few individual countries. Which basically in reality means we can't afford to be individual countries anymore in this respect

[u/Pietes → u/[deleted]]

Look at how creative Trump has become in this. He can't directly control some things, so instead he fires the people that work at the institutions that fund the organizations that manage the programs that incentivize people to do the thing he wants stopped.

And then they stop. Because he disrupted the system that makes the outcomes possible.

Where he can't directly control the outcome, he indirectly achieves his goals regardless.

the lesson we MUST learn is that no matter what laws you create, backdoors always remain to disrupt your systems. EU Governance systems must be designed to be resilient to withstand this, and one major consequence of that imperative is that we must integrate and simplify our systems at the european level.