Fall of Afghanistan may accelerate EU serious military creation

The US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan last month was a major wake-up call to leaders, ministers and policymakers in Europe.

it also exposed Europe's own fecklessness, for even if European governments wanted to remain in Afghanistan after US forces departed, they simply couldn't.

NATO itself, the so-called greatest alliance in the world, is almost totally dependent on the United States for its operations. It's not beyond the pale to question whether NATO would survive without the assets, attention and diplomatic heft the US provides.

It's clear some European officials recognize the gravity of the situation. Talk of the EU developing its own military capacity, separate and apart from the United States, was making waves throughout the continent long before the US drawdown from Afghanistan. The talk, though, has accelerated since that drawdown went into effect. ​

Afghanistan Should Serve as a Wake-Up Call to Europe | Opinion (newsweek.com)

The EU might have to be starting to allocate a whole lot more of its revenue on serious defense and military spending.
This will probably have implications for other social programs EU governments can afford to fund.

Under the Presidency of Trump, the US was already pushing the EU to start spending more on military expenditures so the US could cut back and spend less. But it seems Biden has ironically succeeded far more at getting the EU to do this, now that countries around the world are not sure the US can be relied upon.

 

@ wake-up call

I hope so!

 

Even after he’s out of office Trump is still screwing up US foreign policy. Strictly speaking the US doesn’t really wanted a unified EU military to compete with their interests. The EU is politically, socially, economically and soon to be militarily more powerful than the US. Good job Trump. Now I personally welcome our new EU overlords because they will give me free healthcare and lord knows that’s more efficient than what we have now.

 

That is very optimistic - in my eyes!

 

It is but at the same time it makes sense. The EUs economy is larger than the USs. Politically they have more rights than the US. And if they have a military they can launch wars of distraction. With what’s happening thanks to Russia they’re going to be more scared and unified then ever before. Give it a generation and people will be thinking of themselves as Europeans first, and not their nation state identity.

 

That was the idea in the beginning of the EU.
Or the "Common Market" or the EEC as it was once called.

 

In part yeah as the ECSC was formed. But back then it was just to stop France and Germany from fighting again. So the common market was centered on war. It’s only relatively recently with the Copenhagen criteria that political rights have been enshrined.

 

With Biden's cowardly runaway from Afghanistan, Europe isn't so sure about America's commitment to NATO. Add in America's failure to defend Ukraine as it promised to do in the Budapest Memorandum (in return for Ukraine giving up its nukes) and very few countries feel they can trust the USA anymore.

 

The UK constantly blocked the EU council vote on whether to pursue an EU Army while the UK was having a melt down about whether the EU affected its sovereignty or not. and whether the EU was becoming a "country".
I spent five or so years in another forum warning about Russia being so close and such a menace but of course the Brexit steamroller drowned me out.
Now the UK is out of the EU, the EU can get on and protect itself. Much of its creation is already done, because it relies on national armies to coordinate. Coordination and legal process doesn't take that much money.
While I of course supported NATO, I began to worry that it wasn't in practise equally controlled. and I would have preferred if the "defensive" element had been scrapped and allowed an "offensive" element to be allowed.
But it is too late now for this time. I hope it isn't too late for the next time.

 

Well, theoretically. Many critics of the EU would disagree.

True, but you do realise it would not have been impossible for the EU to coordinate an army amongst its members outside of the UK. The UK wouldn't have blocked it if the UK didn't have to pay the additional money for it.

 

The potential army required a unanimous vote in the EU Council, one of the few things which do.
The issue wasn't money. It was the UK obsession with sovereignty, constantly pushed by Bozo and Farage which constantly suggested the eu's secret plan was to become a country, even if NONE of the other members wanted it.
The UK thought other countries were stupid and ready to surrender their own sovereignty but in truth never understood the idea of a voluntary alliance.
But this is a huge "other" subject and doesn't belong here.

 

Why do you think the UK would vote against and block an EU army if it didn't cost the UK any money? Isn't it theoretically possible those other EU countries could have gone around and outside the EU framework and still organized a unified army, even without the legal stamp of approval from the EU?

I'm not saying your argument has nothing to it, but I am saying it's a weaker argument than it appears on the surface, because there did exist other ways around this that would not require UK approval. (Though it would be a bit more politically difficult and less convenient) Maybe it just didn't fit into the cookie-cutter mold of the "EU" institutions, and you think no one in any of these countries had the initiative to that, that only the EU can do anything to organize cooperation like that. Why not, for example, the French being willing to hand over some of their forces to put them under the command of the Germans, during time of emergency? (Well we all know the answer to that)

 

Creating an army demands the approval of each country.
Who is going to coordinate it if not through the democratic structure of the EU?
I would therefore ask you, if not the EU, who?

 

Each country that wants to take part in the creation of such an army.

Are you seriously claiming it is impossible to coordinate such a joint venture if it does not take place through the already established structure of the EU?

 

Yes.