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Comment by thatjoeoverthr | Hacker News Reader

EU army is scope creep and redundant. The EU does not need to be a military organization.

So you want the EU to be a US satellite for ever?

There is no sovereignty without some ability to defend oneself on ones own. And personally, I think a major problem with the EU is too much intergovernmentalism, and not enough direct EU parliament power. Putting a military under their control can help that.

"We don't need a Military" is the same happy go lucky thinking as "we'll just close all the nukes, do more renewables, and worry about storage later". It's just blatantly irresponsible, and undermines genuinely good things (less war, more renewables) into mere virtue signalling.

Lets be honest, the US is much more proactive at defending.

Look at Germany, how reluctant was to even start doing sanctions or distribute arms. The eastern countries see this, and they just don't trust Germany will have their back. Same with France or Spain or Italy.

Also, the Bosnia war/genocide, and the late intervention is a clear failure of European policy. The US had to step in to make it stop. Same during the Kosova ethnic cleansing.

The Eastern Block members know their only single reliable partner is the US and not the other large EU members who are always late to do anything.

>not enough direct EU parliament power

EU is economic union and should stay as such

Why?

Because for army issues we have NATO already and keep in mind that positions in EU parliament are chosen and voted for by politicians only, not by people.

So in the end this army would be used 90% to stop protests against EU in countries, losing their sovereignty in the process

I think you're conflating Russia, where protest is literally a crime, and Europe, where protest is a vital component of functioning representative democracy.

In fact, there's a protest going on right now in my city over mental health care.

What makes you think that it wouldn't be the same if we had European army? You may have high trust in EU if you are from France, Germany or Belgium.

But as somebody from V4, I don't feel that we have big enough representation there to trust them with "EU army".

What's V4 ?

visegrad group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visegr%C3%A1d_Group

"positions in EU parliament are chosen and voted for by politicians only"

100% wrong.

Elections to the European Parliament take place every five years by universal adult suffrage, and with more than 400 million people eligible to vote, they are considered the second largest democratic elections in the world after India's.

Nobody wrote “we don’t need a military”, so I don’t know why it’s in quotes. That last paragraph is really strange behavior.

Anyway, every country in the EU has a military, and many are in a defensive pact called NATO. Two NATO countries in Europe are nuclear armed. Russia would have no hope of touching us. This seems fine to me.

That's a disingenuous argument: yes 'defeated' countries like Germany mainly are US 'influenced'[I would not use the term satellite: It's not exactly a situation like Russia & Transnistria technically speaking] but the rest of the continent does not have this kind of relationship but a more 'grateful one'.The EU became a bureaucratic nightmare as soon as it started shifting from an economical union and added more attributions to it.NATO exists, even more importantly than that: sovereign nations exist(by the way this is not a legitimate argument for saying "This is how Putin is getting away with it". Europe has shown repeatedly that it can quickly mobilize against a real common enemy).Centralizing power is the mistake we keep repeating in Europe for thousands of years and it never works, because obviously power corrupts and some will be greedy and overstep.

An EU army is the worst idea i've heard and the biggest counter-argument of being pro-EU.You talk like we don't have armies: we do, and strengthening them is the priority instead of creating more super-national entities which will have no effect pragmatically speaking, and a lot of overhead in terms of wasted money.It will open loopholes where people who hold more power at an EU-level will abuse the army for doing their bidding.As a matter of fact, EU can demand nation-states to do economic & regulatory measures between countries as long as nation states continue with their membership,but it does not have any power over sovereign states in most matters, especially military & security-wise.

The EU was intended to evolve towards being a country. I don't know if that's a good idea, but an EU army is not scope creep. The central goal of the EU was to not have more wars in Europe, so it's well-aligned with the founding goal.

My own opinion is that the EU should handle economic, military, and foreign policy issues. It should have centralized funding for common goods like research and environmental issues, but not to the exclusion of local funding. It should have a minimum bar for local democratic governance, but it shouldn't be very high. It should stay away from social issues, which are best handled locally.

Scope of the EU is a valid area for debate. The above is my opinion. You're welcome to argue your own, but perhaps with logic, rather than as "scope creep."

I would prefer if we had at least 1 rifle per civilian like US.

I fear EU politicians that lobby for billioneres to make EU authoritarian China like than I fear China or nearby countries.

At least in US they can vote with bullets if things go off.

...no organization can be a truly independent organization unless it becomes a military organization.

Unless capable and able to autonomously decide to use lethal force against anyone threatening you freedom, you're not really free.

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