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Comment by catchclose8919 | Hacker News Reader

Let's stop beating the bush and say it as it is: there's no "real" EU without an EU Army!

...regardless of what the US does or doesn't do. NATO serves a different purpose.

If we ever want to get close to the dream of an European Federation we need to get the Army done. Then maybe some EU equivalent of the FBI (no Interpol doesn't cut it, something with trained men with guns and bugs and all, and EU only).

Even a possible future improvement of the relationships between Europe and Russia is contingent on this: we need to be able to talk with Russia without the US sitting at the table, and to have the option to also act against the interests of the US. Which, frankly, don't really coincide that much with that of Europe anymore.

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>If we ever want to get close to the dream of an European Federation we need to get the Army done.

If we want an EU army, we need a single EU foreign policy first. Otherwise who decides when to use it?

And if we have a single EU foreign policy, how do we deal with NATO? Do state that are non-aligned just have to suck it up? How do we deal with France's military adventures in Africa? Do the countries that object to them have to suck it up and Françafrique quickly collapse? What's the EU position on the Carlingford Lough Dispute? Is Imia in Greece, or not?

> Then maybe some EU equivalent of the FBI (no Interpol doesn't cut it, something with trained men with guns and bugs and all, and EU only).

This bit is ongoing; The European Public Prosecutor is the first step in this, and frontex are already armed. Note that despite the EU having armed forces, the oversight mechanisms for them are, so far, atrocious. Perhaps we should fix those before expanding to an army?

> Even a possible future improvement of the relationships between Europe and Russia is contingent on this: we need to be able to talk with Russia without the US sitting at the table, and to have the option to also act against the interests of the US. Which, frankly, don't really coincide that much with that of Europe anymore.

Do you have a course of action that you think we should be pursuing that we cannot currently? I can't think of one, but it may exist. And if you do, is it one that would command support in all EU states, or is the first step getting foreign policy to move to QMV? And if that's the case, how do you plan to win a referendum in Ireland to (effectively) abolish Irish neutrality?

Yes NATO should be a bilateral treaty between the EU and US, if should exist at all.

> The oversight mechanisms for them are, so far, atrocious. Perhaps we should fix those before expanding to an army?

All the stuff you talk about should be coupled with EU parliament > inter-governmentalism, and then the answers should be clear.

To address all/most concerns at once: you kind of need to put the cart before the horse on this one... once an army exists, people will have to come to an agreement on using it.

And on the EU/Russia/US thing, I think the "goal" should be of "maximizing the possibilities for future actions", no actual goal in particular should be pursued.

And mindset wise, I think we should try and rid ourselves of this quasi-hyper-rationalist analysis-paralysis inducing mindset where one needs to answer a zillion questions before being allowed to do anything... Sometimes where you have high uncertainty in all directions the best thing to do is just ACT as long as you can guess around the overall direction of action, and let some of the consequences handle themselves. Action will generate more information, and hopefully that information will de-balance the probabilities and future decisions will be obvious once some of the fog clears. If you just "sit and think" entropy just increases around you, things fall apart more and more, the information you get is even more murkier and require even more analysis and discussion and negotiation and you just get paralyzed and decompose...

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