The EU wants its own military.

[Intrepid00]

Why do I get the felling its going to be done in the most ****ed up way ever?

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...t_031017145805

[Bunga]

Because only Britain, France and Germany want it in the first place?

[Proteus]

Because it's the EU?

In April, on the heels of deep divisions with Washington over war in Iraq, France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg laid out plans for a separate EU military headquarters to run military operations independent of NATO.

Britain at first opposed the plan. But after meeting last month with French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, Blair appeared to favor some form of closer EU defense cooperation in return for the others dropping the idea of a new building.

Erm, this is our foreign policy?

We object to an EU army, but will agree to it if it doesn't have a new building?

Is Blair on drugs or something?

[Super]

I wouldn't worry, it's not like they'll actually use it. Ever.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Proteus

Erm, this is our foreign policy?

We object to an EU army, but will agree to it if it doesn't have a new building?

Is Blair on drugs or something?

You've got to love his great diplomatic skills.

It's brilliant how they do this though. It's all so half-assed.





PS Netherlands, belgium, spain and italy all support the idea of the EU army.

[Bunga]

Italy don't count cause they have Berlusconi and his successor would never agree with him on anything. I forgot about Spain, I admit. And the entire Benelux area doesn't count because they don't have a single hill in their name.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Bunga

Italy don't count cause they have Berlusconi and his successor would never agree with him on anything. I forgot about Spain, I admit. And the entire Benelux area doesn't count because they don't have a single hill in their name.

What makes you think berlusconi will have a successor heh.





PS I'd say some of the new arrival eastern european countries will support the concept as well.

[Proteus]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

PS I'd say some of the new arrival eastern european countries will support the concept as well.

Well it's hardly surprising, is it?

Most countries in Europe would leap at the chance to have access to the UK's military.

[Intrepid00]

Originally Posted by idimmu

I see no reason to oppose this.

We need something that can stand up against America.

Then maybe you should drop the French from this EU.

[Intrepid00]

Originally Posted by idimmu

P.S. the Danish Marines are pretty :coal:

Why? Can't say I ever heard of the Danish Marines going in to some hostile area and kicking ass.

[Bunga]

The Swedish Kustjägare are better.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Proteus

Well it's hardly surprising, is it?

Most countries in Europe would leap at the chance to have access to the UK's military.

I didn't say it was surprising. As a matter of fact I found it so unsurprising I mentioned it without any real bakcground research at all............





PS What's wrong with the french and the EU?





PPS Did anyone else hear that at the most recent EU meeting Chirac spoke for both the french and the germans?

[Intrepid00]

You know, that has to be spelled wrong Bunga. I typed that into the Google image browser to see if they are who I think they are and not a single picture came up.

[Bunga]

Didn't you know? Chriac is Schröder's alter-ego. They are really the same person.

...I get ten pages of hits in google.

Kustjägare

[Intrepid00]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

PS What's wrong with the french and the EU?

Does "We Surrender" Sound familar or speak your mind and you can't join the EU?

[Proteus]

Originally Posted by idimmu

I see no reason to oppose this.

We need something that can stand up against America.

I see no reason to stand up against America unless they are threatening us, which clearly they aren't, what with us being allies and all.

The whole thing looks to me like an ego-trip for the French and Germans who want to feel like world powers, and they only way they can do that is by challenging the supremacy of the US.

Why we'd want to get involved in such nonsense is beyond me...

[Intrepid00]

Of course, some of the French Foreign Legion during WWII had a lot of American Soldiers in them.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Intrepid00

Does "We Surrender" Sound familar?

Don't tell me you actually believe that horrendous load of ****ing tripe that idiots offer up for a foreign policy?

[Intrepid00]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

Don't tell me you actually believe that horrendous load of ****ing tripe that idiots offer up for a foreign policy?

Of course not, I do think they are border line communist though.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Intrepid00

Of course not, I do think they are border line communist though.

:up:


I was worrying I'd given you too much credit for a bit there though :(

[Intrepid00]

Originally Posted by idimmu

Their is an oil field within 5 miles of my parents house.

We are on America's list!

We have 500+ years of coal supply which can easily be turned into fuel (the Germans did it during WWII). Not to mention a large untapped oil fields in Alaska that where set aside for furture use that the wacky Enviromist think was set aside for the stupid wildlife that is far from flourishing.

The only reason I see us wanting it is to eat the words supply of energy in the world, causing us to have all the coal and natural gas and largely untapped oil fields. Making us the richest. What an evil plan

[Proteus]

Originally Posted by Intrepid00

The only reason I see us wanting it is to eat the words supply of energy in the world, causing us to have all the coal and natural gas and largely untapped oil fields. Making us the richest. What an evil plan

It's also a stupid plan because if you did that everyone would gang up on you and steal it.

[Bunga]

People have been saying "We only have 50 years left" for the past 50 years. But this time I actually think they are right. Especially since China is gonna start wanting some of it soon. I think if we don't have cheap renewable sources of energy within the next fifty or sixty years, we might as well not bother.

I hope I'm wrong though.

[Intrepid00]

Originally Posted by idimmu

I thought it was only 50 years until we run out of fossil fuels? Or have those hippies been lieing to me again?

Yes, first of all that is just for oils and its more like 85-90. Nothing for us to really worry about, but like I said the US has plenty of coal and N. America has the largest supply of Natural Gas.

As for running out, I am not worried. Most thinks are born out of need and I have faith Science will find a solution. If not, we will proably run out when I am dead.

[JonnyBGood]

Lowest end estimates proposed that we'd run out of oil in 2065, that was in the 1970s. Since then the imagined oil usage increases have not occured and there's probably another fifty years on there.

[Intrepid00]

That is MM territory idimmu.

[Cmdr_Cyrax]

We can't have the egyptians invading now can we?

[Luckeh!!!!]

an EU led militiary power would be the ultimate suckage

[pablissimo]

The EU was meant to be about economics. Trade and the like.

They're trying to expand beyond their own mandate. Which is silly given just to launch any military action with this 'army' would require wading through so much red tape that the yanks would have flown in, won, played jazz and abandoned the place before it got round to being 'discussed'

[Azof]

My first thought when I heard about the EU was the Articles of Confederation. (Orginal US Government was formed by a fundamentally weak central power... the states bickered with each other until the federal government was strong enough to tell them to shut up)

If certain European countries feel they need to do this so they can feel all powerful, they are certainly welcome to, but I think it's ridiculous to waste money building an European army when the idiot leading the Americans right now is obsessed with the military. (This is where wu_trax says that the US is going to invade Europe)

What the EU going to use a military for exactly? Since Frande and Germany seem to be dominant powers in the EU, and they both are following a rather.... passive in action, active in talking.... foreign policy, it suprises me that this is something they are pushing. I doubt anything useful would be done with this new army except giving school boys something cool to aspire to be for two years. How many *USEFUL* things has the US Military done since the fall of the Soviet Union. The persian gulf war is possibly the only useful thing, though we hardly needed a division to win that war. The main thing the US military is is a deterrant against future wars... and I doubt people will start looking at the EU Army as any type of deterrant.

In the end, I have to agree that this is just a few countries wanting to feel more powerful than they are, and the others agreeing.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Azof

What the EU going to use a military for exactly? Since Frande and Germany seem to be dominant powers in the EU, and they both are following a rather.... passive in action, active in talking.... foreign policy, it suprises me that this is something they are pushing. I doubt anything useful would be done with this new army except giving school boys something cool to aspire to be for two years. How many *USEFUL* things has the US Military done since the fall of the Soviet Union. The persian gulf war is possibly the only useful thing, though we hardly needed a division to win that war. The main thing the US military is is a deterrant against future wars... and I doubt people will start looking at the EU Army as any type of deterrant.

In the end, I have to agree that this is just a few countries wanting to feel more powerful than they are, and the others agreeing.

So we shouldn't build an army until we need and want to use it by which time it'll probably be too late? That's not exactly brilliant reasoning. This is an attempt by Europe to show the US that they have the means, the power and the will to follow their convictions. What people have to face is that we live in a different world. A world where the number of men you can summon and the tanks you put in the field matters far less than the passion and the fervour with which you fight for what you believe in. You can't hit an enemy you can't find and you can't kill an enemy you can't see. Personally I feel the next decade will be a decisive moment in the history of humanity. We have the capacity to extinguish all life on this planet, we have people who have shown they don't care about the beliefs and opinions of others and we have leaders who cannot recognise the changes in the world around them. This is essentially a contest between the sides of man's nature. Not to be overly melodramatic but a million years of history has been leading up to this moment. Ladies and gentlemen, I propose to you that we live in interesting times.




PS After the first three sentences that's my conclusion from my final year debate!

[Azof]

And how will having tanks and planes help fight enemies you

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

You can't hit an enemy you can't find and you can't kill an enemy you can't see.

Believe me, I'm all for Europe to challenge the US so we can finally get a decent president, however, I don't see how a military like this will help.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Azof

And how will having tanks and planes help fight enemies you

Believe me, I'm all for Europe to challenge the US so we can finally get a decent president, however, I don't see how a military like this will help.

I think what they're actually establishing is the EU rapid reaction force which will respond quickly to developing situations around the world which would be helpful in a geo-political context (i just chucked that in to sound clever ).

[Scoot951]

Originally Posted by Bunga

People have been saying "We only have 50 years left" for the past 50 years. But this time I actually think they are right. Especially since China is gonna start wanting some of it soon. I think if we don't have cheap renewable sources of energy within the next fifty or sixty years, we might as well not bother.

I hope I'm wrong though.

Now they've found a way to turn pretty much anything (chicken gibs, raw sewage, computers) into oil artifically. I think it was on /. a few weeks ago, apparently you can dump anything you want in one end, and out the other comes water, oil, and fertilzer/minerals. The quality wasn't enough for gasoline, say, but for heating homes it was perfect, and we'd be able to make enough to actually cover our own uses and then export a big chunk as well. That combined with constantly finding new wells, 'dry' wells being found full again, etc, we could easily have centuries worth left.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Scoot951

we could easily have centuries worth left.

Maybe yeah, but I'd rather not bet the future of human industrial civilisation on getting lucky with some oil wells not running out.

[ParraCida]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

Personally I feel the next decade will be a decisive moment in the history of humanity. We have the capacity to extinguish all life on this planet, we have people who have shown they don't care about the beliefs and opinions of others and we have leaders who cannot recognise the changes in the world around them. This is essentially a contest between the sides of man's nature. Not to be overly melodramatic but a million years of history has been leading up to this moment. Ladies and gentlemen, I propose to you that we live in interesting times.

And in ten years, a million and ten years of history will have been leading up to that moment, what's your point? Will this century prove important in the developpement of humanity? Not anymore than any other century were people said exactly the same at the start of it. If anything, we have survived the hardest part already with the cold war and all.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by ParraCida

And in ten years, a million and ten years of history will have been leading up to that moment, what's your point? Will this century prove important in the developpement of humanity? Not anymore than any other century were people said exactly the same at the start of it. If anything, we have survived the hardest part already with the cold war and all.

My point was that the next few years will be pivotal. The cold war was a total misnomer, nobody in power on either side was that stupid as to believe that a nuclear war was winnable. If anything those in power in the USSR had more to lose than the US. Humanity is outgrowing it's ability to deal with the hardships it causes.



PS I'll come back in ten years and post some empirical evidence!

[wu_trax]

Originally Posted by idimmu

I see no reason to oppose this.

We need something that can stand up against America.

exactly, europe needs its independece and that includes a military, no matter what kind of pracifist (i hope thats the right word) hippies live around here.
you cant promote your own policy all the time and then ask the us for help once things become a little problematic (see yugoslavia, whatever one might think about the war, i already heared some theories that germany organized the whole war in the first place )

PS yes, chirac spoke for germany and france. personally i think it was a nice gesture, more symbolic than anything else. there wasnt anything important to decide anyway and both schröder and fischer had to be at the parliament on friday.

[Intrepid00]

Chirac is a ****.

[wu_trax]

Originally Posted by pablissimo

The EU was meant to be about economics. Trade and the like.

They're trying to expand beyond their own mandate. Which is silly given just to launch any military action with this 'army' would require wading through so much red tape that the yanks would have flown in, won, played jazz and abandoned the place before it got round to being 'discussed'

noone ever saw it as only an economical union. it was always planed as something to integrate all european countries into one organizations, on all aspects.
and having 10-25 independent countries into one union it means to make compromisses. we wouldnt have ANYTHING AT ALL without these compromisses. if this means some red tape then so be it.

[Proteus]

Originally Posted by wu_trax

noone ever saw it as only an economical union. it was always planed as something to integrate all european countries into one organizations, on all aspects.
and having 10-25 independent countries into one union it means to make compromisses. we wouldnt have ANYTHING AT ALL without these compromisses. if this means some red tape then so be it.

We joined it as an economic union.

If it tries to become a superstate, we'll veto everything it does or leave.

[wu_trax]

Originally Posted by Proteus

We joined it as an economic union.

If it tries to become a superstate, we'll veto everything it does or leave.

everyone knew it would become more than an economical union. it has been growing ever since the first contracts were signed.

[Proteus]

Originally Posted by wu_trax

everyone knew it would become more than an economical union. it has been growing ever since the first contracts were signed.

Which is why we will eventually leave.

And Blair will veto all the superstate nonsense from the Constitution.

[Insane. Badger]

Originally Posted by Proteus

Which is why we will eventually leave.

And Blair will veto all the superstate nonsense from the Constitution.

No he won't.

[Proteus]

Originally Posted by Insane. Badger

No he won't.

He knows that if he doesn't he'll be crucified by the media and Parliament.

[wu_trax]

Originally Posted by Proteus

Which is why we will eventually leave.

And Blair will veto all the superstate nonsense from the Constitution.

i seriously doubt that either of that will happen.
if you leave youd be completly left out in europe. if you dont want the constitution you wont have any influence on it, will be left out and complain in 20 years that things are not like you wanted them, just as it is the usual attidude of most brits right now concerning the eu.

[Insane. Badger]

Originally Posted by Proteus

He knows that if he doesn't he'll be crucified by the media and Parliament.

Didn't stop him over Iraq, why would it stop him over Europe?

[Intrepid00]

Cause he hates the French?

[Insane. Badger]

Originally Posted by Intrepid00

Cause he hates the French?

He loves europe though

[Intrepid00]

Yes, but the common haterd of the French can be pretty over powering.