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France's Macron Calls for Creating a 'European Army'
French President Emmanuel Macron called for the creation of a "true European army," issuing a sharp critique of trans-Atlantic security ties days before U.S. President Trump is due to visit France.
Europe's security ties with the U.S., which have been a bedrock of the continent's stability for decades, have come under strain as Mr. Trump has demanded more military spending from European members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and questioned the alliance's benefits for the U.S. Such tensions have led Mr. Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to publicly question whether the continent can still rely on the U.S. to come to Europe's defense.
Mr. Macron went a step further by grouping the U.S. among foreign powers he considers a potential threat to the continent. "We have to protect ourselves with respect to China, Russia and even the United States of America," Mr. Macron said on French radio.
Mr. Macron made the remarks as part of a weeklong tour of World War I battlefields ahead of the centenary of the Nov. 11 Armistice, when the French leader is due to host Mr. Trump, Vladimir Putin of Russia and many other heads of state.
Also at Newsweek.
Emmanuel Macron: Six held in 'attack' plot against French president
Six people have been arrested in France on suspicion of planning to carry out a "violent" attack on President Emmanuel Macron, officials say. The individuals, reported to be five men and a woman, were picked up by the French security services in Brittany, north-east and south-east France.
An investigation is now taking place into a "criminal terrorist association", a judicial source said. Details of the suspects and the alleged plot have not yet been released.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by looorg on Wednesday November 07 2018, @02:18PM (3 children)
This is so odd and unrealistic it's hard to tell what the point of the proposal would even be.
First of all most of the EU members are already in NATO, but apparently that isn't good enough. Instead there should be the creation of a new layer by form a single EU army. While a lot of the individual nations already follow similar rules and have similar training, all following the various NATO standards, this works because they are also still distinct and different. Not every NATO member have to take part in every action, unless it's an article 5 action and even then it's a bit unclear what that would actually entail since it really hasn't happened yet since that would more or less be WW3. It's all fine to have common goals under various missions but I seriously doubt you would want the "ONE TRUE ARMY", there is going to be massive cultural clashes and issues due to the inherent differences between the nations. I can imagine just a few issues without much contemplation -- the Turkey - Greece - Cyprus issue, the various Balkan nations in and out of EU that are also in and out of NATO .
There are reasons why the SACEUR is always an American (so far) and they are alternating the deputy post between British and German hands (even tho it has been very British the last few times, or is it the overall structure here that is perhaps why the French are upset? Nobody wants French leadership -- after all they already left the NATO command structure once cause they had issues with the Anglo-Saxon dominance).
Just look at the EU parliament they can't even agree on shit and that is just civilian shit -- now imagine those same representatives being in charge of the foundation of the True European Army (the nazi-jokes and references are going to write themselves).
Perhaps they should create that ONE EU state first instead of an army, unless that is why he wants to army so he can create the single unified European state (good luck with that, cause that is just not going to happen -- east vs west, north vs south etc can't agree on squat).
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @05:36PM (2 children)
The unspoken, but real, point of having an "EU army" is not to complement NATO, but to get rid of it. This is a proposal to get the US out of Europe. As an American, I support the proposal wholeheartedly.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Wednesday November 07 2018, @08:48PM (1 child)
I'm somewhat less certain you should be happy about that. If the US withdraws so does your powerbase, the "friends" (we can really talk about if they are friends or not) in Europe won't like you very much after that and if they don't like you they'll pretty much stop buying your overprices military hardware etc. So while a lot of Euros might not pay that magical 2% on their own military spending they do seem to be buying American products quite a bit. Which would pretty much go away if you start to build a Euro-Army, even tho as noted previously that is so filled with horrors it's not even funny and unlikely to ever be a thing. No point in buying that bribe- and friendship goods anymore, no world resale to your lackeys and allies anymore so you as the american taxpayer is going to have to suck up the entire bill from the military industrial complex -- that is unless you think you are somehow going to be spending less on military which would just be hilarious.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by number11 on Wednesday November 07 2018, @09:52PM
They'll see what good, caring friends the US is, when they tell the US to stop interfering with their continued observance of a treaty that all those parties concluded with Iran.