European Union, a military superpower?

Recently, I read a very impressing article in another thread describing the differences between Europe and the US, not too objective, but a great article overall, in my opinion. It's called Power And Weakness by Robert Kagan, a right winger who is also a co-writer of A New American Century The remark of Kagan, that Europe is in military terms not technologically advanced and cannot be categorized as military superpower amazed me.

What many Americans seem to forget is that Europe is a continent consisting of countries, not of states. Countries with very own ideas, habits, and cultures, which is in my opinion the reason why the launch of a Union's army has not been realized yet.

Some years ago Europeans drew up plans for a Union's military, major cultural differences, chauvinism and the leadership question are in my opinion the prime reasons , which should be tackled.

A Union's army would further minimize the risk of violent escalations or war on European soil by one of it's members, increase the feeling of being a unity, decrease military costs, improve military strength and balance.

Do you think a Union's military will soon be realizable and do you support the idea?

Let's analyze the European military industry now, defined to be weak and not advanced, if we may believe the writer.

I strongly disagree with his assertion and I firmly believe that the European industry is equally and in some fields even further advanced than the US military. A Union's army would lead to an even greater technological boost. Currently, European countries do cooperate and develop projects together, however, an even tighter policy would likely to lead to better results.

Is European technology inferior to US technology?

A few examples:

Eurofighter Typhoon

Saab Gripen JAS39

BAE Sea Harrier

Mirage Series

Rafale

Airbus A400M


Eurocopter Cougar

Eurocopter Tiger

Sea King


Leopard 2A5

Challenger 1

Leopard 2A6

Challenger 2

Le Clerc

Ariete C1

Howitzers / PZH2000

Fennek

Movie

I wouldn't define it as inferior.








[edit on 30-10-2006 by Mdv2]

Originally posted by Mdv2
Is European technology inferior to US technology?

I'm no expert but it's probably fairly comparable.

Although I could see an argument against calling the EU a military super
power because it's composed of individual militaries.

I doubt they could ever fight and coordinate as effectively as a military under one command authority. In technology and capability, it's a superpower.
But not in terms of organization and command and control.

i disagree with the above post, i feel if europe’s existence was put under threat then nations will work together as 1 for the same goal to rid of this 'threat'.

in world war2, not many of the allied powers trusted russia - yet without russia victory in WW2 could never have been accomplished!

(summary) - nations will always work together if something is threatening their existence, history has already proven that victory can be achieved by different cultures working together even when those country’s don’t share the same views as one and other.

Who can say for sure what the future has in store for world super power of the European Union. However, I came across the following little hint which I feel could dramatically change the power EU level while shrinking NATO simultaneously.

www.mosnews.com...

Russia, will it stand on it's own or assume the top of the ladder, if eventually accepted.

Dallas

I think the author draws his conclusion by the fact that most European countries don't have many standing units ATM. This doesn't mean that they are weak though.

It would be a bad idea to underestimate a united Europe, even for America. They have the factories to start building more tanks, ships, planes and have a unit up in running in a month or two flat.

Sorry but concerning military tech EU is not nearly as advanced as US. They are also behind Russia, IMO. Certainly there are some areas where US and EU are equal for example tanks and ground forces generally, but in other areas the technological gap is quite significant.

Countries like the UK and Germany are high spenders on military technology (i believe us Brits are no.1 on military technology spending?).

If you have noticed, EU does have a military force (that is growing), European Union Force (EUFOR) www.euforbih.org... and we working as one on the international stage (see Iran).

I think this thread has been done before, but I'll still put in my two peneth's worth.

Mdv2 I agree with some of your comments but let's be realistic. The EU will never have a common defence policy, simply because we can't even agree on a simple foreign policy.

If you take global warming for example, President Blair [having hijacked David's Cameron's Green Policies] now wants to tax us to make us greener. Fine, but what about the rest of the EU? We can't agree about the Tokyo Summit, Africa and famine relief, so what hope a for European standing army?

No my friend, I cannot see a multi-national European armed forces. We Brits have contributed 1 Commando and 1 Parachute Brigade to the European Rapid Response
Force and to date, the French (bless them!) have committed the Foreign Legion to same, but this [the EU RRF] has not even been ratified by Brussels because of in-fighting about who commands, where it's based or who pays for it etc, etc, etc!

Technologically speaking we have, as individual countries, some excellent military products. We also have some quite excellent R & D companies doing brilliant military and civilian research but, we do lack the funding the US can feed in to a project.

If you take the Eurofighter 'Typhoon' as an example, it is well over budget, several countries have scaled back their orders or cancelled the contracts and the intended delivery date was missed by miles.

The other situation to consider is NATO. What becomes of NATO if we Europeans decide to go it alone? Will it become a paper tiger?

Do we [as Europeans] politely say 'thank you' to the US for helping us keep the peace in Europe for the last 60 odd years and explain that thanks to Reagan and Thatcher, we no longer need you now the Russian Bogey Man has been firmly put in his place?

Europe needs the US as much as the US needs us, perhaps not militarily, but politically.

There is allso the problem about public opinion in each individual country, they vary more than most americans understand.
And let's for example say Turkey attacks Greece, would i volunteer to help greeks? Hell No, take care of your own sorry asses... there are very few countries that for example we Finns would fight for beside ourselves (fight, as in mobilize our full 350 000 men reserve) maybe estonia.

But if (again just an example) Russia starts to threathen EU as a whole, then we might see a united europe, under a united command (the command structure is not ready, but it won't take long to create one if needed)

As for the EU-RDF, those are intended to be use as first wave peace keepers/enforcers and to assist in Eu-nationals evacuations. Nexr unit to be in full readiness is the German-Dutch-Finnish taskforce that goes operational 1.1.2007, it's highly capable and based on the joint German-Dutch brigade in nato RDF

The EU could certainly fend off and invasion by most anybody (America excluded) but only America has the ability to project and sustain significant military power anywhere on earth. That's what it means to be a superpower. Seriously, the whole continent has one barely functioning nuclear aircraft carrier, whereas America has thirteen!.

Number23
Are you serious about USA being able to invade europe?
EU has population of over 460 million, with area 9 times larger than Iraq. Each member country has a trained and well equipied army and most countries are able to either call in reserves or draft substantial amounts of troops (combined maximum force is around 50-100 million) USA may have all the carriers and still they don't stand a change, as EU doesn't have a change on invading USA

Well it did it once already, of course most of population welcomed American troops. Were the US to get back to WWII standing force levels, She could occupy a fair bit of Europe.

Yes 1944 you fought only against Germany, Hungary, Italy, Austria, Romania and Finland.
70% of the axis Combat troops fought gainst USSR, so USA didn't do it alone, actualy US-troops didn't do that much, compared to the load soviets bore, US material aid is another thing.

[edit on 31-10-2006 by northwolf]

Originally posted by northwolf
Yes 1944 you fought only against Germany, Hungary, Italy, Austria, Romania and Finland.
70% of the axis Combat troops fought gainst USSR, so USA didn't do it alone, actualy US-troops didn't do that much, compared to the load soviets bore, US material aid is another thing.

However in 40ties European militaries were much more powerfull than today. Just compare Wehrmacht and todays German army or British empire navy and todays British navy... British alone directly controlled 1/4 of the world during this time period...

Originally posted by northwolf
Number23
Are you serious about USA being able to invade europe?

The days of the western world being able to invade any large nation are practically over, the populace isn't willing to put up with the casualties. Besides the USA and Europe are partners and i hope they will forever be so, even though there are differences among us and our strategies tend to be different but i couldn't even fathom the thought of war breaking out between europe and the US i mean c'mon we are practically brothers in this world. Also i thought the article was very well written and exactly how i see the situation in the western world.

Well, that's an interesting scenario, to say the least.

If I remember my briefings for Operation 'Reforger' correctly, this called for the UK to be turned into a giant US aircraft carrier and logistical base, in the event of those dastardly Russians invading western Germany.

One can only assume a similar scenario should the US ever decide to invade Europe.

Of course, they could invade via the Middle East or work their way up through Italy or southern France, but they would need a stageing post and I think that the UK would fit very nicely in their back pocket.

It could never happen of course, because old emnities would be forgotten, new alliances forged in the heat of the moment and not forgetting that Russia would probably come in to help and secure the northern flank.

China would protect our southern flank by invading Viet Nam, Laos, Cambodia, Korea, Malaysia, Burma, The Phillipines, New Zealand and Australia and would eventually invade South America.

That leaves Japan, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh to fight it out with each other.

In the meantime, we Brits would, as a matter of course, invade Iceland and Greenland from where we could launch our bombing campaign of the States via our friends in Canada, whilst simultaneously invading the USA from Alaska.

We Brits would fight valiantly to the bitter end and when the dust had settled, the USA would rebuild our shattered economy and infrastructure and lavish us with all sorts of goodies.

Oh yeah! I almost forgot.

Taiwan would invade China

Originally posted by infinite
Countries like the UK and Germany are high spenders on military technology (i believe us Brits are no.1 on military technology spending?).

If you have noticed, EU does have a military force (that is growing), European Union Force (EUFOR) www.euforbih.org... and we working as one on the international stage (see Iran).

I can't remember any figures on tech spending specifically, but my guess is that the US spends more money on military tech alone than any European nation spends on military as a whole based on the fact that America spends about as much on its military as the next 13 or so largest spenders.

From what I understand the US air force's F-22 is better than the Eurofighter (cost effectiveness could be argued though) and for most systems the US does have an edge. One of the problems for Europe is that I don't think they spend as much of their GDP on the Military as America (some might not see this as a problem though).

Originally posted by northwolf
Yes 1944 you fought only against Germany, Hungary, Italy, Austria, Romania and Finland.
70% of the axis Combat troops fought gainst USSR, so USA didn't do it alone, actualy US-troops didn't do that much, compared to the load soviets bore, US material aid is another thing.

[edit on 31-10-2006 by northwolf]

I don't know how much world history they teach you in Finland, but in case you didn't know: At the same time America was invading europe, we were fighting the Empire of Japan in the Pacific.

So America was doing at bit more than you mentioned...

[edit on 31-10-2006 by Number23]

Originally posted by Number23
At the same time America was invading europe, we were fighting the Empire of Japan in the Pacific.

So America was doing at bit more than you mentioned...

[edit on 31-10-2006 by Number23]

i don't know how much they teach you in your history also (except america saves the day all the time) but america had help fighting japan from european countrys, erm 'the empire of the british'?

please stop comparing the US in ww2 to what it is now, before WW2 americas military was a long way behind britains/nazi germany/russia (especially) possibly even france.

it was only after ww2, when america rised as 1 of 2 only surving superpowers they began building on their military more because of the threat from the USSR.

you keep forgeting russia and the US entered WW2 half way through, after the surrender of france in 1940 britain was fighting the nazis and italy alone for 2 years! - america/russia came in fresh as a daisy in round10 (no heavy losses & no financial damage) thats why they came out as 'superpowers' still at the end.

britain even though it never got invaded nor surrendered, suffered too much financial damage so it could no longer hold onto it's empire.

put it this way if britain lost 'the battle of britain' in 1941, the whole world would be speaking german.

[edit on 31-10-2006 by st3ve_o]

st3ve_o said, 'Put it this way if Britain lost 'the battle of Britain' in 1941, the whole world would be speaking German.'

Not quite the historian, are you?

The Battle of Britain was fought above the Home Counties and the English Channel, from the 10th July to 31st October 1940.

Contrary to popular belief, the pilots who flew the Hawker Hurricane shot down more enemy aircraft than their counterparts who flew the Spitfire – Hurricanes went after bombers whilst Spitfires went for the protecting Bf 109s and 110s.

As to the USA coming to play early in the second half of the game as it were, too true. The terms of lend lease almost crippled the UK financially and started the decline of the British Empire [not a bad thing in my view]


[edit on 1-11-2006 by fritz]