Whether the EU Should Have an Army

This is an essay about the army and the main question for it is should the EU have its own army? On November 13, 2018, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called for the creation of “A real, true European Army” followed by the Macron’s idea. France President Emmanuel Macron announced a week ago about his vision to have a European true army in order to protect itself without dependence of the US. It was during the radio interview that he addressed, “We have to protect ourselves with respect to China, Russia and even the United States of America. We will not protect the Europeans unless we decide to have a true European Army.” His proposal is based on the fact that the situation around Europe is changing nowadays. If the Brexit happened, that means one of the biggest military power would deviate. Since 25% of recent EU military budget comes from UK, if the Brexit happened, EU will lose budget enormously and they will definitely lose the power. Also, the relationship between US has been changed lately. Donald Trump criticized EU about the shortage of the military budget, which is only 2 % of GDP. It is clear to say EU haven’t take military integration seriously (Some countries did consider important than others) It might be a time for EU to expand its power to protect themselves from the expanding Russian influence and Middle East. They also have to concerned that Trump said the US no longer world’s policemen. As she/he said, EU might have to enhance the self-defense force. Over the years, EU has been trying to develop some defense cooperation and because of that, CFSP and CSDP were created. I’m going to look at the decision-making process of CFSP in order to consider the EU Army, which it might take the same decision-making process as CFSP.

The first chapter is about the decision-making process of EU Army in order to think the intervention in the domestic affairs of member states. The second chapter, I will discuss the condition of having mobile armed forces as EU Army. The third chapter is about the relationship with NATO. At the end I will discuss that EU army is necessary in these days or not.

The biggest proposal in terms of defense is conclusion of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CSDP). One of the goals is Member States to take a closer look on the global situations and have an opportunity to work as a peacekeeping operation and conflict prevention outside the EU’s territory. It has no prejudice to national defense policies and NATO. It relies on willingness of countries and differences on contribution among member states in terms of military capabilities. When we discuss about the creation of EU Army, we don’t consider CFSP as a real army or EU military integration. In the treaty of European Union, article 24 (1) allows EU to create the common policies and organize the European army. This article has never used before but this topic has been discussed more and more lately. However, the article 42 indicate that NATO remains the foundation of Member States defense.

First of all, What will be the decision-making process in EU Army? The present condition, EU is a stronger economic integration than defense integration. If the EU Army created it will increase the integration of Member States but it will be attended by many evils, such as member states would most likely to lose their power of the decision making toward national defense. Foundation elements of sovereignty is having decision-making authority for defense matters, and Member States are less likely to give it up. Also, as you can see from the small amount of EU budget toward the military, from the economist aspect, the integration of Europe cannot be beneficial to the economy of Europe.

Establishing new system in EU are attend with some complicated decision-making process. First of all, heads of state and government make decisions on general politics in the European Council. Then the Commission makes proposals for new laws. After that, the Parliament reviews the proposals and passes decisions together with the Council of Ministers. The Council of Ministers and Parliament approve the laws together. The Commission controls that decisions are followed in all member states. At the end of the process, European Court of Justice settles disagreements that may come up. If the EU Army create as the new type of integration, it has to follow these steps. The current defense integration (CSDP) is not mandatory for all the Member States. Because of that, the decision-making process is quite different from all the other treaty and legislation process of EU. If the EU Army create among all the member states, which is less likely to happened as my point of view, it has to follow all the decision-making process of EU. It takes long time (longer than ever) to consent an agreement. Also, even if the EU Army created, it has a lot of problems piled up.

CSDP is not mandatory as I mentioned before, contribution is up to the willingness of countries. For example, Denmark opted out from CSDP. Member States retain control over decision-making toward CFSP and CSDP. If the country wouldn’t agree on the mission, you don’t have to go into action as CSDP. However, if the EU Army created, it might become the community method instead of intergovernmental method and member states might decreasingly influential voice within missions. The differences of relationship and background between Member States, it will take an endless time to make consensus on this matter. CFSP and CSDP could not effectively used with the previous tensions such as Crimean crisis. One of the reasons is they took too much time to formation. Even if the EU Army created, the same situation is predicted and EU Army could not work as it should be. Who would make the decision to commit the EU Army to the war? If the decision-maker is EU, it would have to be a unanimous decision by all Member States. EU has to make sure the Army won’t intervention the domestic affairs of Member States. If the concept of EU Army itself involve interference in the internal affairs it is less likely to be materialized. Also, from these issues, if the referendum occurred, the prospect of an EU Army is dismissed,

Secondly, depends on how long it takes for EU to make decisions, it effects EU Army can be mobile army forces or something like UN peacekeeping operations (UN Army). UN Army If the EU Army created, would it be more useful than UN Army?

UN Army said to reduced 50 % risk of peace collapse during the cold war period. But they have been magnificent failures at Rwanda Civil War in 1990s. However, UN Army have a positive effect on democracy promotion and political settlement. UN Army’s decision-making process is complicated and take a lot of time for the formation. First of all, the interpreter identify some problems and objectives and collect information. Then, they bring options to achieve those goals into being. They decide how, who, where, when, why to achieve these goals. Japan is one of the countries that Japanese Army participate in these UN peacekeeping missions. Japan is an interest country in terms of the defense strategy. Japanese constitution proclaims that the Japanese people renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation. However, we have a large expenditure of money on armaments, which is ranked 8th in the world. We cannot go to the war directly, but we give logical support to US Army or join in to the UN Army and expand its activities more and more. If the EU Army created, it is possible to think that they not only have a defense power but also have a power to offense. Also, if the EU Army created in the concept of military integration of EU, the decision-making process become more complex and take too much time to decide. It is unlikely to have an authority on peacekeeping in compensation for UN Army.

Next topic is, will the EU Army undermine NATO or not. NATO and EU relations have three main points called, 3Ds (no decoupling, no discrimination and no duplication). Because of the relationship with US, EU is less likely to break these promises. All the European country have been relying on the US for the economically and militarily. NATO has not been used for military related issues and instead of that, they have been called only for the humanitarian and security issues, NATO has been lasted for 70 years is US had never tried to push NATO into involving in the actual war, such as Vietnam War. If they were more than deter the Russia (Soviet Union) and send a few troops to support US in Afghanistan, they won’t be the same as they are now. US has been criticize for years that many EU countries to spend less than 2 % of GDP on defense. NATO security general Jens Stoltenbeng said he welcomed efforts to strengthen European military capability, but warned against duplicate the alliance and undermining the transatlantic relationship. When Junker the president of the European commission proposed the idea of EU making a standing army, he said that the EU Army will not compete with the NATO and it is for the reinforcement of EU. Also, Angela Merkel also said when she expressed the support for Macron’s idea of making a real true European Army, she said EU Army must be a complement to the NATO. Then the next question is, what is the difference of role between NATO and EU Army? If the EU Army is the supplement for the NATO, Member States should contribute NATO more for finance to the project first. If the idea of EU Army is about of promote democracy and peace into the world, it is almost the same concept with NATO. If the idea is same, they should consider making NATO more powerful and efficient. The idea of making EU Army means the EU contribution to the NATO will reduced. It will reduce the power of NATO and also impose more burden on Member States. The security and prosperity of Europe is vital for US. So, it is beneficial for US to keep NATO as it is right now and should not accept the idea of making another army. Also, Middle East will remain as a key region for both US and EU. US tend to have EU as a base of impute its power to the Middle East. Lastly, NATO keep EU safe from the fear of extension of Russia. Even in the limited conflict such as Baltic invasion, EU doesn’t have a power to against itself. EU would need a specialized-systems and many of these are provided by the US. For these reasons the idea of EU Army won’t be a good impact to both EU and NATO (also to the US).

Last topic is, do we need another army to create? If the EU Army created which country does it for? It is not for America that’s ludicrous and offensive for sure. If that’s for increasing tension between Russia and Middle East, is it possible for EU to protect itself with an original army? As I mentioned above, EU don’t have enough systems and modern army to fight against Russia without the help form US. The most salient differences between US and EU is, EU doesn’t have a common strategic culture. It is because the Union has 28 different countries which means each country have different national defense strategies. All Member States security strategies come with various backgrounds and they all have different targets and armament. Expert criticize about EU Army on a paper said, “it is an incoherent, derivative and devoid of the sense of a common European geostrategic situation, and often long out of date”. It criticized the idea of harmonize the defense strategies between 28 independent countries. Each country has their own particular way to train its forces and troops have idiosyncrasies. Military Integration like PESCO might have a positive effect to the peacekeeping or humanitarian operations in the Balkans or North Africa. As I mentioned above, PESCO is rely on the willingness of the countries in terms of expenses, the number of persons. If the EU Army created and EU decide army to go into the battle, each country have a right to reject in order to control the national sentiment. It is also possible to consider if EU Army created and all the other countries out-side of EU also concerned about their expansion of armaments, it might create an armaments race. It will involve risk for small countries to rely on the huge military power (whether it will be US or EU Army) but it’s not a good influence for sure.

For all of these reasons as I mentioned above, EU is not ready to create its own army and it is very difficult to achieve. However, in the long term, they might have to consider the strengthen of military forces in order to face the changes of international situation. Some experts said, US is no longer called as super power and China has authority to the other countries. Even the US is most likely still a super power, nobody can expect US to remain its power for next 100 years. In my point of view, EU Army will not create but some countries such as France and Germany and Italy for example will create a military alliance outside of NATO someday. I hope the expansion of armaments won’t create any war and use only for create the world better place to live.