EU: Superpower or Military Pygmy?
BY Herschel Smith
18 years, 5 months ago
See this interesting article over at Fox News on the EU being a “leaderless superpower.” It is right in so far as it goes (i.e., without a leader). But the EU is so far from being a superpower that it is really surprising that anyone would have written a piece hinting at such a thing.
A few comments on the EU. First of all, quoting from the link above:
Europe’s current climate of “Christianophobia
On August 3, 2006 at 4:51 pm, Mr. Euro said:
LOL, Its so easy to see that this criticism is written by an American patriot –
“See this interesting article over at Fox News on the EU being a “leaderless superpower.
On August 3, 2006 at 5:07 pm, Herschel Smith said:
Uh huh. Just like all those Euro troops in southern Lebanon prevented Hezbollah from becoming armed, and just like those Euro-forces won the cold war, and the Bosnian conflict, and the war in Afghanistan, and …
But if you’re so sure that the Euro-forces are so powerful, then why don’t the Euro-forces replace the U.S. in the global war on terror?
Sorry. Some things are so prima facie ridiculous that they don’t warrant further discussion. The notion that the Euro-forces are actually going to engage anyone in a serious, extended conflict is one such thing. Europe — as an entity — cannot even begin to think of engaging anyone in a conflict totally outside consideration of its warring capabilities. Politically, it would never be allowed.
On January 9, 2007 at 11:19 pm, Joe Joe said:
If there is another powerful force handling a threat that is against the European Union, then why would it join in and lose its own soldiers?
On January 10, 2007 at 10:49 am, Dominique R. Poirier said:
One may hardly evocate the idea of Europe as an entity with a common defense, a common policy, etc. The E.U. is an intergovernmental union with a single market and a single currency which has been adopted by only 13 of the 27 countries that compose the E.U.
Now, the idea consisting in alleging that this frail gathering of different countries with very different cultures and views on politics and economics is to be compared to the United States, or to China, for example, is absurd, if not farfetched.
This entity we use to call the E.U. is torn between factions having sometimes very different views and ambitions. It has a hybrid intergovernmental and supranational organization. The Council of the European Union in Brussels, and the European Parliament at Strasbourg are notoriously crippled by chronic corruption and cases of dereliction of duty.
Euro meetings on sensible matters gather crowds of officials and their translators and assistants amounting sometimes to the surrounding of a hundred of people, thus explaining why everything confidential is said there is immediately reported elsewhere.
For the impersonal bureaucratic structures of the European Union cannot evoke the popular sentiment necessary for a political vocation. Europe’s original sin, of which it has not yet cleansed itself, is to have been conceived in offices, and of having prospered there. A common destiny cannot be built on such foundations, any more than it is possible to fall in love with a growth rate or milk quotas.
Some countries members of the E.U. entertain affinities with very different allies, outside the E.U.; allies that nurture strong antagonisms toward each others in some cases. For example, some European countries which happened to be former member of the Warsaw Pact or former Soviet satellites are eager to get rid of the Russian influence, while some others, less or more discreetly, are consistently running toward rapprochement with this country which, for the concern of many, is gently going back toward its old ruthless way of governing.
To the bewilderment of many, during his final weeks in office, Gerhard Schroeder, former Chancellor of Germany, signed an agreement with Russia to build the North Stream pipeline under the Baltic Sea to supply Russian gas directly to Germany, bypassing Poland, Ukraine and the Baltic countries. Soon after stepping down as chancellor, Schroder didn’t join Wolkswagen, Bosch, or another iconic company representative of the country he leaded. Instead, he accepted a post as the head of the shareholders’ committee in the Russian-led consortium, controlled by Gazprom, which is building the pipeline. German opposition parties, as well as the governments of the possible transit countries, have expressed concern over this issue that pictures quite well my previous allusions. In an editorial entitled Gerhard Schroeder’s Sellout, the American newspaper Washington Post has also expressed sharp criticism, reflecting widening international ramifications of Schroder’s new post.
Other social factors question the power of the E.U. High rate of unemployment is found in many European countries and a rise of populism noticed here and there is equally a source of further concern, let alone the problem of the language that makes the E.U. resemble to the Tower of Babel. During his mandate as President of the European Commission Romano Prodi once declared, in substance, that the rich members of the European Community will have to share their wealth with the poorer members, a statement that may bewilder some since the rich European countries he was making allusion to are already suffering from concerning economic and social turmoil. The fact is that many inhabitants of poor European countries expect much from the joining of their countries to the E.U., while those of all others are seriously worried by the shrinking of their power purchase that accompanied the coming of the Euro currency in their country.
I talk now a bit about some questioning aspects of the European defense.
In France, a said-to-be leading European member and a forerunner of the European Union, some high ranking members of the French defense, such as General Gallois, General Pichot-Duclos, and General de la Maison Neuve, publicly expressed their ambition to build (eventually and once other “minor