EU Defense commissioner Andrius Kubilius on Sunday floated the idea of creating a “powerful, standing ‘European military force’ of 100,000 troops,” lending his voice to a growing chorus of calls for a common continental defense as Russia threatens its neighbors.
“How will we replace the 100,000-strong American standing military force, which is the back-bone military force in Europe?” the former Lithuanian prime minister asked in a speech in Sweden
At the conference, Kubilius also laid out the case for the creation of a “European Security Council” that “could be composed of key permanent members, along with several rotational members.”
“In total, around 10 to 12 members,” he continued, “with the task to discuss the most important issues in defense,” adding that the power exerted by this type of unified voice could help tip the scales in Ukraine’s defense as it tries to hold off the Russian invasion.
Added: The new position " Commissioner of Defense & Space" exists since december 2024. And is being fulfilled by Andrius Kubilius He’s a former PM of Lithuania
IMHO: Russia knows it isn’t fighting the EU, but 27 separate forces, some of which definetly will bail out of responsibility, Austria or Hungary for example. If there were at least joint logistics, that would be a big help.
Well I guess having a EU Commissioner for Defense ( #and Space) , suggesting a security council and a minimum 100K defense force, is a good start to start coordinating stuff indeed.
TIL: #This position has only existed for a year. Added info to the post just now.
If there were at least joint logistics, that would be a big help.
The command was designed in light of growing hostilities between European countries and Russia since the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and in response to logistic and bureaucratic hurdles limiting military logistics in case of a crisis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Support_and_Enabling_Command
If this is a compromise to get states on-board (so they can keep their national armies), I’d consider it a promising start.
Much more important is standardisation, so that ammunition and replacement parts can be shared if necessary, instead of each country maintaining its own limited stockpile of its domestic manufacturers’ proprietary parts.
Standardisation of equipment could be a first step towards a common military.
Then it will never happen because every single country will for economical and political reasons chose domestic producers over alternatives every single time.
Having domestic producers build the standardised common equipment isn’t a bad thing, because you need dispersal to prevent the bombing of a single factory from causing all equipment of a certain type being out of service in short order due to a lack of spare parts.
Yeah, but -again- that’s not the reality.
We barely see production of standardised equipment by domestic industry (usually under license).
What we see instead is France loving to quit every common project once it’s clear that they don’t have 100% control over every detail (remember that APACHE shitshow that brought us two conceptionally identical cruise missiles, produced by different parts of the same company? Just because Germany’s idea about a bunker-busting warhead was totally stupid… until France could continue development alone and suddenly came to the same conclusion).
Or Norway developing their own anti-air system based on German IRIS-T SL missiles. Because we totally need a second system that does the exact same thing with the same ammunition but developed and build by Kongsberg instead of Diehl.
Or Poland buying two different tanks from outside of Europe. Because it’s all about the tech transfer for the domestic industry while not giving money to that pesky in-Europe competition… so South Korea and US it is.
Or Germany, Netherlands and Belgium actively screwing up their plans for a new frigate class right now. Because they all want something different …build by the same shipyard even, that seems totally unable to manage those different projects on a sane time frame.
(And I could probably continue like this for quite some time…)
Oh, and when countries manage to cooperate while all getting work shares for their domestic industry we get logistical bullshit like the Eurofighter. As in: the exact opposite of independent domestic production of a standard product but everyone producing another part for the same end product for maximised dependency on each project member.
Yes, unfortunately, it’s a dysfunctional shitshow where everyone prioritises profits and petty nationalism over the common good. As long as large scale corruption isn’t outlawed, the profit bit won’t change. Having the cooperation formalised and unified under a EU defense commissioner might at least take care of the worst of the petty nationalism.
How will we replace the 100,000-strong American standing military force, which is the back-bone military force in Europe?
Always this popular fairy tale. In reality they are the backbone of US logistics for operations in Africa and Asia.
Yeah, sure… Europe is occupied by the US… 🤣
Well… the point isn’t as clear: do you think they’d leave if we were to ask them to?
Well… the point isn’t as clear
If they are stationed here for some times, could be they have an EU partner , like it here, and they might prefer and want to stay. At least they’ll get payed in time and we’d have some extra personnel. They’ll need to swear a new allegiance though.
Does the picture of that plane say “AI powered”? Because I can’t think of anything more terrifying than adding shitty AI to a fighter jet.
