AHC: Create an EU Army

Hi all, I was recently inspired to ask the question, when and how could the EU effectively create a standing armed forces with a POD no earlier than 1945? This could perhaps be in name only or a fully fledged formal force.

Would all countries be required to join it or could it be volunteer only? Do you see this being popular among some nations or vilified among others? Perhaps there are a chain of events or threat from the USSR, terrorism or just the development of this through politics or ideology?
I'd love to see what ideas you guys have :)
 
You could have NATO collapse due to America becoming isolationist post ww2 or have a POD of the Suez crisis where France and Britain withstand American economic pressure leading to greater co-operation between the 2 countries militarily which eventually evolves into an EU army sometime in the next 50 years
 

NoMommsen

Donor
Btw : there were several ... attempts to create something alike out of some post-WW2-'New-Entente'-treaties :
1947 : Treaty of Dunkirk between Britain and France, that developed into
1948 : Treaty of Brussels including the Benelux-countires
With the picking up of the cold war and the increasing wish to get the (West)-Germans remilitarized ther came up :
1950 : Pleven Plan (french idea of creating a european supranational army including the germans)
1952 : European Defence council
All these plans didn't worked out due to mainly domestic problems in France (question of 'souvernity' over own forces) as well as Germany (widespread general objection against remilitarization).
All these attempts finally 'culminated' in the 'Western European Union' of 1954, which was also characterized by the attempt to - still - try to limit german armament.

However, all these attempts were put aside with Germanys entry into NATO. ... and the WEU went asleep and became kind of little 'consultation' club of the west european countries within the NATO (without much if any impact at all).

For the challange :
I don't think a single POD could do this.
What might be be needed :
1. avoid the gaullists comming to power in France in 1.half of the 50ies (at least)
2. get the US to ... 'pull out' of Europe (there're a lot of other regions the US-boys are needed, i.e. Korea and rest of SE-Asia)(shall the Europs care - and pay - for themself)

NATO might become 'just' a kind of coordination organization between US and WEU, dividing 'regions to care for' (WEU gets Europe, USA the rest of the world :p)
 
It's only semi-plausible, but if you reduce the impact of the Great Recession with a late POD (in particular, late enough that the Iraq War happens as in OTL), then the EU is in very good position to have something like a common army by 2016, though it probably wouldn't be called that. Recall that pro-EU views were strong in the 2003-6 era - not strong enough for the EU constitution to pass, but strong enough, especially among educated people, that integration was not seen as an awful assault on the national character or whatever. Not all of today's europhobia is induced by the recession, but a lot of it is. In particular, in the mid-2000s, Eastern Europe associated the EU with prosperity, as seen by fast growth rates all over that region, especially in the countries that were most integrated into the European economy, e.g. Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, and Slovenia. This was happening even when Russia was still fairly weak (it wouldn't surpass its 1990 per capita GDP until 2006), although many of those countries were justifiably paranoid about Russia's eventual ambitions. In 2016, a resurgent Russia would make them strongly interested in EU integration to balance against Putin; even with the recession's especial impact on Eastern Europe, the region remains pro-EU and pro-austerity.

The other ingredient needs to be a common enemy for the EU to balance against. It can't be Russia, which barks more than bites. In 2003-6, it was Bush's America, which was ignoring international precedents and launching a war most of Europe opposed; this has been muted later on because of Russia, and because of the election of a US president who Europe does not hate.

So let's set the POD to be 2004. The actual POD is not a single event, but rather a slightly slower housing bubble. The US enters nominal recession in late 2008 rather than late 2007 as in OTL; the financial crisis only hits in late 2009 and not in late 2008 as in OTL. Iraq is a clusterfuck as in OTL, and the core of Europe opposes it as in OTL. The winner of the 2008 US election is Giuliani, chosen because he's both very hawkish and more likely than McCain to shit on the US's allies. In 2009, Giuliani launches a war on Iran; Poland sends troops, but none of the other big European countries does - Blair tries, but faces a vocal insurgency within his party, and as a compromise, the UK announces that it stands shoulder to shoulder with the US but then only provides token support. Meanwhile, in response to the recession, Giuliani starts a trade war with the EU; the EU responds with a combination of its own trade protections, increased economic aid to a handful of hard-hit countries (Greece initially, until it gets cut off for having lied about its budget situation, but mainly Spain and Portugal), a pan-EU infrastructure package including megaprojects across the Alps and the Baltic Sea, and a small amount of social spending to harmonize access to education across the union.

The Arab Spring happens roughly on schedule. The results in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya are as in OTL. In Syria, Assad relies on Russia from the start; by 2012, Giuliani says that Assad is a crucial ally against Al-Qaida, and praises Putin for being able to put down terrorism. The economy is recovering, very slowly, and after Obama's failed presidential run in 2008 the Democrats are going for experience and nominating Hillary Clinton, who manages to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and lose by 2%.

By 2013, there's a pan-European nationalism brewing. In this mentality, the EU represents everything that is good in the world: multicultural and equal, in opposition to American racism (but the Roma are all lazy and the Muslims are terrorists, and there's certainly no discrimination against them); multilingual, in opposition to American monolingualism; more egalitarian and social (and any statistic showing fast growth in inequality is just Anglo-American economist fiction); and more concerned with the world, in opposition to American isolationism (except when the Americans bomb and the Europeans don't care either way). The US is as rich as in OTL, or even a hair richer because there's no fiscal tightening in 2011, while the EU is substantially richer than in OTL, growing not far below OTL's 2000-7 trend, and faster than the US from 2007-16. As part of the EU nation-building exercise, an army is formed, separate from the structure of NATO, for peacekeeping operations in Libya. The European elites do this not because any of them cares about peace in Libya, but secondarily to stop the flow of refugees from North Africa, and primarily to prove to the world and to themselves that they can do it.
 
The above sounds like quite an interesting and long term POD. I'd love to see how this sortofstory progressed. Where do you think US/EU relations could go in the long term? Would the UK/US special relationship continue and how is russia viewed in this world in the long term? Quite facinating to see how a relatively late POD can have such varied results.
 
The above sounds like quite an interesting and long term POD. I'd love to see how this sortofstory progressed. Where do you think US/EU relations could go in the long term? Would the UK/US special relationship continue and how is russia viewed in this world in the long term? Quite facinating to see how a relatively late POD can have such varied results.

That depends on so many random factors. For example, what happens after the 2016 presidential election? Presumably the Democrats win, but it depends on what candidate they run, what kind of party they evolve toward, and what campaign they use. Do they pick a nationalist in order to play Republican-lite, same way how in 2004 they picked Kerry, who'd voted for the Iraq War to appear more moderate? Perhaps their response to growing minority share is to castigate Europe as a white Other. (I've seen certain American social justice activists do that: for example, Adonia Lugo has complained that American cycling activists, who are predominantly white, overfocus on adapting Dutch and Scandinavian standards and ignore how nonwhite communities in the US cycle.) Perhaps their response is similar to the current response of moderate Democrats to Trump, which is to accuse Presidential Giuliani of having reduced American power by destroying relationships with the allies.

On the European side, the story so far has Syria entering civil war as in OTL, just with earlier Russian intervention. The refugee crisis is likely to proceed as in OTL, leading to the same range of responses within Europe. The center-right and conservative right here (though not the far right) have always been Atlanticist, and I can see several parties on the right adopt far right populist posturing while maintaining their Atlanticism; Sarkozy has done that in OTL, and Cameron flirts with that, in contrast with Merkel. Terrorism is likely, as in OTL, though probably the brand is Al Qaida and not ISIS (in OTL, nearly all terrorists here were born this side of the Aegean Sea).
 
It's only semi-plausible, but if you reduce the impact of the Great Recession with a late POD (in particular, late enough that the Iraq War happens as in OTL), then the EU is in very good position to have something like a common army by 2016, though it probably wouldn't be called that. Recall that pro-EU views were strong in the 2003-6 era - not strong enough for the EU constitution to pass, but strong enough, especially among educated people, that integration was not seen as an awful assault on the national character or whatever. Not all of today's europhobia is induced by the recession, but a lot of it is. In particular, in the mid-2000s, Eastern Europe associated the EU with prosperity, as seen by fast growth rates all over that region, especially in the countries that were most integrated into the European economy, e.g. Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, and Slovenia. This was happening even when Russia was still fairly weak (it wouldn't surpass its 1990 per capita GDP until 2006), although many of those countries were justifiably paranoid about Russia's eventual ambitions. In 2016, a resurgent Russia would make them strongly interested in EU integration to balance against Putin; even with the recession's especial impact on Eastern Europe, the region remains pro-EU and pro-austerity.

The other ingredient needs to be a common enemy for the EU to balance against. It can't be Russia, which barks more than bites. In 2003-6, it was Bush's America, which was ignoring international precedents and launching a war most of Europe opposed; this has been muted later on because of Russia, and because of the election of a US president who Europe does not hate.

So let's set the POD to be 2004. The actual POD is not a single event, but rather a slightly slower housing bubble. The US enters nominal recession in late 2008 rather than late 2007 as in OTL; the financial crisis only hits in late 2009 and not in late 2008 as in OTL. Iraq is a clusterfuck as in OTL, and the core of Europe opposes it as in OTL. The winner of the 2008 US election is Giuliani, chosen because he's both very hawkish and more likely than McCain to shit on the US's allies. In 2009, Giuliani launches a war on Iran; Poland sends troops, but none of the other big European countries does - Blair tries, but faces a vocal insurgency within his party, and as a compromise, the UK announces that it stands shoulder to shoulder with the US but then only provides token support. Meanwhile, in response to the recession, Giuliani starts a trade war with the EU; the EU responds with a combination of its own trade protections, increased economic aid to a handful of hard-hit countries (Greece initially, until it gets cut off for having lied about its budget situation, but mainly Spain and Portugal), a pan-EU infrastructure package including megaprojects across the Alps and the Baltic Sea, and a small amount of social spending to harmonize access to education across the union.

The Arab Spring happens roughly on schedule. The results in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya are as in OTL. In Syria, Assad relies on Russia from the start; by 2012, Giuliani says that Assad is a crucial ally against Al-Qaida, and praises Putin for being able to put down terrorism. The economy is recovering, very slowly, and after Obama's failed presidential run in 2008 the Democrats are going for experience and nominating Hillary Clinton, who manages to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and lose by 2%.

By 2013, there's a pan-European nationalism brewing. In this mentality, the EU represents everything that is good in the world: multicultural and equal, in opposition to American racism (but the Roma are all lazy and the Muslims are terrorists, and there's certainly no discrimination against them); multilingual, in opposition to American monolingualism; more egalitarian and social (and any statistic showing fast growth in inequality is just Anglo-American economist fiction); and more concerned with the world, in opposition to American isolationism (except when the Americans bomb and the Europeans don't care either way). The US is as rich as in OTL, or even a hair richer because there's no fiscal tightening in 2011, while the EU is substantially richer than in OTL, growing not far below OTL's 2000-7 trend, and faster than the US from 2007-16. As part of the EU nation-building exercise, an army is formed, separate from the structure of NATO, for peacekeeping operations in Libya. The European elites do this not because any of them cares about peace in Libya, but secondarily to stop the flow of refugees from North Africa, and primarily to prove to the world and to themselves that they can do it.

It would be more out of nationalistic pride than anything else as I don't see the EU wanting to go up against the US military, if for no other reason it would be extremely economically painful. The EU is unwilling to crash the World economy just to protect the Islamic World.
 
It wouldn't go against the US military overtly. It'd just define itself as an independent power bloc, and form a military in order to convince itself that it's totes a functional union and can take collective decisions.
 
I think the only way to have an european army is with the EDC (european defence community ) in 1954. Despite it was clearly unballenced, it was realy close.
 
Hi all, I was recently inspired to ask the question, when and how could the EU effectively create a standing armed forces with a POD no earlier than 1945? This could perhaps be in name only or a fully fledged formal force.

This is OTL. It may not be "fully fledged" yet but it is a lot more substantial than "in name only", it has a cool badge and everything...
410px-Coat_of_arms_of_Eurocorps.svg.png
 
It wouldn't go against the US military overtly. It'd just define itself as an independent power bloc, and form a military in order to convince itself that it's totes a functional union and can take collective decisions.

Then it doesn't change a thing. For the EU military to mean anything it would have to actually do something. There is no way in hell Europe is going to send its troops to go up against US forces. The most it can do is meddle in the Third World independently of the US.
 
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