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International-UN-NGOs
In First Review, EU Comes Clean on Military Failings
2020-11-23
[USNews] The European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
acknowledged on Friday that it lacks the capabilities to meet its goal - pushed most strongly by its biggest members - to become a standalone military power able to help NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants...
or deploy troops rapidly to regional crises.

Seeking to address major shortfalls, the EU's first annual defence review, presented to the bloc's defence ministers on Friday, found that only 60% of the national troops and weapons nominally available to NATO are in a fit state to be deployed.

EU governments are also reluctant to deploy those troops, the report found. Formal EU military missions receive just 7% of all EU states' military personnel committed worldwide, with problems generating troop levels, it said.

While such EU weaknesses were largely known, because the bloc has never had the military strength to match its economic might, major EU governments including La Belle France, Germany, Italia and Spain hope the detailed review and public recognition of failures will be a watershed.

"The EU does not have all the required military capabilities available in order to fulfil (its) level of ambition," said the report. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told news hounds: "European defence suffers from fragmentation, duplication and insufficient operational engagement."

Smaller member states including Greece, Sweden and Poland have sought to protect domestic armament industries, which leads to duplication in weapons output, thwarting coordination geared to the protection of the continent as a whole.

Meanwhile,
...back at the hanging, Butch continued with his last words, trying not to repeat himself too often......
tiny Belgium and Luxembourg are among the lowest military spenders in Europe, and Denmark has opted out of EU defence initiatives.

La Belle France and Germany also disagree on how far to develop EU military cooperation independent of the United States, by far the biggest power in NATO and Europe's effective security guarantor since World War Two.

But after four years of hostility towards NATO from U.S. President Donald Trump
...His ancestors didn't own any slaves...
, the EU says it can no longer rely solely on the United States to solve crises in its neighbourhood.

The EU has been working since December 2017 to develop more firepower independently of the United States. The effort has been led by La Belle France, the EU's remaining major military power after Britannia, which opposed such cooperation, left the bloc.

With a weapons development fund being set up, backed by 8 billion euros ($9.50 billion) from the EU budget for the first time next year, French President Emmanuel Macron has called for more "illusory sovereignty" in the EU's ability to defend itself.

The 27-nation EU aims to draw up a military doctrine by 2022 to define future threats and ambitions.
”First Germany will agree to give France more money for troops and arms.”
The report, part of an EU strategy to develop self-standing military capacity over the next decade, urged EU governments to jointly produce six areas of weaponry and end costly national duplication, including focusing on a new battle tank, a patrol class surface ship and counter-drone technology.
Related:
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Josep Borrell: 2020-08-10 Turkey navy ops in eastern Med 'extremely worrying': EU
Posted by:trailing wife

#1  NATO - welfare for first world countries. When the wall came down, we should have come home.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2020-11-23 06:00  

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