During my search for breaking news for fast & furious warblogging on the Command Post, I came across this precious announcement:
The fledgling Euro-army launched its first military operation yesterday, picking the Balkan state of Macedonia as a trial run for future missions in Bosnia, Africa and the Caucasus.
A force of 320 soldiers wearing “Eufor” badges with the European Union’s blue and gold stars on their right shoulders took over peacekeeping duties at a ceremony in Skopje, replacing Nato troops who have already done the hard work of pacifying Macedonia over the past two years.
EU officials cite the mission as proof that joint defence plans agreed by France and Britain in 1998, and further honed by the EU a year later, remain on track despite the bitter differences over Iraq. While volleys of insults go back and forth across the Channel, British and French officials are meeting twice a week to lay the groundwork for a joint aircraft carrier battle group designed to project EU power around the world.
“You might not believe it, but Franco-British defence is going great guns”, said a senior diplomat. The general assumption in Brussels is that Tony Blair will commit Britain deeper to EU defence once the Iraq conflict is over.
Somebody please tell me that this is a joke…
Also posted on the Command Post
In fact it is indeed a joke… no one is shooting at these people, the security infrastructure is already in place and the agrements were signed before everything changed. ‘Franco-British defence is going great guns’? Don’t make me laugh.
It means nothing whatsoever.
A French general will be in charge of the force of 300 lightly armed peacekeepers drawn from 27 countries, including present and future members of the EU.
Reuters Alertnet.
This is ridiculous. I wanted to believe it was a joke but a google news search shows everyone carrying the story so I guess not.
EUFOR is being used to make Europe look like it’s all one big happy family but can only be deployed ceremonially in a safe environment, a diplomatic tool not any kind of effective or useful force. Pointless and dangerous.
Not to worry. Building and maintaining a real army is expensive. Which, for the long haul, takes a robust economy. Which requires low taxes and minimum government interference for other purposes. Which totally rules out Europe.
We’ll see how long China can keep up a major military without either becoming more capitalistic or eventually ossifying, Soviet Union style.
Hey! I de-italicized that! Have some more left-pointy-brace slash-i right-pointy-brace, you!
Yes, the deployment of uniformed civil servants is a joke but Mr.Blair’s apparently undiminshed commitment to the EU is not, I fear.
It is for this reason that I am so reluctant to bestow ‘Churchill’ status on him. Once the dust has settled on Baghdad, he could elect to apply his not inconsiderable energies to bouncing us into a Federal Europe.
I am not saying this is inevitable but it is possible.
David,
Doesn’t Blair have any feelings ? (I’m not asking about brains). Can you be treated this way by perfidious Paris and then wipe away the spit, pretending it’s only rain and continue the wonderful relationship with them ?
Jacob,
I don’t about Blair’s feelings but as far as I can tell he is still a commited ‘internationalist’. There would be a lot of opposition in this country to signing us up to the Euro but remember that there was a lot of opposition in this country to going to war and Blair braved it out. He could do the same thing again.
If he decides that he wants in to Belgian Empire then he will start devoting his energies to ‘healing the wounds’ with Paris and Berlin. It is not beyond him at all.
I’d just like to know how many blades the Charles De Gaulle’s screw has on it this week.
This carrier project was agreed in January by Chirac and Blair at Brest when the newspapers were concentrating on Iraq. It does not surprise me that the institutional developments towards defence integration are continuing apace.
Why should anyone be surprised that Europe continues to act by stealth below our radar.
It is how thay have always acted and always will act. Let us hope that Blair’s call for a “reckoning” is accompanied by action.
What’s a Eufor?
People often write off the fledgling Euro army, saying that continental Europeans will never pay for a large, modern mechanised army.
This rather misses the point; surely the Euro army is not intended for action against aggression from outside the New Europe (such aggression will, of course, be bought off) but against dissent from within. Such actions do not require masses of expensive kit or dozens of divisions.
Hence the emphasis on “peacekeeping”, training for this is remarkably similar to putting down irregular forces of – shall we say – some future British or Danish awkward squads. Currently the forces with the most experience of this sort of operation are, you guessed it, HM armed forces, therefore the need for British input so that expertise can be passed on to troops who could be trusted to open fire on crowds in London or Copenhagen.