A European Union army is a terrible idea

Certainly, developing common defense initiatives to save money on research and development and acquisition programs is commendable, but this is already happening and does not require a European Army. Most big-ticket items being purchased by EU militaries are already pan-European projects. A dozen European armies use the German Leopard 2 battle tank, while most leading EU air forces fly the Eurofighter Typhoon.

Moreover, creating a European Army, with national units no larger than battalions, does not guarantee any more coherent defense or security policy. National frictions will endure, no matter how Europe organizes defense. Here history is instructive. Multinational militaries are fragile things by nature, and require delicate political handling, not to mention that common threat pictures can be hard to come by.

For centuries, the Habsburg Empire managed one of Europe’s largest military machines, drawn from a dozen ethnic groups. While that fissiparous force held together down to the end of World War I in the autumn of 1918, it was not always efficient nor effective, despite important exceptions, and backbiting among ethnic groups was a perennial problem for Vienna. Worse, it’s hard to see how the twenty-first century EU, which has difficulty maintaining minimal political coherence in peacetime, would stand up to the rigors of even the smallest war, much less a major struggle against a resurgent Russia.