We need a European army, says Jean-Claude Juncker

bbc.com ^ | 9 March 2015 | bbc

[Always A Marine]

We may also discover why it was more advantageous for American military bases and folks to be stationed around the world as a big deterrence - it may be a real deterrence to having some of the host countries from having more grand ideas...

That's an excellent point, trebb, and reflects my original misgivings about broadly expanding NATO after the Soviet collapse. We are now allied with a host of tiny countries who brought their own deep (and some ancient) grievances into the broader alliance. The great danger is that one of these midgets might want to have its new treaty partner settle its old scores along the lines of "Let's you and him fight." And here we are...

[Jack Hammer]

Agreed.

[CMB_polarization]

Case in point, Lithuania. Lithuania 'already under attack' - President Grybauskaite

[JoeFromSidney]

Rather than look at it from the standpoint of national politics, I'd rather look at it from the standpoint of the individual grunt. In my 25 years in the military, I knew for whom I'd be fighting: the country I was born in; the country my family lived in; the country my children would grow up in. For whom or what would the individual grunt in a "European" army be fighting for? A country with a people, or an abstraction like "Europe?"

I offer the Iraqi army as an example. Iraq is a geographical expression. It is not a nation with a people. When push came to shove, the Iraqi army fell apart. By contrast, the Kurds are a people, and the individual Kurd is willing to fight for his people.

As long as I'm pontificating, let me note that America is well on its way to being a geographical expression, not a people. When that process is sufficiently advanced, the "nation" will fall apart.