Having outlined the strategic dangers involved in Part I of the new Entente Cordiale, I should now point out some of the dreadful tactical flaws in its proposed construction.
It is important to bear in mind the federal goal of the EU, it is committed to broader & deeper integration of its members and the natural extension of this is a centralised foreign policy run by Brussels’ bureaucrats. This shall be supported by an army under federal control with the United States of America as the template, or perhaps closer still the old Soviet Union. Although I have likened the Entente Cordial of the Edwardian era to the new proposals, it does in fact go deeper. Let us gallop through the basic tenets which are on offer, whilst bearing in mind the UK is fully committed to this “defence union” regardless of Brexit.
The concept was first mooted at the Joint Services Staff College in 2011 under the Chatham House Rule. It surfaced publicly if quietly in 2016 when Great Britain involved itself in facilitating the Defence Union. Five EU Council meetings bind participant states in military finance, command & defence industrial planning.
This is an unprecedented step insofar as it carves up military , naval & air force procurement amongst participant countries. There was always loose procurement cooperation under NATO, disastrous in the main with army trucks produced by Germany weighing in at £120k a truck (for soldiers to write off with monotonous regularity) motor cycles produced in Canada at six times the cost of ‘off the shelf’ Japanese equivalents (old soldiers remember the Armstrong? Back loaded most of the time in Germany, useless), fighter aircraft with parts made in four different countries, ridiculously expensive & obsolete on delivery. With this track record, imagine what a Horlicks an EU defence committee could make of a new military industrial complex set in concrete.
UK Civil servants invited defence businessmen to participate in European Defence Fund negotiations in 2017. The UK is participating in a trial of the Coordinated Annual Defence Review (CARD), a financial mechanism to slice the pie. A guarantee of pork barrel politics, remember AlfaSud? Remember they shifted some production of Alpha Romeo from Turin to Naples, the idea nearly killed the marque & the company’s reputation. I wonder where the military helicopters will end up being screwed together.
Guess who will be running this fiasco? The EU Commission, EU Military Staff & European External Action Service, what a committee! Beggars belief! W.S Gilbert would not even have attempted to satirise this. Too topsy turvy for even him!
However, it must be said that any European army, no matter how incompetently run & equipped is still a menace in the hands of this committee. As the EU starts to break up, as it is doing now, only force can keep it together. Let the United States in the early 1860s be a warning, 600,000 American dead, the same number maimed. A federal union enforced at the point of a bayonet. It is extraordinary this growing commitment is not being scrutinised by either parliament or the mainstream media. As a nation we seem more focussed on cars or wine tariffs, yet the sword of Damocles hangs over us yet again for those who care to glance up.
We thus far see only the Veterans for Britain lobbying hard, with some senior retired generals adding their weight. Thus far this has been to little avail, and the chances of folly becoming disaster increase with each passing government. Why not ask your local MP why the hell they aren’t talking about this? It’s only the peace of the continent at stake afterall.
Article orginally published: www.britishreform.co.uk