"Continental security system": why the European Union again started talking about the need for military independence from the United States

The European Union must be able to be more militarily independent from the United States.

This opinion was expressed by German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer in an interview with German media.

“This does not mean that we have to separate from the Americans.

But situations may arise in which we will have other interests, including within NATO.

Then we must be more capable with the help of our own forces, ”TASS quotes her as saying.

The head of the department recalled that after the change of power in Afghanistan, the defense ministers of the EU member states at an emergency meeting discussed ways out of the current situation, including the creation of a European rapid reaction force.

Kramp-Karrenbauer added that she will present her vision for the formation of such a structure by the end of October.

An informal meeting of EU defense ministers on the situation in Afghanistan was held in Slovenia on 2 September.

Kramp-Karrenbauer then stated that these events demonstrated the dependence of the European Union on the United States.

“In Afghanistan, we saw that our own abilities are not what we imagined them to be.

We were dependent on the United States, and today we will talk about the fact that it is necessary to draw the right conclusions from this, - then the Minister of Defense of Germany said.

"But it is important that we do this not as an alternative to NATO and the Americans, but in order to become stronger ourselves."

"Lack of political will"

Recently, the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, spoke about the need to create its own armed forces for the EU, making a keynote speech "On the situation in the EU in 2021".

In it, she also stated that the European Union should learn a lesson from the situation, which led to the hasty retreat of the United States and its allies from Afghanistan.

According to her, this should induce the association to gather political will to create its own armed forces and use them in resolving conflicts.

“There has been a lot of discussion about expeditionary forces in recent weeks.

What type they should be and in what quantity do we need them.

This is undoubtedly part of the discussion - and I believe it will become part of the solution, ”the politician said.

• Head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen

• © AP Photo / Jean-Francois Badias

At the same time, she emphasized that along with the creation of such forces, European leaders must have the determination to use them.

“You may have the best troops in the world, but if you’re not ready to use them, then what’s the use of them?

We are still constrained not only by the shortage of the contingent, but also by the lack of political will.

And if we develop this political will, we can do a lot at the EU level, ”said von der Leyen.

The head of the European Commission (who headed the German Ministry of Defense for five and a half years) proposed a number of measures to strengthen the military component of the EU, including the achievement of compatibility of military equipment of European countries, as well as the abolition of VAT on purchases from local sellers of weapons and military equipment.

According to her, in the first half of 2022, she, together with French President Emmanuel Macron, will hold a summit of EU leaders on European defense.

It is worth noting that Macron has repeatedly sharply criticized NATO over the past few years and also mentioned the possibility of creating his own European army.

In addition, the head of the European Commission said that together with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, she was working on a new declaration on relations between the European Union and the North Atlantic Alliance.

Stoltenberg himself had previously negatively assessed the idea of ​​creating a separate pan-European armed forces, warning that their formation would weaken the alliance and divide Europe.

“Any attempts to create parallel structures, duplicate the management structure will weaken our joint ability to work together, because with limited resources, we need to prevent duplication of efforts,” he said in an interview with the British newspaper The Telegraph.

The Alliance Secretary General stressed that the EU's attempts to establish its own armed forces "will never replace NATO."

A crack in unity

Experts note that against the background of discussions on the need to create an EU expeditionary force at the level of the military-political leadership of the union, the United States itself struck a blow at NATO's unity, forming a new strategic partnership with the UK and Australia, which led to a conflict of interest with France.

Earlier, Paris recalled ambassadors to the United States and Australia after Canberra, against the background of joining the AUKUS partnership, canceled a contract for the purchase of submarines.

The agreement for € 56 billion included the delivery of 12 Attack class non-nuclear submarines to Australia by the Naval Group - in France the media called it "the contract of the century."

• French military

• © Charly Triballeau / Pool Photo via AP

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison then explained that his country was withdrawing from the contract, as the United States would transfer technology to Canberra to build nuclear submarines.

The move caused a sharp backlash in French political circles.

For example, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian called this decision "a stab in the back" and said that Paris also has questions about the behavior of the United States.

In turn, the leader of the party "Unconquered France" Jean-Luc Mélenchon said that the country needs to withdraw from NATO, as well as curtail plans to open a center of excellence for the alliance in the field of space security, which the United States wanted to place in Toulouse.

In a conversation with RT, Alexander Domrin, professor at the Faculty of Law at the Higher School of Economics, recalled that Germany and France, the leading military powers of the EU, are precisely the main ideologists of the creation of the European army.

“The United States has tried to suppress this unrest since the days of the Bill Clinton administration.

But such a reaction was justified then, because Europe would find it difficult to distinguish between the forces and powers of NATO and the European army.

In addition, for several decades Europe was satisfied that the United States defended it from the mythical Soviet and later Russian threat by spreading its nuclear umbrellas on its territory, ”the expert said. 

Now, according to him, the creation of a military alliance between Great Britain, the United States and Australia, due to which Paris lost a colossal contract in terms of economics and geopolitics, has again fueled such sentiments.

"In this case, Germany projected the situation with France onto itself, because if the White House administration so openly" threw "Paris, then Berlin may find itself in a similar situation," the political scientist noted.

Talks about Europe's greater independence from the United States in the field of security have been going on for several decades, and now, on the eve of the elections, this topic, including in Germany and France, is becoming one of the most relevant, a leading researcher at the Center for German Studies at the Institute of Europe said in a conversation with RT. RAS Alexander Kamkin.

“Of course, talk about a single European army is in line with the spirit of the Lisbon Treaty of the EU and the movement towards a more integrated unification between the countries of the union.

But, nevertheless, in the near future one should not expect a radical departure from the spirit of NATO and allied commitments, "Kamkin believes.

He also noted that in connection with the withdrawal of Great Britain from the EU, there is an increase in cooperation with the United States and Australia as countries of the Anglosphere.

“It can be assumed that in the next 10-15 years the Anglo-Saxons will indeed follow the transatlantic path, while the EU, on the contrary, can choose its own continental security system. True, in the next five years there are no real prospects for creating a European army, but the logic of the development of the union's integration provides for this, ”the analyst believes.