Now committed military partners.

[hard2miss]

Well we all saw this coming even before we were struggling for money, we have jumped into bed militarily with France.

 

I can see a lot of benefit from this, we have after all fought along side one another (as well as against each other) for some time, so pooling resources makes some sense. The problem is that this kind of waters down our sovereignty to some degree, if we have a conflict that France does not agree with then how do we stand, and visa versa ?

 

Of course we also have to rely on them knowing the difference between advance and retreat (just got it in before everyone else )

[Yog Sothoth]

I'd trust the French more than the Americans. The French psyche is pretty similar to the British, whereas the American psyche is out on its own, and misaligned with ours.

[Jason Bourne]

We're gonna share nuclear testing sites

 

x

[hard2miss]

I'd trust the French more than the Americans. The French psyche is pretty similar to the British, whereas the American psyche is out on its own, and misaligned with ours.

I agree, despite the language we have way more in common with the French then we care to notice, but that is obvious with our histories. We have at some stage conquered each others land and probably share a great deal of DNA

[hard2miss]

The only thing that is sticking in my throat over this is the nagging notion that maybe WE the people should have had some input and consultation over it by way of a referendum or something. I would have probably voted for it anyhow but others may not and we should have had a right to see if we want to get this pally with France.

[Harleyman]

I'd trust the French more than the Americans. The French psyche is pretty similar to the British, whereas the American psyche is out on its own, and misaligned with ours.

 

Yes, the French psyche and the British psyche worked pretty well together in May and June of 1940 didn't it ?

[Harleyman]

The EU nations should have had a combined military force decades ago. There may have been problems with the language differences but this would not have been impossible to solve.

 

The other problems with Europe however is that questions of loyalty and past emnities keep cropping up to hinder these kind of developments. Would British or French troops accept a German commander and vice versa and since the British forces remain technically under of the Crown

can it swear loyalty to a combined EU Force at the same time?

[chem1st]

If we fight with the French, we British are going to end up being charged with the war crime 'perfidy'.

[JFKvsNixon]

The EU nations should have had a combined military force decades ago. There may have been problems with the language differences but this would not have been impossible to solve.

 

The other problems with Europe however is that questions of loyalty and past emnities keep cropping up to hinder these kind of developments. Would British or French troops accept a German commander and vice versa and since the British forces remain technically under of the Crown

can it swear loyalty to a combined EU Force at the same time?

 

A bit like NATO then?

[Harleyman]

A bit like NATO then?

 

The French pulled out of NATO in the mid 60 probaby due to De Gaulle's nationalisitic belief that no French force should serve under an American NATO commander.

NATO owed it's success far more to the fact that it possessed nuclear weapons than to it's ground fighting force.

 

It was well known by NATO commanders that if the Soviets had invaded West Germany NATO could have only held the ground against hundreds of Soviet divisions pouring through the Fulda Gap for a few weeks before NATO forces were pushed back across West Germany. The standard option was for NATO to retaliate with nuclear weapons and of course the Russians were aware of this.

 

I got called back into the reserves during the Cuban Missile crisis and we were put on standby to move to West Germany. An officer told us that if war broke out we were all dead men within a couple of weeks.