NATO’s civilian and military chiefs are making the rounds in Europe today, warning the European Union against creating a possible EU-wide military on the grounds it would “duplicate” military resources NATO already has.
A handful of EU member states, including Finland, Sweden, Austria, and Ireland, are not in NATO, so there wouldn’t be perfect overlap between an EU military and the NATO alliance.
The more likely objection is that a unified EU military would make the vast amount of superfluous military spending in Europe all the more obvious at a time when the US and NATO leadership are pushing EU member nations to spend more.
The EU is presenting a unified military as a counter to Russia, but the reality is that the EU spends many times what the Russian Federation does on military forces. Small EU nations might not realize the disparity so much now, but a unified force would make this all the more glaring, and subsequently harm NATO’s fear-based efforts to get them to spend more.
