Dear Director, during my now forty-year military career I have often found myself working side by side with soldiers from other Nations, NATO and non-NATO, in high and low intensity operational contexts. We were part of a coalition, or we were members of the Alliance, or we collaborated to achieve a common goal.
All that glitters is gold? I wouldn't say exactly... at most "well-polished brass".
From Afghanistan to Iraq, from Kosovo to Albania, from Libya to Lebanon, beyond many nice words, handshakes, smiling official photos and sometimes, it must be admitted, the establishment of a beautiful friendship with the foreign comrade, there always remained in the background a very different national vision of the operation.
Each nation had its own caveats, political first and military later, each nation pursued a slightly different objective from the official one, and, let's face it, each of us looked with pride at its own flag and not at that of NATO, EU, UN etc.
From a psychological point of view, what affinity can I, a professional soldier, brought up in the cult of our heroes of the past, have with my Austrian colleague, whose ancestors in the Strafexpedition of 1916 they beat my great-grandfather to death?
Obviously this contrasts with the reality of 2012 which saw me establish excellent relationships of collaboration and even friendship with Austrian colleagues in Kosovo, whose commander, however, was not allowed to participate in NATO meetings…. So when politicians and commentators of all sorts tear their clothes talking about the need for a European army, they are talking about something that simply cannot exist.
An army is not just a set of national units coordinated by an international and joint general staff, which speaks an accepted language and not its own; that is an alliance, a coalition, not an army.
How many of us every morning, at the flag raising ceremony and Mameli's anthem, do not feel a subtle shiver hearing that music and looking at the tricolor? Can we say the same about the feeling of the European flag raising ceremony, the blue cloth with 12 stars in a circle and Schiller's Ode to Joy? Which of the 27 European languages will manage this hypothetical army? NATO English, French and why not German? Which will be the reference MBT? The German Leopard? The French Leclerc? And the V generation aircraft? And the European frigate? Which intelligence? Which Cyber defense?
This is why alliances, agreements, European STANAGs on weapons and procedures, the creation of international general staffs, joint corps, mixed units, call them what you want, are welcome, but a common army is definitely not; what is missing is the amalgamation that only a national unity, built on centuries of common suffering and experiences, common language and traditions, can provide.
So let's stop building unrealizable chimeras and focus on what is real and what needs a effective cohesion to build an efficient common defense.
Dark Brown
Photo: NATO
