An EU Army can challenge China and Russia - Here is why

Will an EU military superpower rival the US, China and Russia? And how would an EU army work? How strong would it be? Could it rival the other great powers? This video will address these questions by evaluating military spend and military numbers. It will also briefly look at a Federal Europe, a pre-requisite of a European army. With Putin, Xi Jinping and Biden (or a future Trump) holding most the military power, this video will look if a EU army can compete.

Correction: (thanks to Riccardo Gemme in the comments):
The new Italian Aircraft Carrier is going to take the place of one of the 2 already in service.
The Garibaldi - Will be decommisioned (there are rumours that it may be used as a drone ship)
Trieste - The new carrier that will take Garibaldi's place
Cavour - The current flagship of the italian navy

Timestamps:
1:11 How would an EU army work
2:37 Military Spending Compared
4:50 Military Spending Compared (incl. PPP)
6:06 Military Numbers Compared
8:00 Global Super Power or Not?

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Research & Sources
Source 1: SIPRI World Military Expenditure

Source 2: SIPRI, Military Expenditure Database

Source 3: Financial Management and Controller, Air Force Budget

Source 4: The Week, The Arguments for and Against and EU army

Source 5: Breaking Defense, Seven European Nations have increased defense Budgets

Source 6: VOX EU, Debating Defense Budgets

Source 7: Globalfirepower, Global Fire Power 2022

Source 8: Arms Control Association, Nuclear Weapons

Source 9: FP, Is an EU Army Coming

Source 10: NAVAL News, New Lhd Trieste

Source 11: World Bank, Population, Total

Source 12: Europäische Sicherheit und Technik, The Fairy Tale of the 17 European Battle Tanks

Source 13: Europe1, Macron pour une "vraie armée européenne" : un projet réalisable ?

Source 14: The Local, Merkel calls for a ‘real, true’ European army

[justitmoko]

Dutch here living in Belgium and I've long been a advocate for a federated Europe. in my opinion its the only way we can be relevant on the world stage.

[antonhauffe]

I think it’s always important to consider the modernisation of the military equipment. For example, Russia has a vast amount of tanks but most of them are still from the soviets

[CriticalPosthumanism]

EU has some advantages since each country could specialize in one task. I heard a podcast in the radio about this.
Like France and Germany could provide the backbone army and smaller countries focus on special things like naval, aircrafts, military inteligence, logistics etc.

This is way more economic than each country has his own army and need to be good in everything.
Moreover, this would unite the EU even more and make war within the EU impossible, because the individual states would no longer have their own army.

[kurtwinslow]

As an American I like the idea of a stronger EU. Because you have nothing to fear from us, nor do we fear you. There's strength in numbers and hopefully the 21st century will be a more peaceful century. It's not starting off good, but a stronger Europe might help keep the rogue states in check.

[avinashmishra]

If EU has a united army, it will be the best force in the world. Consider this, China buys submarine technology from Germany. The AIP system was Swedish. Battery AIP system has been mastered only by Germany, prototype battery AIP with Spain and France. In terms of aircrafts, best beyond visual range AAM, best EW suite, GAN ASEA radars, only lacking in stealth but that too will be dealt in future with 2 sixth generation programs.

Overall, I believe the giant has been sleeping for long.

[analogGigabyte]

Greece is forced to maintain an expensive army to keep the defender's standard 1/3 ratio against the larger Turkish army that has beem bullying and threatening to invade Greece for decades. Some EU countries haven't been opposing that, since they have been profiting by providing weapons and defensive solutions to the Greeks

[BioD]

Having served in the German air force and army I've always been a strong proponent of a European army, although the same hasn't been true for much, maybe most of my army comrades (less so in the air force). With the redefinition of the European security structure and the rise of China as a global super power, I think a European army is unavoidable at some point, but it's a process with many adversaries from the political and military-industrial complex. On a positive note there are areas where European, respectively NATO coordination is already very much advanced, i.e. air-air and ground-air defense and where pooling resources is absolutely essential simply because of the costs and complexity. Here the political will, rather than technical hurdles stand in the way of further integration. The EU battlegroups where a good idea, but poorly executed. I always favoured the idea of an elite, self-reliant, multinational expeditionary force at the centre of European defense, akin to the US marine corps.

[andreasgreek]

Great video. Regarding @8:51 and in my humble opinion..
-Language among Europeans was NEVER an issue.
-The strongest nations are in charge. UK, France, Germany.
-Modern systems solve the mis communication issues of older systems/different equipment. Most systems today are made in a modular way. Not hermetically closed systems. A Dutch submarine can easily connect to a French frigate.

[SeArChDrEaMz]

Im belgian and i fully support the idea of a european army, granted it wont be easy to implement and it will take time, but it is absolutely necessary in the defense of our collective interests and security.
Moreover as europeans, we cant always rely on the americans, and as nice as they are, they do not always have our best interests at heart (war in iraq/afghanistan+migrant crisis as a result) and it is time for us europeans to be a little more assertive..

[alexanderschoneberg]

As a small point it is kind of pointless to even differentiate between Frigates and Destroyers nowadays . I would just simply group them as Warships. Germany for example simply refuses to classify ships as Destroyers. Meanwhile the German Baden-Würtemberg Class "Frigate" is about the same lenght and weight as british Typ 45 Destroyer and the Sachsen Class "Frigate" surpasses most non American Destroyers in (my opinion) Capabilities.

[DBLtp]

An EU army is nearly impossible for the foreseeable future because of the opposing interests of France and Germany. Germany only seeks a European army to continue to subsidise it’s defence without having to rely on, and take orders from the Americans. They would keep everything close and use their economic dominance to maintain control over the EU. France is an interventionalist power seeking to rebuild neo-colonial control over north and west Africa to make use of its energy and mineral exports, and younger demography. The French won’t tolerate the Germans continuing to call the shots in the EU, and the Germans won’t let the French engage in foreign interventions. All they can agree on is that they don’t want to take orders from the yanks.

[taseljoff]

Loved the video! Instant-follow for you. Keep up with the great work!

[perseusarkouda]

EU army is unavoidable. We appreciate democracy but we won't be able to defend it.

[roseforeuropa]

Wow, excellent and very SIMPLE presentation! I had never considered PPP although it seems obvious now. One correction I keep seeing you do in your other videos. You often mention "Military spend" however, grammatically you should use the infinite form "military spending"

Also, would you be able to do a deep dive video on Schultz's proposed EU Air defense system? How would it be different from the current air defense network? I can see this being the very beginning of an EU style air force, or at least something much greater than an integrated air defense system.

[matti]

One thing that is always left out in videos like this is the effect of corruption on military spending.
A million may buy more in china but if every time any money is moved some of it gets stolen then you get a lot less, and worse that deficit is hidden so you do not actually know how much of the money is actually spent as intended.
We have a clear example now in Russia. Funds intended for materiel upkeep got stolen, funds intended for training troops got stolen and funds intended for upgrade programs got stolen.
So if in 2021 they spent $65.9 billion on their army how much was actually spent on their army? We do not really know and worse for Russians they do not know.
It is a huge liability to have military a system that lies to itself. And there is no way to fix it unless the whole society goes through massive anti-corruption reforms.

[PumaDAce-sgzv]

Austria is a neutral country and will never join an european Army.

[Emanon...]

Just want to say you've been crushing it lately with your short but highly informative videos.
That is all.

[michaelpilos]

Actually! This analysis is brilliant 👍🏼

[MDP]

I don't really think the language is that much of a problem, there is one clear option: english. Not only does this not favor any (large) EU member, but it is also the most used language world wide, the most used among EU allies and is used internationally in many different fields too. In the end every soldier that can't speak english yet would just take a course for it. By extension I also think english should become the 'official' EU language and be thaught in every member. Not to replace other languages, but to be used in official EU circumstances (politics, EU announcements and military for example) and so that citizens of different memberstates always have a common language to communicate with/fall back to, while ofcourse using their own native language when possible.

I also don't really think the budget would be that problematic. Essentially you'd state that all members spend at least 2% of their GDP in a common military fund, with the option to put more into it with the option to spend equally less than 2% in another year within the next 10-15 years (so a nation spending 3% one year could spend 1% a few years later), though the funding needs to be known more or less 2 years in advance and the fund should have always some reserve fund left. Then it is up to the military to manage that fund under the supervision of the EU parliament, which also needs to keep the council up to date when asked about. Ofcourse this oversight can be different depending on the answer of 'who is in charge?' And ofcourse the minimum budget can be increased if most countries are in favor, though probably only done in times of need.

The difference in equipment also isn't that difficult, though it isn't something fixed in a few years. For one you'd just slowly phase out the older equipment and replace it with newer common equipment. Secondly, some of this equipment could potentially be sold to other non-EU countries and replaced with common new equipment, this even could be seen as part of a modernisation plan.
The main problem with this question isn't the difference in current equipment, rather the defence industry and selecting which equipment to actually use in the future. EU nations are already working on this problem (FCAS, German-French tank, ....), but it won't be an easy thing regardless, no country wants to lose jobs.

I personally don't think public or political support is a problem overall, as long as you ensure that this EU army will not jeapordise NATO, something several (eastern) countries are afraid off. It is more the perception of opposition than actual opposition that is holding something more regarding an EU military back, that and the less easy answered questions. Regardless, starting with an 'EU army of the willing' is imo the best option.

The 'who is in charge' and 'sovereignty' questions are essentially closely interlinked and aren't easy to fix, especially not with the current still pretty decentralized EU government.

[pauluk]

What I've noticed when it comes to power projecting, the economy is what really matters, if you have a strong big economy, you can pretty much build anything you want with the backing of that economy.

Russia has a weak economy, hence a weak military that is really being exposed in Ukraine, after all, we should remember that Russia's economy is around the size that fits in between Spain and Italy whiles having to cater to a much bigger population, basically, Russia is weak in comparison to the US or China.

As for the EU, they've got the economy but they don't have the political unity, if the EU countries actually got together, pooled their resources, get rid of a lot of duplications and spend 2% on the military, it would be a powerful military, far more so then China or Russia but not as much as the US because they are bat crazy with fear of China so they are spending more on the military than they should which is costing the American people a lot of money that could be better used for social programs which the US is lacking.

I also think EU countries that want to do this should do it, don't wait to get all EU members onboard as that is unlikely, do like they did with the Euro and Schengen, gradually, more countries will want to join as it's shown to work, that's the best way to get some movement on it and I think Germany would prefer to do it at an EU level then German level because of the war guilt from the first and second world war, basically, they might feel more comfortable in the EU doing the military for them, France would likely be onboard because they want to project power around the world and realize that the EU is the only way to do it as the members are too small to matter, Italy wants to rebuild the glory of Rome and see the EU as a way of achieving that, after all, it's no accident that the treaty was signed in Rome for the EU, Spain I think would also be another country onboard, if those get together and do it, they'll very likely get a few smaller countries onboard and that's how the ball gets moving, that's probably the best way to do it because the EU is never going to get them all onboard in one go.

If the EU did have a strong military, it would take off a lot of the burden from the US around the world as the EU could share in that, it would also reduce the cost a lot for the US because the EU and US could work on a lot of military projects together and share the cost out, there are a lot of benefits for both sides in doing this if the US stops seeing the EU as a rival and I think longer term, the EU and US are going to need to work a lot closer together to contain China and protect western values.

On another note, I think the EU needs many reforms and needs to integrate more if it wants to protect it's political, economic and social interest around the world, if EU countries keep bickering with themselves, they are just going to get pushed aside by the US and China, so sooner or later, the EU members are going to have to get their act together and with everything that is happening in Ukraine, the next 5-10 years is the perfect opening to do real change in the EU.

Another factor we should remember, it's not about how much is spent on the military or how many troops, tanks and planes you have, it's how high-tech the military is, once you get to a certain military advanced level, it's highly unlikely anyone will mess with you, not even the US because the cost will be too high, after all, look at every war the US has been in since the second world war, it's been against much poorer countries that can't really fight back, go up against modern countries and the cost in lives and money goes crazy, hence why, the EU even with the spending now would be untouchable, but if they do combine, pool their resources and spend 2% of their GDP on the military, the US, China or India wouldn't mess with that because the cost would be very high for themselves, after all, look how much it cost the US just going up against Iraq, it's all about the economy and modern tech, the EU, US and China to a less degree have that and that makes an all out war among them very unlikely.