Europe trying to match American military power, at what cost?

Apparently now Europe(i.e. the EU) is trying to catch up to America's "edge" in military technology, as the Times Online reported today. In order to do this, a newly created European Defense Agency (E.D.A.) has been set up to manage the initiative. The E.U. wishes to transform itself from being purely a political power "in charge of policies such as agriculture and trade, to a military one, capable of sending troops around the world to enforce a foreign policy agreed by its member states."

Of course not everybody is happy about this. Both Sweden and the Irish Republic fear that this will threaten their traditional stances of neutrality in world affairs. Indeed what would be the cost of this new endeavor? The E.U. already wishes to take away the right of Europe's nations to decide its own political fate. This just seems another step down the road, since as Clausewitz famously said "War is politics by other means."

Nicolo Machiavelli also stressed the strong links between political sovereignty and military power. Once a nation gives up its right to manage its own self-defense, the nation ceases to exist. National independence is always measured by that nation's ability to defend itself. Since the E.U. wishes to undermine the political independence of Europe's nations, what better way to achieve that than by undermining their ability to defend themselves militarily!

So yes Sweden, the Irish Republic, and indeed all Europe need to be fearful of this. The E.U. wishes to impose greater control over the destiny of Europe's nations by taking away one of their most fundamental rights. As the article itself states: Concern about Europe's military weakness came to the fore in the 1990s when it was unable to prevent civil war in the Balkans. Since then, the European Union has been developing a common foreign policy and set up the EDA to increase its military power.

The events in the Balkans, however tragic, were about the need for individual nations to assert their own independence against the power of supranational entities. Now the E.U. is concerned about its apparent weakness to suppress that.

As one familiar with military affairs, I could give a commentary on the strictly military aspects of this issue, but I believe the political implications far outweighed the military ones. I urge all of Europe's nations to reject this initiative from the E.U. and defend your fundamental right to manage the self-defense of your own individual nation. Adopt a military system built on Third Position principles, which is based on a foreign policy of armed neutrality and an armed forces based on a patriotic armed citizenry - very much in line with the system that the Swiss operate on.