Talk:European Rapid Reaction Force

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is part of WikiProject European Union, an attempt to co-ordinate articles relating to the European Union on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.
Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the importance scale.

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the European Rapid Reaction Force article.
Article policies

Contents

[edit] Finland is not apart of Scandinavia

Changed Scandinavian to Fennoscandic as it is more accurate when speaking of, or including Finland with the Scandinavian countries.

Scandinavia is sometimes used when Finland is included, this is an Anglosaxon "problem." Rather change to Nordic. This includes Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Iceland. Fennoscandic is a rare term, not familiar to most readers.

Actually, it is.


[edit] Citations

The ERRF IS controlled by the EU, the EuroCorps is not. The "citation needed" tags for the first sentense are pushing it. Should the article on the United States also require a citation to prove that Washington DC is the nation's capital? Should the article on Humans also require a citation to prove we are bipedal?

[edit] totally disputed tag

I don't have the time right now to clean this up myself but there are problems with both POV and factual accuracy.

1) Instead of focusing on facts (what exactly the ERRF, when was it proposed, for which) it only focuses on the supposed problems and objections, even calling the questions "difficult ones". This needs major cleanup. More on factual elements, less focus on reactions to it.

2) Is it really "only a proposal"? It seems to me that the ERRF has even undertaken limited missions. I may be mistaken in this, in which case remove or change the totallydisputed tag, accordingly.

-- Aris Katsaris 15:50, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

3) The frase 'Must Europe Send Its Poor to Die?' could also be applied to the United States (military service = green card for poor Mexican imigrants) and other military organisations which trick poorer students into serving by paying their education. Perhaps the connotation should be removed.

4) The Franco-German relations are very good at the moment, so a German general wouldn't attract so much attention any more. -- 80.201.203.150 The Sun would cry murder in UK, I dont think all the french would be happy with it either. -- CJWilly

5) The first paragraph is disproved by the existence of NATO and the Warsaw Pact.

Surely, no one is suggesting that NATO and the former Warsaw Pact armies were primarily repsonsible to NATO and the Pact rather than their own national commanders. They were armed forces working together as part of an alliance, but were not truly "NATO" or "Warsaw Pact" troops, non-nationally identifiable, which is the idea behind some EREF proposals.
As to other concens expressed, here's my take:

I don't think that the EREF has ever advanced beyond the proposal stage. If someone is European or has been to Europe very recently or has done really good research can prove otherwise, please do so. This would be good if it could include facts such as who commands this unit, where it is stationed, etc., which should be easy enough if such a thing really has been formed.

Franco-German relations are quite good right now, in large measure because neither country has any armed forces engaged in combat anywhere, either under their own command or each others, or anyone elses. The main source of this agreement with regard to non- and trans-European affairs is an agreement not to be dragged into anything based on the United States' say-so (and from a U.S. viewpoint, not to do anything in Europe in which the U.S. doesn't take the lead – see Bosnia and Kosovo). See how long this would last if a batallion (or even a company) of largely-French troops under a German commander were decimated, or especially vice versa.
With regard to "Must Europe Send Its Poor to Die", yes, U.S. armed forces are almost entirely comprised of poor and lower-middle class persons except for a relatively small cross section of the officer corps. This has been accepted since the end of conscription (1973), and the U.S. press has aquiesced to this for the most part, even The New York Times and The Washington Post. No one could reasonably expect deep, reasoned, or thoughful discussion of this matter from much of the U.S. press. Somehow, I just don't see Le Monde or Die Welt doing so when and if there were large numbers of casualties, nor would the major Spanish papers, especially if a large percentage or large gross numbers of casualties were from Spain.
When the EREF was first proposed is problematic in that it is an outgrowth of the desire for Europe to have the ability to react to European crises separately from and without the need of intervention by the United States. As long as the EC was a weak, vouluntary body mostly concerned about trade barriers being lifted, the idea of its having its own armed forces was a nonstarter. What was first proposed was a coalition of national armed forces, whereas the idea now seems to be for that of "European" forces. Now that it resembles a federal state in many important ways, and will do so even more when/if its constitution is ratified, the issue will have to be addressed.

[edit] Reexplaining some of my issues with this article

My understanding of the European Rapid Reaction Force goes against what is said in the article. My understanding is that the ERRF is NOT a standing army primarily responsible to the EU, but rather a list of available resources that *can* at short notice (aka "rapid reaction") be made available to the EU if the need arises, but would normally belong to their own national armies. [1]

This is my first concern -- that the article misrepresents the ERRF as a body that would be responsible primarily to the EU rather than a grouping of national forces.

Secondly I believe (but am not sure) that this registry of resources/divisions/army formations has indeed happenned, and therefore the ERRF has indeed been made a reality, atleast to an extent.

That's why I'm "totally" disputing the elements of this article.

Aris Katsaris 13:37, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Hey

Yep yep totally see your point (I didn't write the original page) I decided to edit it (well yeah I completely re-wrote it), it is now quite accurate as far as I can see, most of my information is from the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), the Guardian (British newspaper admittedly left-wing) and il Corriere della Sera (Italian centrist daily newspaper) as well as the Italian State Television Service (RAI). My suspicions are that this article was originally written by either a British conservative or American republican and was not only not up-to-date but also just plain wrong (no need to point out where, you do a fine job). I'm Italian but I've lived in Britain most of my life so I know a bit about this.

Michele Giorgi

I think in some points you confused the European Rapid Reaction Force with the European Union battle groups. These are two different concepts. I don't have time right now, but in the next days I'll try to doublecheck and correct possible mistakes. Aris Katsaris 04:51, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Now that this thing acutally exists as opposed to being a debated proposal, is the "totally disputed" tag still either deserved or required? I would think not. The only thing in the article as now constituted that would seem to be POV or disputable is the assertion that it is now universally recongized that European indifference to "ethnic cleansing" in ex-Yugoslavia is reprehensible; while that is certainly recognized by me and, I daresay, by most civilised people, there are certainly "peace at any price" types who would still object to any form of outside intervention, especially if their own country's armed forces were to be involved. Aside from that, it seems to be a totally factual, largely unbiased article, which is commendable. Rlquall 20:30, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I've been working quite a lot on the UNPROFOR article last week, so I've got a relatively clear picture of the problems related to non-intervention against ethnic cleansing. If someone is interested, we could work on a consensual version here and merge it into the article when it seems OK. I'd like to take the opportunity to mention that this mess what quite complicated, so this part might advantageously link to another page (whose existence I am unsure of :p )We might want to take into consideration : the "zero dead doctrine", its impact on the political cost of the operations and what the soldiers though about it; the fascination for armoured vehicles and air strikes, which had worked extremely well in Kuwait but turned out to be much less effective in Bosnia; the stances of France, the UK, the USA, the Soviet Union and China, both on the ground and at the UN; the stances of the warring parties; the consequences of the Somalia debacle for the USA; the doctrine of the UN at the time; etc. Rama 20:42, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Every bit of that needs to be hammered out; it's all important. Again, I would agree that I don't know just where all of it belongs, but have no doubt that it all deserves speculation. Rlquall 21:50, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
You've not understood my issue. Half the article talks about an *ENTIRELY UNRELATED* concept, the EU battle groups. It's the EU Battle groups that were decided on 22 November 2004, it's the EU Battle groups that are divided in groups of 1500 soldiers and will be ready in the coming years. I'm still disputing the factual accuracy of this article. Aris Katsaris 23:31, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Current status of the article

What do you people think of the current version of the article ? I think it is far less POV than it used to be, though it might still be a little bit imprecise... Do we keep the "factual accuracy" notice ? Rama 14:13, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Just to point out

Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain will each have their own units, all other EU countries are required to put some troops into other multi-national units. Just to confirm that these units are (not sure of the word I'm looking for here) responsible to their nations, as there is no European command structure (militarily). Dave Lewis

[edit] Not the Same

The "European Rapid Reaction Force" is NOT the same as the "European Union rapid reaction mechanism" as the dispute tag suggests. The latter involves rapid financial support (primarily for natural disaster and humanitarian relief efforts) while the latter involves rapidly mobile military forces (primarily for peacekeeping and conflict management). They are definitely not the same thing despite sharing similar terms.

Agree, looks like these are two different things. --Edward Sandstig 22:19, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] EU Battlegroups

How is this different from the EU Battlegroups? --Edward Sandstig 22:20, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I missed the answer to my own question over there: "The battlegroups project is not to be confused with the European Rapid Reaction Force which concerns up to 60,000 soldiers, deployable for at least a year, and take one to two months to deploy. The battlegroups are instead meant for more rapid and shorter deployment in international crises, probably preparing the ground for a larger and more traditional force to replace them in due time." --Edward Sandstig 22:24, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Statement about limited transport assets

I removed the following statement:

"However, large deployments outside europe would be very difficult in any case, as the logistics and transportation cababilites of the armed forces of the EU countries are rather limited."

Although probably true for the most part, the degree of difficulty indicated is not something that I think many of us on Wikipedia can speculate on. We can probably put back a similar statement at a later time if someone can provide a credible reference. --Edward Sandstig 13:10, 25 November 2006 (UTC)


I think that the overseas-section is rather missleading, as it gives the impression that the EU has the cabability to show strong force overseas independent of the USA, which is clearly not the case. I think it should be rewritten. -Juhani-four

Britain and France both maintain Blue water navies. Britain currently maintains several overseas operations both in concert and independent of the US. the Royal Navy is second only two the US navy and has supplied and maintained long range wars (the falklands) and peace keeping (Sierra Leone) the RFA is capable of maintain the British Armed Forces around the world independent of the US. JD


The Falklands happened over 20 years ago and it was really a naval and air conflict. The sources of this article say that the logistics are limiting the cababilities of the ERRF, do you have some conflicting sources? Example: http://www.cicerofoundation.org/lectures/p4lindleyfrench.html This is a doctor from the WEU Institute for Security Studies. I find this to be rather credible source, don't you? -Juhani-four

[edit] Problems with the ERRF

it might be useful to note the key stumble blocks of the ERRF. such as = the uneasy that it would be possible for an alliance of small european nations to send the big three armed forces to war = more than any other European idea Britain would need to play a key, and the continuing anti european feeling particularly towards anything thats leads to more integrated europe = Britain's divided loyalty between the US and EU = uneasy between the militaries particularly towards combined units Germany disliked the RAF calling its Eurofighters Typhoon after the WW2 era tank buster and there was alarm expressed at the possibility of British Tanks serving in Panzer division. JD

[edit] accuracy disputed

The article contains many bold claims which are not backed up by any source. Many are pure speculation, and some are absurd in the current political climate (future EU invasion of Bealrus and Ukraine).Paul111 11:33, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merger

There is actually no organisation called the 'European Rapid Reaction Force'; there's simply the list of forces being gathered for the Helsinki Headline Goal. I believe these two articles need to be merged under the HHG article, which presents a much more accurate picture of where the debate is. Buckshot06 17:25, 20 September 2007 (UTC)