Fucking Transnational Armies, How Do They Work?

Why doesn't the EU have one already?

Well NATO is already the best example of a transnational army with rotational leadership in its operations. I think EU relies a lot on NATO instead of an EU force.

Uh, don't we have the UN and NATO for stuff like that?

UN can't attack. NATO isn't as formal as that, since if the US want to invade someone they can do it with or without allies.

No, I mean that none of the countries have an army and EVERYONE IS MIXED UP TOGETHER.

Well then you should check out the rhetoric supported by the current UN secretary-general over the idea of a professional peacekeeping force which is automatically deployed into any non-sanctioned conflict in the world. Simply a portion of the UN budget is put into maintaining the peacekeepers, and people choose to join it from any country.

Oh. That sounds awesome on paper. That sounds like an army I could actually join! For Great Justice!

A European "Alliance of Integrated Militaries" (AIM). Write up a charter, and lets see if it can be made to work realistically.

...

DUDE I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE TO EVEN START.

Also, why just European? Its stated objective should be to cover the entire world, so that wars don't happen anymore.

Did you just suggest a worldwide military state?

No. Dear God no. Hell no. No.

edited 12th Jan '11 11:50:27 AM by Wanderhome

Well the UN idea only has one flaw: Who's going to fund it. It's essentially a problem of self-interest for individual nation-states who have no reason to contribute money to a global peacekeeping force that is not necessarily in line with national goals. The UN has a vested interest in stability but individual countries may not.

So really, the issue is creating a framework of global cooperation where participate is more beneficial than not. Once you achieve that, anybody not contributing is going to lose out politically and economically against those who do and thus become a moot point for not joining in the global dream.

This could be something with say, trade rights, dispute resolution mechanisms, or perhaps free techs shared between member states (even if it leaked to non-member states, it would be more expensive for them to acquire through bribery and such). One such set of technologies could be green-techs.

edited 12th Jan '11 11:52:10 AM by breadloaf

Or we could, you know, not turn the world into some Orwellian super-government built on the violation of sovereignty and oppression of free nations.

Also, isn't it against the rules to have "fuck" in a thread title?

Well just for consistency's sake, I want you to also state national armies suck and police are evil. :)

It's a step toward a global government but if you hate government in general I suppose the agreement between our ideals ends pretty quickly.

"Shadow of the Giant" by Orson Scott Card has an interesting take on this. The US and Europe become isolationist (for technological reasons) and the rest of the world goes to war. Something called the "Free People of Earth" is organized and puts together a small but effective army that can project itself anywhere. Gradually, the advantages of joining up outweigh the opportunities for conquest, and the earth is united. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_of_the_Giant

I think you start with small countries, since they stand to gain the most from something like this. You need to beat a medium sized aggressor country, and then the thing would start to take off. Pay for it with modest donations from a large number of little countries and you might have enough seed money to begin. Build it on the national army of a small but plausibly advanced country with a good military reputation. South Africa or Turkey come to mind.

edited 12th Jan '11 12:05:27 PM by DeMarquis

Governments and privatised industries have very poor economies of scale - it's why it's far more difficult to run a big country well than a small one.

With that in mind, a troubleshooting organisation for the entire world would likely be tricky to properly implement at best, and wholly counterproductive at worst.

Couple your free united army with a diplomatic corps to precede the conflict, and you also end up with a traveling group of professional conflict defuzers. That fails, then you send in your foreign legion.

Why would I say that? National armies are necessary to maintain sovereignty and enforce a nation's will, while police are necessary to maintain law and order.

I am not an anarchist. Governments are fine. But I'd rather have a nuclear war than see the United States, or even other nations, subordinated to some international military state with claims of being a worldwide circle-jerk peace-fest.

edited 12th Jan '11 12:09:20 PM by Wanderhome

It sounds like all we'd really need is a UN with a bit more bite. As it stands now, why do we bother sending UN peacekeepers with firearms, if they can't use them? They got guns, loosen up the Rules Of Engagement, and maybe the UN will actually be able to accomplish something.

Why would that be a good thing? As it stands, the UN generally only serves the interests of those nations with the most pull. Now you want to give it military power in its own right?

So basically Starfleet for Earth?

As for the "starts with small countries" version... the big countries will do everything in their hands to stop that from happening, y'know? Like with the Arab League...

In the end, it amounts to the same thing, since there's no point trying to fight the nations with the most pull, and a UN.type institution would at least give the process some transparency.

As for "national sovereignty", nations are a fiction, what does them being sovereign even mean?

edited 12th Jan '11 12:15:22 PM by RawPower

True, implementing a relaxed ROE with the current Un setup might not be good for the little guys. But that just means that we need to retool how the UN views the little nations.

Like, getting rid of the permament voting seats. Think how different the UN will feel like if the US isn't on the council.

Nations, while certainly an abstract construct of human interaction, are most certainly not a "fiction". That's like saying that Microsoft doesn't exist, because a corporation's really only a bunch of legal agreements and rules.

edited 12th Jan '11 12:17:48 PM by Wanderhome

^^ Well that might be an issue (the firearms and Ro E) but I think the larger issues are that with UN leading a transnational army

a) If they don't have perfect international support for the peacekeeping operation it fails. If we look at the list of peacekeeping operations, all the countries that nobody gives a crap about, and therefore no UNSC member really cares about NOT supporting it (thus supporting it for the heck of it because thankfully the default reaction of a human is to be moral than not in those position) were successful. All the UN operations where the UNSC bickered with each other about it, or took unilateral actions, they failed.

So if you have a more mechanical, rule-based system (national organisations typically use constitutions) to dictate what the UN should just simply do and then they do it (with political support or not) with a professional peacekeeping force, they have the capacity to just do it instead of waiting for USA/Russia to not veto it.

b) This frees up personnel for the UN because I think in the West, our governments are unwilling to put highly paid and politically important soldiers in the line of fire (But granted, Europe contributes a lot of peacekeepers) but westerners themselves would be fully willing to join up. That's opinion since I have no data to back up such a statement.

Currently most of our peacekeepers are Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi and Nepalese. A current rising star is China, though they only contribute around 3000 peacekeepers to the 10k those previously mentioned countries contribute.

edited 12th Jan '11 12:18:31 PM by breadloaf

Mostly because the members of the UN aren't elected in anyway, they're appointed.

Yes, and why is this?

edited 12th Jan '11 12:30:45 PM by RawPower