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A thread to talk about news and politics affecting Europe as a whole, rather than just politics within specific European countries.

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As with other OTC threads, off-topic posts may be thumped or edited by the moderators.

    Original first post 
Spinned off from the British Politics Thread. Basically a thread where we talk about news and politics that affect Europe as a whole rather than certain countries in it.

Anyway BBC News section for Europe Based news.

Edited by Mrph1 on Jan 9th 2024 at 3:24:05 PM

TerminusEst from the Land of Winter and Stars Since: Feb, 2010
#2001: Nov 16th 2015 at 7:36:50 AM

[up]

I assume they're expecting the "Roman Doctrine". In other words, kill everyone and salt the earth.

Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele
JackOLantern1337 Shameful Display from The Most Miserable Province in the Russian Empir Since: Aug, 2014 Relationship Status: 700 wives and 300 concubines
Shameful Display
#2002: Nov 16th 2015 at 7:46:12 AM

[up] Who?

I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.
TerminusEst from the Land of Winter and Stars Since: Feb, 2010
#2003: Nov 16th 2015 at 8:00:30 AM

[up]

People complaining about the Ro E's.

Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele
Joesolo Indiana Solo Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
Indiana Solo
#2004: Nov 16th 2015 at 8:04:08 AM

To be fair, some of the rules are insane. They're was a case in Afghanistan where, in a fire fight, a local was transporting Taliban fighters on his vehicle and an US soldier was reprimanded for shooting said vehicle.

I'm baaaaaaack
TerminusEst from the Land of Winter and Stars Since: Feb, 2010
#2005: Nov 16th 2015 at 8:23:09 AM

[up]

Be glad he isn't a Peacekeeper. Those guys have to get very creative in interpreting their orders and rules.

Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele
Zarastro Since: Sep, 2010
#2006: Nov 16th 2015 at 11:31:06 AM

[up]

They still have more rights than the Germans in Afghanistan which made the Bundeswehr so effective when it came to fighting the Talibans, at least until 2010 or so.

I wonder if it would be possible for France and other countries to send troops to Iraq and help liberating Mossul? Not only would it be much easier to justify it in terms of national law (as long as the legitimate government of Iraq asks for help, of course) but it would also be a huge blow to ISIS and drastically weaken them.

Then again, considering the number of casulaties that would be expected from that kind of engagement, I guess this would be something few would consider.

It would also reduce the number of refugees from Iraq in the long run which should be high on the priority list of any European country affected by the refugee crisis.

edited 16th Nov '15 11:32:47 AM by Zarastro

TerminusEst from the Land of Winter and Stars Since: Feb, 2010
#2007: Nov 16th 2015 at 12:18:27 PM

[up]

Don't know about Germany, but it's illegal for the FDF to engage in war outside of its own borders. We're lucky that we can even work with ISAF.

Right now we have 50 or so SF training the Kurds in Iraq, but that's about it.

Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele
Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#2008: Nov 16th 2015 at 12:49:32 PM

[up][up] Possibly sure, France could even bring the entire of NATO in along with it, hell it could even be done without the consent of the Iraqi goverment, as ISIS has directly attacked France itself.

But will it happen? That's highly unlikely, nobody is willing to do a ground intervention anymore, Iraq and Afghanistan killed that idea for a long time.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Greenmantle V from Greater Wessex, Britannia Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: Hiding
V
#2009: Nov 16th 2015 at 12:52:42 PM

[up] And quite possibly, some nations now aren't capable of pulling off a ground intervention.

Keep Rolling On
Zarastro Since: Sep, 2010
#2010: Nov 16th 2015 at 1:18:10 PM

Well, it is not like the fighting would have to be done exclusively by the coalition (I don't think any Western country would go in there alone). We could just support the army of Iraq, which has supposedly planned an offensive next year to retake Mossul (something they originally planned for 2015, but their army is just in no shape for such offensives yet). Ok, maybe I am too naive here, but shouldn't like 10.000 Western soldiers with good equipment, tanks + soldiers from Iraq + eventual Paschmerga be capable of taking Mossul? I mean retaking Tikrit was done with approx. 8.000 men and while Mossul is far bigger and more crucial, it shouldn't be impossible, right?

VincentQuill Elvenking from Dublin Since: Jan, 2013 Relationship Status: Sinking with my ship
Elvenking
#2011: Nov 16th 2015 at 2:43:01 PM

Call me naïve, but I think France and the EU as a whole has a lot to learn from the Northern Ireland Peace Process. Decades of terrorism and sectarian violence almost completely eradicated over the course of a few years. In essence, they pulled the military out of things and sat down and talked with both sides and figured things out. Funnily enough, it actually worked.

I mean obviously it's not a completely comparable situation, because ISIS is uncompromising and their goals are explicitly violent and domineering, and the number of people affected is far, far greater than NI's paltry 1.7 million, but bear in mind neither the UVF nor the IRA were soft-hitters.

Treating ISIS like a nation state with whom to wage war doesn't make any sense. They rely on the support of locals in order to survive. This isn't Nazi Germany, where the state existed with powerful institutions and strong military power prior to waging war with the rest of the world. They are completely and utterly reliant on people's fear and hatred of western military intervention. Just like the IRA were reliant on Catholic disillusionment with the UK government and the police force in Northern Ireland. Give the locals a better alternative and ISIS crumbles. Even ISIS members are human. Something like offering to permanently stop dropping bombs on them and finance the rebuilding of infrastructure might work. I'm not an expert, I'm not sure, but I think it's worth trying something that doesn't involve blowing up more people.

This article is a pretty interesting look into what makes someone become a terrorist.

'All shall love me and despar!'
Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#2012: Nov 16th 2015 at 4:16:53 PM

[up][up] Sure but that leaves us with one problem, we've jus handed all the ISIS territory to a government so incompetent and terrible that people were willing to opt for ISIS rather than be governed be it.

[up]Sept we didn't pull the army out of Northern Ireland, they were there the whole time, they weren't the answer, but they were critical to providing a secure environment in which to negotiate and address the legitimate concerns of Catholics. To take the Northern Ireland example would mean using military force to build a secure and stable situation where we undermine insurgency groups by addressing the legitimate concerns of the local people.

But that means dealing with the legitimate issues that caused people to decide to throw their lot in with ISIS, that means dealing with both Assad and the Iraqi government.

ISIS didn't come about because of a fear of western intervention, it came about because Syrian was governed by a bloodthirsty dictator who was systematically eliminating opposition in order of secularness, and Iraq was governed by one ethnic group that cared nothing about the north and was massively corrupt and happy to screw people over.

edited 16th Nov '15 4:19:44 PM by Silasw

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
VincentQuill Elvenking from Dublin Since: Jan, 2013 Relationship Status: Sinking with my ship
Elvenking
#2013: Nov 16th 2015 at 6:14:17 PM

[up] True, true, situations are never completely the same. There is a lot of difference between the situation in the North and the situation in the Middle East, but there are definitely meaningful comparisons to be drawn. The UK mightn't have pulled the military out of the North (bad phrasing on my part), but they certainly didn't decide to bomb Falls Rd. in order to weaken the IRA. Because, as with ISIS-held territory, that just strengthens their support and kills innocent people.

And also true that ISIS's support didn't come directly from fear of western intervention, but in a wider context it was certainly a huge factor in the rise of militant anti-Western Islam in the Middle East which ISIS is reliant upon. Further still, western intervention in Syria certainly bolstered their support. I've seen claims (poorly sourced so I can't be sure of their accuracy) that provoking western response was an intended goal of ISIS for this very reason.note 

Regardless of all of that, though, largely peace can only come with compromise and addressing the legitimate concerns of the local population. Like Northern Ireland. But then you're right, failings in the Iraqi and Syrian administration really complicate things. Nation states are inherently harder to deal with. There's never a clear answer. Attempting negotiations and considering demilitarisation is a start, though, and honestly it would be difficult to make it turn out worse than the current tit-for-tat bombings and murder of innocent civilians.

I thought that this was another interesting on the topic, but perhaps with less relevance.

[EDIT] to keep things on topic, do you think the EU Battlegroups should be used as peacekeeping forces if we go for the NI model whereby there is military-provided stability for negotiation but also a level of demilitarisation? I'd say they'd be better received than specifically American/British/French/etc. troops given that they contain troops from a number of neutral (*waves*) and largely non-militarised countries in their number, but that's not saying much.

edited 16th Nov '15 6:27:40 PM by VincentQuill

'All shall love me and despar!'
TerminusEst from the Land of Winter and Stars Since: Feb, 2010
#2014: Nov 16th 2015 at 11:51:02 PM

[up]

The battlegroups are generally designed around the idea that they can be used as peacekeepers, so I suppose that could be possible. The huge issue is, can they be legally used outside of the EU and how the legal issues of the individual countries work out.

When it comes to ISIS, in the more ideological part of it, they definitely want a war with the "west". It's part of their theology, in which apocalypticism plays a central role. Meaning it doesn't matter what we do, they'll still hit us.

Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele
Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#2015: Nov 17th 2015 at 1:19:15 AM

[up][up] Badly done western intervention (specifically air intervention where we kept hitting civilian targets) bolstered ISIS' support, but so did the lack of intervention early on in Syria, a lot of ISIS' supporters (and the supporters of other Islamist groups in Syria) only joined because they felt they had been abandoned and betrayed by the west, we weren't willing to fight Assad so they turned to they could find that would. And yes it all comes back to Iraq (which I stand was not an intervention, it was an invasion), in the end the conditions that created ISIS are the conditions we created after 2003.

People can actually like interventions, but they don't like the bombing and the blowing stuff up, they like the security, the bridge building, the medical care, the reliably services, all things we're not bringing with an air intervention.

As for EU battlegroups, they could work, peacekeeping is what they're meant for after all, the one problem is the red cards, where national governments have their troops limited to doing only certain things. So in Bosnia you have stuff like "Germans don't do roadblocks", which obviously realy screws things up if you're trying to secure an area so that a suspect doesn't escape. Though frankly any peacekeeping in Iraq or Syria needs more then the EU, we need the Russians and probably the Brasilians and Indians too.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#2016: Nov 17th 2015 at 1:30:41 AM

There are better ways to fight ISIS. Step one: Stop weapon sales into the region. We can't keep them from weapons, but we can avoid them having the best in the market. Step two: Cut off their funding. Step three: Cut off their supply roads. Step four: Create safe zones. Offer help to the regions which struggle against ISIS. Ask the people, what THEY want. If their ideas work, help them to secure their home, but only on a "we defend you" basis, not by attacking. Make sure that the people living there have a working system. Then secure the next chaotic region which wants help, again, just defending the people there. Let ISIS be the sole attackers so that they no longer are able to claim that they are some sort of freedom fighters.

edited 17th Nov '15 1:36:05 AM by Swanpride

TerminusEst from the Land of Winter and Stars Since: Feb, 2010
#2017: Nov 17th 2015 at 1:44:29 AM

[up]

All of them require a massive amount of troop presence in the region. So it will never happen. And would be impossible without the US logistics system. And it would cost horrendously etc.

Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele
Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#2018: Nov 17th 2015 at 1:53:23 AM

Cutting funding, supplies and weapons means securing the entire area around ISIS territory (well the main ISIS territory, there are also pockets of ISIS associated territory in other places) that means getting Turkey to play ball, getting the Iraqi government capable and ensuring Assad is playing ball and capable. That's not going to be easy, ISIS are nominally surrounded by enemies but they're still getting stuff though, smugglers and corruption are a big thing in the region, not to mention groups with ISIS sympathies.

Safe zones means using some kind of ground forces, and it means someone has to be running the safe zone territory, that's in the end the same basic premis, yes any action has to work strongly with the local people, but it has to also not create a situation where one region of a country is screwing over another region.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#2020: Nov 17th 2015 at 2:08:52 AM

The exact wording of the clause being invoked for thouse curious.

If a Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power, in accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. This shall not prejudice the specific character of the security and defence policy of certain Member States.

Commitments and cooperation in this area shall be consistent with commitments under the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, which, for those States which are members of it, remains the foundation of their collective defence and the forum for its implementation.

edited 17th Nov '15 2:09:05 AM by Silasw

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
TerminusEst from the Land of Winter and Stars Since: Feb, 2010
#2021: Nov 17th 2015 at 2:10:23 AM

[up][up]

Finland said "no". As in, it's illegal as hell. Probably some soft power help, but lets be honest, we wont do shit. We have nothing to give at this point.

EDIT: Seems like the defence clause activation has been agreed on unanimously. Well this is going to get interesting.

edited 17th Nov '15 2:14:04 AM by TerminusEst

Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele
Zarastro Since: Sep, 2010
#2022: Nov 17th 2015 at 2:17:24 AM

Interesting, could this be the beginning of a truly mutual European defence policy?

SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#2023: Nov 17th 2015 at 2:28:45 AM

Schön wär's!

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
LogoP Party Crasher from the Land of Deep Blue Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: You can be my wingman any time
Party Crasher
#2024: Nov 17th 2015 at 3:00:36 AM

[up][up] I sure hope so.

It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane.
GeekCodeRed Since: Sep, 2010
#2025: Nov 17th 2015 at 5:12:38 AM

...has every member state signed that? Because I don't think we Irish would agree to go to war. And unless you want to send propeller planes, it would have to be boots on the ground.


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