Not a Novel Idea but a Vital One – European Army

With President Donald Trump belittling the NATO alliance, European military and political leaders are reheating the idea of a European Army that would serve purpose except without the fair weather-United States.

“The idea of a common European army has been discussed continuously since the European project began in the early days of the Cold War. The Eisenhower administration even successfully cajoled European leaders to agree to create a common European army only to be thwarted by the French parliament. The European project was a few votes from launching as a military project rather than an economic one. The idea of a common European force was revived in the 1990s as the European Union was formed, but the concept lost favor due to U.S. opposition and commitment to NATO,” Max Bergmann, director, Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program and Stuart Center wrote on the Center for Strategic and International Studies website last year.

Eurocorps, another example, is an autonomous military force of France, Germany (founding states), Belgium, Spain, Luxembourg, Poland (framework states), Austria, Greece, Italy, Romania and Turkey (associate members) whose aim is to maintain common headquarters and command of selected national military units, up to 65,000 personnel.

The soldiers of Eurocorps are provided by their respective nations. The missions of the Eurocorps are generally assigned under the United Nations, the European Union (EU), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, under the European Union Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), or pursuant to a joint decision taken by the contracting parties. According to a separate agreement, Eurocorps forces can be put under the command of the Supreme Allied Commander Europe.

The Polish-Lithuanian-Ukrainian Brigade is another example.

The idea of a European army was first discussed in the 1950s. It was proposed by France and would have consisted of the “inner six” countries (Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and West Germany), in order to strengthen defense against the Soviet threat without directly rearming Germany in the wake of World War II. In 1952 the Treaty establishing the European Defense Community was signed but not ratified by the signatories.

However, during the Cold War, Western Europe relied on NATO for defense, precluding the development of European cooperation. Immediately after the “fall of communism,” the defense apparatus was preoccupied by NATO expansion into the former Soviet bloc. The idea of a European army gained popularity after the September 11 attacks and NATO's involvement in conflicts outside of Europe. In a phenomenon dubbed diversification of European security, NATO has come to be responsible for "hard" threats while the European Union has taken a greater role in "soft" threats, including peacekeeping in the western Balkans. The 2009 Treaty of Lisbon also has furthered defense integration within the EU. This has led to support for a European Defense Union, which would be a step higher in collaboration than the current Common Security and Defense Policy.

Today, the threat to global peace, security, independence and sovereignty posed by Russia still exists.

European Union Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius has said earlier this year that the bloc should consider establishing a standing military force of 100,000 troops and overhaul the political processes governing defense because one army is better than a dozen armies.

Faced with Russian aggression and the U.S. shifting its focus away from Europe and threatening Greenland, Kubilius argued for a “big bang” approach to re-imagining Europe’s common defense.

“Would the United States be militarily stronger if they would have 50 armies on the States level instead of a single federal army,” he said at a Swedish security conference on Sunday. “Fifty state defense policies and defense budgets on the states level, instead of a single federal defense policy and budget?”

“If our answer is 'no,’ [the] USA would not be stronger, then — what are we waiting for?”

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, whose country is the only one to be facing real bloody Russian aggression, the kind foreseen in the NATO principles, on January 20 reiterated his call for the creation of a joint European armed force of at least 3 million personnel.

“Russia plans to have an army of 2 to 2.5 million personnel by 2030. So a European army, while each country keeps its own sovereign forces, must be able to respond. It should be no smaller than 3 million,” Zelenskyy told journalists.

Zelenskyy’s statement comes nearly a year after he first called on European partners to create a new armed force at the Munich Security Conference on February 15, 2025, amid uncertainty over further U.S. support if Russian aggression escalates. Unfortunately, European leaders have taken no steps toward implementing the initiative in nearly a year, according to Zelenskyy.

“Maybe now, with all the new challenges, European leaders will take it more seriously,” the president added.

Zelenskyy said the newly created army would not aim to compete with the U.S. and would not require dissolving NATO. He added that Ukraine could become a cornerstone of such a force due to its combat experience, as well as its military technology and logistics expertise.

“Because we have real wartime experience, we share our technologies with our partners. They give us intelligence — for example, France provides intelligence, and other countries do as well,” Zelenskyy said.