@adamtooze argues in the FT today, given the shifting of the global political tectonic plates (my term not his), Europe needs to move from national re-arming to the development of a proper European military force (funded by joint debt issuance on its behalf).
In the wake of US' growing unreliability, Europeans can only rely on themselves for security.
A European Military Keynesianism may look like a major project but its logic becoming inescapable.
@ChrisMayLA6 @adamtooze
The problem with that is that over production of military hardware does not lead tp growth but more wars... what do you do with the extra hardware?
Well, there is a 'use it or lose it' logic to military hardware, but if one looks at the role of military procurement in the US military industrial complex, one does I would say seem some pay off in growth terms but also perhaps more importantly some technological spin-off benefits too.... of course not all states have managed that trick, which is why Military keynesianism is more mentioned than achieved
@ChrisMayLA6 @adamtooze The irony being that "European Army" was one of the scare stories used to promote Brexit.The deeper irony being that there were no such plans *but there bloody well should have been!*
@ChrisMayLA6 @adamtooze Just for a bit of fun with the tectonic plate metaphor, on a continental scale, plates do look like monoliths with friction and trouble confined to the edges.
But when you look closer, particularly at Europe, the plate turns into a bunch of microplates, squashed together by contingency, often not all going in the same direction, with active faults and hotspots all over the place. It takes a considerable external force to make it act as a unit.
Oh, I like the extension of the metaphor... very good
@ChrisMayLA6 @adamtooze would be ironic, would it not, if the success of the brexiters in achieving their aims led indirectly to the creation of a European armed force when one of the strands of their argument was antagonism to the possibility of the creation of a pan-european armed force.
Brexit was a bucketload of ironies.....
Oh god, can you imagine the squealing by Farage if there's proposals for a "European army"?
