9 September 2016
European Army - a great step to unite Europeans
By: Karsten Riise
A European Army can be a great step to unite Europeans - not just on the commanding level, but also directly at person-to-person and community-level.
I wish to make a parallel to Italy. With reference to the Danish Italy-expert Thomas Harder, when Italy was united, people from the North and South could not understand each-others’ languages. So much had 1000+ years of separation moved Italians from each other. Much like Europe's multitude of languages today. Putting soldiers from North and South into the same fighting-units, and placing them all away from their home-towns, made them learn to understand each other.
NATO cooperation has always been reduced to the top-levels. At the operational levels, each NATO-country operated its own homogeneously "national" units, confined in their national language.
The European Army must be different - mixing all nationalities into the same fighting units.
English could even be used as command language - since the UK is leaving the EU, all Europeans will then language-wise be at the same levels.
No soldier will then feel superior by having own language as command-language.
(Only the Irish will have an English language-advantage, but Ireland is a small country).
Nothing unites people as much as having to work together - especially in circumstances like achieving success in war and conflict.
Karsten Riise
Partner & Editor
CHANGE NEWS &
CHANGE MANAGEMENT
