European Defense: a Challenge for European Democracy (Christel Hahn, 2016)

European Defense: a Challenge for European Democracy
– No European army without European Democracy –

Lets start with some fundamental thoughts and then go into European politics.

An army is a democratic anachronism for two reasons:
. can a state based upon democratic values send its sons and nowadays even its daughters, out to die, or to kill, or to be wounded and to be traumatized? This question, if posed in this simple and direct way, has to be answered with a clear no, because our European values are based upon the reverence for life;

. and secondly: an army, which is a structure for war, can never be democratic. If in combat, you cannot vote or negotiate what to do, you need clear and strong leadership, not democracy.

Nevertheless, nearly all states do have armies and their sovereignty is to a large extend based upon their military. This is an interesting example of how far away we still are from realizing our basic values. And so we come to the realm of politics, which is dealing with the strategies how to manage the current stately structures, which have been imposed upon us by history.

Read the complete article written by Christel Hahn, member of our Franck Biancheri Network.