EUs Rapid Reaction force?

Cork

What is the aim of this body?
Who will finance it?
Who will control it?

in other words - what is it?

DadaKopf

The EU's RRF, as far as I'm aware, is similar to the Nato RRF. An RRF is like a non-standing army, composed of standing armines, which can be mobilised rapidly for purposes of common defence and crisis management. Each EU member state controls their own national army (presumably within binding agreements and arrangements with other organisations such as Nato and the UN) but agree to certain standards of technological and procedural compatibility (communications, hardware, tactics) so that each army may work together when required. It will be funded by the EU's Common Defence Policy.

An EU RRF will, so they say, only be mobilised when EU security is under threat. Hopefully this will mean actual threat to EU territory. However, Serbia and Kosovo have shown us that European security/defence can include military action against non-aggressor states. For example, Nato's RRF was deployed to halt Milosevic's genocide; this was an aggressive act but justified on the grounds of 'crisis management', as part of Nato's new European defence strategy.

This is where the danger of an EU RRF lies. While few can exactly reject outright the benefits of a common EU defence structure like an RRF for defence purposes only, problems arise when interference in other states' affairs becomes a security issue for the EU, too. Think of how America must wage war with other states to protect her interests. War is the last tool of diplomacy.

The EU intends the RRF to contribute to conflict resolution and crisis management in other parts of the world, but this seemingly benign gesture can easily become politicised, falling into the problem in the above paragaph. If you ask me, regional organisations like the EU should be focused on internal security, leaving conflict resolutions to the UN and/or local politics.

Typedef

Originally posted by DadaKopf
This is where the danger of an EU RRF lies. While few can exactly reject outright the benefits of a common EU defence structure like an RRF for defence purposes only, problems arise when interference in other states' affairs becomes a security issue for the EU, too. Think of how America must wage war with other states to protect her interests. War is the last tool of diplomacy.

So lets examine the likelyhood the that European Rapid Reaction Force will be exclusively used for defence as opposed to being sent to fight for the economic interests of large member states abroad. It must be blindingly obvious to anyone with even a modicom of intellegence that frequently excuses are made up out of thin air to justify wars for purposes other than self defence. Of course I'm alluding to Iraq and the American Administration's desire to persue what is an oil war, under the banner of 'curtailing weapons of mass destruction'.
Thus my gripe with an EU Rapid Reaction Force is that it will invariably, become embroiled in conflicts that are not for defence of the EU, but, in defence of economic or political 'interests' of powerful member states and interest groups within the EU.

The EU intends the RRF to contribute to conflict resolution and crisis management in other parts of the world, but this seemingly benign gesture can easily become politicised, falling into the problem in the above paragaph. If you ask me, regional organisations like the EU should be focused on internal security, leaving conflict resolutions to the UN and/or local politics.

Again a Rapid Reaction Force is simply a euphamism for a European Army and for there to be a European Army which will 'contribute to conflict resolution' there will have to be an EU foreign policy, thus in some senses the participants of a Rapid Reaction Force effectively ceed some soveringty over foreign policy decisions and the involvement of country/member state(x) in foreign conflicts to the EU.

To answer the question who will control it?
Ireland won't control the Rapid Reaction Force of that you can be quite sure, in a very real sense Germany,France & Britain will call the shots.
Does the deployment of such a force amount to a 'side stepping' of Irish foreign policy soveringty? I think so, I think it will amount to foreign policy comittments that are made via the EU in place of the government of Ireland and that Irish influence of when, where and how that force and the foreign policy governing it will be largely irrelevant.

Thus taken in perspective the EU is trying to make an army for itself and needs a foreign policy to govern the army's depolyment. The EU has a single currency and that currency is controlled by the EU to the advantage of large member states, so it is only logical to make the supposition that the EU's army will also be run and deployed to the advantage of large member states, thus the foreign policy of the EU will be to the advantage of the large member states, and Ireland will have lost control of some of it's soveringty in the area of foreign policy, to the advantage of large member states.

To me that seems like and empire, but feel free to correct me if you think I'm wrong.

Edit:

Answer the question who will be in command.

Who will be in command?
The first director general of the small central headquarters will be a German, Lieutenant General Rainer Schuwirth. His deputy will be a Briton, Major-General Graham Messervy-Whiting.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theissues/article/0,6512,400394,00.html

True the Treaty of Amsterdam has created a mechanism by which the EU can exponenciate a Foreign polcy, however once the EU has an army which can act on that foreign policy, it is my contention that the EU's foreign policy will be controlled by large member states to militarily involve the entire Union in conflicts to the advantage of large member states, just as the single currency and it's interest rate is set to the advantage of large member states. Thus European foreign policy will have superceded member states' foreign policy.

For information on the Common Foreign and Security Policy
http://ue.eu.int/pesc/pres.asp?lang=en