The European Union

[Sennz0r]

I was a little mixed up with the EU and the UN there, hint the question mark.

Either way they still didnt do anything but yabber about restrictions no one will notice and/or care about.

League of Nations repeat anyone?

League of Nations was broken because the ones who came up with it didn't even join thus destroying every kind of motivation for other countries to join and make it work. If the U.S. didn't even trust the system it created itself how was anyone else supposed to?

 

[santaandy]

Model UN is so awesome, I love it.

 

[Sennz0r]

Model UN is so awesome, I love it.

Where do you go? And I have to agree these kinds of programmes are awesome, I love meeting all the new people.

 

[Ken Korda]

I was a little mixed up with the EU and the UN there, hint the question mark.

Either way they still didnt do anything but yabber about restrictions no one will notice and/or care about.

League of Nations repeat anyone?

If you mean the EU then the answer is very much 'no'. The EU was and still is but to a lesser degree and economic union whereas the League of Nations was much more a defence associations with delusions of grandeur of becoming a world government. The main source of the EU's power in global politics lies in what is traditionally referred to as 'soft power' (ie non-military, mainly economic).

 

[santaandy]

There's quite a few in the US Midwest.

 

[Unknower]

The UN are all talk very little walk.

Pretty much the only way to make UN more threatening is to get rid of the veto right of some countries.

Example:

USA really wants UN to do "A" thing, Russia really wants UN to do "B" thing.

It doesn't matter what UN decides to do, USA or Russia will veto it, because they don't like it.

 

[Sennz0r]

There's quite a few in the US Midwest.

Good to know that there is actually a lot of political involvement around there

Not that I'm a freak for politics, I just love the meet-ups and debating in my suit ^^

 

[Scolar Visari]

The UN are all talk very little walk.

We go on about how great we are and how we stand up for people,but when a tyrant pops up and starts commiting war crimes etc. all they do is remove his honourary doctorate.

If the UN actually was threatening nobody would fight each other with out a very goood reason and even fix some problems.

I always thought the only reason why most of Europe followed America on its stupid wars was due to the NATO agreement and not the EU/UN?

But NATO gave us 5.56 and STANAG isn't that good for something? You're damn right about the UN being completely useless; they couldn't even force Russia out of Georgia.

5.56 is a bad battle ammunition, it is almost useless against an armored target (I mean body armor) it has no stopping power(why do you think the US has been digging up all of its old m14's?). Its only upside is that it is high velocity and and accurate. But stanag is pretty good.

Meh, 5.56 tumbles and is a pretty controllable ammo but yeah 7.62 will always hold a spot in my heart. Lol at the old M14s being distributed though, they look like Tony Stark made them when he wasn't working on his suit in that cave. Also Georgia started that conflict and the West is just pissed because we trained them.

 

[santaandy]

I would like to attend MUNs in other countries someday. In case anyone wanted to know, there is one in New York City (where the actual UN is). There's even a whole wikipedia page devoted to it!

 

[TomNook]

How does the EU deal with millitary action? It doesn't seem that the EU member nations have any sort of unified guidline for equipment and tactics. How do member nations' genrals decide what course of action to take?

It waits until the USA "solves" the issue.

 

[Hunde Des Krieg]

The UN are all talk very little walk.

We go on about how great we are and how we stand up for people,but when a tyrant pops up and starts commiting war crimes etc. all they do is remove his honourary doctorate.

If the UN actually was threatening nobody would fight each other with out a very goood reason and even fix some problems.

I always thought the only reason why most of Europe followed America on its stupid wars was due to the NATO agreement and not the EU/UN?

But NATO gave us 5.56 and STANAG isn't that good for something? You're damn right about the UN being completely useless; they couldn't even force Russia out of Georgia.

5.56 is a bad battle ammunition, it is almost useless against an armored target (I mean body armor) it has no stopping power(why do you think the US has been digging up all of its old m14's?). Its only upside is that it is high velocity and and accurate. But stanag is pretty good.

Meh, 5.56 tumbles and is a pretty controllable ammo but yeah 7.62 will always hold a spot in my heart. Lol at the old M14s being distributed though, they look like Tony Stark made them when he wasn't working on his suit in that cave. Also Georgia started that conflict and the West is just pissed because we trained them.

you mean the EBR m14's? still the same old m14, just the stock is different, the pistol grip makes it easier to handle in full auto, and it bridges the gap between assault rifle and sniper.

 

[Scolar Visari]

The UN are all talk very little walk.

We go on about how great we are and how we stand up for people,but when a tyrant pops up and starts commiting war crimes etc. all they do is remove his honourary doctorate.

If the UN actually was threatening nobody would fight each other with out a very goood reason and even fix some problems.

I always thought the only reason why most of Europe followed America on its stupid wars was due to the NATO agreement and not the EU/UN?

But NATO gave us 5.56 and STANAG isn't that good for something? You're damn right about the UN being completely useless; they couldn't even force Russia out of Georgia.

5.56 is a bad battle ammunition, it is almost useless against an armored target (I mean body armor) it has no stopping power(why do you think the US has been digging up all of its old m14's?). Its only upside is that it is high velocity and and accurate. But stanag is pretty good.

Meh, 5.56 tumbles and is a pretty controllable ammo but yeah 7.62 will always hold a spot in my heart. Lol at the old M14s being distributed though, they look like Tony Stark made them when he wasn't working on his suit in that cave. Also Georgia started that conflict and the West is just pissed because we trained them.

you mean the EBR m14's? still the same old m14, just the stock is different, the pistol grip makes it easier to handle in full auto, and it bridges the gap between assault rifle and sniper.

The EBRs look nice and I haven't heard any actual complaints but I'm talking about the original M14s that are still being issued as Designated Marksmen weapons. I don't even know why you brought up full auto, it just makes the weapon even harder to control. One more edit, the M14 is technicaly a battle rifle and now a Designated Marksmen weapon, the M4/M16 are both assault rifles

 

[Duskwaith]

I was a little mixed up with the EU and the UN there, hint the question mark.

Either way they still didnt do anything but yabber about restrictions no one will notice and/or care about.

League of Nations repeat anyone?

If you mean the EU then the answer is very much 'no'. The EU was and still is but to a lesser degree and economic union whereas the League of Nations was much more a defence associations with delusions of grandeur of becoming a world government. The main source of the EU's power in global politics lies in what is traditionally referred to as 'soft power' (ie non-military, mainly economic).

The LON was also about free trade aswell, having the seas free.

For something as powerful as the UN trade really isnt thht big a weapon, if somebody wants it they will go through everyone to get it.

 

[Combined]

Well, as far as I know, the EU enforces certain economic laws in every member country. Now, coming from a small country, I see these laws as favoring the bigger, more powerful states, because us smaller ones don't have the same level economy and generally can't do everything that we're required to do. Therefore, a question of mine might be as to why the EU does not differentiate these laws depending on the country? And second,why do they not favor economic independence for smaller nations, but instead exploit them to gain benefits for the big ones?

Second, how come their law is superior to national law?

 

[DaemonSlayer92]

I live in the U.S. and i still think the U.N. needs reworking. Dont get me wrong I love the concept but it really should give less power to the U.S. and Russia and such. They should give one vote to each country regardless of population and popular vote wins, even if the U.S. doesnt get its way. As a random side note no country should be able to "choose" to recognize a particular treaty as legitamate

 

[Ken Korda]

I guess I can take it from the lack of interest in this thread that generally the EU is not much of a factor in the people's understanding of international politics? Additionally, it seems the responses here have been more focused on the UN than the EU. I would assume this is due to the large proportion of fourmites from the US. Which, I expect is why most people are more interested in the UN than the EU; the UN is much more relevant to US politcs than the EU. A fair assessment?

 

[Lord George]

Well the EU if never going to get anywhere because we're a bunch of country's with wildly differing cultures and half of the country's don't like the other half, like the French for example don't they have a lot of power at the moment in the EU with their president controlling something (I may be completely wrong and ignorant), either way I think its a stupid concept to begin with, as if the day came when an army could attack England then its likely they would already have conquered the rest of Europe so we would be screwed

 

[Ken Korda]

Well, as far as I know, the EU enforces certain economic laws in every member country. Now, coming from a small country, I see these laws as favoring the bigger, more powerful states, because us smaller ones don't have the same level economy and generally can't do everything that we're required to do. Therefore, a question of mine might be as to why the EU does not differentiate these laws depending on the country? And second,why do they not favor economic independence for smaller nations, but instead exploit them to gain benefits for the big ones?

Second, how come their law is superior to national law?

To answer your question, first off, it is difficult to make statemnts on this issue without knowing which state you are referring to. The diversity of the EU and the difference's between the East and West make it very difficult to make genrarl statements. However, this won't stop me from trying:
The Single European Market (SEM) is designed to allow industry to opersate acorss the EU as if the EU were one state. The European Economic Community (EEC, SEM's predecessor) was originally created by the Netherlands because they were fed up of having their economic policy controlled by larger states. It was intended to force France and West Germany to form economic policy with the input of the smaller states and to give them all equal say. There are no tariffs on import/export and same regulations across the entire organisation. As such the rules should not favour a particular state over another but certain areas of the EU will recieve greater or at least different investment depending on what they have to offer. The idea is that differnet regions begin to specialise in inustries to which they are most suited, usually referred to as 'comparitive advantage' in economic theory. The state which may have lsot out from this process are those in Esatern Europe which were, after the fall of the Soviet Union, unsuited to globalised capitalism but were thrown in with the developed economies of the Western states. This led to a collapse of local capital which was quickly absorbed by Western industry which led to profits leaving these Eastern states for the West.
Secondly, if you have a common market you need common rules to govern it so Eu law has to beat national law in order to control the multi-state economy.

Hope this answers your question. I'm always happy to spread knowledge regarding the EU. It is a very important organisation in global affairs and it appears that many people around here are not familiar with it.

 

[TheBluesader]

Note to Europe: America tried a loose confederacy for about 10 years after breaking from Britain. There was no money to fight pirates and Pennsylvania and Connecticut were about to go to war over trees no one was using, so everyone agreed to found a stronger central authority.

This wasn't our last experiment. During the Civil War the South proclaimed itself a sovereign realm of republics bound together in a loose confederacy. Four years of war against a centralized federal republic later, the Southern Confederacy was out of money and couldn't get local governors to give them any more. They lost, and lost badly.

What you do with this information is up to you, my European cousins.

 

[DeadpanLunatic]

I have removed my words from this site.