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Remarx
Guglielmo Carchedi
Published online: 22 Aug 2006.

To cite this article: Guglielmo Carchedi (2006) Remarx, Rethinking Marxism: A Journal
of Economics, Culture & Society, 18:2, 325-337, DOI: 10.1080/08935690600578992

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 RETHINKING MARXISM VOLUME 18 NUMBER 2 (APRIL 2006)

Remarx

The Military Arm of the European Union

Guglielmo Carchedi
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This essay examines whether the European Union, already the most powerful
economic and financial rival of the United States, can develop its military arm to a
level compatible with its economic and financial weight. It concludes by suggesting a
parallel between European currency and the European military. The ECU started as
virtual money that evolved into the Euro to become a real danger for the U.S. dollar.
At this point, the nascent EU army is only a potential threat to a still unchallenged
U.S. military power, but a parallel and ominous evolution is under way.

Key Words: European Imperialism, European Army, European Draft Constitution

If imperialism is the systematic appropriation of international value, classic

imperialism is, unfortunately, still alive and kicking. Capital concentration, financial
capital, capital exports, international monopolies, and the sharing of the world
among the great powers are characteristic features of the twenty-first century, as
they were of the twentieth. The appropriation of international value, too, is still
based on the same methods, from simple robbery to unequal exchange, from the
repatriation of interests and profits on foreign direct and indirect investments to (but
only for the hegemonic imperialist country) seignorage (Carchedi 1991, 2001, 2004).
What is specific to the present, rapidly changing, global landscape is the emergence
of new, antagonistic economic blocs.1 Of particular importance is the clash between
an imperialist bloc already consolidated around the United States and a few emergent
imperialist blocs at different stages of their constitution and power.
While none of the latter constitutes as yet a concrete military challenge to the
United States, some are more capable than others of defying its economic hegemony.2

1. ‘‘Free trade globalization is being replaced by increasingly hot and bilateral struggle and
emerging alliance blocs. This is clear from Chinese and Indian energy deals, South American
trade association wrangling, EU enlargement struggles and chaotic battles for control over Soviet
areas of influence’’ (Fraad Wolff 2005).
2. China, India, Russia, and Japan (either separately or in some combination) are potential
competitors.

ISSN 0893-5696 print/1475-8059 online/06/020325-13

– 2006 Association for Economic and Social Analysis
DOI: 10.1080/08935690600578992
 326 CARCHEDI

National states still play an essential economic, political, ideological, and military role
for firms in the dominant countries to be able to appropriate international surplus
value. These are the imperialist relations among states without which that
appropriation would be impossible.3 However, in the present imperialist phase, the
relations between states, both within and between blocs, are shaped by the relations
among the blocs to which those states belong.
Right now, the most formidable economic competitor of the United States is the
European Union (EU). Its imperialist nature is obviously denied by the apologists of EU
imperialism.4 But it is also (wrongly) denied by many on the Left for quite a different
reason*/that is, because the unchallenged military power of the United States
supposedly makes it the only imperialist power. This view rightly stresses that nation’s
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uncontested military supremacy. However, it is reductive, if not mistaken, in ignoring

both the determinant aspects of imperialist relations (the economic and financial
ones, hence the EU’s external and internal imperialist relations), and the changes
taking place in the power relations (including military relations) between blocs due to
world imperialism’s internal contradictions.
The thesis of this article is that the EU, having become a powerful economic and
financial rival to the United States, is set to develop its own military arm to a level
compatible with its own economic and financial weight.5 This process will be gradual
and fraught with obstacles and dangers. However, it has already begun and cannot be
reversed.

A Retrospective View

The imperialist and militarist nature of the EU was already inherent in the social and
economic reality from which it was to emerge (as the European Economic Community,
or EEC) in 1958. It is not by chance that the first European treaty*/the Western
European Union (WEU), which envisaged a common ‘defense’ among five European
countries*/was born in 1948, ten years before the EEC. The WEU was born as a pillar
and extension of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and its strategic and
military importance remained marginal. The reason for this weakness was twofold.
The first was the military supremacy of the United States. This is still the situation
now, as shown by military expenditures displayed in table 1.6
Due to this supremacy and to the ‘threat’ posed by the USSR, any European military
organization could not but be an extension of, and subordinated to, NATO and thus

3. But it is the firms in some states (and not the states) that appropriate value from other firms
in some other states. Subsequently, a part of this international value is appropriated by the state
through taxation, duties, and so forth.
4. The imperialist nature of the EU is argued for in Carchedi (2001).
5. There are no other challengers to U.S. military might nor, for that matter, to the EU’s
upcoming army. ‘‘At EUR180 billion, the EU-25 has the world’s second-largest defence budget,
equivalent to the next six put together (China, Russia, Japan, Saudi Arabia, India and South
Korea)’’ (Biscop 2004, 515). That theme lies beyond the scope of this work.
6. U.S. military expenditures decreased from 1994 to 2001. September 11, 2001, was a golden
opportunity for a radical reversal of the trend.
 REMARX 327

the United States. The formation of an independent European army became a real
possibility only with the dissolution of the Communist bloc. However, the WEU
remained under the U.S. aegis after 1991. It is true that the declaration of the WEU
member countries at the Maastricht Summit in 1991 pictured the WEU as the defense
component of the EU and that the Petersberg Declaration widened the tasks of the
WEU to peacekeeping and crisis management in any corner of the world, thus hiding
imperialist aggressions behind the façade of humanitarian interventions. But the
Maastricht Declaration also reaffirmed the role of the WEU as NATO’s European pillar,
as set out in the original article 4 of the WEU treaty. Its transformation into an
organization independent of NATO, then, clashes with its own nature. This is why it is
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being wound up and, as we shall see below, replaced by other, independent military
institutions.
The second reason for the weakness of the WEU was (and still is, but to a lesser
extent) internal divisions within the EU itself. By far the greatest rift has always been
between France and Germany, on the one hand, and the United Kingdom (UK) on the
other. The UK’s skepticism toward the Euro had a solid, three-dimensional, socio-
economic basis: namely, small capital, afraid that it could not withstand foreign
competition following the dismantling of tariffs and trade barriers; financial capital,
worried that economic integration would result in a common currency that would be
managed according to German, rather than British, interests; and the military-
industrial sector, for which the United States is by far the greatest source of imports
of conventional arms.7 A European army independent of NATO would redirect military
commissions from the United States toward Germany and France, the two most
technologically advanced European countries in the field.
To see this, consider the dependence index (the last row) in Table 1: that is,
military imports as a percentage of military expenditure, or (I /100)/ME. It indicates
a country’s dependence from foreign arms producers. It varies from zero, in case of
total independence, to one, in case of total dependence. U.S. military superiority is
shown by its dependence index, which is by far the lowest. This table shows that, of
all the EU’s major arms producers, France and Germany depend less on foreign
imports by far, which indicates that they have a more advanced military technology.
The substitution of arms and technologies produced by the United States with those
produced by the EU would imply that the technologies adopted at the European level
would be basically French and German. Those are the countries that will profit most
from a further militarization of the EU, and that is why they are the motor behind it.8
The ensuing decreased importance of the UK for the United States would undermine
not only the solid ties between the two countries’ military sectors, but also the
economic basis upon which rests the UK’s role as the mediator of interests between

7. UK weapons imports from the United States amount to US2.7 billion out of a total of US$3.3
billion, or 82 percent. See Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (2004, table 21.1, 10
A.3).
8. Not for nothing will the Eurofighter Typhoon have to be ready to be deployed within a few
years. Strategic airlifts will have to be available by the end of this decade with the Airborne
Common European Force and the Airbus A400M; and satellite espionage will be made possible
through the development of systems such as Helios II, Sar Lupe and Cosmos Skymed.
 328 CARCHEDI

Table 1 Total of military expenditures (ME), 1999/2003, in billions of U.S. constant

dollars (2000), and dependence index

US UK Germany France Italy Holland Spain

ME 1.655 181.1 139.3 171.1 108.9 30.4 35.4

Imports 1.3 3.3 0.5 0.3 1.3 1.0 1.1
Exports 25.6 6.4 5.2 6.4 1.6 1.2 0.3
I/100/ME 0.08% 1.8% 0.4% 0.2% 1.2% 3.3% 3.1
Source: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (2004, tables 10A.3, 12A.1, 12A.2)

the United States and Europe (its ‘special relation’ with that nation) as a means to
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increase its political influence with the United States and thus within the EU.
The UK’s recalcitrant attitude continued throughout the 1990s. As recently as 1997,
the Amsterdam Treaty retained the three-pillar setup of the EU: that is, the European
Community, the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), and Justice and Home
Affairs. The WEU was not integrated in the CFSP, contrary to the wishes of France and
Germany but in compliance with those of the UK. The reason for the UK’s position was
that a WEU institutionally separated from the CFSP, and thus from the EU, would have
remained under the direct influence of NATO and could not have contributed to the
emergence of a truly independent European force. But in 1998 the situation changed.
In a joint communiqué, Jacques Chirac and Tony Blair agreed that ‘‘the Union must
have the capacity for autonomous action, backed up by credible military forces, the
means to decide to use them and a readiness to do so, in order to respond to
international crises’’ (Franco-British Summit 1998; see also Henke 2004). One year
later the Cologne Summit (1999) launched the Common Security and Defense Policy
(CSDP) within the CFSP as a first step toward a force alternative to both the WEU
(constitutionally dependent on NATO) and NATO.9
It would seem that the UK has changed its traditionally hostile stance toward an
independent European force. In reality, the UK realizes that France and Germany have
started an irreversible process. It has thus decided, following its well-tested policy, to
participate in it, hoping to steer it if it cannot prevent it.10 Its aim, consonant with
the wishes of the United States, is for the EU to contribute ‘‘a larger share of the EU’s
own security’’ and to improve the EU’s military efficiency while retaining Europe’s
dependency upon NATO and the United States.11 Moreover, its political weight with
the United States (its ‘special relation’) and thus within the EU is much greater if it

9. The WEU is now being wound up.

10. One of the catalysts for the EU’s resolve to militarize was the war in Kosovo. ‘‘Although the
combined armed forces of the EU Member States number almost two million men, the Union in
Kosovo had difficulties deploying just 40 000 or 50 000’’ (Biscop 2002, 475).
11. ‘‘Crisis management’’ and ‘‘peace enforcement’’ */that is, quelling the growing number of
international conflicts caused by Western imperialism */strains the means of even the strongest
military power on earth. Washington has made it repeatedly clear that it does not want to
intervene when it is European rather than U.S. interests that are threatened.
 REMARX 329

participates in the CSDP than if it remains outside it. As for the British financial
sector, its resistance is decreasing since the role of the sterling is being scaled down
by the Euro. The only sector still squarely opposed to a European army would seem to
be the military-industrial one because of its intimate ties with U.S. weapons
producers. But, no matter how important this sector might be, the objective
tendencies go in the direction of a military integration, which is both a consequence
of, and a condition for, further economic integration.
The CSDP marks the opening of military competition between the United States and
the EU. Let us make two amongst the most recent examples. First, the 2004 EU
enlargement to twenty-five member countries would not have been needed if it had
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been purely a matter of securing cheap raw materials and labor power. Imperialist
economic relations do not necessarily need political annexation. Rather, annexation
implies accepting the CFSP and thus the CSDP. This both weakens NATO’s influence on
the new member states and strengthens the CSDP.12 Moreover, the enlargement opens
the way to an extension of the Euro zone to the new member states, thus to a
strengthening of the Euro relative to the U.S. dollar. As we will see, this has important
military consequences.
The second example is the Rapid Reaction Force (RRF). It numbers 60,000 ground
troops to be deployed in ‘peacekeeping’ and ‘peace enforcement’ operations within
sixty days and for a period of one year.13 Their importance is that they will conduct
military operations independently of NATO and thus of the United States. They are the
embryo of a veritable European army. Given that certain crisis situations might
require less than sixty days to react, the EU approved in 2004 the creation of ‘‘Battle
Groups,’’ each about 1,500 strong, for a total of about 20,000 troops. They can be
deployed within fifteen days and must be on a permanent state of alert. Initially they
will be formed by contingents from France, Italy, the UK, and Spain (BBC 2004).
Notice again the timing. In the same year, NATO’s Response Force became operative.
It numbers 17,000 troops (to become 21,000 in 2006) that can be deployed within five
to seven days (NATO 2004). Germany will provide the most consistent contingent.
The Battle Groups have four important features. First, even if formally not a
standing army, they are practically so due to their state of permanent alert. Second,
as for the RRF, the EU will decide autonomously on their deployment up to 5,000
kilometers from Brussels.14 Their headquarters will be separate from NATO’s head-
quarters (something the United States and NATO are vehemently opposed to). Third,
the Battle Groups are on an equal footing with NATO’s Response Force because they
can contribute to it and vice versa. Fourth, and most important, they can be formed
only by those countries which so wish (the so-called partnership of the willing) and do
not require participation by all twenty-five member countries. Given these features,

12. Notice the temporal coincidence. On 29 March 2004, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania,
Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia joined NATO. On 1 May 2004, Cyprus, the Czech Republic,
Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia joined the EU.
13. Given the need to rotate forces, a pool of 180,000 is needed.
14. This seems to indicate that, at present, the CSDP is directed at the EU’s periphery */namely,
Russia, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean area.
 330 CARCHEDI

the RRF and the Battle Groups are the first true manifestation of a European army,
even though a quantitatively weak one.
Notice that the United States is not hostile to a European army by definition. On the
contrary, it is willing to accept and actually welcome a greater role for European
‘defense’ but on condition that it both remain subordinate to NATO and contribute to
the cohesion of the Western world under U.S. hegemony (as it was the case with the
WEU). But both the United States and the EU know that the RRF has opened a new
phase. As the Bush administration put it in 2002, the United States will use military
force against any ‘‘potential adversaries . . . pursuing a military build-up in hopes of
surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States’’ (The National Security
Strategy of the United States, September 2002, quoted in Du Boff 2003). The EU is
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warned.

Which Perspectives?

Table 1 documents the United States’ unchallenged military superiority. However,

that is only one side of the coin. The other is that nowadays, and different from the
first post/World War II period, U.S. military might is not based on unchallenged
economic and financial supremacy, but rather, on an ongoing relative deterioration of
its competitiveness and on a grave and growing financial vulnerability.
The data are well known. In 1950, the United States produced half the world’s gross
national product, in 2003 only 21 percent. In 1950, it produced 60 percent of the
world’s industrial production, in 1999 only 25 percent. In 1960, the share of U.S. stock
of the world’s foreign direct investments was 47 percent, in 2001 only 21 percent (Du
Boff 2003). The deterioration of the financial situation is even more dramatic. The
‘twin deficits’ (budget deficit and trade balance deficit) are too well known to be
repeated here. The question, rather, is whether this situation is sustainable. It is true
that the federal budget deficit is huge in absolute terms ($7.5 thousand billion in
2004), but it is lower in percentage terms than that of many other Western European
developed countries (75 percent of gross national product). Even considering that the
‘war on terrorism’ is financed off the budget (an accounting trick), it would seem that
this level of debt could be kept or even increased.15 The question, however, is how
the United States finances these military expenditures.
The Net International Investment Position (NIIP) measures U.S. debt with the rest
of the world. It has risen from 5 percent of gross national product in 1997 to 24
percent in 2003 to an estimated 28 percent in 2004. At the same time, exports show a
negative trend so that in 2004, the ratio of NIIP to exports was 280 percent, not very
far from Argentina’s ratio before its recent devastating economic crisis. By far the

15. In the short run, it all depends on the future policy of the Bush administration. Estimates of
the aggregate deficit for 2004/13 vary from US$1,400 billion (Congressional Budget Office, as
cited by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute 2004, 319) to US$3,000 billion
(319) to US$6,350 billion (Roubini 2004). Moreover, things might turn sour if the present
administration decides to continue to cut taxes and if it pursues the privatization of Social
Security.
 REMARX 331

greatest cause of the increase in the NIIP is the discrepancy between U.S. imports and
exports, which started in 1971 and had reached $600 billion in 2004. That means that
U.S. imports have not been balanced by U.S. exports for a third of a century now: that
is, that an inflow of real value (goods and services) is counterbalanced not by an
outflow of real value but by worthless paper money. This is made possible by the
dollar’s role as the international currency, both as a reserve currency and as a means
of international payments; the dollars paid for U.S. imports are not used by foreigners
to purchase U.S. goods and services, but are either kept as international currency
reserves or used to purchase U.S. government securities. This inflow of imports not
counterbalanced by an outflow of exports due to the dollar’s role as international
currency is the dollar’s seignorage. Its dimension is indicated by the fact that 68
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percent of the US$3,400 billion held by foreign central banks as reserves are dollars or
U.S. government securities. The military importance of this is that it is through
seignorage that the U.S. government can commission weapons: that is, the dollars
returning to the United States in exchange for the sale of government securities are
used by the state for military procurements.16
However, foreigners’ willingness to hold dollars (or dollar-denominated securities)
is inversely related to the dollar’s strength. In the last three years the dollar has
devalued by 35 percent against the Euro, and the Euro has become the second
international currency (see European Central Bank 2005, 8/9, 28, 52). Due to this
devaluation, the dollar is being (quietly) replaced by the Euro as the international
reserve currency. Moreover, the oil-producing countries are also trying to switch from
payment in dollars to payment in Euros. If this trend continues, the demand for
dollars could decrease drastically and the dollar could be further weakened.17 A
refinancing crisis is thus a very real possibility. Given the high level of U.S. internal as
well as external indebtedness, this would almost certainly be the catalyst for an
economic crisis of huge proportions, which could result in a new asset of power
relations between the two blocs and thus into a radical loss of seignorage by the
dollar in favor of the Euro.18 But, as pointed out above, seignorage is the way
‘defense’ procurements are financed.19

16. Inasmuch as foreigners keep dollars as reserves, it is U.S. consumers who gain. Inasmuch as
it is U.S. government securities that are kept as reserves, it is the federal government and thus
the U.S. arms producers that gain.
17. Bush’s ‘infinite war’, or ‘war on terrorism’, is meant not only to monopolize oil wells and
routes and to continue Russia’s encirclement, but also to dissuade oil-producing countries from
asking for Euros instead of dollars for their oil exports. (Let it not be forgotten that that was
Saddam Hussein’s stated intention. The war against Iraq is at the same time a war against the
Euro.) Nevertheless, the central banks’ present trend is to switch from dollar reserves to Euro
reserves (Mosnews.com 2004; Mitchell 2005). Also, since 2001, OPEC has increasingly converted
its petro-dollars into Euro-denominated rather than dollar-denominated deposits (Bank of
International Settlements 2004, 26). The latter have fallen from 75 percent of the total to 61.5
percent; the former have risen from 12 to 20 percent of the total.
18. Many economists of different schools forecast this possibility and hope for a soft landing of
the dollar. But this would not avoid a devaluation. Further weakening of the dollar would work
toward the loss of its seignorage.
19. Just as U.S. military interventions are a challenge by the dollar to the Euro, the Euro is a
challenge to the sustainability of continued military interventions by the United States.
 332 CARCHEDI

Faced with fewer resources, the United States could further reduce the level of
living of the huge lower end of its society.20 The question then is, to begin with, one
of social and political sustainability.21 But there are also economic drawbacks. First,
an economy increasingly based on the military sector to the detriment of the social
sectors neglects infrastructures, education, health, and more generally all those
factors that directly or indirectly foster productivity growth. Its international
competitiveness declines. This effect is reinforced by the nonreproductive nature
of weapons. Second, weapons are either not used (they are a waste of resources) or, if
they are used, they destroy other use values and the value contained in them. These
negative effects are fairly uncontroversial.
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More controversial is whether there are positive economic effects. From a

Marxist perspective, this production is production of (surplus) value (since it is a
transformation of use values under capitalist production relations). However, given
the very high (higher than average) organic composition of capital of this sector, its
growth reduces, rather than increases, the average profit rate (especially if this
implies the shrinking of other sectors with lower organic composition). The
importance of this sector, then, resides not in the production but in the realization
sphere. First, the realization of the (surplus) value created is guaranteed by the state
(through military procurements). This counters the difficulties of realization. Second,
if weapons are exported for prices fluctuating around the average rate of profit,
much more (surplus) value is appropriated than that contained in them. It is because
of this appropriation (rather than production) of surplus value that the average profit
rate can increase in the producer/exporting country and the producers of weapons
can realize huge profits. The crucial variable, then, is the appropriation of
international value through exports. However, as shown in Table 1, the combined
export of the EU’s five major weapons producers is already close to U.S. exports. This
is a threat not only to the military industry but also to the average profitability of the
United States, and thus to the sustainability of the present level of military
procurements.
These considerations reveal the roots of U.S. unilateralism. The common percep-
tion is that the United States can act unilaterally (as in Afghanistan and Iraq) both
because of its military superiority and because, according to recent U.S. ideology, the
difficulties inherent in NATO’s cumbersome decisionmaking process are not offset by
the slight European military capability. In reality, paradoxically, U.S. unilateralism is
an expression of U.S. weakness*/of the decline of their hegemony and thus of the
need to appropriate international value without having to share the spoils (today oil,
tomorrow water) with the ‘allied’ countries. But, in so doing, the United States
weaken NATO’s Atlantic nature and push the ‘allied’ to create a military competitor.22

20. Suffice it to mention that 45 million Americans are not covered by health insurance.
21. Bush’s infinite war is then also a war against the U.S. working class.
22. The apologists of U.S. imperialism glorify unilateralism. Kagan (2002), for example, holds
that while Europe rejects the use of force as an instrument of international relations, in the
world in which we live force is necessary; thus, the United States’ only option is to act
unilaterally. In so doing it fosters human progress. Any comment would be superfluous.
 REMARX 333

Europe’s Resolve to Militarize

To counter U.S. unilateralism, Europe needs to increase its military might. The size of
the combined national military budgets is not the main problem: ‘‘if spent better,
existing budgets should be sufficient to build all the capabilities required for EU
ambitions. Estimates show that at the EU level filling the major capability gaps would
cost about EUR42 billion; if spread over a 10 year period, this requires shifting
budgets to allow for a 10 per cent increase of the means for procurement’’ (Biscop
2004, 527). Rather, the problem is that, in spite of the Rapid Reaction Force and of
the Battle Groups, Europe’s military forces are still basically fragmented into national
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armies. Thus, while the members states’ combined defense budgets are about half
that of the United States, their effective military power is only a fraction of its
capability. An increase in military expenses functional for a truly European army
presupposes an institutional framework overcoming this fragmentation and improving
cost-effectiveness. This is exactly one of the aspects of the new European
Constitution that was signed by the heads of government of the member states in
October 2004 and must be ratified by 2009.23
It is instructive to examine a document written by Javier Solana, the high
representative of the CFSP, shortly before the signing of the constitution. Starting
from the consideration that ‘‘security is a precondition of development’’ (Council of
the European Union 2003, 2)*/that is, that military power is a precondition for the
defense of economic interests*/the document reveals its own apprehensions:
‘‘Energy dependence is a special concern for Europe. Europe is the world’s largest
importer of oil and gas. Imports account for about 50% of energy consumption today.
This will rise to 70% in 2030. Most energy imports come from the Gulf, Russia and
North Africa’’ (3)*/or, from Europe’s periphery. Not by chance, ‘‘Resolution of the
Arab/Israeli conflict is a strategic priority for Europe’’ (8). Competition for natural
resources (including water) will create turbulence and migratory movements. ‘‘It is in
the European interest that countries on our borders are well-governed’’ (8)*/that is,
that Europe open and close its frontiers according to its own needs rather than those
of the victims of imperialism. Given the new menaces*/namely, terrorism (obviously,
not its own), weapons of mass destruction (again, not its own), organized crime (once
more, not its own), state failures (those of the bordering countries of strategic
interest for the EU), and so on, ‘‘the first line of defense’’ of the EU ‘‘will be often
abroad’’ (6). In short, Europe must get ready for ‘preventative’ wars and imperialist
invasions.24

23. It is only from this perspective that it makes sense to pool individual national spending in the
EU. This article was finished before the recent rejection of the European Constitution by the
French and Dutch referenda.
24. Notice the similarity with U.S. propaganda. Solana’s document claims a role for Europe on an
equal footing with the United States; that is, Europe must be able to defend its interests against
the rest of the world together with the United States whenever possible */‘‘the West against the
rest’’ (see Wagner 2004) but also against the United States if necessary. The notion of ‘common
imperialism’ forgets this antagonistic, and fundamental, aspect.
 334 CARCHEDI

Let us then consider how the Constitution envisages reaching these aims. Article
40.1 of the draft treaty (European Convention 2003) reaffirms the Common Security
and Defence Policy (CSDP) whose operational capacity may be used ‘‘on missions
outside the Union.’’ More specifically, these operations ‘‘shall include joint disarma-
ment operations, humanitarian and rescue tasks, military advice and assistance tasks,
conflict prevention and peace-keeping tasks, tasks of combat forces in crisis
management, including peacemaking and post-conflict stabilisation’’ (article
210.1). The performance of the CSDP ‘‘shall be undertaken using capabilities provided
by the Member States’’ and thus not by NATO. This sanctions the operational
independence of NATO (40.1).
The CSDP ‘‘will lead to a common defence’’ (40.2) whose only obligation to NATO
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will be that of being ‘‘compatible’’ with it. Military expenses must be ‘‘progressively’’
increased (40.3). Article 40.4 institutes a minister for foreign affairs who will be
responsible for the Union’s foreign policy. Particularly important is article 40.6:
‘‘Those Member States whose military capabilities fulfill higher criteria and which
have made more binding commitments to one another in this area with a view to the
most demanding missions shall establish structured cooperation within the Union
framework.’’ The EU’s hardcore imperialist nations, then, will be free to intervene
abroad and to push for a European army without being hindered by other member
states.25 The European parliament will have no say in foreign and defense policy. It
will only ‘‘be regularly consulted on the main aspects and basic choices of the
common security and defence policy, and shall be kept informed of how it evolves’’ (I-
40.8). The democratic deficit widens even more.
Finally article 40.3 envisages the establishment of a European Armaments,
Research and Military Capabilities Agency, which was set up 12 July 2004 (Official
Journal of the European Union 2004). The Agency ‘‘should contribute to the
implementation’’ of the common foreign, security and defence policy (article 5).
Its aim is to develop ‘‘defence capabilities in the field of crisis management,
promoting and enhancing European armaments cooperation, strengthening the
European defence industrial and technological base (DTIB) and creating a competitive
European defence equipment market, as well as promoting . . . research aimed at
leadership in strategic technologies for future defence and security capabilities,
thereby strengthening Europe’s industrial potential in this domain’’ (article 3).
Thus, from a strategic-military perspective, the Constitution first ratifies the
member states’ duty to increase military expenditures. Second, it fosters the
formation of a European army independent of both NATO (and thus of the United
States) and those countries that are less enthusiastic about militarizing the EU
(through structured and permanent cooperation). Third, it legitimates the organiza-
tion of wars (military advice and assistance tasks), carrying out of wars, and
occupation of foreign territories (stabilization operations).26 Finally, it strengthens,

25. This applies especially to France and Germany, which are each other’s preferred partners in
security policy (see Stahl et al. 2004, 423).
26. This does not exclude the use of nuclear weapons. As the Institute for Security Studies (the
EU think-tank on military questions) writes, ‘‘in cases where an adversary has a WMD potential,
the conflict will by definition have a WMD dimension’’ (2004, 69; emphasis added).
 REMARX 335

through the European Defense Agency, an autonomous industrial-military basis and

technology as the absolute precondition for an autonomous army. At the same time,
this will strengthen France and Germany within the EU.27 In short, the constitution
creates the ‘‘framework within which to think strategically’’ the militarization of the
EU (Institute for Security Studies 2004, 28). It is a further step toward an era of
potentially devastating international conflicts.

Conclusion
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Let us conclude by drawing an instructive comparison. When the ECU was introduced,
in 1978, it was only a money of account, virtual money. It was born in the shadow of
the dollar: each country was given a quantity of ECU’s proportional to its dollar
reserves and gold reserves (valued in dollars). However, the strategy was not only to
create a new currency but also a strong one. If the aim had been simply to create a
unit of account to settle international transactions between central banks, there
would have been no need for a new currency: this was already one of the dollar’s
function. There had to be a new, a European, currency and this had to be a strong
one, even though originally a virtual one. To this end, the value of the ECU was tied
much more to the exchange rate between the (strong) Mark and the dollar than to
that between other (weaker) currencies and the dollar.28 Thus, the ECU was much
more prone to revaluations that to devaluations relative to the dollar. The ECU, then,
was born as a strong currency and kept a strong position which it then transferred to
the Euro when the former was converted into the latter on the basis of one to one.
But the transformation of the ECU into the Euro and of the Euro into the second
international currency, a real threat to U.S. seignorage, has lasted a quarter of a
century. Given the overwhelming power of the dollar relative to the ECU, in 1978 this
was only a distant and uncertain outcome. But it was a very real possibility.
The European army is nowadays in a similar situation. It, too, is virtual compared to
U.S. might, but it, too, is bound to become a real threat to the U.S. army. On the one
hand, U.S. unilateralism creates conflict situations, weakens the role of NATO, and
strengthens the EU’s determination to militarize. On the other, the sustainability of
the present U.S. level of military expenditures is increasingly called into question and
England’s reluctance is bound to fade away. It is only a matter of time before Europe
will equip itself with a powerful military arm capable of defending its interests, if
need be also against those of the United States. But the EU will not have to duplicate
U.S. military power. It will ‘only’ need to build a force of deterrence. The notion of
U.S. superimperialism, based on its as yet unchallenged, tremendous destructive
power, disregards not only the nonmilitary aspects of the imperialist struggle (the

27. For the relation between the militarization of the EU and the Bundesweher, see Henke
(2004). Notice that from 2006 to 2010, the Bundesweher will be radically transformed, and that
the greatest contingent within the Rapid Reaction Force is the German.
28. At the same time, the foundations had been laid for the ECU to be functional for the
interests of West Germany more than for those of the other European countries. For technical
details, see Carchedi (2001).
 336 CARCHEDI

determinant*/i.e., economic and financial*/ones), but also the changed and

changing military and power relations between the two blocs. But, contrary to the
illusions of many on the European Left, a European military force adequate to its
economic might, far from fostering peace against the aggressive unilateralism of the
United States, will be a further threat to peace anywhere in the world. Rather than
expressing the need for a balanced peace, multilateralism is the doctrine of the
emerging and still relatively weak imperialist blocs.29 There is no reason a multipolar
imperialist world should be a safer place than one hegemonized by just one military
superpower.
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Acknowledgments
This essay is a revised version of a paper presented at the conference, L’Unione
europea, una superpotenza? held in Rome in 2005.

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