You can´t invade and secure a country with 12000 soldiers and maybe 100 - 200 airplanes. Won´t work unless its Monaco or Andorra. :)

"Invading and securing a country" can hardly be considered the threshold level for military mischief making, wherein anything shy of that is just ordinary argy bargy between good mates.

As far as:

That´s not comparable to 12 US aircraft carriers capable of carrying 80-90 airplanes each. Not to mention that the EU simply doesn´t have the world-wide bases like the USA.

Regarding the the world-wide bases like the USA, I agree that the EU is far less likely to be dragged into pointless international confrontations in defense of a global base network, and by the same token is not carrying that economic dead weight around.

But why the need for an offensive strike capability at all?

As far as the shipbuilding, the shipyards could be building all manner of different things ... why offensive strike vessels?

Aside from US instigation, I think the prestige factor is something. The Royal Navy's carriers were basically demoted to helicopter carriers in the Iraq invasion ... oh the ignominy.


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.