The political unity required for Ashton to commit to a collective European response simply isn't there. The only people who can order European punitive expeditions and expect compliance are the US State Department. And while I detest the fact that the US can order around European militaries, the fact that the EU has no ability to commit to independent offencive operations does not strike me as unequivocally bad.

That said, most individual European member states seem to be joining the effort to ground Comrade Qaddafi's air force. The Danish parliament OK'ed it unanimously. You can count the number of unanimous votes in the Danish parliament in living memory on the fingers of one hand and still have some left over, so this is in itself rather remarkable.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

ARGeezer:

The important thing is to support each state's armaments industry, it would seem.

Oh, yeah, the EU spends a lot of time negotiating rules about "procurement".

So, in what may be my last act of "advising", I'll advise you to cut the jargon. -- My old PhD advisor, to me, 26/2/11