While being opposed to any political or trade union, I support a common miitary effort. But an European army is clearly not what I would think about and I think we must make clear the limitations of European security programs:
What would fail:
* Military alliances were to some extent responsible of the first world war. If tomorrow an European country occupies its neighbor or provoke it in a similar way, will we sacrifice ourselves to defend the wrongdoer? This is the reason why a common army requires a common diplomacy. This is something I am opposed to as we all have different interests, the reason for which I reject the common market and political union. It would also imply a common identity, to make blood sacrifices acceptable, which would require the destruction of our nations, cultures and languages, and a war to unite us, all sorts of perilous and tyrannical enterprises.
* Many European countries only want a stupidly narrow vision of defense, an European bunker. They are fool enough to think the USA will always provide us with the resources our industry needs, while we also do need to secure our materials' sources, and stabilize foreign regions. Fools will make a fool alliance. A modern army needs projection and intervention capacities. France cannot be the only country to have such capacities, and pay for two armies, one for the European bunker and one for projection.
* European leaders refuse to accept the reality of threats around us. They refuse to prepare themselves for Islamic armies, for terrorists with nuclear ICBM stolen from Pakistan or Iran, or for a new cold war with China where resources would slowly become unavailable to us, etc. At best they accept that Russia must be contained. Yet any European army must prepare for those future threats. Fools will make a fool alliance.
* Any attempt to share intelligence between 28 countries will weaken my country because of leaks. If tomorrow we entrust intel to weaker European countries, France will simply become weaker in front of terrorism without gaining much in return. Cooperation is needed but it should be done between most trusted partners only and in a limited way. As for common identity databases, they should not be exclusive to Europe but as global as possible, by inviting as many countries as possible, without excluding that some European countries may refuse. As often with the EU, the EU is an obstacle to more ad hoc and relevant approaches, and sometimes more global ones.
* Bruxelles is the realm of Kafkaian inefficiency and corruption. Anytime I had to face an European administration or European rules or judiciary decisions, they made me want to punch someone in the face. No way I can entrust them the security of my country or military purchases, they would only weaken us.
* Even in the furthest foreseeable future, we will remain dependent of the USA for our security. Even if European countries wanted to, they could not equate the USA for the previously mentioned reasons. And they do not want to, as they are happy to leech from the USA (and the USA are happy to sell us military equipments as a result, and some perks like bases).
What could work:
* Common equipment programs. Especially spatial and anti-missile programs, counter-cyberthreat developments, but also the ships and planes we both need. Without denying that for some programs we have different needs (the eurofighter reflects the bunker mentality I mentioned before), and without ignoring the weight of national industries for some of us. If Italy gives more money to bribe the leaders of European purchase programs, France should part its way rather than sacrifice its industry as a result, and must not be fined for this.
* Border surveillance. I am opposed to the Schengen area, but as long as it exists we need to surveil those borders. This would also include joint forces at the Eastern borders, and answering any Russian land grab in the buffer with an European land grab.
* Security treaties. We should unite our efforts to pressure Muslim countries into deals that make it easier for us to send them their emigrants and refugees back.
* Common nuclear program. Besides of the French ones since we should not surrender this capacity.
