Missed Opportunity

Hello everyone and sorry for not updating this in a terribly long time. A week or so after my last post on here about the murder of Jamal Khalifa, I left to Europe to visit with family for a little over two weeks. And, when I returned, I had a heap of course work to blaze through before I could get around to writing here.

The chance to write here again comes as quite an interesting coincidence as, just as I chose to take the opportunity to post, Britain chose to deny an opportunity for peace- and the continued growth and integration of the European Union to its logical conclusion. Today, a vote was held in the British Parliament on whether or not to renew the UK's nuclear arsenal. In 2024, Britain's nuclear submarines go out of service. Prime Minister Blair's proposal, which was voted on today, would have the government spend 15 to 20 billion pounds on several Trident nuclear submarines to replace the current aging fleet and the maintenance of Britain's current nuclear weapons arsenal.

I have a running theory on what the pre-conditions would be for the European Union to develop into a super-state. In order for Europe to become one country, the following would have to take place:

1. The European Constitution, or some other treaty, would have to be developed to give the European Council direct authority over the European Rapid Reaction Force. This, I believe, will happen when the problem of Transnistria- a breakaway republic of Moldova thought to be the world's main weapons bazaar for the world's insurgenices and human rights abusers- becomes relevant to Europe once accession talks are opened with Ukraine or Romania gains enough confidence to begin complaining to the EU on Moldova's behalf. Removing the illegal regime in Transnistria and enforcing Moldovan sovereignty would require a heavier contribution from the EU than just the six-month deployment allowed under the current ERRF mandate.

2. The decommissioning of nuclear weapons in the United Kingdom. Public opinion in the UK is much more receptive to the idea of nuclear disarmament. In France, it is less so and France is much more guarded about its national sovereignty- and the tools with which a state can defend it. But if Britain were to give up its nuclear weapons to Brussels or disarm, France could be isolated by the rest of the Union and slowly wittled down until it would yield to a process of measured disarmament.

3. External free trade agreements. The Internal Market is something which benefits the Union strongly. But by dropping trade barriers with one or two other states not in the EU, Europe would take on another characteristic of a state. Within the United States of America, there are very few tariffs and obstacles to trade between states. But the US also has an external free trade agreement, NAFTA, with Canada and Mexico. International trade is one sign of stateship and if Europe makes such an agreement as a whole, it displays this mark of stateship.

4. The development of the position of the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy would help centralize foreign policy on the EU level, rather than on the state level. Every country has a Foreign Minister and if Europe is to be one country, it will need one too. Not 27.

5. The secession of Scotland from the UK. This will set off a chain effect that will devolve and decentralize power within the current states to make them much more managable components of the European Union. Many argue that one problem with Canada is that the provinces are much too large and thus are unable to look after and speak on behalf of all of their interests. If the United Kingdom were simply broken down into England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, they would more easily be able to argue for their interests within a federal European state.

These, in my point-of-view, are the five pre-conditions for European unification. There was an opportunity to meet one of these requirements today, but it was lost. The House voted 409-161 in favour of renewing the Trident missile system in 2024, and to keep Britain's nuclear arsenal well into the 2050's. However, 87 of the 161 voting against the proposal were of Blair's own Labour Party and the success of the proposal is owed to the intervention of the Conservatives on Blair's behalf. Blair now owes his job to the Conservatives- a dangerous prospect. Had the Conservatives not taken pity, a vote of no confidence would have taken place, plunging Britain into another election and ending the political career of Tony Blair.

It may seem dire that Britain will have its nuclear weapons until 2050, simply because of the manuevering of the Conservatives. But there is still hope. "This is not the end of the story by any means," Labour legislator Jeremy Corbyn told Sky News. "This is a very big rebellion ... in favor of peace."

Personally, I look forward to the next chapter.