How the myth of an EU army bolstered the Brexit vote

"The EU army has been one of the most persistent myths peddled by the Brexit campaign," Sophie Besch, a research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, told Defense One. But like any good rumor, the story did hold a speck of truth.

..."The problem [during the Brexit vote] was that calls for an EU defence union, for an operational HQ, for closer integration in general were all taken to mean ‘EU army’," said Besch.

...Before the Brexit vote, Besch offered four reasons why the idea was a non-starter. Integrating military units of different nationalities is hard under the best of circumstances, and the EU is not the best of circumstances “The Franco-German joint brigade illustrates as much,” she wrote. “Though created in 1989, it was only first deployed (and then only partially) as part of a training mission in Mali last year. In Afghanistan, the two countries were unable to agree on an acceptable level of risk for the troops involved, blocking deployment. The problem would only be worse in multinational EU units.“ Multi-national NATO forces are an exception, in part because of the role of US military leadership.