European Defence: "why?", past, present and future,

So it seems that as budgets get presented again, it is time for the USA to once more tell Europe that it needs to honour its defence commitments under NATO. Everyone will complain that they can't and leave it to the USA to pay. Given their own financial dire straits, one is left to wonder for how much longer we'll be able to do this... Why should we have a EU army? Because size matters Now if anyone's reading and if this isn't the first post you're going through, you've probably figured out that I'm pretty pro-European integration. So, it won't surprise anyone that I'm in favour of a single European Army. There are 3 main reasons for this: