Military matters
ESDP transformed?
Europe is once again facing a series of existential
questions: how to deepen its integration process without limiting its external
action; how to reconcile its process-oriented nature with actual foreign-policy
results; how to combine a constitutional debate and the implementation
of a more coherent security and defence policy? The EU Constitution's precarious
ratification process will in all likelihood propel the European Union into
an introspective exercise in which Europe's identity and end-state will
be the focus of debate rather than its policies. In short, there is a serious
danger that Europe becomes ever more inward looking at the very time that
an uncertain and fragile international environment demands it play a more
responsible and active role in foreign affairs.
Despite this, the European project provides the fundamental basis of the
continent's prosperity, and increasingly, of its security. Moreover, huge
progress has been made in the realm of security and defence since the launch
of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) in the wake of the 1998
St Malo meeting between French President Jacques Chirac and UK Prime Minister
Tony Blair. Ironically, in spite of divisions over Iraq, 2003 was the year
in which ESDP moved forward most decisively following agreement of a groundbreaking EU-NATO
Declaration on ESDP at the end of 2002. It was also the year that
the European Union launched both its first peacekeeping operation and its
first police missions in the Balkans, paving the way for the European Union
to take responsibility from NATO for peacekeeping in Bosnia and Herzegovina
at the end of last year. And it witnessed the European Union's first autonomous
military operation, in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In the field of intelligence and counter-terrorism, new efforts towards
integrated actions have been launched. In the area of proliferation, the
European Union has adopted a clear framework of actions and pressures to
strengthen non-proliferation regimes and initiated an unprecedented, coordinated
effort vis-à-vis Iran. Most importantly, an EU Security Strategy was formally
endorsed in December 2003. In this historic paper, the European Union laid
out a foreign-policy framework based on effective multilateralism and preventive
engagement to bring stability and prosperity to its neighbourhood, while
recognising the necessity of the use of force in certain circumstances.
All of this would have been unthinkable just five years ago. In many ways,
ESDP has been one of the European Union's greatest recent successes. Indeed,
the European soft-power approach to world politics has been praised on
both sides of the Atlantic in several recent publications - including books
by T.R. Reid, Jeremy Rifkin and Mark Leonard - as the emerging model for
international behaviour in the 21st century.
Yet obvious failures and crucial limits tarnish these very optimistic assessments
of European influence and power. Firstly, and most fundamentally, although
international security challenges demand collective answers, in practice,
as both the war in Afghanistan and responses to the Madrid bombings have
demonstrated, terrorist attacks are met with national rather than international
responses. In times of crisis, nation states, not international institutions,
remain the key actors. Moreover, the divide over Iraq, the ghosts of the
project to build an autonomous EU military headquarters in Tervuren, the
deep mistrust between some EU members and the game of hijacking institutions
to protect national interests continue to cast a shadow over the European
Union's entire common foreign policy.
Secondly, where foreign-policy coordination is concerned, larger European
countries, more often than not, maintain the illusion of acting alone while
smaller countries tend to pass the buck to the European Union without providing
the necessary resources to enable it properly to undertake these new responsibilities.
The current battle over the diplomatic service of the future EU Foreign
Minister is emblematic of the recurrent tension between small and large
countries and between the Commission and the Council. Vis-à-vis the rest
of the world, the need for a common approach is crucial. Yet most members
prefer to develop their own special relationships with Washington and other
key capitals, even though this undermines their collective impact because
it invites the other side to adopt a "divide and conquer" approach.
Thirdly, following the European Union's recent enlargement, formerly distant
theatres like Moldova or the Caucasus have become the immediate neighbourhood.
While the European Union demonstrated its crisis-management capacity in
the case of Ukraine, with significant contributions from Lithuania and
Poland, other areas remain beyond European influence. Indeed, even in the
Balkans, where the European Union has been engaged for more than a decade,
the quest for a long-term solution in Kosovo requires the kind of special
effort that Europe is currently unable or unwilling to undertake.
Lastly, the European Union is often long on declaratory principles, but
short on action. Worse still, even when member states agree a common approach,
they are frequently unable to achieve concrete results, as diplomatic failure
in Cyprus, ongoing chaos in the Congo, inaction in Darfur and passivity
in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have shown.
Strategic posture
These limitations are also reflected in the European Union's strategic
posture. By opposing regime change, the European Union emphasises the pre-eminence
of stability over democratisation. By rejecting pre-emption – Germany
had the wording of the draft Security Strategy changed to remove this – the
European Union looks to diplomacy and preventive engagement to resolve
international crises. By stressing effective multilateralism, the European
Union relies more on international institutions than on its own capacity
for action. In short, Europe, by and large, remains a status quo-oriented
power, prompt to emphasise international law and ethics. Commission President
José Manuel Barroso said recently: "We [Europeans] are in many ways a superpower.
We are a moral power." Maybe, but it is a morality proclaimed by decree,
rather than a conviction demonstrated by action.
The real failure of this ill-named, post-modern Europe, however, relates
to its incapacity to reform its defence structure. ESDP capabilities continue
to lag. The original objective of up to 60,000 troops deployable within
60 days, set at the 1999 Helsinki meeting of the European Council, has
not been met. To be fair, a significant number of European troops are deployed
all over the world on national, EU, NATO and UN missions. The point, however,
was to place at the European Union's disposal a reserve of forces, not
simply to add another demand on national forces. Several problems have
plagued the Helsinki Headline Goal. First, it was merely a quantitative
target set on the basis of the international experience in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
and therefore, ill-suited to today's new strategic imperatives. Second,
it consisted solely of a catalogue of forces, only a tiny percentage of
which were actually rapidly deployable. Third, if deficiencies were identified,
there were no real incentives to remedy them. Efforts on capabilities had
to shift from the quantitative to the qualitative. Several initiatives
have recently taken this necessity into account.
First, the establishment of a European Defence Agency to "support the member
states in their effort to improve European defence capabilities in the
field of crisis management" was finally agreed last year. The Agency is
to promote equipment collaboration, research and technology projects and
procurement. All this should bring invaluable synergies and economies of
scale to European defence spending. In particular, the Agency should be
able to coordinate efforts to fill gaps identified by the European Capabilities
Action Plan (ECAP). In order to have a real impact, however, the Agency
must be properly funded.
Second, the principle of permanent structured cooperation for defence is
now formally recognised in the EU Constitution. The criteria governing
this cooperation are stringent, at least on paper. Among other things,
member states must have an adequate level of defence expenditure , take
concrete measures to enhance the availability, interoperability, flexibility
and deployability of their armed forces , and commit resources to address
shortfalls identified by the ECAP mechanism. The real novelty lies in the
encouragement to coordinate the identification of military needs, to specialise
national defence and to pool capabilities. Given the weakness of defence
budgets and the chronic under-investment in research and technology, collective
procurement and multinational forces are obvious solutions. If implemented,
permanent structured cooperation could offer a precious framework in which
to change the dynamics of European defence.
Lastly, the European Union endorsed the Battle Group concept last November.
This initiative is a direct result of the experience of Operation Artemis in
the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2003. The Battle-Group concept is based
on a "quick-in, quick-out" capability to restore order, especially in Africa,
which would be carried out "explicitly but not exclusively" under a UN
Security Council mandate. In the second stage, African or other peacekeepers
would be expected to take over.
This strategy of providing a quick fix and then devolving longer-term responsibility
for peace-building to others is, however, difficult to put into practice.
It is not obvious why Battle Groups would be the adequate force package
for such operations. Entry force will not be that quick, especially given
the European Union's strategic-lift shortfalls. Exit may be delayed by
many months, and the African Union is unlikely to be able to come up with
sufficient peacekeepers afterwards. Today in Congo, the UN mission has
about 16,000 members, making it the largest of the organisation's peacekeeping
operations. Moreover, the political consensus in Europe for the continent
to play a greater role in Africa is limited as revealed all too clearly
by the indifference towards events in Darfur. Despite this, Battle Groups
of 1,500 troops, including support and service-support elements, represent
a more flexible force package capable of higher-intensity operations. Deployable
within five days, they will be fully manned, equipped and trained, and
have adequate strategic-lift assets. Member states have committed to deliver
13 such Battle Groups by 2007, nine of which will be multinational, including
a contingent from non-EU Norway. This new target of nearly 20,000 men - a
third of the headline goal - appears more achievable, but its real efficiency
will depend on the transformation of European forces.
Force transformation
European force transformation only started very recently and in the usual
uncoordinated manner. The term itself is notoriously vague. Indeed, this
is the case even in the United States where embracing the revolution in
military affairs has both produced positive results and revealed serious
shortcomings. The strengths and weaknesses of US Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld's plan to build light, highly mobile and technologically advanced
US Armed Forces have been evident in Afghanistan and Iraq. In both instances,
the war-fighting capabilities deployed were impressive, but the post-conflict
stabilisation forces were crucially lacking. The assumption that transformation
would help reduce the overall size of the armed forces that was one of
the driving factors behind the process has turned out to be wrong and led
to a reassessment of the US transformation project.
In Europe, US difficulties were quickly seized upon
to cast doubt on the need for transformation and to emphasise the actual
requirements of peacekeeping. The bulk of the latest EU initiatives in
ESDP, including new civilian commitments and the gendarmerie initiative,
are focused on the post-stabilisation phase. Yet if one looks at the missions
where European peacekeepers are currently deployed, most of them were made
possible by the use of hard power. There would have been no peace to keep
in the Balkans without NATO intervention.
In Europe, transformation means essentially two things. The first is the
end of conscription and the strategic culture of territorial defence. In
the wake of the failure to act decisively in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the
need for expeditionary forces has been recognised, yet military structures
in Europe have not undergone sufficient change. Conscription remains in
place in many countries; heavy infantry units are still far too numerous;
obsolete equipment is over-abundant; and strategic lift is still lacking.
Putting this right demands political will and strategic clarity. For now,
however, in a majority of European countries, both are lacking.
The second aspect of transformation is the actual process by which modern
war-fighting techniques are introduced into European forces. At present,
in any hostile environment, the risk of casualties and the range of acceptable
collateral damage remain too high. EU members must speed the modernisation
of their capabilities to be able to fight according to criteria demanded
by modern democracies. Even if the current focus of possible EU military
actions lies in the post-conflict phase or in preventive deployment in
failing states, the lack of adequate capabilities severely restricts the
room for manoeuvre in the event of any degeneration. Effective C41SR capabilities,
i.e. command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance,
and reconnaissance, are an absolute must in such an event. Currently in
Europe, only a handful of countries, notably France and the United Kingdom,
have started to introduce network-enabled capabilities in their arsenal.
The chief obstacle in this effort is not the availability of European technology,
but the level of the defence budget. Transformation is about spending better
and more efficiently, but it requires greater expenditure in the short
term. This is, nevertheless, in the longer-term interest of European force
structures, since they currently suffer from a surplus of redundant capabilities.
Yet any increase in defence budget is a political non-starter in most countries.
Defence spending consequences
There are several consequences of this state of affairs. First, medium-sized
European countries will probably have to specialise if they want to modernise
their forces. This, in turn, must be decided in a coherent manner in a
top-down framework rather than the classic bottom-up approach embodied
in the ECAP. Yet this is a step that European countries are still reluctant
to take. Second, cooperation with NATO remains crucial. Since Europe is
likely to focus on network-enabled operations rather than the full spectrum
of network-centric warfare, it becomes critical for Europe to be able to
plug in to US interoperable C41SR capabilities. If not, the ability to
work with Washington will be lost. In that respect, the NATO Response Force
and the EU-NATO Working Capability Group are key components of transatlantic
cooperation. Lastly, because Europeans have only one pool of forces, efforts
in both the ESDP and the NATO frameworks, the Battle Groups and NATO Response
Force respectively, must be congruent.
In practice, this is the case. There are, however, two caveats. The first
is political. Since the NATO Response Force is essentially made of European
troops, Europeans are understandably keen to have a large say in deciding
on how it is used. NATO cannot become the cleaning lady for military operations
decided only by Washington. But the conditions surrounding decision-making
have changed radically in recent years, Since NATO has moved beyond the
Euro-Atlantic area, agreement about the basic structure of world order,
in particular the use of force, is a necessary precondition for effective
Alliance decision-making. Given the increased significance of global issues
on the transatlantic relationship, there is an urgent need to assess the
extent of the common ground and the nature of differences in a greater
number of areas than was once the case. As the question of lifting the
arms embargo on China demonstrates, Europe and the United States cannot
agree on everything, everywhere, because the factors involved are no longer
limited to a specific problem like the Soviet threat. While it is unrealistic
to expect complete agreement, it is also unrealistic to refuse common action
because of one disagreement on a specific issue. The latter cannot become
an obstacle for the former. In this framework, consensus is far more difficult
to achieve. Moreover, it is especially demanding since both the Battle
Groups and the NATO Response Force are supposed to be deployable at 5 to
30 days' notice. Current efforts for rapid deployment may be jeopardised
by still inadequate and protracted decision-making processes.
The second difficulty is more operational. One of the desired results of
transformation is both an increase in the size of headquarters and a reduction
in the size of the forces on the ground. The new NATO structure with an
Allied Command for Operations at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe
(SHAPE) in Mons, Belgium, and an Allied Command for Transformation in Norfolk,
Virginia, in the United States, means in effect that SHAPE is at the nexus
of both NATO and EU operational planning. If the row over an autonomous
EU military headquarters has been settled for now, the long-term question
remains: should the large European countries rely indefinitely on the Berlin-Plus
framework even after agreeing a broadened framework for ESDP operations
and increasingly transforming their military capacity? Conversely, for
autonomous EU operations: should small and medium-sized European countries
rely on national, that is French, German or UK headquarters, to carry out
these missions? Since Europe has only one pool of forces, the more Europe
transforms its capabilities, the sooner the question of an EU headquarters
will resurface.
Europe has developed a comprehensive approach to security, from police
missions to crisis management. Deepening the integration through the ratification
process might once again distract the European Union from its geopolitical
responsibilities. Fulfilling the less demanding aspects of peacekeeping
operations, like the current mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina, must not
be allowed to slow the necessary transformation of European forces. On
both grounds, the credibility of the European Union as a strategic actor
is at stake.