At the NATO/GMFUS Conference Brussels, 3 October 2002

Address by General (ret.) Klaus Naumann, former Chairman of the NATO Military Committee General Klaus Naumann: Of course I will continue in English. I was asked to talk about how can Europe purchase a capability scope, and I think there is no longer any doubt that there is quite a capability scope between the United States and the LIS (phon) and therefore the first question one has to answer in order to win political approval for an effort which is not popular at a time when most of the non-US nation citizens fear not to be threatened is why should they close the gap. Unfortunately, Secretary General, they are not aware of your predictions to the extent possible, also I fully agree with everything you have said. My straightforward answer to my question is therefore quite simple. The only reason which I think we can get across is we Europeans need to be taken seriously as a player in Washington, and the only way to strengthen the voice of those who know that multilateralism is the only realistic option for the voice of a superpower is to demonstrate that the LIS process capabilities which matter, and which are indispensable for the United States of America. So to close the gap, that neither mean to copy the United States, nor to produce capabilities which do not whet the appetite of our American allies. The name of the game is therefore to maximise political influence at acceptable cost, and this clearly evens out to focus on a division of labour which would mean that the United States would fight and the Europeans would do the peace support operations. Such a formula would not enhance the Allies’ influence, it would be expensive, it would be very difficult to sustain such an effort over the long periiods which are one of the characteristics of peace support operations. So as we discuss options for Prague, and as we know that summits are condemned to be successes, another rule to be observed is not to overburden the summit with too many initiatives, particularly not too detailed initiatives. I therefore believe that the capabilities issue should be linked to ideas which have been offered to NATO in preparation of the Prague Summit, and the idea which is truly linked to capabilities which matter, as well as to the transformation, the necessary transformation of the non-US forces, is the US initiative to establish a quick response force. If one took this idea as a conceptual background and asked what such a force really needed to be a 21st century fighting force, then we would arrive at an approach which is clearly different from the approach which the European Union took when it launched the Helsinki headline goal. Then one can no longer ask nations what they might be willing to contribute, as the European Union has done, but one has to identify the enablers and force multipliers which such a quick response force would need in order to do interventions. Most, if not all, of these elements do not exist at the moment, but they could be established either as multinational component forces or through the pooling of some assets. One could start – and one should start - with the area of, as the Americans call it, C4ISTAR - Command Control Communication Computers Intelligence Service, Surveillance Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance – which is truly the pre-requisite for success in any intervention. C4 could probably be provided by NATO’s integrated command structure if it were fully deployable and if it saw a modernisation towards highly capable broadband systems which will be needed over time anyway. What is lacking in NATO right now is an ISTAR capability which ensures dominant battlefield awareness and constant target monitoring. As the latter capability is critical to win, since it allows to hit the enemy at any time and anywhere, it should be the first step to be taken. Politicians as well as military people need to understand that the core of common action within the Alliance is a common understanding of the battlefield situation. It must be available with sufficient precision to permit targeting, as well as continuous monitoring of the theatre of operations. Then it will be possible to exploit own capabilities in the most efficient way, and therefore I believe the often mentioned Alliance command surveillance system is the core of this approach and only a NATO-owned and proper-weighted (phon) Alliance command surveillance system transforms non-US allies from bystanders to partners. This means that the NATO-owned and operated HS has to be the decision number one to be take at Prague if the proposed response for us should really be established. For the media people in the room, this means if this decision has not been taken, then you have seen the litmus test that the Alliance is not serious about transformation. Step number two has to be the ability to hit the enemy. That means to enhance what NATO calls effective engagement capabilities. There nations might be willing to provide existing forces equipped with stand-off precision-guided munitions and some CF capabilities as an interim solution, although I believe that the best long term formula would be to establish within the next 10 years or so, but to take the decision now, a European air and sea-based Cruise missile force. Step number three could be to establish a multinational European sea and air transport command and to allocate assets to it as required by the mission given to the response force. This force should include transport helicopters, it would include air to air refuelling, and it could well include combat search and rescue assets as well. A further step to be considered is to establish in the mid to long term a theatre missile defence capability to protect the intervention force. This step however is not as urgent as the other ones since it has to be seen in conjunction with on-going NATO evaluations on missile defence, and it has to be embedded anyway into the missile defence architecture of the United States. These steps which I just mentioned could build a bridge to which NATO nations should add forces as required by the mission, special forces, combat elements and of course the necessary logistics. If these steps were taken at the Prague Summit, NATO and its European allies would be able to kill a couple of birds with one stone. First, they would really enter the transofrmation of their forces, they would thus simultaneously enhance the effectiveness of their legacy forces, and they would begin to develop the grid which allowed them to use those forces more efficiently. Second, they would acquire capabilities which will enable them to be engaged in high intensity 21st century operations, shoulder to shoulder with the American allies, and they would thus start to close the conceptual gap as well, and that is the gap which exists today in the operational art as well as in force planning, where the Eruoepeans unfortunately are lagging behind, and this gap is widening as well, day by day. And third, they would have the capabilities which they also could use for the European Union Rapid Reaction Force envisaged at Helsinki which thus would be able to conduct the upper scale of the Petersburg tasks, which it cannot do at this point in time. Now the question is, is it beyond the Maastricht Stability criteria role to ask for that? I believe not, since one could easily tailor programmes which do not require the European Monitor Union nations to commit too much money before 2006, if nations were willing to invest more wisely, instead of acquiring platforms designed in the ‘80s. Secondly, if one looked at the amount of money which they at this point in time still spent on personnel, which does not really provide sufficient combat power. And so I suggest that one could look into the defence budgets and into the percentages and then one will learn that we are asking really for a small coin which could give the non-US NATO nations a lot of political influence with the indispensable nation, and that is the United States of America. And that is the idea behind my proposal. I dream of a Europe which is the indispensable partner of the indispensable nation, a nation which is as indispensable today as it was in the days of the Cold War, since the dangers we have to face are global dangers. Remember what the Secretary General said this morning. Geogrraphy no longer acts as a shield, and from a military point of view I have to add that we have to be prepared now to cope with a much wider range of dangers than ever before. Our forces have to be prepared to face the pre-modern, the modern and the post-modern wars. Our military have to be prepared to fight asymmetric threats as well as to cope with the war in the fourth dimension, and that is the cyber war. To this end Europe needs the one and only global power as a partner, without being a puppet on the strings of this partner, but for that reason capabilities is the answer. And what we Europeans must answer, one of your questions, Mark, which I have not answered yet, have to consider is whether we are willing to transfer national sovereignty if go for multinational forces, and that means on the other side that we have to be prepared to participate and see others … on us if we do so. I feel we Europeans have no other choice but to do it at the higher end of the capabilities and the enablers and multipliers, and then Europe could well be a partner which matters.