After a long period when the effective development of European defence capabilities has been a matter of speeches rather than action, 1999 has seen significant progress. The Kosovo operation proved that European nations lack the offensive airpower capability for NATO's new role, and that they were no better prepared to mount a potentially hostile ground campaign. The NATO Summit in Washington in April, the Western European Union ministerial in Bremen in May and the European Council at Köln in June provided progressive moves towards developing the defence dimension of a Common Foreign and Security Policy for the European Union. It was recognised that the bureaucratic morass of NATO, WEU and EU relationships on security could be significantly eased by the simple expedient of letting the EU take on the WEU tasks.
This was all very largely the result of the startling change in the position of the United Kingdom over the past year. Experience over Iraq and the Balkans had moved Tony Blair towards a wish for active co-operation on European defence. From the Anglo-French summit in December 1998 through to the Anglo-Italian summit in July 1999, we have seen a strengthening of British resolve to make Europe more effective in its defence capabilities.
The Kosovo air campaign showed that even the United Kingdom, which prided itself on being a serious military power, could only contribute 4% of the effort. Tony Blair found his influence on policy for the war strategy in Washington reflected the relative contributions between the United States and Europe. Kosovo was fought with American capability using American doctrine. Unless the 2 million troops and 3000 combat aircraft in Europe could be turned into an effective military force, Europeans would have to continue to wait for the United States to decide tactics for security operations in Europe and beyond. So the time is unlikely ever to be better for a serious attempt to rebalance the NATO partnership between the US and Europe. EU members are open to suggestions for ways to make their military forces more appropriate and cost effective. Tony Blair is enthusiastic, more so than many in his Ministry of Defence, for real progress on European Defence. Many initiatives will take years to implement, but there are some useful concrete proposal which could provide more capability very quickly.
The long term vision for Europe should foresee the possibility of a distant future when an enlarged EU, without internal borders, is so interdependent that it will be natural to pool and fund all its military capability at the European level. Europe will have vital interests as a global economic power; and it will need a foreign and security policy to protect those interests. While such a vision may never come to pass, there are still policies which can be proposed in the short to medium term which could improve capabilities whatever the long term outcome. In the next few months, the EU could agree a number of areas where much needed military capability could be operated at the European level without danger to national sovereignty, but at much greater effectiveness. To retain sovereignty, nations would need to be able to withhold or withdraw their contributions to meet national requirements. Capabilities where this would be possible might include a common air transport and air-to-air refuelling force operated on a similar basis to the long standing and successful NATO AWACs force. Navies might build on the example of the Belgian/Netherlands joint Headquarters for the operations of their frigates. Land forces could look to expanding the example of the joint Nordic logistic support arrangements in Bosnia. In every case more effective capability would be provided at less cost.
In the medium term the focus should turn to ways to produce more effective combat capabilities. Five EU nations are ordering the Eurofighter for delivery from 2002 onwards. Each nation will set up its headquarters for planning and support, a training base, and a myriad of support organisations. Over a period of years, each nation will change its version of Eurofighter in different ways (just as we have seen with the Tornado). Interoperability will get worse as times goes on, unless there is common management and doctrine. This is a role for a single EU military headquarters, which would operate an EU mixed nationality Eurofighter force of perhaps 400 aircraft. If any nation still felt the need to retain some independent national capability, it could rotate crews and aircraft through the EU force on a regular basis. Beyond Eurofighter, France, Italy, Spain and the UK want to keep in the aircraft carrier game. The UK can only afford an inadequate force of two carriers. Between them, the maritime minded nations of the EU could field a serious capability of 4 or 5 carriers supported by the frigates, submarines, helicopters and mine counter-measure vessels provided by other EU nations. For the armies of Europe, the need is for rapidly deployable forces with a range of capabilities. The EU could set the guidelines to produce a well balanced force structure.
As the EU moved along these paths, it would be important to ensure that there was no free ride for less enthusiastic members. The establishment of a European Defence Budget would be an early priority and would force member nations to take a serious interest in agreeing what capability Europe needs. Nations could then either contribute capability or funds. This would undoubtedly lead to a virtuous circle of each nation volunteering force capability, and a realisation that they get more capability when their defence budget supports European rather than national forces.
Finally, as forces were increasingly operated at the European level, the common doctrine and operational planning would lead to common equipment requirements. Role specialisation might happen, but it would be in a planned manner rather than the random system of today. The inefficiencies of duplicated support that we see in today's multinational forces would be eliminated. Europe would be a more equal partner with the United States within NATO, and would be able to field its own diplomatic and military capability if necessary. Nor, after restructuring costs, would it need to spend any more than it does in total now on defence.