A triumph for our diplomats is yet again headlined following the Anglo-French Summit in London on 25 November 1999. To read the joint declaration, it would appear that Britain and France have solved the problems of years of decline in European provision for defence capability. Unfortunately, the cozy agreement as yet gives little prospect of any real improvement in the armed forces of Europe, or indeed any hope of extra money for defence.
It is just coming up to the first anniversary of Tony Blair's inspired change of direction on European defence at St Malo. The Strategic Defence Review had been published in July 1998 based on an essentially Atlanticist approach to foreign policy. Little progress had been possible towards the European Security and Defence Identity so long as the UK continued blocking attempts to make Europe have a voice within NATO. At St Malo, in December 1998, Tony Blair signalled a willingness to explore ways to develop a European defence identity. The experiences of Kosovo underlined the need for Europe to be more effective. The 15 EU nations together spend over £100 billion on their armed forces last year. Yet, when a real crisis landed in their backyard, they needed the USA to provide 80% of the effort for the air operation over Kosovo. Europe has over 3000 combat aircraft and nearly 2 million men in uniform, but is unable to muster any useful military power for a relatively small scale operation in the Balkans.
The focus in 1999 has been on how to develop real European defence capabilities, and Tony Blair has taken a personal lead in this endeavour. It has been said that he is trying to compensate for lack of progress in bringing the UK into monetary union. He worked hard at the NATO summit in Washington in April, and NATO signed up to the Defence Capabilities Initiative with its check list of 58 areas for improvement. At the WEU ministerial in May, the groundwork was done for the EU to take over the defence role of the Western European Union. The EU summit in Cologne, the following month, kept up the pressure. In July, the Anglo-Italian summit gave Tony Blair the opportunity to push forward a timetable for action and the suggestion of performance criteria. Through the summer, UK MOD officials had been hinting that there would be a major initiative before the end of the year, which would greatly enhance Europe's capabilities. Appropriately, the launch for the big idea was at the Anglo-French summit of 24/25 November 1999. The two nations have called upon the European Council, which meets in Helsinki next month, to take a decisive step forward to increase defence capabilities to enable them to conduct EU-led operations as well as playing their full role in Alliance operations. Arrangements will need to be designed so that the EU has an autonomous capacity for use when NATO as a whole is not engaged.
How is this ambitious project to be realised? The Joint Declaration looks to EU members cooperating to provide a rapidly deployable and sustainable force up to Corps level with all the necessary command,control and intelligence capabilities, logistics, combat support, service support and appropriate naval and air combat forces. The ground forces are likely to number up to 60,000. The main body of the force should be available at 60 days notice and sustainable for at least a year. To be able to make the necessary decisions on military capabilities, new EU structures will be needed. In particular there will need to be a Military Committee and military staff dedicated to EU-led operations.
At one level, what is proposed is a sensible attempt to make some progress in harmonising defence effort across the EU so that it can at least generate a force of 60,000 men out of its 2 million troops. It also gives a welcome impetus for the development of some key capabilities such as intelligence and strategic airlift. What it does not do is generate a single extra soldier, tank, aircraft or ship. It gives the free-rider nations in Europe an opportunity to run their defence forces down further by concentrating only on their contribution to this new force. The agreement over contributions will be prolonged and devious. Years of experience at fudging goals in the NATO force planning process will give little hope of achieving the Corps capability easily or in full. There will be many subplots to prolong the negotiations. The internal fighting for command posts has already started with both France and the UK offering their headquarters as the planning centre.
What does the proposal mean for the two lead nations, the rest of the EU and for those members of NATO, who are not in the EU? It is clear that within the British Ministry of Defence there is great rejoicing. They see it as the best outcome to concerns over a Prime Minister who was being worryingly serious about European co-operation on defence. The proposals require no great change to British arrangements, but might throw up the odd extra 3 star post, which is always welcomed. As to extra commitments, the requirements will be added to Robin Cook's offering of forces for the UN: double and triple hatting of existing capabilities will do the trick. Likewise the French, having had a relatively good war in Kosovo, see their influence increasing without the need to change their force structures. For the rest of the EU, there will be some relief that they can play this development long, and can continue reducing defence expenditure while the deliberations are inevitably extended. It will cause a particular problem for Germany, which had announced its intention to generate its own rapidly deployable force of 50,000 men. They should be happy that this will give them a respectable let out at a time when they are trying to cut defence spending by 20-30%.
Those States that are members of either the EU or NATO, but not of both, remain a problem. Sweden and Finland should be happy to find a way to work with NATO without having to join. Austria and Ireland may be more difficult. The new NATO members are looking to joining the EU and should cause no difficulties. Turkey will certainly worry about being left out and will require careful handling, and Norway may begin to feel a little isolated. The real problem seems to be with the United States. There has been a great deal of unnecessary stirring of American worries, not least by Iain Duncan Smith, the Conservative party defence spokesman. In former times, it was the practice for opposition spokesman to support national policy when abroad. He seems to have fired up anti-European sentiment with his recent visit to Congress. Since there is little hope of anything in the way of a real capability being developed in the near term, it is unfortunate to offend the key NATO member, the USA, with shadows.
Tony Blair seems to have a serious wish to make European defence work. It may be that the proposal to be taken in Helsinki will at least put in place an institutional structure where the EU can develop real capabilities. An early need will be to look at establishing a budget for EU defence activity. However, it is clear that his MOD do not see themselves as having to change their national approach to defence. They will be happy to provide some extra Generals to show these foreigners how to organise an army. Those who want Europe to field effective military forces should not sit back and wait for EU military staffs to make it happen.