The end of the Cold War left NATO with a vast and expensive set of military forces, which had been training to fight a single campaign for over 40 years. The planning assumptions for an all out war in Europe were relatively simple. The enemy was well defined and consisted of the aggregate forces of the Warsaw Pact. The exact locations, strengths of forces, tactics to be used and phases of the war were studied by generations of soldiers. The fall of the Berlin Wall, the unification of Germany, the demise of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, all changed the strategic landscape in Europe in little more than a 3 year period. NATO's purpose was suddenly in question as nations scrambled to cash in on the peace dividend. Yet in the event, the decade of the 90's had more diverse military action by the Western nations, under various banners, than at any time previously. Kuwait, Iraq, Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Haiti, Albania, Kosovo and East Timor have seen western military force deployed to less than benign environments. A new doctrine for peace support operations has replaced the manuals on flexible response and the air-land battle in the military staff colleges of the Alliance.
This series of military experiences is sufficient now to have established a strong consensus on the new rationale for NATO, which was articulated in the Strategic Concept launched at the NATO summit in Washington in April 1999. The accumulation of data from real operations, rather than deterrence postures, has highlighted major shortcomings in the security capabilities available to the Alliance for these new tasks. The Gulf War, while not a NATO operation, was conducted by an ad hoc coalition drawn for the most part from NATO members. It was conducted using NATO procedures with forces drawn from NATO formations. It was a relatively clear cut case for the international community to react to aggression, and thus an almost ideal trial for the concept of enforcing international law. Iraq had broken international law by invading Kuwait, and the UN could authorise military action to expel the invaders. Iraq had few friends among its neighbours; had an oppressive regime with potentially dissident groups; and was remote to US and European publics.
The US led coalition was able to take its time in building up military presence in the surrounding area. The then novel doctrine of a prolonged precursor air campaign was tested successfully. Lack of casualties to the allies made the 6 weeks of offensive air action acceptable to politicians and public. The much greater availability of precision guidance for bombs had also set a precedent in terms of what was to become acceptable collateral damage in this type of operation. Nevertheless in 1991, even after the air campaign phase, there was a general expectation that the ground phase would involve traditional levels of casualties to the attacking forces. In the event, the ground campaign was short and almost casualty free for the allies. The 4 days of ground war reinforced a new vision of war: ground forces sent in only when it was safe to secure the victory that had been won relatively bloodlessly from the air.
The Gulf War showed that the US was both quantitatively and qualitatively in a different capability league from all the other nations involved. As the French discovered, if you could not operate to US/NATO procedures, then you were kept out of the action. In the air, it was a war primarily of offensive air operations, and these had to be conducted from medium to high altitudes, where advanced defence suppression methods were more effective. Air defence fighters had relatively little work to do. The European nations had invested heavily in fighters to protect themselves from the long range Russian bombers of the Cold War. For their offensive operations, they had depended on low flying tactics to improve their survivability against Warsaw Pact air defence systems, while accepting that there would be a significant attrition rate. In a war that was expected to last only 5 days before going nuclear, training and equipment were posited on achieving rapid results. The European military equipment was not well structured to the new doctrine.
The UN operation in Somalia reinforced the perception, both in America and internationally, that the US was only prepared to remain engaged if their troops were kept safe. The predominance of air power solutions to international crises was underlined by the continuing air operations over both Northern and Southern Iraq. Operation Provide Comfort had successfully, through air operations, given relief to the displaced Kurds who had fled from their homes in Northern Iraq. It was less clear that the results for the Marsh Arabs in the South were as positive. While there was a need for some fighter capability to police the air exclusion zones, this could be carried out as the secondary role of either bomber or reconnaissance aircraft.
The sequence of events in Bosnia reinforced the US view that offensive air power could provide the necessary coercion to bring recalcitrant leaders to the negotiating table. That the history of the region up to the Dayton accord is considerably more complex is unimportant. There is a widespread perception among American decision makers that the threat and application of air strikes was critical to obtaining Milosevic's agreement to the Dayton proposals. Again, in this short air campaign, publics and politicians expected precision attacks with no collateral damage and no losses to our own side. When an airman was lost over hostile territory, combat search and rescue effort became the over-riding priority.
The 1999 Kosovo air campaign brought together all the political and military lessons that had been learned in the post Cold War operations. The US had expended a good deal of research on improving its precision weapons. Nevertheless, the use of laser designation remained a significant constraint if the target was obscured by weather. The two other precision systems (GPS navigation and TERCOM ground mapping) were available both in bombs and cruise missiles, but were significantly more expensive and limited to fixed targets. They required access to US national data. Nevertheless, this mix of weaponry allowed the campaign to be planned on a requirement for no casualties to NATO forces , and minimal collateral damage from attacks. These constraints undoubtedly prolonged the air campaign, but given that the required outcome was ultimately achieved, we can expect future operations to have similar assumptions about the requirement for very low numbers of casualties.
The contributions from the 14 NATO nations which took part were varied as shown in figure 1 , but all were overshadowed by the US, which provided 61% of the sorties flown . For example, the UK carried out 1618 of the total of 38,004 NATO sorties flown, or just over 4% . 102 of these sorties were the Sea Harriers doing little more than defending the small anti-submarine warfare carrier that they were deployed on. 324 were air-to-air refuelling aircraft aircraft mainly supporting the Tornados that operated from their bases in Germany. The UK E3-D airborne early warning aircraft clocked up 184 sorties. The sorties which directly influenced the outcome were those carrying out offensive attacks, and here the total UK effort was in the range 4% to 10% depending on the method of calculation (the lower figure reflects munition numbers and the higher missions flown) , and we know that in many of these cases it was not possible to release weapons. From 1008 RAF bombing sorties just 1011 weapons were released. Of these three quarters were non-precision weapons. The story is similar for the other non-US NATO air forces. The US provided 70% of the total aircraft and 80% of the total weapons delivered. Europe was shown to be good at providing political support for the operation, but poorly equipped to contribute to an offensive air campaign in an effective way.
The United States Defence budget for 1998 was $267 bn from a GDP of $8.1 tr. Out of almost exactly the same total GDP, the EU nations together spent some $173bn on defence or 64% of the US total. The US fields some 1.4 million professional forces and almost as many ready reserves. The EU runs 1.8 million troops of which 700,000 are conscripts and retains 3.6 million reservists at various stages of readiness. These raw budget and personnel statistics show clearly why Europe is so far behind the US in its military hardware development. Europe fields more full time troops, and very many more reservists, than the United States, yet spends only half as much on defence. It is often claimed that the major factor in differences in US and EU capabilities stems from an all regular force in America being compared with a largely conscript force in Europe. As can be seen from the figures, this is not the main issue. If all conscription were eliminated, and two thirds of the reservists were released, the EU could field over one million professional soldiers,sailors and airmen. Adding in the 6 non-EU European NATO members (Czech Republic,Hungary, Iceland, Norway,Poland and Turkey) would raise the regular forces to almost exactly the 1.4 million of the United States and lift the total current European aggregate defence spending to 70% of that in the US
If Europe, however defined, wishes to be a more equal partner with the United States in its ability to intervene internationally, it needs to spend its defence money differently. It is currently trying to support far too large a number of regular forces, conscripts and reserves on too few funds. This means that little is available for funding research, development and the procurement of equipment and weapon stocks. While the United States is scarcely a perfect example of tight control of defence spending, it is nevertheless achieving a different order of military capability for its expenditure. This suggests that Europe needs either to raise its defence spending, or reduce and restructure its forces to match the current spending more effectively. It is unlikely that there will be much political enthusiasm among nations for raising defence expenditure, and it is therefore more sensible to look at how European nations might work together at restructuring their military forces to provide more appropriate capabilities to the likely demands of the future.
Before making any assessment of the appropriate size and shape of future European armed forces, we need to examine the nature of the current and future security need. NATO members remain firmly committed to the organisation's collective defence task. Individual national governments have a responsibility for the territorial defence of their lands, which they exercise through NATO membership. Yet the current threat to their territorial integrity is very remote, and the planning assumption is that there would be a long warning time of any newly emerging threat. It is important that European governments analyse the degree of risk that they are prepared to take in this area if there is to be a sensible allocation of defence resources.
Much of the force structure in Europe is still drawn from the Cold War days, when the priority was to deter the threat of a short warning time invasion by Warsaw Pact forces across the Inner German Border. The nature of such a threat determined the requirement for forward defensive positions on the ground supported by heavy armour with limited need for range. In the air, the need was for very good early warning detection to direct large numbers of air defence fighters and ground-based surface-to-air missiles. Those countries, such as the United Kingdom, which were further distant from the Warsaw Pact forces, could develop air defences on the basis of long range engagement of incoming bombers. At sea, anti-submarine warfare was a high priority. Overlaying the force planning process for this set piece campaign was the assumption that if the conventional battle were lost, then nuclear weapons would be used. For some European nations, this meant that there was little investment in conventional (non-nuclear) long range interdiction capability. Air to ground capability was designed more to assist the ground battle and halt the advance of Warsaw Pact armour. In sum, the long period of the Cold War produced a force structure in Europe that was designed for a short, high intensity conflict, where air power assets, with the exception of nuclear forces, were primarily defensive or in a support role. Air strategists might articulate the arguments for interdiction and offensive counter air campaigns, but in practice their most effective bombers needed to be reserved against the potential need for early nuclear options.
While the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 could change the security context in less than five years, it is not easy to restructure the armed forces of Europe as quickly. Some changes in balance were possible through the cuts that took place throughout NATO nations in the early 90's. However, some of the reductions were made soon after the end of the Warsaw Pact, when it was still thought possible that Russia might be able to pose a threat in a relatively short time. Thinking, as the 1991 NATO Strategic Concept showed, still looked primarily at maintaining a defensive posture, although with significantly lower readiness for most forces. By the end of the decade, three members of the Warsaw Pact (Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic) had become full members of NATO, while the rest, including Russia, had become formal partners with the Alliance. Russia was so weak that it was finding great difficulty in winning a conventional war in Chechnya. Only her decaying nuclear weapon arsenal remained as a potential residual threat to the security of the rest of Europe.
The UK Strategic Defence Review (SDR), which was started in 1997 and was published in mid 1998, is a thoughtful analysis of the security concerns of one European nation. It identified the positive results from the collapse of Communism and the emergence of democratic states throughout Europe. It stated that there was no direct threat to Western Europe, and that none was foreseen, provided that efforts were made to continue to promote and develop the constructive relationships between all nations of Europe. On the negative side, the SDR identified a number of new security risks. In particular, it pointed to instability inside Europe, citing Bosnia and Kosovo, as a threat to the UK's security. The SDR went on to say: "Instability elsewhere - for example in Africa - may not always appear to threaten us directly. But it can do indirectly, and we cannot stand aside when it leads to massive human suffering." This was the first statement of humanitarian intervention as a national security driver. The Review also identified the growing threat from proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical technologies, particularly from a number of hostile regimes. Finally, it reminded the reader of the new risks to security from drugs, organised crime, environmental degradation, terrorism and new information technology vulnerabilities.
The security threats as perceived by the UK were in line with the general thrust of, and indeed helped to shape, European and NATO thinking. The successive crises in the Gulf, Bosnia, Kosovo and East Timor have also had an effect on political perceptions of the utility of military force. NATO decided to formulate a new Strategic Concept, which would be launched at its 50th anniversary summit meeting in April 1999 in Washington. As officials from member states began drafting they drew on the recent experience in Bosnia, and were already contemplating what might happen in Kosovo. The United States was seeking to extend the NATO mandate beyond its collective defence remit and possibly beyond Europe. The concerns felt by some European nations changed as the Kosovo crisis showed how necessary this change had become in practice.
When the Washington Summit took place, NATO found itself fighting a major air campaign against Serbia and showing that it was prepared to intervene beyond its national boundaries. The official summit communique was summed up as: "NATO says it will expand its numbers and its functions". It announced that the 19 member countries had:
- approved an updated Strategic Concept; - reaffirmed their commitment to the enlargement process of the Alliance and approved a Membership Action Plan for countries wishing to join; - completed the work on key elements of the Berlin Decisions on building the European Security and Defence Identity within the Alliance and decided to further enhance its effectiveness; - launched the Defence Capabilities Initiative; - intensified relations with Partners through an enhanced and more operational Partnership for Peace and strengthened consultations and co-operation within the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council; - enhanced the Mediterranean Dialogue; and - decided to increase Alliance efforts against weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery.
These seven elements are all important not just for the future of NATO, but for the part that the European members have to play. The Strategic Concept recognised the changes in the strategic environment since the 1991 NATO Strategic Concept was produced. The main elements were:
-- Collective Defence: The Strategic Concept underscores the enduring core mission of NATO as the collective defence of its members under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. -- Military Capabilities: The Concept reaffirms Allies' determination to strengthen Alliance defence capabilities by ensuring forces that are more mobile, sustainable, survivable and able to engage effectively on the full spectrum of NATO missions. -- New Missions: The Concept calls for improvements in NATO's capability to undertake new missions to respond to a broad spectrum of possible threats to Alliance common interests, including: regional conflicts, such as in Kosovo and Bosnia; the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery; and transnational threats like terrorism. -- New Members: The Concept underscores NATO's continued openness to new members and Allies' commitment to enlargement as part of a broader effort to enhance peace and stability throughout the Euro-Atlantic community. -- Strengthened Partnerships: The Concept reinforces Alliance efforts to build wide-ranging partnerships with the aim of increasing transparency and mutual confidence in security matters and enhancing the capacity of allies and partners to act together. -- European Capabilities: The Concept highlights development of a European Security and Defence Identity within NATO as an essential element of NATO's ongoing adaptation, enabling European allies to make a more effective contribution to Euro-Atlantic security.
This last bullet of the Strategic Concept recognised the work that been going on in parallel to develop a more coherent EU approach to foreign and security policy.
The development of a coherent defence policy for the EU had been an area of great difficulty for most of the 90's. The UK had been particularly unhelpful, fearing that any enhancement of the EU's role would be at the expense of NATO cohesion. The logjam was broken by the Anglo-French summit at St Malo in December 1998. Despite having predicated the just completed UK defence review on a continuing NATO-centred Atlanticist foreign policy, within six months of its publication, Prime Minister Tony Blair was advocating a much more significant role for Europe. The St Malo Declaration made it clear that: "the Union must have the capacity for autonomous action, backed up by credible military forces, the means to decide to use them, and a readiness to do so, in order to respond to international crises" . The declaration went on to say:
"In order for the European Union to take decisions and approve military action where the Alliance as a whole is not engaged, the Union must be given appropriate structures and a capacity for analysis of situations, sources of intelligence, and a capability for relevant strategic planning, without unnecessary duplication, taking account of the existing assets of the WEU and the evolution of its relations with the EU. In this regard, the European Union will also need to have recourse to suitable military means (European capabilities predesignated within NATO's European pillar or national or multinational European means outside the NATO framework)."
This was a radical change of position for the British and opened the way to the further developments in 1999 in European defence.
The Western European Union (WEU) had in the past been seen as the main focus for European defence efforts. It had been circumscribed in terms of access to capability, a lack of an adequate planning staff, and a degree of uncertainty over the types of operation that it could take on. A consensus was emerging that it would be necessary to hand over the task of providing European defence capability from the WEU to the EU. The WEU ministerial meeting in Bremen at the end of May 1999 took forward the thinking that had started at St Malo and had been confirmed in Washington. The apparently insurmountable difficulties of the differences in membership between NATO, WEU and EU appeared to be no longer a sticking point. They agreed that there was a "need for WEU to be operationally effective with the involvement and participation of all WEU nations in accordance with their status and to continue its cooperation with the EU and NATO, in preparation for any new arrangements which may be agreed in light of ongoing developments".
The Cologne European Council Declaration, the following month, put this into a wider context, but picked up the same points, when they committed themselves in paragraph 2
"to further develop more effective European military capabilities from the basis of existing national, bi-national and multinational capabilities and to strengthen our own capabilities for that purpose. This requires the maintenance of a sustained defence effort, the implementation of the necessary adaptations and notably the reinforcement of our capabilities in the field of intelligence, strategic transport, command and control."
It is significant that this was a declaration by all 15 members including four neutral EU countries.
Work continued in the UK to keep up the pace of European defence developments. The Anglo-Italian declaration of 20 July 1999 produced some concrete proposals on what needed to be done. It widened the requirement from a need for an EU capacity for doing its own humanitarian, crisis management and peace support operations (the Petersberg tasks). The need for a more effective European role in NATO was promoted as a clear lesson from Kosovo. The declaration sought to develop a timetable to achieve European-wide goals for enhanced military capabilities, and a set of national capability objectives to achieve this European requirement. The declaration proposed a peer review process with meetings of EU Foreign and Defence Ministers twice a year to check progress towards the agreed goals. This would take place in parallel with NATO's Defence Capabilities Initiative (DCI) work. The DCI made the point that NATO members would have to be able "to make a fair contribution to the full spectrum of Alliance missions regardless of differences in national structures." The DCI, like the Anglo-Italian declaration, highlighted the need to develop a common assessment of future requirements. However, it recognised the importance of the resource dimension as well as the need for better co-ordination between defence planning disciplines.
In November 1999, the first joint meeting of EU Foreign and Defence Ministers took place with Javier Solana, the new EU high representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy, in the chair. They looked at how Europe might be more effective in the defence field and in particular provide capabilities for Kosovo-like crises. A further Anglo-French summit occurred in the same month, when the two main defence players in Europe launched their vision for a new rapid deployment force of up to 60,000 men. This would require the EU to develop a Corps sized capability, which could be deployed within 60 days and sustained for at least a year. The force would be militarily self-sufficient with the necessary command, control and intelligence capabilities, logistics, combat support and appropriate naval and air combat elements.
All this work was brought together at the EU Summit in Helsinki on 10/11 December 1999. In the European Council declaration, it was stated that :
Building on the guidelines established at the Cologne European Council and on the basis of the Presidency's reports, the European Council has agreed in particular the following:
- cooperating voluntarily in EU-led operations, Member States must be able, by 2003, to deploy within 60 days and sustain for at least 1 year military forces of up to 50,000- 60,000 persons capable of the full range of Petersberg tasks;
- new political and military bodies and structures will be established within the Council to enable the Union to ensure the necessary political guidance and strategic direction to such operations, while respecting the single institutional framework;
- modalities will be developed for full consultation, cooperation and transparency between the EU and NATO, taking into account the needs of all EU Member States;
- appropriate arrangements will be defined that would allow, while respecting the Union's decision-making autonomy, non-EU European NATO members and other interested States to contribute to EU military crisis management;
- a non-military crisis management mechanism will be established to coordinate and make more effective the various civilian means and resources, in parallel with the military ones, at the disposal of the Union and the Member States.
The more detailed Annex spells out the scale, types and readiness of the forces which are proposed.
To develop European capabilities, Member States have set themselves the headline goal: by the year 2003, cooperating together voluntarily, they will be able to deploy rapidly and then sustain forces capable of the full range of Petersberg tasks as set out in the Amsterdam Treaty, including the most demanding, in operations up to corps level (up to 15 brigades or 50,000-60,000 persons).
These forces should be militarily self-sustaining with the necessary command, control and intelligence capabilities, logistics, other combat support services and additionally, as appropriate,air and naval elements. Member States should be able to deploy in full at this level within 60 days, and within this to provide smaller rapid response elements available and deployable at very high readiness. They must be able to sustain such a deployment for at least one year. This will require an additional pool of deployable units (and supporting elements) at lower readiness to provide replacements for the initial forces.
Member States have also decided to develop rapidly collective capability goals in the fields of command and control, intelligence and strategic transport, areas also identified by the WEU audit.
They welcome in this respect decisions already announced by certain Member States which go in that direction:
- to develop and coordinate monitoring and early warning military means;
- to open existing joint national headquarters to officers coming from other Member States;
- to reinforce the rapid reaction capabilities of existing European multinational forces;
- to prepare the establishment of a European air transport command;
- to increase the number of readily deployable troops;
- to enhance strategic sea lift capacity.
The UK Government published its annual (although this was the first since 1996) White Paper on Defence immediately after the Helsinki Summit. In examining the European dimension , the White Paper argues that European nations must be able to pull their weight, and have an international influence commensurate with their size and economic presence. To do this they must find ways to provide genuine capability improvements, and that the Helsinki European Council declaration provides the way forward. The Prime Minister emphasised his commitment to improving the European defence capability when he reported to the House on the Helsinki summit:
However, it would be a tragic mistake--repeating mistakes of British European policy over the past few decades--if Britain opted out of the debate on European defence and left the field to others. This is a debate that we must shape and influence from the start, because our vital strategic interests are affected by it.
We have now, in theory, an outline plan for progress in improving European defence capabilities in a way which works with the grain of NATO. That is a remarkable step forward given the reluctance of the US and the UK in past years to address these issues. But there are many difficulties ahead. NATO would claim to have a planning process, and to have expended much effort over the years on coercing nations into setting more challenging force goals for themselves. In practice, the achievement of the process has been limited, particularly in the past decade.The institutional arrangements will almost certainly delay the development of the agreed capability. Nevertheless, there are a number of measures that might be taken in the field of air power capabilities, which would make practical sense in any case.
In order to look at the air power capabilities that the European Union nations should field, we need to make some assumptions about the scale of effort that it would be appropriate for the EU to seek to provide. The EU and the US are just about equal in terms of absolute wealth. The EU is more populous and has more potential conflicts in its backyard than the US. However, the US has formal security obligations in Japan and Korea as well as in Europe. Taking all these factors into account, it might seem a reasonable initial benchmark for European nations to seek to contribute a usable military capability of the same order of magnitude as the United States plans for NATO. The United States is seeking to generate ten air expeditionary wings, each with about 15,000 personnel and 200 aircraft. Certainly Europe would not need to aim for any greater capability than this. This would not be a recipe for duplication, but a significant challenge for Europe. It would make the Europeans equal partners when operating within NATO, and would ensure a capability for operations on a European basis when necessary. While in theory such a force should be affordable, in practice it would require massive restructuring of the way military forces are provided within Europe.
The UK Government has taken this need for restructuring as a strong lesson of the Kosovo operation:
...... in co-operation with our Allies, we need to examine ways in which member states can increase their qualitative and quantitative military contribution to NATO's overall capabilities. The priority lies in such areas as precision attack weapons, secure communications and strategic movement assets. Interoperability of systems will, of course, be a key component of this.
..... there is a particular need to boost European capabilities. In order to strengthen our ability to use force effectively, we Europeans need to improve the readiness, deployability and sustainability of our armed forces and their ability to engage in both high intensity operations and those of an expeditionary nature. This would strengthen our contribution to NATO, which remains the sole instrument for collective defence. NATO will still be the natural choice for the conduct of non-Article 5 crisis management operations which North American and European Allies might choose to undertake in the future. A strengthened European capability would allow us to undertake European-led crisis management operations, in circumstances in which the whole Alliance is not engaged. We strongly support the focus of the European defence debate on these key capabilities and the more effective targeting of defence resources. We will pursue these aims through NATO's Defence Capabilities Initiative, and the Western European Union's audit of European capability. The work on performance criteria which we launched with the Italians in July will help to achieve this.
The key elements for early work in improving European capability are contained in this analysis. Readiness, deployability and sustainability are identified as prime drivers for force structures. Precision attack weapons, secure communications and strategic movement assets are highlighted as areas for priority work. There are significant implications for air power in all of these six issues. Europe needs to completely restructure its expensive, but unusable, military capability to meet these challenges. While the focus of this volume is on air power issues, it is impossible to look at air power in isolation. The funds provided for defence purposes throughout Europe are unlikely to increase without a significant change in threat perception. This means that restructuring of capabilities will need to be achieved within broadly the same resource assumptions as today. Thus, a balance will need to be struck between the different elements of the joint force structure. Nevertheless, it is possible to start by making an initial unconstrained assessment of what air power assets Europe should be able to deploy, and then assess how they might fit into the resource priorities.
Using the Kosovo campaign as a benchmark for a modern military operation which should be within the capability of European nations, we can break out the scale of effort that might be needed in future. The campaign needed to be able to call upon the traditional mix of air defence fighters, bombers, close air support, reconnaissance, airborne early warning, air-to-air refuelling, strategic airlift, tactical fixed wing and rotary transport capabilities. Although the maritime aspects of the operation were limited, it must be assumed that some future campaigns might need the appropriate mix of maritime reconnaissance, air defence, attack and anti-submarine warfare air assets.
The EU nations together have elements of all of these air power capabilities. They field some 3235 combat aircraft with a total air force manpower of 380,000. If the NATO non-EU members are added (Czech Republic, Hungary, Iceland, Norway, Poland and Turkey) the numbers rise to 4281 combat aircraft and 530,000 men. These large air power assets, as discussed earlier, are however balanced to provide the defensive posture that was appropriate to the static defence requirements of the Cold War. All forces have a strong air defence element reflecting the requirement to defend their own territory. While many of the fighters can be used in a bombing role, they are not all weather capable and aircrew will not have undertaken primary training in this role. For offensive air operations, the only EU nations with a significant capability are France, Germany, Italy and the UK, who can field around 500 aircraft in an all weather bombing mode. Looking at the scale of offensive air capability needed for the Gulf and Kosovo, Europe needs to work at providing perhaps 50% more all weather bombers than it can at present. This is an achievable aim if the priority given to the air defence role is reduced.
However, the platform is only part of the question in modern air campaigns. It has become very clear that in future operations, precision weapons will be the norm. Figures for weapons stocks are not readily available, but inferences can be drawn from the data of weapon usage in the Kosovo air campaign. Only 250 of the 1011 UK aircraft weapons used were precision , and for France the total was 582 laser guided bombs. The French Defence Ministry is quoted as saying that they had an inadequate stockpile of such weapons.
In any discussion about improving European defence capabilities, the argument usually begins with a plea for more spending on defence. It is also argued that greater integration of defence industries would be beneficial. Neither approach has much prospect of early success, and there can be no confidence that either would generate real enhancements in capability without a radical restructuring. Putting aside the political difficulties, Europe could undoubtedly organise its defence spending more efficiently if it was done on an integrated basis in the same way that the United States organises its armed forces at the Federal level. Such an approach for Europe will not be possible for many years (if ever), as it will necessary for EU member nations to give up national sovereignty to what is currently an unacceptable extent. There are similar, although slightly less acute, difficulties with moves towards allocation of military tasks to particular nations. This "Role Specialisation" was much studied during the later stages of the Cold War. Even with a common view of the mission, nations were reluctant to become reliant on other Allies for particular capabilities. Nevertheless a de facto specialisation has occurred as European nations have been unable to match the technology of the US. It may be that there will be a greater willingness for each European nation to undertake fewer roles, but make those that they field more effective. This approach will require close co-ordination if it is not to open up yet more gaps in capability.
The proposals agreed at the 1999 Helsinki Summit could provide an appropriate mechanism for co-ordinating efforts between EU nations, and also keeping less enthusiastic contributors up to the mark. It would allow nations to move towards as much specialisation as they felt comfortable with, and to be credited with real military contribution to the EU force component.However this will take some years to develop. In the meantime there is a danger that European capability will degrade further. What is needed is some early action to improve capability without assuming large budget increases. This can only be achieved by looking for ways to reduce nugatory expenditure by cutting duplication, unnecessary support overheads, and inappropriate capability. This is a painful process even when carried out on a national basis. It will be yet more difficult if it is to be carried out on an EU basis. Nevertheless, it is the only immediate option available, and can be done relatively rapidly given the political will.
If we look at the European forces as a whole, we see duplication of headquarters, planning, training, logistics support, procurement, research, bases and other facilities. This would be bad enough if the scale of the frontline in each nation justified the scale of the support infrastructure, but it does not in nearly all cases. For the final section of this chapter, we will look at how this opportunity for rationalisation could be exploited to provide Europe with a more effective and appropriate air power capability.
Opportunities for more effective operation of European military forces are apparent in land, sea and air capabilities. However, the air capabilities offer more easily achieved improvements for a number of reasons. Air procedures are already better harmonised between nations than is the case for land and sea power. This is partly because of air safety issues and partly because speed of operation means that communications, standard operating procedures, rules of engagement, planning methods and terminology must all be agreed, standardised and practised between air forces which are likely to operate together. English has become the universal language of the air, and these considerably eases the problem of mounting international combined air operations. Given the high unit cost of air force platforms, it is not surprising that many nations operate common equipment. This also eases the problems of rationalisation. Finally, the high costs of infrastructure to support air operations means that modest rationalisation can pay high dividends in achieving greater military capability at lower cost.
In looking for opportunities to provide more effective European military power, the leap is too often made towards a full scale integrated European army. Indeed the Helsinki proposals are in danger of trying to achieve this step, which remains impossible unless the EU becomes a much more politically integrated entity. In the near term (the next 5 years), it would be much more productive to look for opportunities to rationalise forces in being which can be operated more efficiently on a multilateral or EU-wide basis. The model for such a supranational activity is the NATO AWACs force, which has successfully provided an airborne early warning capability to NATO members at much lower day-to-day operating cost than would have been the case if operated on an individual national basis.
What capability does Europe need which it could operate on a similar basis to NATO AWACS? Airlift is an obvious example. If forces are to be deployed rapidly, they need to be able to call on a significant airlift capability. In looking for an opportunity for early rationalisation, we need to identify a capability which is common to many EU members. The air tactical transport role is a capability which most nations need, and many provide for it at least partly using the C130 aircraft. Pooling of some of these widely used C130 Hercules could provide an immediate European tactical fixed wing transport capability. Provided that nations structured their contributions sensibly, they could make operating cost savings at the national level through closure of bases, training units, and headquarters. The level of saving would depend on the degree to which each nation felt able to rely on the supporting infrastructure being provided by a European facility.
Some ten EU nations operate C130 aircraft . It would be possible to imagine a pooled fleet of 70 aircraft, which would look after all the national C130 needs of Belgium (who operate 11), Denmark (4), Italy (10), Netherlands (2), Spain (12), Sweden (8) and Portugal (6). France with 14 C130s and the UK with 55 have larger transport aircraft fleets; and they could provide a partial contribution of perhaps 6 and 10 aircraft respectively to the pooled arrangement. Greece (15 C130s) might choose not to depend on pooled aircraft. For those nations that were prepared to put all of their C130 fleets into a common pool, there would be significant savings in operating costs. They would also have a much better assurance of availability on a day to day basis, given the ability to plan routine servicing across a larger fleet. For Europe there would be a usable airlift capability for humanitarian operations as well as for use within NATO. Nor would nations lose the option to withdraw their airframes and aircrews if they felt the need for some national purpose. The force would not be rendered useless if one or more nations declined to take part in a particular operation for national reasons.
However, for lower costs to be achieved this would have to be quite different from current on-call multinational arrangements. The force would operate from a single main base located centrally in Europe, but would have dispersed flights to service national needs. There would be a single headquarters, manned by personnel from the contributing EU nations. Aircrew would be multinational and not tied to the airframes provided by their nations. There would be a single planning, servicing and logistics organisation to support the force. Most importantly, the manpower, headquarters, infrastructure and other savings would have to be realised in the military structures of the contributing nations. Those resources could then be redeployed to updating and enhancing other capabilities.
Over time, the management and operation of this common fleet would lead to a common perception among participating nations of the characteristics of the next generation transport aircraft. This would have great benefits in terms of reducing duplication of defence research and procurement costs in this particular area. The extra costs of operating on a national basis rather than a pooled basis would also become clear, and it is likely that nations would begin to see the advantages of contributing to such a force element. This would also increase the pressure for common equipment procurement programmes for successor aircraft.
In a slightly longer timescale, the requirement for a large strategic airlift capability could be tackled. The operation of such a fleet could easily be managed by the same organisation that would look after the tactical C130 pooled capability. It would be possible to procure a new capability of C17s or Antonov strategic transport aircraft that could either be operated by the military or on a leased basis from a commercial company. In either case the costs would be lower than each nation trying to operate a very small fleet of large and expensive aircraft.
Air to air refuelling capability is also needed by all European air forces, and would be a natural candidate for a European fleet operation. There is consideration being given to procuring the UK air to air refuelling capability through a public private partnership arrangement. This would be particularly easy to enlarge to encompass those nations in Europe which sought such a facility. The economics of the operation would improve for the larger fleet and there would be no sovereignty issues to worry about given the service is being provided by the private sector.
It is possible to draw up similar proposals for transport helicopters, although care must be taken to ensure that sufficient assets are based within easy flying range of their normal tasking. This will tend to require dispersed deployments and the efficiencies from pooling short range assets will therefore be less.
Reconnaissance and Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) are two roles, which are expensive in equipment and training, but which could offer opportunities for building up EU capabilities to operate with the US forces available to NATO. There will be considerable development in the use of UAVs for the tactical reconnaissance role, and there is a need for a European satellite-based strategic reconnaissance capability. Both of these capabilities will be expensive, but are essential if Europe is serious in its intention to provide real military capability. The information exploitation organisation will again be much more cost-effective if operated at the supranational level. This capability needs to be considered in the context of an EU intelligence capability, which given the political, military and financial complexities is dealt with below as part of medium term integration.
None of the air transport, air tanker, reconnaissance or CSAR pooling proposals would undermine national capability. Indeed for the smaller nations it would both increase available capability and reduce costs. It is thus possible to see opportunities for enhancing the support element of air power in Europe in a relatively short timescale through aggressive rationalisation of forces in being, and exploiting the moves towards public-private partnerships. Significant defence funds would be released provided that nations took the consequent manpower and infrastructure savings which would flow. There would remain a problem of the "free-rider" nation, although the audit and capability criteria proposals of the Helsinki Summit may help to stimulate contributions from EU member nations. At an early stage, it will be necessary to establish a European Defence Budget to which members contribute either capability or money.
While the support area offers opportunities for pooling and rationalisation of air power forces without too many issues of national sovereignty, real increases in capability will need a similar approach to combat air power. It is unlikely that major EU defence players will be attracted to giving up their combat capabilities to a supranational authority until some confidence has been gained through the less contentious pooling of air transport and air-to-air refuelling capability. .
Offensive and defensive air power capability is politically the most difficult element to pool and operate at the European level. Nations are prepared to make arrangements for multinational forces, but insist on retaining the ability to operate their forces nationally. The effect of this approach was seen in the divergence of the national Tornado enhancements over the past 20 years. The Tri-national training unit was closed down in 1999 because the aircraft it operated were no longer representative of each nation's own Tornados.
As soon as it became politically acceptable, some of the existing common combat air equipment capabilities could be pooled in a similar manner to that described for the C130 force. An obvious example would be an EU F16 force. Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Netherlands and Portugal operate 424 F16s between them. This could provide some support for the new deployable Helsinki agreed force. Despite the divergence in Tornado IDS updates, Germany, Italy and the UK could look at how pooled arrangements might allow them to contribute some of their 570 aircraft to an early offensive capability to the Helsinki force.
The introduction into service of Eurofighter from 2002 to five European nations (UK, Germany, Italy, Spain and Greece) offers a good opportunity to enhance capabilities and reduce costs through pooling of assets. Sharing training, engineering, logistic, and operational planning facilities would throw up significant operating cost savings. These would be greatly increased if the number of bases required could be reduced as a result. Most importantly common fleet management would play a vital role in retaining system configuration control so that all Eurofighters remain fully interoperable. From a political viewpoint, if as a result Europe were able to offer a force of 500 of the most modern combat aircraft for future NATO operations, it would be a capability contributor more equal to the United States in any Gulf or Kosovo type operation. A pooled fleet would also ensure that a common approach to weapons procurement was adopted. Indeed, it would become an attractive club to join: other EU nations would calculate the additional cost savings to be achieved by procuring Eurofighter as their successor combat aircraft.
The development of an EU precision attack capability would be a key part of this medium term plan. The provision of adequate stocks of appropriate munitions would allow nations to contribute in other ways than just aircraft and aircrew. Starting the process early would allow a common view to emerge about the platform/weapons combination which should be developed. Leaving France, Germany, Italy and the UK to research their own future offensive capability will inevitably result in a sub-optimal solution. A united EU view on both the importance and the nature of the next generation offensive air power requirement would be a very powerful driver towards procuring an effective capability. There is time for this process to begin, provided that nations start to operate in this role together. Under the current arrangements, Europe is likely to perpetuate the mix of sytems of limited effectiveness in the offensive role.
One of the more expensive air power capabilities is provided by the aircraft carrier, which is examined in Dr Goulter's chapter on expeditionary warfare. Few European nations can afford to field such a force; for those which stay in the role, the opportunity costs are very high. The UK plans to provide 2 carriers in 2012, and it likely that France, Spain and Italy will wish to retain the role as well. Operated on a national level, one or two carriers do not constitute a viable and reliable force, and the opportunity costs are severe for other defence capabilities. The timescale is sufficiently long for interested EU nations to look at how they might jointly contribute to a force of 5 or 6 aircraft carriers with their supporting ships and aircraft.
Intelligence requirements permeate every aspect of military operations, and an independent Intelligence capability will be needed if EU forces are to be able to operate truly autonomously. Pooling of current intelligence related air power capabilities will be difficult for a number of reasons. The equipment used by nations is diverse, and much of it outdated; the national exploitation is jealously guarded; and there are bilateral difficulties with wider information sharing. For these reasons, it would probably be more effective to build up a new EU intelligence capability from scratch. This would be expensive, but would allow a fully integrated modern system to be established relatively quickly. If the EU wanted to focus on one area for priority action, then Intelligence would provide it. The platforms, communication, fusion, exploitation and dissemination systems could be built up to be fully interoperable with NATO, but also independently usable. Kosovo showed that the inability to share digital intelligence data was a problem throughout the operation.
In the much longer term, it is possible to contemplate the gradual development of a European Air Force as experience of pooling forces is gained. Confidence would grow as to the greater availability of air power assets to individual nations, to the EU and to NATO. Such a force would be a part of a wider integration of European defence capabilities, which would require the development of a European defence budget. The mechanisms for operating such a budget are beyond the scope of this chapter, but are an essential part of moves towards more efficient use of European defence resources. Nations would still be able to retain independent national air capabilities if they so wished, but such national air power would not count as a contribution in European defence budget terms.
There is a close parallel in these proposals with the original evolution of independent national air forces. Armies and navies wanted to own their own air power, and were concerned about becoming too dependent on an independent air force, which would be centrally controlled at the higher level. The costs, confusion and inefficiencies of maintaining army and naval air forces eventually led nations to form a third service which could procure and use air power effectively. The next stage for such sensible rationalisation must be an integration of air power across national boundaries. Those national boundaries may have had physical meaning on the ground and at sea, but are irrelevant in the air.If the political will were there, Europe could produce effective modern air power, and could even do it more cost effectively than does the United States.