Our security throughout Europe in the traditional sense is now greater than at any time this century. I am struck by how much this is accepted by European citizens, whereas there seems to be a quite different feeling in the United States, where security threats are seen as increasing. Of course security is a much wider issue than just assessment of threats to territory,we may feel increasing concerns about environmental problems or crime or disease, but my focus will be on the traditional foreign policy security concerns. We continue to provide money, people and equipment for our armed forces, and we do that for a number of reasons.
I do not need to explore fictional scenarios of future threats to Europe to justify our military provisions. The evidence of need in the post Cold War world is already with us. NATO has moved with surprising speed to readjust to the new realities. Its contribution through the various partnership activities, through enlargement, the new strategic concept and the operation in Kosovo have all demonstrated that it has a continuing important role in extending peace and security. Yet to many, both inside and outside of Europe, it is seen as an increasingly unbalanced Alliance. The US preeminence in capability causes a number of tensions about burden-sharing, decision-making and influence.
In looking at how Europe is moving towards developing its own regional view of security, and providing the capabilities to underpin those foreign policy drivers, I have no doubt that NATO remains the key institution within which the European members will need to operate for the majority of their security needs. The problems ahead include developing working mechanisms to achieve a common EU view on foreign and security policy issues, and producing some real diplomatic and military capability to underpin the policy. Both of these aspects are difficult for the EU. We also have changes since the end of the Cold War, which have left Europe with its forces wrongly structured for the new doctrine and new challenges.
Europe seems suddenly to have accelerated in its pursuit of a more coherent approach to the requirement for a common foreign and security policy. The UK change in position has much to do with this.
The end of the Cold War left Europe with a vast and expensive set of military forces, which had been practising to fight a single campaign for over 40 years. For Western Europe, 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. The decade of the 90's has seen 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 now 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 in the military staff colleges of the Alliance.
This series of military and diplomatic adventures 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 ever increasing data from real operations, rather than deterrence postures, has also highlighted the 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 clearly 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 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 acceptable collateral damage in this type of operation. The 4 days of ground war reinforced this 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 key lesson from the Gulf War was that the US was both quantitatively and qualitatively in a different capability league from all the other nations involved. Somalia reinforced the perception internationally that the US was only prepared to remain engaged if their troops were kept safe. The predominance of airpower solutions to international crises was underlined by the continuing air operations over both Northern and Southern Iraq.
The sequence of events in Bosnia reinforced within the US the view that offensive airpower 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, the world 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. There were less intense military adventures. Operation Alba, the response to the breakdown of law and order in Albania, showed that there were crises which required a European coalition of the willing response. In this case, it was clear that the mechanisms for putting together such a coalition were imperfect, and that it was only possible because of the relatively benign environment.
The 1999 Kosovo air campaign brought together all the political and military lessons that had been learned in the post Cold War operations. The contributions from the European NATO nations which took part were varied, but all were overshadowed by the US. Europe was shown to be good at providing political support for the operation, but incompetent at contributing to the air campaign in a significant way. The difficulties in raising ground force numbers, even for an operation in a relatively benign environment, suggested that the armies of Europe were as badly structured as those of the air forces.
Does any of this matter? It is sometimes argued that there is no need to change the current arrangements for security within Europe. NATO served the continent well throughout the Cold War, and has reinvented itself to adapt to the security needs of the post Cold War era. Indeed the enlargement of NATO, the new strategic concept and the recognition of the needs of a European Defence and Security Identity within NATO are all a part of a new security structure for Europe. The question is whether this process of development within the NATO structure is sufficient for the future.
Europe is an economic power, but it is a long way from being a strategic power. For the 21st Century, it seems inconceivable that a region which is as rich and populous as the United States can expect to continue its foreign and security policy on either an exclusively national basis or only through NATO. As we have seen from Bosnia and Kosovo, Europe must shape its security strategy always mindful of how it will play in the US Congress. Looking to the longer term, NATO remains important (and more secure after Kosovo), but there is no guarantee that it will remain in existence for ever. Had the Kosovo operation ended in failure, the future utility of NATO would have been very much in doubt. There will doubtless be other tests of Alliance cohesion in the years ahead.
The question is how to develop a European Foreign and Security Policy which is underpinned by the necessary diplomatic and military capability to implement it. We need a design which maintains and supports NATO but gives us a European capability to protect and promote European vital interests. The arguments too often revolve around the institutional debates. The linkages between NATO, WEU, and the EU, coupled with debates over second and fourth pillars, do little to advance the military capability available to Europe. The institutional framework is very important but it is nothing without the military and diplomatic capability to underpin it. Too often the institutional debate revolves around how to give Europe a greater voice in the deployment of US assets. What needs to be addressed is how to provide more European useful capability, and then how it should be organised in both a NATO and an EU context.
The EU and the US have GDPs of almost exactly the same size. Yet EU nations spend only just over half as much on defence, and then share these smaller resources over twice as many troops. Hopes for fixing the problems of European defence capability currently centre on each nation modernising their military on a national basis. Each nation is expected to transform its forces into rapidly deployable smaller more flexible units tailored to peace enforcement. These forces would then be identified by the process that stems from the Helsinki summit last year. While this would certainly offer some extra resources for the types of operation which are currently being undertaken, it would not greatly improve the total defence capability that Europe obtains for its vast expenditure of defence.
Ideally the development of the common defence policy for the European Union, like the United Kingdom's recent strategic defence review, should be foreign policy led. The scale and the scope of the armed forces would be determined by the objectives of foreign policy developed within the CFSP, while ensuring that members of the North Atlantic Alliance could meet their NATO obligations. The arrival of former Secretary General of NATO, Javier Solana, as the High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy in the EU ought to make this easier.This would not lead to any decoupling of European countries from their NATO undertakings. Nor should there be any duplication of the critical contribution to military co-operation provided by NATO, namely its command structures and headquarters, although certain developments of double-hatting could take place. The most effective way for the members of the European Union to get more deployable forces for a euro is by systematically developing economies of scales in the support, training and operational management of their armed forces.
On the political side progress has been made, particularly through the changes in the UK stance since St Malo in December 1998 and the work done subsequently culminating in Helsinki in December 1999. Unfortunately, the politicians have gone for the big ticket item of a deployable European force of 60,000 which can be sustained for 12 months with air and naval support. This is unlikely to make any great improvement to the total of European military effectiveness, and will certainly give many nations an excuse to reduce their capability yet further.
There are two approaches whereby duplication between European armed forces could be eliminated and additional resources made available for increased force effectiveness. One would be in the development of new common capabilities, and the other is the development of pooled support and logistic services. An existing Alliance example of the first approach is the common procurement and operation by fourteen allies of the AWACS (airborne early warning and control) aircraft. An example of the second approach is the way that four Nordic countries providing troops to IFOR/SFOR are supported by a common logistic battalion. The agreement by the Netherlands and Belgian navies to develop common headquarters and support services for their fleets is a hopeful sign that some European states have made a start to the elimination of expensive duplication. Already this approach is allowing greater military capability to be deployed. While the Dutch and the Belgian planners would individually be reluctant to offer an unlimited deployment of a frigate for operations, they can now arrange to share a task with a roulement of forces between themselves. The management of the force from a shared headquarters results in a greater military capability at no extra cost.
The inefficiencies of the national approach to defence within European states is widely recognised. Some argue that the most effective way to tackle it is through common procurement and perhaps greater integration of European defence industries. Attempts at both elements have not always been successful in the past. Recent experience in procurement of an Anglo-French frigate shows how difficult it is to see such projects through successfully. Moreover, the defence industries are reluctant to be integrated by European fiat. They look to partnerships which improve their shareholder value. This may in any case be a better approach as it is likely to improve competition and hence value for money. Nevertheless, there will be opportunities for sensible common procurement where there is a widely shared common requirement, and it makes sense to try to exploit these where it can reduce procurement costs. These opportunities will arise more often if nations move towards a pooling of military resources.
An immediate opportunity to explore common procurement is the Medium Scale Transport Aircraft, for which common tenders are being sought by seven European countries. There is also a need for large strategic air lift capability which could be approached jointly. These are two examples where after common procurement, common operation could be considered. Germany seems to be enthusiastic for such an approach at Government level, although little real progress is being made. If operated as a European force, a reduction in the number of main operating bases required would lead to much greater cost effectiveness. These could become early examples of European Force Elements. The development of a common European flight refuelling service could also be examined. This might be made easier if it were done on a commercial basis as is currently the plan for the UK.
The Eurofighter, already ordered by five countries, could provide a trial for a number of these concepts. If Europe moved towards the American large airbase concept, we might perhaps imagine an operationally ready force of some 400 Eurofighters made up of 20 multinational squadrons distributed over as few as five airbases. In addition an operational training base on a sixth airfield would be required. The training base could also provide a home for the European Union Eurofighter HQ. The operating costs would be much less than the planned national arrangements, even if the traditionally smaller European airbases were retained. The key to success would be the application of common training, procedures and aircraft modification programmes. By making each unit truly multinational and by developing the overall common operational policy through the EU HQ, the problems of national divergence could be eliminated.
In the marine environment, one can cumulate existing capacities and provide common supply services, possibly leading to a rationalisation of the number of European naval bases. Fleet auxiliaries can be envisaged as developing a common European service. An early candidate as one of the European Force Elements, would be a European mine counter measure service. The principle could be applied to larger ships. France, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom all wish to have some aircraft carrier capability; could it be provided by a common squadron thereby providing savings in support and logistic chains, while also ensuring that a viable force was available at all times? A European led Combined Joint Task Force in the maritime environment at present lacks a satisfactory headquarters ship; one, or more, of these could be acquired on a common basis.
It would make sense to begin the approach to land forces by looking at engineers, communications, transport and medical services, which could provide the first common programmes. The wider field of logistic support could follow and an early candidate would be the development of common IT systems for logistics. The question of outsourcing logistic and support services is now under active consideration in a number of European countries. There would be economies through the working out of common specifications and the use of a limited number of common suppliers. Success in these areas would enable a subsequent application of the approach of European Force Elements to artillery, armour and infantry units.
There are some force elements which are provided jointly to all armed services. Some of these, like protection against nuclear, biological and chemical warfare, are obvious candidates for common provision. Others, such as intelligence and mapping, are more difficult because of traditional transatlantic patterns of co-operation, but it would be a mistake for the development of a separable NATO for any capability to depend on a single ally, even the United States.
The money thrown up by such rationalisations could be used for those essential capabilities identified at Helsinki such as intelligence, strategic lift, and Command & control structure.
These examples suggest some practical areas where the development of European Force Elements and common support and logistic services could provide building blocks for the strengthening of European defence capabilities. They would make more effective use of European defence budgets through the removal of the cost overhang of separate support systems. Valuable as such individual initiatives would be, they would not by themselves represent a coherent new security structure for Europe. They would however illustrate how significant improvements in effectiveness could be achieved through merging particular national capabilities and sharing common services.
For this approach to become coherent, it would be necessary to develop a planning and budgetary system at the European level. The ultimate requirement would be for a European Defence Budget. Under such a system EU members would provide either defence capability or money as their contribution. This would have a number of beneficial effects: not only would the free ride be stopped, but nations would probably prefer to improve their military capabilities rather than to contribute money to the employment and industries of other nations. A virtuous circle of improved military capability and effective European defence could be established. There would be many problems in assessing the true worth of each contribution, but the process would also make the planning and audit at the European level more effective.
While I can construct ways forward that would give Europe much better capability for its defence spending, the reality is likely to be much less exciting. For rationalisation or pooling of capability to work, headquarters and bases must be closed, senior staff officers pensioned off, and cozy organisations dismembered. This results in enormous institutional antipathy to such moves. The questions, which seem to me to be fairly spurious, about sovereignty implications give another excuse for little to be done. Pork barrel politics ensure that equipment spending remains sub-optimal. It is a measure of how far Europe is from doing anything significant that we all believe the Helsinki goals will be difficult. A region that spends 170 Bn Euros on defence, has 2 million men in uniform, must struggle to provide a 15 brigade deployable force. Those who advocate more spending by Europe on defence are even less likely to have their hopes realised. In any event a Europe that spends so ineffectively on defence would not be helped by just wasting more money.
There is a real danger that the Helsinki goals will be used as an excuse by nations to do even less. ESDI will founder, like so many of the previous initiatives, and NATO will be weakened as a result.