Although the title of this conference is Military Lessons from Kosovo, most of the action that is required from those lessons is political rather than military. Whether it is the question of preventative diplomacy, crisis management, rules of engagement, offensive air strategy, end game negotiation, post conflict reconstruction or restructuring capabilities, the military lessons can only point in the general direction of how to be better prepared next time. To implement some or all of those lessons will require some difficult political decisions, just as the politics was uppermost during the Kosovo crisis and operation. While European countries can congratulate themselves on having kept their nerve through a difficult campaign, they can hardly claim to have played a starring role. You have covered the detailed military aspects earlier in the day, and I shall focus on what the lessons for European defence should be, and how we might work to getting some of them implemented.
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. 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. However much of Europe's force structure is still a hangover from the positional defence requirement of the Cold War.
This series of military experiences in the Gulf, Rwanda, Bosnia, Somalia, Albania, Kosovo and East Timor, 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 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% . 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. 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.
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.
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" .
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. 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.
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 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.
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.
All this work was brought together at the EU Summit in Helsinki on 10/11 December 1999.
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.
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. The institutional arrangements will almost certainly delay the development of the agreed capability. Nevertheless, there are a number of measures that might be taken, which would make practical sense in any case.
The UK Government has taken the need for restructuring as a strong lesson of the Kosovo operation in its lesson learned White Paper:
...... 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.
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. 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.
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. Opportunities for more effective operation of European military forces are apparent in land, sea and air capabilities.
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. At a lower level the Dutch/Belgian joint naval headquarters or the Nordic logistics battalion in Bosnia show other successful approaches to rationalisation.
In work that I have been doing over the past two years, we have looked where it would be practical for European nations to produce better capability for no greater cost by pooling. This is to me the major lesson for European defence after Kosovo. The vast amounts of money being poured into national defences are not producing useful military capability. The Germans have been leading with suggestions for an EU air transport force and this is certainly an obvious early candidate. Pooling of C130 Hercules would be relatively easily achieved. Air o air refuelling is another good example.
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. Here F16s, Tornados and Eurofighters provided common equipments for pooled operation.
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 capabilities is provided by the aircraft carrier. 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.
This conference has addressed a number of key tri-Service issues in terms of future capabilities. If Europe is to be able to take part in any meaningful way in future Kosovos, it must do something about getting better and more appropriate military capability for its defence spending. The moves towards a more co-operative approach between European nations is welcome, but Helsinki goals may founder on the need for more defence money. An approach like the UK SDR at the EU level could do much to fill in those capability gaps at no greater cost, but would require more political courage than is likely to be available for some years. In the meantime, we should look for relatively minor improvements that can be made through cost-effective pooling of European capabilities.