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 often perceived as being on the increase. 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. However the focus for the EU approach to a Common Foreign & Security Policy (CFSP) is still seen in traditional diplomatic and military terms.
The evidence of need for military forces in the post Cold War world is overwhelming. NATO has moved with surprising speed to readjust to the new realities. Its contribution through its various Partnership for Peace 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 on both sides of the Atlantic 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's recent change in position has much to do with this. Part of the reason for this change of heart has been the experience of operations over the last decade.
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. 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. Somalia reinforced the perception internationally that the US was only prepared to remain engaged if their troops were kept safe.
The sequence of events in Bosnia developed the US the view that offensive airpower could provide the necessary coercion to bring recalcitrant leaders to the negotiating table. Operation Alba, the response to the breakdown of law and order in Albania, showed that there were crises which required a European 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. Arguments over the linkages between NATO, WEU, and the EU have done 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. The EU members agreed to set themselves an initial goal of providing a force of around 50,000 troops which could be deployed independently at 2 months notice and sustained for a year on autonomous operations. 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 European 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 the Anglo/French summit at St Malo in December 1998 and the work done subsequently culminating in the Helsinki Goals in December 1999.
While it is relatively easy to construct theoretical ways forward that would give Europe much better capability for its defence spending, the reality is likely to be much less exciting. There is enormous institutional antipathy to moves towards greater rationalisation of EU armed forces. Questions 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 the Helsinki goals will be difficult to achieve by 2003. A region, that spends 170 Bn Euros on defence and has 2 million men in uniform, struggles to provide a 15 brigade deployable force. Those who advocate more spending by Europe an nations 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. If this happens the moves towards European defence capabilities will founder, like so many of the previous initiatives, and NATO will be weakened as a result. The key period will be the forthcoming French Presidency of the EU which begins in July this year. There will need to be a determined push forward of the Defence agenda if CFSP is to be given any meaning. This will require the French, British and German political leadership to take some difficult decisions.