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. Yet we have the paradox that European armed forces are being used individually or collectively under a wide variety of banners more than ever before. The last decade has had them operating in the Gulf War, in the Iraq no fly zones, in Rwanda, Somalia, Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor, Sierra Leone and a wide range of other continuing peacekepping operations.
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 surprisingly 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 dependency on US charity in 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 vital (and perhaps 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. A weak European element will not help preserve the Alliance.
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, and are unintelligible to most outside the charmed circle. 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. Current hopes for fixing the problems of European defence capability currently centre on each nation modernising their military on a national basis, and earmarking their more capable forces for deployment. 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 government 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 would arise more often if nations move towards a pooling of military resources. Care needs to be taken however that common requirements do not lead to poor value for money procurement decisions taken on a political/industrial basis rather than a military capability basis.
If we take a topical example: Europe needs a much better air transport capability. UK decisions taken last week may be good news for the European aerospace industry, but they do little in the near term for EU deployability. To gain a quick improvement in transport capability, the 10 EU nations who operate over 150 C130 Hercules ought to pool their forces, close the excess in bases, have a common maintenance and training organisation and reduce the number of national headquarters staffs. Capability would increase and costs reduce. These are the sorts of mergers that you in industry understand. Unfortunately, militarys are unwilling to move down this road. 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 pooled carrier force 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, police 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 not impossible.
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.