We Europeans are living at an exciting and critical time for the future of our security arrangements. We have the opportunity to move forward to a defence posture that will make the world safer, NATO stronger and Europe more secure. It will be a tragedy if we fail to seize the moment. We have grown used to the security blanket that NATO gave us throughout the Cold War, but the world has changed, and we must respond to that change. In this final presentation of the symposium, I would like to give a personal view on the nature of the challenge; why the future shape our air power is so important; the difficulties we face; the limitations of the current approach; and finally my thoughts on an alternative approach which would bring us real affordable capabilities in short timescales.
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. Yet through the 1990's, the Western nations have had to undertake more diverse military action, 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.
In the chronology of the NATO Summit, the EU security developments, which culminated in Helsinki, and the Kosovo war, it is often now forgotten that the worries about European military weaknesses pre-dated the test of the Kosovo campaign. The Gulf War had shown that the US was both quantitatively and qualitatively in a different capability league from all the other nations involved. 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. The European military equipment was not well structured to the new doctrine. The gap in capability across the Atlantic widened through the 1990's, particularly in air power systems.
In any look at the current approach to European defence, we must not lose sight of the NATO dimension while being focused on the EU work. The new NATO Strategic Concept recognised the changes in the strategic environment since the 1991 NATO Strategic Concept was produced. Many of the elements were directly relevant to the need to reshape European defence capabilities. In particular:
- -- Military Capabilities: The Concept reaffirms Allies' determination to strengthen Alliance defence capabilities by ensuring forces thatare 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.
- -- 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. 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 Cologne European Council Declaration committed all 15 members 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."
All this work was brought together at the EU Summit in Helsinki on 10/11 December 1999. The European Council declaration 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:
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.
To this audience, I need hardly preach the importance of air power. Yet the key change that has happened through the series of post Cold War crises is a wider political understanding of the importance of air power capabilities. After the Gulf War, 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.
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. The 1999 Kosovo air campaign brought together all the political and military lessons that had been learned in the post Cold War operations. I do not have to rehearse the statistics about relative US and European capabilities and contributions to this audience. 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 lesson of what this meant for influence was not lost on the European political leadership.
Why is Europe in this parlous state? First and most obviously is the relative spending on defence. 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 spending its money on troops for a defensive war rather than on air power to meet the new challenges.
If Europe 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. There are few signs of political enthusiasm among nations for raising defence expenditure significantly, 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.
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. Discussion of Helsinki has focused on the troop requirements, but it is these air power needs which will pose the greatest challenges.
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 are however balanced to provide the defensive posture that was appropriate to the static defence requirements of the Cold War. They are also, in many cases, managed in such small packets as to be infefficient. 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 primary 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.
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 were 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. 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 this 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. The focus on this, particularly by the German government, and in the Helsinki statement, is very welcome. However, coordination of assets and multinational activity is different (and will be less efficient) than integration. 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 large transport aircraft, which would be in harmony with the A400M proposals. 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 desire for a European satellite-based strategic reconnaissance capability. Both of these capabilities will be expensive, but are essential in the long term if Europe is serious in its intention to provide autonomous military capability. The information exploitation organisation will again be much more cost-effective if operated at the supranational level.
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 air 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 introductin into service of Eurofighter from 2002 to five European nations (UK, Germany, Italy, Spain and Greece) offers a unique 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 as the number of bases required were 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. They would be operated as a common fleet, with mixed crews and a single headquarters. 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 inependently 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 systems of limited effectiveness in the offensive role.
One of the most expensive air power 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 is 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 the European Air Force as experience of pooling forces is gained. Confidence would grow with experience of the greater availability of air power assets to individual nations, to the EU and to NATO. Such a force would be in the lead for a wider integration of European defence capabilities, which would require the development of a European defence budget. 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 of Europe today. 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.
This is an exciting and challenging prospect, where air forces could once again show that they were at the leading edge of thinking. The prize is a real usable capability for Europe and for NATO. If we continue as we have for the past decade, air power will become another specialist activity, which only the United States can provide.