The
Future for European Military Power
Tim Garden
Defence Conference Bødo–31 August 2001
The Challenge
The presentations over the past two days
have given us an exciting view of what future military capabilities are
possible; and, drawing on the lessons of the past, what approaches we should
take in the future. Air Power has been uppermost in our minds both because of
where we are, who we are and because we seem to be entering a new age after
Kosovo. Perhaps we should also have had an Israeli speaker to enlighten us on
the use of F16s in internal security operations (for the non-British
participants, that was an ironic remark). Yet we all know that the reality
among our various armed forces is very different from the glossy brochures of
the high tech aerospace manufacturers.
The provision and
maintenance of appropriate and adequate national armed forces is an increasing
challenge for the rich nations of the world. The move away from conscripts and
reserves, expected and expecting to defend national territory, towards highly
trained professional militaries, ready for anything, continues everywhere. Yet manning and equipping these
multipurpose forces is proving ever more difficult. In the United States, there
are calls for an extra $50 bn per year to rectify widespread and important
deficiencies, while the perceived need to meet new threats makes yet more
demands on funds. In Europe, the transition from the standing armies of the
Cold War to more reactive and deployable forces is far from complete despite 10
years of reshaping. In the UK, that decade has seen three major defence
reviews. But a sustainable balance between commitments, the capabilities needed
to meet those commitments and the resources provided to pay for the
capabilities seems as far as ever from being achieved.
It is increasingly apparent
that, looking ahead over the next two decades, traditional national approaches
to defence problems are not going to provide adequately for Europeís defence
and wider security needs. Collective security through NATO provided an
affordable answer to defence needs during the Cold War. In the 21st Century,
the capabilities required are more complex and difficult to define. At the same
time, the lack of an obvious direct threat has led to severe reductions in the
funds made available to the military. Much has been achieved in the attempt to shift armed
forces from their Cold War posture towards new, more practical structures. The
work on the European Security and Defence Initiative within NATO and the
developments in the EU flowing from the Franco-British accord at St Malo in
December 1998 have both demonstrated that Europe wishes in future to be a
serious provider of international security for itself and for others. However
even these very limited moves have generated arguments over NATO/EU duplication
in planning and capabilities; about the "right of first refusal";
about arrangements for the non-EU European members of NATO; about the differing
demands of Article 5 and the Petersberg tasks. I realise that speaking in
Norway, my generalisation of Europe as the EU has particular complications.
These matters are important and if mishandled or ignored, they lead rapidly to
headlines and embarrassment; but increasingly they are not the main issue.
The central issue of
affordability is neither new nor unfamiliar to defence administrators. But a
point is being reached where it can no longer be disguised or circumvented. For
decades the annual cost of a given unit of defence capability in most European
countries has been growing considerably faster than the year on year inflation
figure. A policy of level spending in real terms, which is the upper limit that
the UK or other European governments have aspired to for the past 15 years, has
therefore meant a constant decline in military capability. If we manage to keep
UK defence spending level in real terms, its share of GDP will have declined
from 5.3% in 1982 to 1.3% by 2020. Manpower costs are likely to have risen by
at least 20% (and perhaps much more given demographic trends) in real terms,
unit equipment costs will have more than doubled. The frontline will need to be
no more than half the size that it is today. New generation equipment may be
more capable, but it will be very scarce. In any event, many of the new tasks
will call for manpower above all else. The police have learned the lesson that
numbers on the streets matter: many of the new military challenges will require
a comparable response. We shall therefore spend more and more on army manpower
at the expense of air and naval equipment. The rest of Europe will be following
a similar path towards having no useful military capability - indeed many are a
long way down this path already. We should not conceal from ourselves that
there will be a critical point, a critical minimum, beyond which our forces
will become unemployable in any remotely challenging environment.
Many unsuccessful efforts
have been made in the past to defeat defence inflation. If precedent is any
guide, they will ultimately not make a significant difference. And unless
European governments can find a way to get a significantly better return for
each unit of defence expenditure, starting relatively soon, their ability,
separately or collectively, to take substantive military action in defence of
their interests is going to evaporate. Even before the reality of military
ineffectiveness becomes established, the perception of it will mean European
governments losing whatever influence they have over US defence and security
policy as well as the support of their electorates for whatever levels of
defence expenditure then obtain. The only escape from this dilemma is for
European governments to begin to integrate a financially significant percentage
of the effort they devote to defence. The political difficulties will be very
great. But so will be the consequences of a failure to grapple with the issue.
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 presentation, 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 approach which would bring us new real affordable capabilities in relatively short timescales.
To develop
European capabilities, Member States have set themselves the Helsinki headline
goal. It appears that, with the exception of Turkey, most of the problems of
non-congruence between European NATO members and the EU have been solved. 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. The omens are not good given the lack of progress on
the DCI that has preceded this very limited aim for meeting the Helsinki Goals.
But this is not
the only problem. Defence capability in Europe is set to decline to near extinction
because of the remorseless pressure of defence inflation. Time will not allow
me to go into the detailed analysis here, but if you want to know more read my
article co-authored with a former NATO Ambassador, Sir Michael Alexander in the
July 2001 edition of International Affairs, which looks at the reasons and
implications of defence inflation in a time of peace. In short, governments are
reluctant to do more than keep defence spending level in real terms while there
is no threat to their national territory. Personnel and equipment costs rise at
a faster rate than domestic retail prices. Militaries are rationalised to
bridge the gap in resources. Perversely those nations who have been most
radical in their rationalisations (such as the UK and the Netherlands) have
least room for manoeuvre now. Capability cuts are inevitable and will become
progressively more serious, particularly at the expensive end of military
force. Europe has pretty well opted out of military use of space, will air
power be next?
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 inefficient. 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. Although the
limitations placed on the potential collateral damage in peace support
operations may mean that our definition of ìall weatherî is becoming more
restrictive. 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 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.
For a number of reasons
aircraft capabilities offer the possibility of much more quickly achieved
improvements. Air procedures are already well harmonised between nations.
English has become the universal language of the air, and this considerably
eases the problem of mounting international combined air operations. Most
importantly, 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 mean that modest rationalisation can pay high dividends
in achieving greater military capability at lower cost.
Airlift is an obvious
example of a capability that Europe needs and that could operate on a similar
basis to NATO AWACS. If forces are to be deployed rapidly, they need to be able
to call on a significant airlift capability. In looking for an opportunity for
early rationalisation, we need to identify an aircraft type that is common to
many EU members. The air tactical transport role is a capability that most
nations require. Some ten EU nations operate some 137 C130 Hercules tactical
transport aircraft. Pooling of some of these widely used C130 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. Indeed this must be the criteria for such moves: bases closed,
manpower reduced and cost savings. 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.
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. 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 whether it is in the end A400M,
C17s or Antonov strategic transport aircraft that could either be operated by
the military or on a leased basis from a commercial company. In either case the
costs would be much 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. Consideration is 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 that 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 was being provided by the
private sector. For the UK, this could be a particularly attractive option,
given that a large amount of money in the defence programme is currently
posited against a national capability. A better capability could be achieved at
a lower cost.
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 contributing 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.
While the support area
offers opportunities for pooling and rationalisation of forces without too many
issues of national sovereignty, real increases in capability will need a
similar approach to the elements of combat power. Major EU defence players will
not consider giving up their combat capabilities to a supranational authority
unless and until some confidence has been gained through the less contentious
pooling of support functions suggested above. However, I am optimistic given
that the limited sharing arrangements of the European Air Group are already
proving their worth.
Offensive and defensive air
power capability is politically difficult to pool and operate at the European
level, but is relatively easy to integrate at the operational 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. If we could make
arrangements to include Norwayís 58 F16s, it would be even better. Despite the
divergence in Tornado IDS updates, Germany, Italy and the UK could look at how
pooled arrangements might allow them to make a relatively early contribution of
some of their 570 aircraft to a joint offensive capability.
The introduction into
service of Eurofighter from 2002 to five European nations (UK, Germany, Italy,
Spain and perhaps Greece) offers a good 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 if the number of bases
required could be 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. 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 (one for each operating country). 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. 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 could 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 that should be developed. Leaving France, Germany, Italy and the UK
to develop their own future offensive capability will inevitably result in a
sub-optimal solution, with some relying on US solutions and other on national
upgrades. 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 more
expensive power projection capabilities is provided by the aircraft carrier.
Few European nations can afford to field such a force; for those that stay in
the role, the opportunity costs are very high. The UK currently plans to
provide two carriers, in 2012 and 2015, but for the reasons argued earlier
seems unlikely to be able to afford such a capability when the time comes.
France, Spain and Italy will probably wish to retain elements of the carrier
role as well. Operated on a national level, one or two aircraft 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 4 or 5
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.
The Need for European Defence Funding
Arrangements
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 national defence budgets through the removal of the cost
overhang of separate support systems. 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 Funding arrangement to which members contribute either capability or
money.
For this
approach to become coherent, it would be necessary to develop a planning and
budgetary system at the European level. The trading of flying hours for AAR
that has sprung up through the Euro Air Group shows that such a system could be
grown. Eventually there would be a requirement for a European Defence Budget.
The Vision:
The European Air Force
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 and other capabilities if they so wished, but
such national military 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 unaffordable specialist activity, which only the
United States can provide. European nations will decide that they would be
better to concentrate on the simple capabilities that they can afford. New
Zealand rather than AWACs will have shown the way.