European Defence

– Myth or Reality?

Constanze Stelzenmüller

Field Marshall Sir Nigel Bagnall Memorial Lecture

(on invitation by the British-German Association)

Chatham House, October 2, 2006

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great honour to have been asked to deliver the Field Marshall

Sir Nigel Bagnall Memorial lecture on behalf of the British-German

Association here at Chatham House. I feel the honour all the more because I am not only a civilian of the female persuasion, but, as a former journalist, a member of a tribe generally held in deep contempt by the military. Certainly my only encounter with the Field

Marshall’s regiment, the , in a visit to the UK-run

Provincial Reconstruction Team in Mazar-i-Sharif in the fall of 2004, reminded me of this essential fact, – although perhaps it was a mistake to present the press officer with a marijuana plant I had picked during a day trip to a local warlord’s residence. And I hasten 2 to add that the Green Howards’ officers were exquisitely courteous to me, and the PRT’s mess food was the best I have ever eaten in any military operation, bar none.

Unlike some in the audience, I have never had the privilege of meeting Sir Nigel Bagnall, although reading his obituary on the internet made me rather wish I had. Certainly the qualities of

“ruthless energy” mentioned in his citation, combined with the intellectual honesty, independence of mind and kindness to others attributed to him as well, are attractive not just in a senior officer, but in any leader. I feel that the best I can do to honor his legendary forthrightness is to offer to you some fairly forthright views about European Defence.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, at least in Great Britain, that there is no chimera more appalling than the notion of a European

Defence. Possibly the only thing more disturbing to a British sensibility is the – it is hoped, only marginally more likely – spectre of the Germans winning the World Cup. True, the European Union’s present efforts at establishing a Common Security and Defence

Policy leave much to be desired. And a European Army, that hardy perennial of backbencher speeches at Conservative Party conferences, would indeed be a Bad Thing. In fact, it would be quite easy to fill this half-hour with a list of all the weaknesses and shortcomings of European Defence, and possibly not a few of you here would applaud me for it.

I would therefore like to do something a little more difficult and ambitious: I will defend the project of a European Defence. I will 3 argue that Europe – and this means the United Kingdom, too – will not be able to defend its values, its interests or indeed itself, if it does not learn to join forces and to pool its resources intelligently; and that it has already begun to do so. How and to what end European

Defence can, should, and will become reality; and why Great Britain should not merely not thwart or stand aside from, but engage energetically in this effort, is the subject of my speech tonight.

A note on terminology is called for here: I use the term European

Defence advisedly, for to speak only of Europe’s military capability would be to exclude some of the most important issues connected with the issue today: strategy, foreign policy, political will, public opinion. I am not advocating a fully integrated single European armed force, nor am I interested in other frameworks where

European armed forces act together – in that case, we would be talking about much of NATO, and almost all of the NATO Response

Force NRF. I do, however, advocate more pragmatic integration, and in more imaginative ways than we are seeing now. You may find some of my points controversial, even hair-raising; at least I hope so.

Let me begin by examining five myths about European Defence – and contrasting them with reality. I will end with a list of recommendations.

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Myth # 1: We don’t need European Defence, because our security needs are met by NATO

This is a sentiment most often heard in the new NATO and EU members of Eastern Europe. Yet it has its diehard defenders in Old

Europe as well, who appear undeterred by the fact that it has been refuted by events for quite a while. NATO quietly went global at the

2002 Reykjavik Summit, and America is closing down European bases. Reliance on American protection is referred to sternly as “free- loading” in Washington, and viewed as a cheap excuse for not modernizing European forces, or protecting defence budgets against raids by cash-strapped governments battling with the competing demands of education, welfare and health. Of course the collective defence clause in Article V of the Washington Treaty still stands, and

European Defence will not soon replace NATO as a supplier of hard security for Europe. But U.S. forces, deployed worldwide and reeling under the vicious onslaught of Taliban and Iraqi resistance, are exhausted and overstretched. We have been told, in no uncertain terms, to get our act together and be more self-reliant.

That said, there are security needs which NATO cannot supply, but the Europeans and the EU can: I mean civilian crisis management capabilities. In fact, the EU’s comparative advantage is that its broader scope permits it to do both at the same time. Which is why it might make sense to have a “Berlin plus in reverse” arrangement, by which NATO can borrow EU crisis management capabilities when necessary. A related point: NATO, for all the recent rhetoric about transatlantic democracy promotion, lacks the EU’s comprehensive toolbox for integrating and transforming young and fragile 5 democracies on Europe’s periphery. In that sense, the EU’s role as exporter of stability is an important complement to NATO’s role in

Eastern Europe.

Myth # 2: We shouldn’t have a European Defence, because it will destroy

NATO and drive apart the transatlantic alliance

Only three or four years ago, this was official opinion in Washing- ton’s policymaking circles. America’s then-Ambassador to NATO,

Nicholas Burns, wasted no opportunity of making the point, whether in closed alliance meetings or at press briefings, with an insistence that is said to have tested the loyalty of even the most fervent advocates of the Special Relationship. American distrust was understandable in view of the more or less free rein given in French,

German and Belgian official speeches to rhetoric about

“multipolarity”, or Europe as a “counterweight” to U.S. hegemony.

And, regardless of where one stood on the Iraq war, pretty much everybody’s nerves were strained by the spectacle of the German government planting its flag (or its towel) on the high ground and declaring itself not just grown-up, but a moral superpower for having said “no” to the Americans.

Today, in contrast, cordiality and cooperation reign. The explanation is as simple as it is sobering: We are witnessing a pragmatic strategic rapprochement born out of failure. It is real and durable, because the failure was a double one. On the American side, the apologists of hard power über alles , their soldiers maimed and killed on faraway battlefields, have retreated in defeat. On the European side, humiliations such as the shambolic humanitarian reaction of the EU 6 to the Asian tsunami catastrophe, or the murderous April 2004 pogroms in Kosovo, have noticeably silenced the high priesthood of soft power. America now seeks a strong Europe that can not just defend itself, but defend Western values and interests elsewhere.

Consequently, European Defence is being encouraged by the U.S. in order to strengthen Europe’s role in NATO – but also to enable us to stand on our own. Europe, for its part, has recognized that it could not defend its interests alone today, but that some day, it may have to. For, as America’s and Europe’s responsibilities go global, the likelihood of diverging interests will increase. A sensible division of labour between NATO and the EU will therefore not only not destroy NATO – it will help lighten its burden. In that sense, it may even help to save it.

Myth # 3: There can be no such thing as European Defence, because we will never agree on common threats and risks, or on policy responses.

As it happens, we seem to agree on far more than we disagree about.

This is true both on the policymaking level and of that of public opinion; and it is becoming true both within Europe and between

Europeans and Americans. Tonight is not the time for a learned dissertation on the similarities and differences between America’s

National Security Strategies and the 2003 European Security Strategy, or different national security strategies in Europe; all the more because such documents are snapshots of moving targets. But it is worth noting that the latest iteration of the U.S. document has modulated its position on some of the points which set it apart (most notably preemption). The European Security Strategy, in whose drafting British thinking played a very important part, filled a void, 7 and filled it creditably, by stepping up to the plate on issues raised by the Americans (such as terrorism, WMD and regional conflicts).

However, it also registers some uniquely European concerns, (such as organized crime) and notes that geography still matters – a point brought home to American strategists in recent debates about energy security, pipelines, tanker routes and infrastructure protection. The

EU should consider instituting a regular review process for the

European Security Strategy, much in the way that America does with its NSS.

Our policy responses are also rather less divergent than they used to be. America’s armed forces are reconsidering their earlier rejection of post-conflict peacekeeping and stabilization operations; two

American strategists have even proposed that the new NATO

Response Force should be paired with an expeditionary stabilization force. Regime change by military means, in contrast, seems to have gone out of favour. The idea was briefly aired recently by

Washington in connection with Iran (whose nuclear potential, ironically, is rather more plausible than that of Iraq), only to be firmly walked back into the closet. The Europeans, for their part, startled the world and probably themselves when, asked to participate in a UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, they first dithered in all the usual embarrassing ways, and then moved swiftly to pull together a contribution which includes ’s first-ever naval deployment to the Middle East. How much UNIFIL and the

Europeans with it, can hope to achieve in the present climate of hate and fear, is open to doubt; but if they manage to create a breathing space for diplomacy and deescalation, that alone will have been worth the effort. What is already clear is that our credibility as 8 exporters of security in our own neighborhood would have been in shreds had we not moved.

As for public views, I hope I will be forgiven for quoting an international opinion survey published annually by the organization

I work for: the German Marshall Fund’s Transatlantic Trends, whose

2006 edition, polled in 13 countries (the U.S., nine EU member states and three candidates) was published six weeks ago. In a lengthy series of questions about threat perceptions and responses, the responses we got were remarkably similar – both between Americans and Europeans, and within the European camp. As it happens, they show a strong transatlantic coalition (two-thirds in the U.S., three- fourths in Europe) against democracy promotion with military means. Majorities in every European country polled think there should be a European foreign minister (UK: 52 %). Most interestingly, a three-fourths majority in the EU supported a greater global role for Europe (UK: 66 %) – although support did drop by a third to 46 % on the question whether this required strengthening military power. Yet, given the almost universally hostile portrayal of

European Defence efforts in the British media, the UK response of 45

% in favor of strengthening European military capabilities might actually be called surprisingly high.

Certainly our data do not indicate that – to quote Herbert Morrison’s famous dictum about the European Coal and Steel Community in

1951 – “the Durham miners will never wear it”.

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Myth # 4: European Defence is unnecessary – its work can be done better by nation-states with full-spectrum forces acting together

The reverse is true: European Defence cooperation is necessary, because most – I would argue all – of Europe’s nations can no longer afford full-spectrum armed forces, and certainly not at existing sizes.

Faced with ageing populations, low growth rates, rising unemploy- ment and competing demands for education and defence investments, European governments almost invariably tend to choose education, and leave their defence ministers to splutter helplessly at yet another painful press conference. The prohibitive cost of technological modernization, too, exercises an inexorable centrifugal pull on Europe’s armed forces.

As a result, many European countries have opted to cut, pool, specialize or innovate, including in ways hitherto considered outlandish or positively nefarious – such as allowing women onto ships (the UK) or into the armed forces altogether, including onto ships (Germany). This tendency has been most marked in the smaller

European countries, for whom an independent defence posture makes little if any practical sense, or in Eastern European countries faced with simultaneous requirements to modernize and to downsize large and outdated Warsaw Pact forces in a socially acceptable way.

Europe’s Big Three – France, the Unted Kingdom, and Germany – have also been forced by cost-cutting and modernization imperatives to slash the sizes of their armed forces; but they have hitherto been able to resist calls to integrate, pool or specialize, except in isolated cases (e.g. the European Airlift Centre in Eindhoven). And they have 10 maintained an iron grip on outdated Cold War platforms (such as fighter planes) beyond any strategic reason, – even selling them to

Eastern European countries although both sides of the deal should have known better.

Yet the Big Three too will soon be forced to integrate far more radically. Much of this process, I suggest, will be driven by the fact that the post-Balkan Wars mantra of “countering threats where they arise” (George Robertson), which took us to the Horn of Africa and

Afghanistan and pushed us to make our armed forces more expeditionary, is presently being turned on its head: indigenous fundamentalist terrorism, a heightened attention to energy supply line and infrastructure security, as well as the need to control illicit cross-border movements of people or goods in our open societies are putting a new premium on homeland defence and catastrophic prevention in Europe in ways that European states are only beginning to factor into their budget planning. When they do, even the largest states will find that European defence integration exerts a hitherto undreamed-of attraction.

Myth # 5: Strengthening European Defence must be resisted, because it is yet another Trojan horse for European federalism

Untrue. There are many ways of joining forces without

“communitizing” European Defence and forcing Member States to give up their sovereignty over their military assets. Even the

Constitutional Treaty – stalled for some, dead as a dodo for others – did not provide for a “communitization” of defence and security policy; there were no plans for qualified majority voting. What the 11

Treaty (which is what it should have been called all along) did envisage were: a broader spectrum of tasks, solidarity and assistance clauses, a number of institutional reforms designed to add clarity and coherence to the EU’s foreign policy (CFSP), the setup of a European

Defence Agency (EDA) to harmonize military capabilities and support joint armaments efforts, and the possibility of “permanent structured cooperation”, which is best translated as official permission for coalitions of the willing (and hopefully able) in

European Defence.

As is the case with numerous elements of the much-vilified Treaty, most of these provisions merely formalized in writing developments that were already well under way. The EDA started its operations in

2004; the best indicator of its relevance is the fact that Britain swooped on the top job for itself. The scope and reach of European

Defence was clarified in the European Security Strategy; the EU is fielding its own Rapid Response Force, the battlegroup initiative, and working on a European Gendarmerie Force. Finally, the EU has run or is running more than a dozen missions, nearly all civilian, under the ESDP umbrella. Granted, none of the EU’s operations compares in scale, geographic reach and dangerousness to what NATO has been doing since the Balkans Wars – but its most recent operation to secure peaceful elections in Congo (led by Germany) was certainly robust. Moreover, when the status of Kosovo is decided in a few months, – and it is an open secret that it will pass from occupied

Serbian territory to independence in all but name –, responsibility for the security of the province and its few remaining Serbs and Serbian

Orthodox monuments passes from NATO, which currently has about

18.000 soldiers stationed there, to the EU. This could yet prove a very harsh test of the Union’s hard power capabilities. 12

To recapitulate: European Defence is not an anti-NATO nor an anti-

American project. To the contrary, its vigorous health is in the acknowledged interests of the Alliance as well as of America.

European public opinion thinks it is a Good Thing; agreement among policymakers, as well as in the general public, on threats and risks, as well as on appropriate policy responses, is quite broad. We can’t really afford anything else, and we’ve made pretty sure it won’t drag us into – Heaven forfend – a surrendering of sovereignty over national security assets. Best of all, we’re already doing quite a lot of it, in ways that seem to have developed organically rather than as the result of a strategy or a Gesamtkonzept, and proceeded by way of a pragmatic method of trial-and-error. Quite British, really.

Which is not to say improvements aren’t possible. Let me suggest a few.

• NATO and the EU need to consult more, to respect each others’ judgment on when it makes sense for an operation to be led by NATO or the EU, to be generous with their assets and to work on harmonizing standards and benchmarks; under the conditions of mutual dependency sketched out earlier, the NATO-EU relationship cannot be only one-way.

• NATO and the EU should join forces in thinking through strategic responses to indigenous European terrorism, threats to energy supply security, and illicit movements of people and goods; responses need to be part of a seamless continuum, from the political 13 or diplomatic to civilian crisis management and catastrophic prevention to military action.

• European Defence and Security operations must – rather than merely obeying a tactical political imperative (Congo) be backed and justified with reference to a European strategy.

• Effectiveness could be enhanced and costs cut with additional measures of integration – such as permanent joint and combined

European operations and force headquarters. Pooling, specialization and outsourcing could be implented up and down the tooth-to-tail line, and free much-needed resources for modernization – one example suggested by an expert is the creation of a Schengen space for the Baltic and North Seas, where all litoral states cooperate to patrol their coastal zones – or perhaps even a European coast guard.

• There is much more room for common standards, or, dare I say it, a common military culture: a European military university, or a General Staff College; more exercises and training; staff exchanges; doctrinal and operational harmonization.

• Armaments cooperation is the logical beginning of hardware harmonization, and will help European defence industry be more competitive globally. One industry Europe needs to invest much more in is the military space industry.

• Finally, the Big Three, rather than letting smaller countries set benchmarks in pooling and specialization, have a special responsibility in the innovative re-imagining of European Defence.

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In all this, Great Britain should not stand aside, and watch how others set the standards; nor, it seems to me, will it suffer itself to be led. Its history, its military strength and tradition of innovation predestine it to be a leader in European Defence.

And, who knows, even the Germans may yet win the Cup again.

They are already champions, by the way – in the Womens’ League.

Thank you.