Brussels,
Belgium. 10 December. The
EU and NATO are in deep crisis. The EU
because it is a) organised around Germany which for understandable historical
reasons trades down military power as it trades up economic and political
influence; b) Britain, one of its two serious military powers, is now so
marginalised it is considering leaving; and c) the Eurozone cannot look beyond
the Euro. NATO is in crisis because its
major shareholder is being stretched ever thinner the world over. Like it or not, over-stretched and uncertain
America will soon be unable to be credibly effective in both Asia and the
Middle-East at one and the same time.
China and Russia are making sure of that. Both are in crisis because too often Europe’s
politicians confuse strategy with politics.
This
morning I had the honour to address the Atlantic Treaty Association’s
conference on NATO post-2014. At
the conference I was asked to address four questions concerning the role of the
EU in NATO’s Strategic Concept, actions the EU and NATO must take to increase
co-operation and the concerns such co-operation creates to both
institutions. This was illuminating because it was the nearest the conference
came to addressing the real question facing Europe – how can Europeans close
the hard power strategy gap that is growing by the day and which is destroying
the ability of Europeans to influence, secure and if needs be defend even their
vital interests?
The need is
pressing. First, according to the
International Energy Authority the United States will be self-sufficient in oil
and gas by 2025. Second, according
to a 2010 Citigroup report whilst Western Europe represented 48% of world trade
in 1990, it is 34% in 2013 and likely to fall to 19% in 2030 and 15% by
2050. Russia aims to inject about $775
billion by 2022 for new armaments and a more professional military. Beijing grew the Chinese defence budget by
11.2% in 2012 the latest double digit increase since 1989.
In other words, (1) Europeans
will need to do far more and be far more credible in future as security actors
‘in and around Europe’; (2) if Europe as a whole is to afford the tools of
influence – diplomacy, aid and development and the hard military power upon
which influence is built -it will collectively need to invest in capabilities
and capacities and then radically re-organise.
Sadly, the 19-20 December EU CSDP summit will be another missed
opportunity in which very little will be presented as very much.
The EU-NATO Strategic
Partnership should be established on a simple Euro-Atlantic strategic
principle; keep America strong in Asia by filling the emerging strategy gap in
and around Europe. That will better
inform crisis management, capability development and political
consultations. The retreat from this
principle has Moscow scenting an opportunity to interfere the grand strategic
and Euro-strategic consequences of which are all too clear in Ukraine.
What is happening
instead is faced with political and institutional paralysis big power is
stepping outside institutional frameworks.
In other words, both EU and NATO need big power to function and big
power to function properly together.
My prescriptions for
EU-NATO co-operation are thus radical.
Structure must follow power. First, the EU’s European External Action
Service must be properly configured so that it moves beyond managing the daily
crisis between the European Council and European Commission (not to mention the
Member-States).
Second,
both the EU and NATO should be seen for what they are; means to a strategic end
for the states involved. Co-operation
should thus be established on the pragmatic basis of the efficient and
effective aggregation of power and influence.
That will mean looking beyond the moribund EU-NATO Strategic Partnership
(which is neither strategic nor partnership) to focus instead on a co-operation
development plan between now and 2020 established on several programmes.
Programmes
should include (inter alia) joint exercising
and training based on lessons from over a decade of operations; promotion of procurement
clusters; civil-military experimentation (the Comprehensive Approach), finding
ways to spread the cost of military modernisation, investment in people through
harmonised defence and security education; and for smaller European states the
beginning of defence integration from the tail to the teeth. Such integration would be needed to close
Europe’s strategy gap irrespective of either the EU or NATO. Indeed, the whole nonsensical debate over a
European super-state is actually preventing defence integration not promoting
it.
In November NATO Secretary-General Rasmussen said, “We need to develop capabilities, not bureaucracies…” In Europe
today no-one talks power any more, one only talks institutions.
But here’s
the rub; next week the much-heralded EU “European Defence Summit” is scheduled
to take place. Part of its remit was to
pave the way to more constructive EU-NATO relations at the September 2014 NATO
Summit. Well-placed sources now tell me
defence will not be discussed by Europe’s leaders until lunch on the second
day, then only for 90 minutes and half of that will be devoted to
defence-industrial matters.
EU-NATO -
playing at defence.
Julian Lindley-French
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