Brussels and Oslo.
21 September. Winston Churchill once said, “True genius resides in the capacity
for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous and conflicting information”. This past
week in Brussels and Oslo at two high-level conferences to discuss European
security and defence I have seen the best and worst of elite Europe. Threats
abound; Russian challenges in the Arctic/High North and its use of strategic maskirovka/ambiguous warfare to Europe’s
east, ISIL and the collapse of the Middle Eastern state order to Europe’s south,
cyber-penetration of a virtual Schengen, uncontrolled massive migration and
lawlessness, strategic tensions with newly-powerful illiberal states, arms
races and proliferation, American overstretch, state-threatening organised
crime, and I could go on. However, the biggest threat comes from a
strategically under-cooked elite Europe that only wants to see the world as
they would like it to be not as it really is. The result is a Europe that is by
and large bereft of strategic judgement and unable or unwilling to apply
statecraft and a failed Brussels elite that is retreating steadily into the
meaningless mantra of ‘ever more Europe’.
On Wednesday last
I visited Planet Brussels to attend the magnificently-named European Defence
Summit. It was an excellent event
organised by the Munich Security Conference and I was honoured to be present.
However, I spent much of the day feeling like Bill Murray in that old film Groundhog Day. You know the one; each
morning Murray awakes to find he is trapped in a nightmarish repeat of yesterday.
For the past
thirty years I have listened to the High Priests and Priestesses of Unionology
calling for ‘ever more defence Europe’.
Now, I would not mind if such calls came from younger members of the
Church of Unionology. After all, Brussels is built on large numbers of young
people working in the name of ‘Europe’ for next to nothing in search of
patronage that will they hope confirm them as members of said EU elite. However, when it is the same old people
saying the same old thing and nothing happens I am reminded of Einstein’s
definition of insanity; repeating the same experiment but expecting different
results. That is why group-think prevails in Brussels and healthy dissent is so frowned upon. Indeed, on some occasions I am almost crushed in the Brusssels rush of the young and ambitious to agree with the old and stupid.
Rather, Priesthood
did what they always do when faced with a crisis; talked about how a future
‘Europe’ that will probably never exist might in future deal with such crises
if in future (not now) such dangers ever intrude on their EU self-obsession. If
you want to understand why Europeans are so crap at managing crises you need
look no further. Bill Murray might be
stuck forever in yesterday, the Priesthood are forever stuck in a fantasy ‘tomorrow’.
Now, contrast the
Summit with my meeting in Oslo. Late on Wednesday night I flew from Brussels to
Oslo to address a meeting with my friend the impressive Norwegian Defence
Minister Ine Erikson Soreide at another excellent event this time co-organised
by the Norwegian Parliament and the Norwegian Atlantic Association. The speech
she gave was quite simply the best speech I have heard for a long time by any
serving defence minister. Grounded
firmly in reality the speech balanced strategy, politics and cost to present a
vision of a Norway that is thinking seriously about how a small European state
balances defence ends, ways and means. Indeed, as an example of a small state
thinking big politics in a big world I have heard no better.
The problem with
‘more defence Europe’ is as ever the set of political assumptions that are behind
it. The Priesthood believe the ‘finalitć’
of European defence to be a system of common security and defence that will
ensure both efficiency and effectiveness though the creation of a singular
political and security entity called ‘Europe’. However, that is simply not how
security and defence works. It is the impracticable in pursuit of the unworkable.
Take the pooling
and sharing of military assets. Some
marginal pooling and sharing makes sense if it is parallel with an effective
system for loaning assets to those engaged in coalitions. However, deep pooling and sharing which the
Priesthood seek by removing sovereign choice effectively destroys the ability
of a state to to choose which coalitions to join and how. In other words, the very idea of ‘more defence
Europe’ trades defence effectiveness for a false efficiency in pursuit of unrealistic
politics at the expense of sound defence strategy.
That is why
pooling and sharing is still born. Yes, it
may make sense for smaller EU member-states who will never have to really think
about leading, organising or enabling (framework nation) variable coalitions of
Europeans and non-Europeans. Moreover,
there are some very expensive systems such as satellites for which collective
procurement makes sense because all states can use such systems by acting as intelligent
customers without infringing sovereign choices over the use and utility of
force. However, collective procurement
will only ever work for the likes of Britain, France and Germany system by
system.
Europeans must
also avoid false defence economies. At the European Defence Summit it was
fascinating to see southern European defence manufacturers queuing up to support
the Priesthood with the call for a single European procurement structure.
Naturally, they talked the talk of innovation, economies of scale and security
of supply. However, what they really wanted was a new form of protectionism in
the shape of a single European defence procurement budget; the very antithesis
of innovation, competition and value for taxpayer’s money.
Europe’s defence
bottom-line is this; Britain, France and Germany as well as to a lesser extent
Italy and Poland, may never be able to prevail alone in crises. However, they
must all retain sufficient command autonomy and flexibility to enable and
assure coalitions of the willing not just with other Europeans, but also with
the US and partners the world over. That
is the single most salutary pol-strat lesson from the past thirteen years of
pol-mil campaigning.
The EU certainly has
a role to play in European defence not least in cyber-defence, critical
national infrastructure protection, and societal resilience. However, because
NATO is built on the assumption of collective coalition action in crises and
collective defence rather than common action/defence the Alliance must and will
always remain more important than the EU in the field of defence. The trick will be to prevent the
sovereignty-busting ambitions of Planet Brussels (NATO HQ is not actually in
Brussels) from affecting the Alliance to the point of failure.
European defence
highlights the dangerous contradiction to itself and others ‘defence Europe’
has become. The specific problem is the
relationship between the here and now and the then and beyond goal. Europe’s elite are failing the here and now precisely
because they deliberately (at least in Brussels) confuse the sound security and
defence of Europe with ‘ever more Europe’ and the building of a European super-state.
Indeed, the fruitless search for a truly ‘common’ security and defence policy actively
prevents collective action and thus in turn provides an alibi for many EU
member-states to avoid strategic judgement and statecraft. Worse, it enables strategically-illiterate
European politicians to defer vitally-need defence spending in favour of a
fantasy defence union and thus in turn undermines NATO.
To paraphrase Churchill:
The future security and defence of Europe will reside in the capacity of all
Europeans to collectively evaluate uncertain,
hazardous and conflicting information and then decide and act quickly on the
appropriate course of action. Such
action will itself depend on firm collective
political will, a willingness collectively
to invest in the means to ensure desired outcomes, and a shared collective determination to stay the
political and military course.
Russia and ISIL
have revealed a Europe that is increasingly lawless and defenceless. However, it
is not the likes of Russia or ISIL that is leading Europeans towards disaster,
but small politics in a big world political leaders unable or unwilling to grip
the big dark picture world in which Europeans live and thereafter apply
strategic judgement and the principles of statecraft.
More European defence,
yes please. More EU defence, no thanks.
Julian
Lindley-French
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