Blancmange “an EU strategic
desert that looks like jelly formed into a shape”.
Merriam
Webster corrupted by Julian Lindley-French
The EU
blancmange
May 1st. If
ever there was a 1990s solution to a 2023 problem the European Union Rapid
Deployment Capacity is it. Due to be operational by 2025 it will be the same
old forces organised under yet another acronym – EURDC. Even with
the planned “special forces commando” it will be a small force with too many
bosses that can only ever be used if they all agree for collective security
missions about which they rarely do and which can already be done by existing
forces. At 5000 strong it will be too cumbersome for Sudan-type evacuations and
not large enough to play any meaningful role in Ukraine-type scenarios because
it cannot be expanded. Above all, the stated missions of the ‘capability’
“ranging from initial entry, to reinforcement or as a reserve force to secure
an exit” require above all significant strategic airlift. As the French
discovered in Mali only the British amongst the Europeans have any level of
strategic and heavy tactical airlift and that is limited. And, given
Britain is no longer a member of the EU the implication is that the British
will be expected to provide critical ‘enablers’ in support of the EURDC whilst
under Third Country rules be allowed little more than the right to shape
decisions made elsewhere. No deal, Chaps!
When I wrote
my doctorate on this stuff many years ago I believed such a force could have
both utility and effect but that was against the backdrop of the immediate
post-Cold War and the meltdown in the Western Balkans. Since then the EU
has become a blancmange of acronyms which are never met with the requisite
forces and resources: ESDP, the ERRF, EU BGs, CSDP, Pesco, and now EURDC. I
won’t bore you by spelling them out as none of them actually worked and unless
there is some fundamental improvement in the ability of Europeans to fund and
field increased numbers of robust rapid reaction units then EURDC will not work
either.
Take
NATO’s New Force Model. The plan is for the enhanced NATO Response Force of
some 40,000 troops to be transformed into a future force of some 300,000 troops
maintained at high alert, with 44,000 kept at high readiness. For the first
time all rapid reaction forces under NATO command will be committed to a
deterrence and defence role and all such forces will be consolidated within one
command framework. A force of that size and with the necessary level of
fighting power would normally mean that with rotation there would always be a
force of some 100,000 kept at high readiness, which will be extremely expensive
for NATO European allies grappling with high inflation and post-COVID
economies. A NATO standard brigade is normally between 3200 and 5500 strong.
Given that both air and naval forces will also need to be included, a land
force of 200,000 would need at least 50 to 60 European rapid reaction brigades
together with all their supporting elements. At best, there are only 20 to 30
today. There are already concerns being expressed by some Allies. EURDC?
The
insoluble dilemma
Don’t get me
wrong. I am all for Europeans finally getting their military act together but
it must be to address the threats posed by this world not what in strategic
terms is ancient history. Worse, the EURDC simply reaffirms the insoluble
dilemma at the heart of EU military ambitions – the only such force that would
be relevant given the likely nature of the adversaries and in the absence of
the Americans would need a huge boost in European military spending to be
sufficiently capable and a European Government to be credibly
‘commandable’. As for conducting evacuation missions like those undertaken
in Afghanistan or Sudan, Europe’s major powers already have the capability and
given those forces are under national command the necessary political agility.
Implicit in
the EURDC are two entirely contending visions which also go to the very core of
EU political dystopia. Macron wants to use the EU to instrumentalise the rest
of Europe to realise a declining France’s strategic ambitions by using the
Commission to place Paris at the centre of a spider’s web of European power.
Macron has no intention of transferring French defence sovereignty to Brussels
now or ever. The European 'theologians' in the European Commission really do
believe that one day their vision will be realised of a European Army replete
with a European Government. The EURDC is yet another product of
this political dystopia and the profound tension that exists between the
Commission and European states that helped drive Britain out of the EU. It is
also a significant reason why Europe today simply carries so little weight in
the world given that for forty years Europe’s internal inner struggle over
power and regulation and who controls Europe has pretty much ensured Europeans
do not.
The EURDC is
thus the latest example of EU defence pretence in which politics comes before
capability and the regulatory stranglehold of Brussels on member-states will
guarantee more lawyers than warriors. Rather, what the EU should be focusing on
is making Europe more competitive in those areas of tech that will shape and
are shaping the future security and battlespace. The Special Competitive
Studies Project is a non-partisan US-based group that looks at relative
strategic competitiveness. Whilst America and China are forging ahead in
internet platforms, fusion energy, quantum computing, synthetic biology, biopharmaceuticals,
commercial drones, next generation networks, semiconductors, advanced
manufacturing and, above all, Artificial Intelligence. The only sector where
the EU leads is in the amount of regulation it imposes.
EU defence
pretence, aka strategic autonomy, is also sadly affecting NATO. Take the race
underway to be the next Secretary-General. It is likely that the
incumbent Norway’s Jens Stoltenberg will be extended for another year. All well
and good. He has done a good job in the midst of a crisis. Those seeking
to replace him include UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, former Lithuanian
President and European Commissioner Dalia Grybauskaite and former Croatian
President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic. All three would make excellent ‘Sec-Gens’.
And yet, the word on the street is that the favourite is European Commission
President Ursula von der Leyen. Why?
The answer
is both complex and simple. First, the Biden administration, who should
be backing Wallace, have instead decided to back ‘VDL’. Having lost its
window into the EU with Brexit Washington increasingly sees NATO as an
Atlantic-sphere and an EU-sphere with the EU the future European pillar of the
Alliance. Secondly, Washington also divides NATO into the useful bit –
those Europeans who could do a little bit even if not very much, and those who
talk a lot but are pretty much incapable – the Franco-German-led EU. Third, the
Five Eyes intelligence community (plus Japan) is growing in importance to the
Americans given the rise of a bellicose China and the increasingly global
context of Washington’s security commitments. Fourth, with coalitions rather
than alliances ever more the stuff of American strategic influence the
Americans increasingly simply do not care. Washington would prefer to work with
trusted allies bilaterally than through action-stifling bureaucracies.
Coming clean
about China
The EU is
not alone in this continuing European penchant for strategic and defence
pretence. Last week UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly gave his annual
foreign policy speech at the glitzy Mansion House banquet. The speech was
clearly written by HM Treasury economists and the civil service declinists who
simply do not understand foreign, security and defence policy and see
everything through the mercantilist lens of trade. Still, Cleverly called for
China to “come clean” about what he called the largest peacetime military
build-up in history”, but that was only so he could also say it would be an
historic mistake to close the door on China. Translation? Rather than
re-shoring (ally-shoring in contemporary rhetoric) critical supply chains to
democratic allies and partners Britain it seems is willing to continue relying
on China. Appealing to Xi’s better nature, as Cleverly was not so cleverly
trying to do, smacked all too readily of Baldwin and Chamberlain in the 1930s.
As for China
‘coming clean’, it is perfectly clear what China is seeking to achieve because
Xi has said so. First, China’s grand strategy is to achieve global military
dominance by creating a Realpolitik of power that favours China. Second,
because Western concepts of a rules-based order stand in the way of such
ambition it must thus be destroyed by demonstrating the West’s lack of resolve,
power and strategic patience. That is why China is eschewing all efforts to
re-establish arms control and is determined to increase the number of nuclear
warheads in its arsenal from the current 400 (up from 200 in 2021) to 1500 by
2035. Third, by 2027 China must have sufficient relative military power
projection to take back Taiwan by force if need be. That is why,
for example, between 2014 and 2018 the Chinese launched more warships than the
combined naval tonnage of both the entire French and German navies as part of a
ship-building programme that continues apace. Today, the official (and
extremely conservative) estimate of Chinese defence expenditure in 2023 is 300%
that of the UK, the world’s fifth or sixth largest defence spender. Add to that
the grand asymmetric warfare that China already uses against the West through
hybrid and cyber warfare, as well as systematic and systemic espionage, and
only an economist could possibly fail to see China’s strategic direction of
travel.
The Eagle,
the Dragon and the Blancmange
Europeans
should look beyond Macron’s lame duck posturing on the European stage to
distract from his domestic trials and tribulations. Strategic autonomy is
precisely what Europeans should collectively (not commonly) be aspiring to
irrespective of institutional allegiance. However, such autonomy must be
US-friendly, NATO friendly, and utility-friendly. Above all, it must be
built on power not empty words. In other words, Macron is right in
principle, but wrong in fact and the EURDC is simply the wrong ‘capability’ (it
is not even a ‘force’) for the wrong mission at the wrong time – another
case of Europeans putting short-term politics over longer-term strategy.
First, the
EU-NATO Strategic Partnership needs to be expanded to create a pool of such
forces with appropriate dual-hatted command structures and enablers so that it
can operate under an EU or NATO flag and thus as the EURDC. NATO is already
pooling its various rapid reaction forces and can act as a ‘brokerage’ for such
forces.
Second, the
EU should reform both Pesco and its Third Country rules to allow the likes of
Britain and Turkey to have a role in both decision-making and decision-shaping.
The hard facts of any coalition are thus: the greater the contribution the
greater the say.
Third, with
Finland and Sweden’s (eventual) accession to the Alliance the memberships of
the two institutions are aligning and there is a case for the EU over time to
become a pillar of a bi-pillar NATO; the other being the Atlanticist powers
plus Turkey. NATO, in turn, could become the junior partner in EU-led
efforts to enhance European resilience. The appointment of ‘VDL’ as NATO
Sec-Gen would then make strategic sense not simply political expediency. The EU
does have a vital role to play in Europe’s future security and defence but only
by focusing on structural aspects such as improving Europe’s resilience across
the civilian space and constructing enhanced civilian and military mobility in
an emergency.
Fourth,
Europe’s major powers, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and increasingly Poland
must collectively drive forward Europe’s strategic rehabilitation. The real
cause of European strategic and defence pretence lies in Western European, not
a Central or Eastern European problem. Britain, France and Germany alone
represent over 65% of all defence investment in Europe and over 80% of defence
research and development.
Fifth, given
the Russo-Ukraine war Europeans need to collectively answer two fundamental
questions. What role should European military forces have in Europe’s future
security? What force levels and capabilities should Europeans aspire to given
the broader framework of geopolitics? In fact, a plan already exists: the
NATO Military Strategy. The Strategy is built on a rather old-fashioned
principle that threat-relevant capabilities should come before missions.
Charles
Baudelaire wrote that the, “smartest ruse of the devil is to persuade you he
doesn’t exist”. It is a ruse made far easier when many Europeans need
little persuading given they care about little that takes place outside the EU
blancmange which at one and the same time is dependent on the eagle for its
defence and the dragon for much of its income, both of which are in the process
of facing off for a fight. At some point, Europeans will need to take
sides.
Julian
Lindley-French
