The Eagle, the Dragon and the Blancmange

 

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