Alphen, Netherlands. 25
September. When I am at the later stage of writing a big book the only thing
that I can think about is the bloody book. That is precisely where I am now
with my latest book for Oxford University Press, “Future War and the Defence of
Europe”. The blog has to go on the back-burner. Thankfully, my friend Anna
Wieslander, Director of the Atlantic Council in Stockholm, last week invited me
to attend a closed session with the leadership of Sweden’s armed forces.
Thankfully, the subject was also close to that of the book, and whilst I cannot
disclose what was discussed, I can share my own intellectual property.
My presentation
considered a seminal question: What Europeans would need to do in order to act
as effective first responders in a worst-case scenario? If one deconstructs
that question there are four keywords therein all of which Europeans find
challenging: European; act; first responders; and worst-case.
Given the implicit
challenge of the question my core message was thus: European first responders during
a major military crisis in and around Europe will need also to be fast
responders at the high end of military capability. Moreover, given the changing
character of warfare a first response would only be possible and credible if
enabled by an array of sensitive sensors, indicators, allied to fast analysis.
Critically, such a first response would also be dependent on robust critical
infrastructure and civil defence. Society would undoubtedly be subject to all
forms of coercion across the hybrid-cyber-hyper war spectrum.
Why? Europeans are moving into an age of automated
future war and complex strategic coercion in which warfare will be conducted both
simultaneously and/or sequentially across the 5 ‘D’s of disinformation,
deception, destabilisation, disruption, and implied and actual destruction. As
AI, machine-learning, big data and other ‘synthetic’ forms of weaponry enter
the battlespace speed of response, and proven speed, will be a critical element
of both deterrence and defence.
What military
capabilities would be needed? To be honest, I prefer to focus on the military
effects that need to be generated, rather than capabilities per se. Too much of
a focus on the latter tends to foster an input approach to defence investment,
rather than vital defence outputs and outcomes.
To effect credible deterrence and defence armed forces will need to be
able to demonstrably operate to effect across the hybrid-cyber-hyper war
spectrum and deep into the domains of air, sea, land, space, cyber, information
and knowledge.
What
are the implications for readiness and reinforcements? Europeans (and their American allies) need
to re-conceive ideas of readiness and reinforcement, and even of defence. Given
the aim of an adversary would be to force European states off-balance –
strategically, politically, militarily, and societally much of the first
response will be about doing what an adversary least expects or wants. This
will involve the generation of counter-shock by exploiting the analysed
weaknesses of an adversary systematically. Much of that response will be digital.
At the force end of the response spectrum it is also critical that the future
European defence force is deeply embedded in, and maintains interoperability
with, US forces enabled by the revolution in military technology underway, most
notably artificial intelligence and robotics.
Could
hybrid warfare and new technology be increasingly used by smaller nations in
order to deter and de-escalate? The advantages of a state
such as Sweden, with its legacy of Total Defence, is that its pan-community concept
of society and defence builds innovation into its strategic DNA. In such a state radical new thinking tends not
to be seen as a threat to the established order if such thinking is seeking to
make a constructive contribution to the Public Good. This contrasts markedly
with some other European countries, not least my own, Britain, which excludes
such thinkers, or prefers ‘safe’ guidance from ‘safe’ thinkers – the ‘good chap’
of old. In future such thinking, and the people who generate it, will be vital
for the credible future deterrence and defence of all Europeans.
The solution? Well, there
are many (read the book when it comes out). However, one solution could be to
transform the ailing European Defence Agency into a European equivalent of the
US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), with a specific remit to
trawl for defence-applicable new technologies.
My concern is a deep one.
Europeans are in denial about the possibility of another major war in Europe. European
leaders are ignorant about the nature of coming future war. One cannot respond
to that about which one knows little or nothing! Indeed, Europe’s defence
establishments face a profound challenge: just how open are they to real ‘red
team’ new thinking and pain in the posterior people (like me) who dare
challenge politically and bureaucratically-convenient assumptions?
To conclude, Europe needs
a new concept of fusion defence which forges government, new people, new
industries beyond the defence sector, and new thinking into a new strategic
public private partnership to generate defence and deterrence across the civ-mil
bandwidth.
First response and fusion
defence are thus two sides of the same Euro-strategic coin. Europe’s future
defence will depend on both!
The book? It will be
brilliant and very-reasonably priced.
Julian Lindley-French
