Alphen, Netherlands. 16 May. CSDP:
what’s in a letter? Last Thursday I spoke at the 2016 EU in International
Affairs bash in Brussels. The subject of the meeting was the EU’s Common
Security and Defence Policy and to what extent ‘CSDP’ had imposed costs on the
UK. My point was that hitherto CSDP had imposed very little cost on the UK
because it is not actually CSDP. Instead, CSDP remains little changed from its
forebear the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP), i.e. an
inter-governmental (to use wonk-speak) mechanism and decidedly not a ‘common’ mechanism.
So what, many of you out there are no doubt asking?
Well, in theory at least CSDP
could not be more different than ESDP. ‘C’, i.e. ‘common’ implies a supranational
force over which political decision-making would be taken away from the EU
member-state and given to what would need to be a form of European Government,
especially as it would involve decisions over the life and death of service
personnel. Still with me?
Since ESDP became CSDP with the 2007
Lisbon Treaty the ‘C’ has by and large remained silent. Rather, CSDP has become
ESDP-plus (or is that ESDP-minus?). Indeed, CSDP remains much closer to the Franco-British
view of EU security and defence as set out in the 1998 St Malo Declaration,
than the vision for defence union in the ill-fated 1952-1954 European Defence
Community of which in 1953 Churchill famously said: “We are with them, but not
of them”. Consequently, CSDP has continued to be quite useful to the British,
and indeed the French, the two European powers that matter in such matters.
This is because the flag one puts atop a military campaign is almost as
important as the force one deploys into a complex security environment.
Take Libya. There is much talk
about an Italian-led EU operation to stabilise the Libyan coast around Sirte
and thus help disrupt the hyper-people-smuggling that is destabilising Europe
and taking so many lives. One could not imagine such a force operating in that
environment under a NATO, UK, French, let alone an American flag. Therefore, having
the option of operating under an EU flag communicates a very distinctive
political message about the identity, and indeed the nature and purpose of a
deployed force. For that reason CSDP is useful to the British and French precisely
because it affords London and Paris political options in a crisis.
The countries that actually want
CSDP are those that have neither a strategic culture nor many forces. For them
a truly common CSDP would absolve their political leaders of responsibility for
sending national forces on unpopular foreign adventures. For them the ‘c’ in is a
small ‘c’ because it stands for weakness.
And now the must-ask question
these days. Where does Germany fit into all of this? After all, once the Brexit
brouhaha has calmed down the real fight for the future of Europe will begin
which is the real relevance of CSDP. Indeed, implicit in the entire Brexit
debacle is a debate about the future balance of power in the EU.
In the coming fight there will be
three sides. On one of the three sides there will be the ‘plucky’ Brits
desperately trying to keep the whole CSDP thing intergovernmental, probably
with the quiet but incomplete support of the French. On one of the other sides
there will be the Euro-federalists led by the supra-elite, as represented by
the recent Five Presidents Report, which will seek to expand ever closer
political and economic union into a defence union. And on a third side will be
the Germans trying to use CSDP-plus, i.e. a European Defence Union, to push
towards the creation of a hybrid EU super-state which it controls, possibly
with the support of Berlin’s new best friend Washington.
CSDP would be central to the
German creation of a hybrid EU precisely because it would combine elements of
both EU supranationalism and contemporary German liberal hegemony. That is why
Berlin is considering including the concept of a European Defence Union (EDU)
in its July defence white paper. Under EDU ‘ever closer defence union’ would be
imposed on all EU member-states except Germany. Berlin would claim a form of
American-style exceptionalism on the basis that it would be the paymaster.
Berlin would also no doubt claim that if there is to be a European Defence Union
then at least one power would need to remain free to play Leviathan to ensure
compliance. However, EDU will fail.
Why? Three reasons. First, one
very important design purpose of CSDP is to weaken the fundamental purpose of
the state, to ensure the security and defence of its citizens, by transferring
state sovereignty over time to the Brussels institutions. Not even David
Cameron would agree to that. Second, defence more than any other area of state
competence is about power. In 2015 IISS placed Britain as the world’s fourth biggest
defence spender. With a defence budget of $56bn Britain spends some $9bn per
annum more than France, and some $20bn more than Germany. Third, if a state
spends 2% of its GDP on defence and yet decisions are being taken on the use of
that force by people coming from states that spend far less either said state
would not join such a common mechanism, or said state would reduce its
expenditure to the lowest common denominator of shared CSDP investment. In time CSDP and the defence of Europe would
fail. In other words, as currently envisaged a ‘common’ CSDP is a defence
nonsense.
So what to do? Neither the British
nor in reality the French want much more ‘C’ in CSDP. Yes, the French pretend
they want more CSDP for political reasons. However, there is no more chance of
France subsuming its forces under supranational control than my beloved
Sheffield United winning the Champion’s League. Moreover, for all the political
ambitions implicit in CSDP there is not going to be a European super-state, and
Germany is not going to be Europe’s leading military power. However, Europeans will need to work together
more closely for their own defence and an American-centric NATO will remain
central to that defence, albeit underpinned by an increasingly over-stretched
US. Given the balance of realities there could be no EU security and defence policy
worthy of the name without Britain.
Therefore, if CSDP is to be
credible it must stop being used as a back-door to supranationalism and take
its proper place in the gamut of mutually-reinforcing security and defence
tools available to Europeans in the twenty-first century. In other words, take
implied EU supranationalism out of the mix and CSDP might actually begin to work.
Critically, the world’s fifth
biggest economy and fourth biggest defence spender will not be subsumed within
a genuine Common Security and Defence Policy.
Indeed, for all the German talk about including a European Defence Union
in their forthcoming defence white paper unless it is underpinned by hard
defence investment then Bismarck would suggest CSDP will remain not unworthy of
the bones of a single healthy Pomeranian grenadier.
For all the EU obsession with
rules, as President Putin has so rudely reminded Europeans the true ‘common’
denominators of security and defence remain power…and weakness.
CSDP; more ‘E’ less ‘C’. Still
awake?
Julian Lindley-French
