The hijacking of the M/V Maersk Alabama in April 2009, along with her crew's subsequent re-taking of the vessel and the dramatic escape/rescue of her captain, awakened the American public to news that much of the world has known for some time: the waters surrounding Somalia are infested with pirates. A far cry from the likes of Disney's Captain Jack Sparrow, or even history's Edward "Blackbeard" Teach, the Somali pirates operate from mother ships and land-based safe havens, attacking vulnerable shipping in 12-meter skiffs armed with rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47 assault rifles.
Since January 2008, Somali pirates have attacked more than 330 vessels that range from 70,000-ton bulk carriers to fishing boats to sailing yachts. They have hijacked as many as 91 vessels, holding more than 1,600 people hostage, and have been paid an estimated $50-70 million in ransom money.1
As insurance rates skyrocket, some shipping companies have chosen to re-route their ships around the southern tip of Africa rather than join the estimated 20,000 vessels that transit the Gulf of Aden each year. The economic impact of Somali pirates is debatable, but it is significant enough that nations from around the world are sending naval warships to the Horn of Africa to protect their interests.
It was humanitarian aid, however, and not the world economy, that drove the international community, the American public notwithstanding, to take note of the rise in pirate attacks beginning in the latter part of 2008. In October that year, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon wrote a letter to NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, requesting military escorts to ensure the safe transit of vessels chartered by the UN's World Food Program.
NATO Escorts
NATO agreed in short order to send the ships of Standing NATO Maritime Group Two (SNMG2) to escort these vessels carrying relief supplies to the people of Somalia. A first for NATO, Operation Allied Provider included anti-piracy patrols as well, in areas also covered by units from Combined Task Force (CTF) 150 of the Coalition Forces Maritime Component Command (CFMCC)/Combined Maritime Forces (CMF).
With the NATO mission concluding in December 2008, the European Union, having already begun planning for a counter-piracy operation as early as September 2008, filled the gap with another first by deploying a group of ships under the EU flag to conduct anti-piracy and escort missions for one year, currently extended through December 2010. This ongoing operation is called "Atalanta."
NATO returned to the Gulf of Aden and the business of anti-piracy in early spring 2009 under the name Operation Allied Protector, now Operation Ocean Shield. It joined the newly activated CTF 151 of the Coalition Combined Maritime Forces, the maritime arm of Operation Enduring Freedom; the EU's Operation Atalanta; and a host of individual national efforts to combat piracy through escorts and patrols by countries, from Russia and China to India and Japan.
Of these, the deployment of the European Union Naval Force (EUNAVFOR) should most raise the eyebrows of U.S. policy-makers and Defense officials. This first maritime operation conducted by the EU's European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) signals a possible course change in European thinking on operational burden-sharing, asset allocation, and political allegiances. This change must be monitored through the lens of how this may affect future NATO operations and America's influence in European geopolitics.
European Self-Defense
The measured success of Operation Atalanta to date demonstrates a newfound and viable element at the hands of the European Union for autonomous collective defense—"autonomous" meaning without NATO planning and leadership structures or U.S. military capabilities. The move toward a strong maritime arm of the ESDP goes beyond the crisis-response capabilities outlined in the Helsinki Headline Goal adopted by the European Union in 1999.
The Headline Goal was designed to give the EU "the capacity for autonomous action, backed up by credible military forces" to perform sustained humanitarian, rescue, and peacekeeping missions as well as crisis-management operations—referred to as the Petersburg Tasks—for up to one year. Now, Operation Atalanta has opened the door for even greater mission possibilities.2 Not least of these is the defense of Europe from outside aggressors.
Since the signing of the Washington Treaty in 1949 that brought NATO into existence, the United States has established military bases throughout western and central Europe and built relationships with its allies originally to keep the expansionist designs of the Soviet Union in check. U.S. naval vessels routinely patrolled the waters of the Mediterranean and North Seas and the Greenland, Iceland, United Kingdom Gap, keeping a constant watch on Soviet vessels doing the same.
The underlying if officially unspoken fear was that without American military support, Europe would fall one-by-one to communism. That domino effect was prevented in large part by the economic and military might of the United States that emerged from the end of World War II. The relative security America brought to Europe through its NATO relationships gave European nations enough breathing room to begin rebuilding their infrastructures and military capabilities after the defeat of the Axis powers.
Where's the Enemy?
With the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact—NATO's de facto Cold War opponent—most European countries, particularly NATO member states, were left with an improved military apparatus of their own with no real enemy to fight. The same has been said of the United States and NATO in general, but Europe's increased military capabilities made possible the creation of the ESDP and growing confidence throughout Europe that it could provide for its own defense. From a naval perspective, the defense of Europe now appears to be possible using purely European instruments, freeing U.S. units and by extension NATO from having to expend the efforts required to do a job the EU can do itself.
On the surface, the creation of a capable maritime defense force for Europe should be welcomed by NATO and the United States, if only because the EU can now handle even more missions beyond the scope of the Petersburg Tasks when NATO as a whole chooses not to participate.3 For NATO members who are not also members of the European Union, this burden-sharing with the EU would release them from committing troops and valuable assets to operations they are not politically motivated or legally obligated to support.
This cooperative structure was formalized in agreements between NATO and the EU and adopted by the European Council in December 1999.4 The "Berlin Plus arrangements," officially agreed to in March 2003 as part of a permanent defensive relationship package, went even further in fleshing out NATO-EU defensive cooperation. They guaranteed "EU access to NATO planning, NATO European command options and use of NATO assets and capabilities" during EU-led operations.5
The level and type of NATO assets and capabilities were to be defined for each individual operation. The arrangements, however, do not adequately address the current situation in the waters off Somalia. When both NATO and the EU are conducting identical operations simultaneously under different command structures, the problems of working with a common asset pool become painfully obvious.
Asset Allocation
A finite number of naval vessels is forcing NATO member nations to choose where to deploy those assets. Of the 28 countries in NATO, 21 are also members of the EU, and none has a naval inventory as large as the U.S. Fleet, which can support multiple operations simultaneously around the globe. When, where, and with whom these countries will deploy the available forces they do have is an important, internally debated issue of some consequence.
In the past, a NATO country had to decide whether to send a frigate to support one of the two Standing NATO Maritime Groups or purely national interests/priorities. With the emergence of the EUNAVFOR, the country that is a member of both the EU and NATO must now decide among three options of where to send its ships. It is likely, given the media attention afforded anti-piracy efforts at present, that countries will give priority to the EU and Operation Atalanta over NATO operations.
Why would EUNAVFOR draw more vessels than NATO? The answer to that question is ultimately a political one; however, it highlights a deeper meaning behind the EUNAVFOR and ESDP than merely a collection of ships in the same geographic location.
On 6 April 2009, the European Union and Kenyan government reached an agreement to allow EUNAVOR vessels to deliver detained pirates or suspected pirates to Kenya for prosecution. NATO has yet to establish such an accord, although individual NATO member states do have similar agreements. Because no NATO policy is in place with respect to the disposition of detained pirates, on more than one occasion pirates stopped by NATO units have been released without detention or prosecution.6
While an agreement between NATO and Kenya or some other third-party nation is not impossible to achieve, the fact that the EU currently has a political agreement with Kenya, while NATO does not, demonstrates that the EU is able to operate effectively at the politico-military level. Every news report that points to NATO's inability to capture and transfer pirates for prosecution, followed by pictures of ongoing trials for those detained by EUNAVFOR, weakens NATO's position as the premier multinational watchdog. Conversely, the EU looks that much more capable, and as a result will catch the attention of European politicians who will want their nations' forces to deploy with the rising EUNAVFOR.
EU Trumps NATO
Not mere conjecture, the current force compositions of both EUNAVFOR Somalia and Standing NATO Maritime Group One (SNMG1) give credence to the argument that nations are choosing the European Union over NATO around the Horn of Africa. As of 2 February 2010, EUNAVFOR boasted 11 naval warships and submarines from seven different countries. One of the vessels belongs to Norway, which is a member of NATO but not part of the EU.7 At the same time, SNMG1, conducting Operation Ocean Shield, comprised only four ships.8
Outside of competing for naval units to conduct identical anti-piracy missions, NATO is currently faced with a similar quandary in the Mediterranean, where the same problem exists in the air as well as on the water. Maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft (MPRA) are vital to any successful modern maritime operation. With these same aircraft being deployed for Operation Enduring Freedom in southwest Asia and Operation Active Endeavor, NATO's effort to combat maritime terrorism in the Mediterranean, nations do not have enough MPRA to go around. Here, political commitments glaringly overlap military asset constraints and highlight the distinct division between NATO and the EU.
A country that decides the safe transit of international commerce through the Gulf of Aden is a greater national concern than the remote threat of maritime-related terrorism will decide to deploy its MPRA as part of Operation Atalanta rather than contributing to Active Endeavor. The result is a subtle yet definitive vote for the importance of the EU mission over NATO's first and only Article 5 operation, wherein an attack on one member of the organization is considered an attack on the entire alliance. Perhaps minor, the point is well made and indicates a precedent that could very likely be repeated in future scenarios.
Allegiances and Political Will
Operation Atalanta will continue to receive willing support in terms of contributed vessels, aircraft, and personnel from the member states of the European Union. Everyone wants to help in the ongoing fight against Somali pirates. Where this affects NATO is again the limited number of assets to go around. For most, in particular the UN or Lloyd's of London, it does not matter whether the warship conducting escorts through the Gulf of Aden and around the Horn of Africa is working for the EU or for NATO, as long as commercial shipping makes it through without incident. It should matter to the United States.
As discussed previously, the Berlin Plus arrangements stipulate that defined NATO capabilities and assets will be available for EU-led operations. However, there are also provisions in the arrangements for recalling those capabilities and assets should NATO deem that necessary.9 This, in effect, subjugates the EU to NATO during simultaneous operations. Therefore, an EU-led operation would, at the very least, have to make do with the assets not needed by NATO at the moment.
Based on the intentions of the Berlin Plus arrangements, the possibility of NATO taking over command and control of the EU operation to circumvent any conflict in available assets is not probable. NATO would have likely turned down the mission previously because it was not in the interests of the alliance as a whole (further evidence of the officially recognized difference in EU and NATO political goals and their differing member nations).
This Is a Test
The preceding argument becomes problematic, however, when a situation arises such as the concurrent operations of the EU and NATO in the Gulf of Aden. The political will of NATO and the United States to exercise the recall option is severely tested in this case, and the practical application of the core tenets of the Berlin Plus arrangements are called into question. Perhaps an operation as relatively benign as countering piracy off of Somalia is not the right venue to push the issue, but the opportunity for setting a precedent is clearly there.
By not addressing the problems with the arrangements now, NATO and the United States may find themselves in a similar situation of asset non-availability in the future, when a specific nation or international body such as the UN requests or mandates European Union military assistance by name where NATO was once the organization of choice. Should NATO feel strongly about leading the efforts requested, it may find itself unable to pressure a militarily capable and willing EU to decline the request in favor of NATO authority.
If that pressure was not applied, the United States would lose an opportunity to contribute to the international operation with the support of its allies, potentially damaging its influence in the region or country in question. Or it would be forced to admit that NATO was not a viable necessity by choosing to work bilaterally with the EU, possibly distancing itself from other allies such as Turkey, which is not a dual EU/NATO member.
A more remote but entirely possible situation that could affect both the European Union and NATO involves the acceptance and approval process for committing forces to military operations. As laid out in Helsinki, the EU is able to take on any mission that NATO, having first considered military responses, chooses not to accept.10 Approval of any NATO operation must be reached by consensus; that is, all nations must consent either by positive affirmation or by silence. Should even one nation "break silence" on a proposal, the issue is revisited and resubmitted for approval, or rejected outright.
Where this may lead to international political backstabbing is if one ally refuses to accept NATO's participation in an operation because it would prefer the operation to be under the ESDP. By essentially blocking NATO's involvement through bureaucratic maneuvering, that nation will have made a definite and very apparent move away from NATO, giving a clear indication that it has shifted its political allegiance to the EU.
A Sign of Things to Come?
The emergence of the European Union Naval Force is not a cause for fear among U.S. politicians and military leaders. In some cases, such as demonstrating the maturing capabilities of the ESDP to share the burden of defending Europe and European interests from external threats, Operation Atalanta should be a welcome development. However, that optimism must be tempered by the reality of a change in NATO operational capabilities when the EU/ESDP has activated its forces, which by-and-large come from the same pool of European assets NATO counts on to conduct military operations.
The overt yet subtle demonstrations of where political allegiances lie for many European countries, brought to light by Operation Atalanta, has to be addressed at the political level. If these signs are ignored, the United States stands to lose, or at the very least weaken, vitally important relationships on the European continent, both within the EU and without.
Atalanta is not an oracle foretelling bad things to come between the European Union, the United States, and NATO. It is, however, an important litmus test for a possible shift in the geopolitical landscape of Europe and America's involvement in it. As Operation Atalanta continues, and if the EUNAVFOR proves to be a successful and capable element of the European defense structure, U.S. leaders must take notice and carefully examine the very real politico-military impacts of an autonomous, self-sure ESDP. America cannot afford to ignore this new development.
1. ICC International Maritime Bureau, Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships: Annual Report, 1 January-31 December 2008, London, United Kingdom, January 2009, 22; ICC Commercial Crime Services, "2009 Worldwide Piracy Figures Surpass 400," International Chamber of Commerce, 14 January 2010, http://www.icc-ccs.org (accessed 2 February 2010); International Maritime Bureau, "IMB Live Piracy Map 2010," International Chamber of Commerce, http://www.icc-ccs.org (accessed 2 February 2010); Presentation by a senior member of the shipping industry at the European Conference on Maritime Policy, London, 27 April 2009 (conference held under "Chatham House Rules" and speaker attribution not given). Amiguity of ransom paid comes from the lack of transparency by ship owners and insurance companies.
2. Foreign and Commonwealth Office, "Joint Declaration Issued at the British-French Summit, Saint-Malo, France, 3-4 December 1998," Foreign and Commonwealth Office, http://www.fco.gov.uk/resources/en/news/2002/02/joint-declaration-on-eu-new01795# (accessed 29 May 2009]; Colin Robinson, "The European Union's 'Headline Goal'—Current Status," Center for Defense Information Military Reform Project, http://cdi.org/mrp/eu-pr.cfm (accessed 28 May 2009).
3. Council of the European Union, "Presidency Conclusions, Helsinki European Council 10 and 11 December 1999," Section 2, para. 27, Council of the European Union, http://www.consilium.europa.eu/eudocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/ec/ACFA4C.htm (accessed 19 May 2009).
4. Ibid.
5. Council of the European Union, "EU-NATO: The Framework for Permanent Relations and Berlin Plus," Council of the European Union, background press note, http://www.consilium.eu.int/uedocs/ (accessed 19 May 2009).
6. Associated Press, "Dutch Navy Blasted for 'Idiotic' Pirate Release After Storming Ship," FOX News, 21 April 2009, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,517311,00.html (accessed 19 May 2009).
7. European Union Naval Force, "Current Total Strength of EU-NAVFOR Atalanta," Council of the European Union, http://ue.eu.int/uedocs/cmsUpload/naviresOCTOBRE.pdf (accessed 2 February 2010).
8. North Atlantic Treaty Organization, "NATO Ship Prevents Pirate Attack in Gulf of Aden, NATO, http://www.nato.int/cps/en/SID-065FD82E-C0755DDA/natolive/news_61119.htm? (accessed 2 February 2010).
9. North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO Handbook, (Brussels: NATO Public Policy Division, 2006), p. 249.
10. Council of the European Union, "Presidency Conclusions, Helsinki European Council 10 and 11 December 1999," Section 2, para. 27, Council of the European Union, http://www.consilium.europa.eu/eudocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/ec/ACFA4C.htm (accessed 19 May 2009).