Stung by Europe's seeming ineffectiveness in dealing with the Balkans crises the British championed a military capability for the European Union. The resultant plan for a rapid reaction force must be handled carefully if it is not to drive a wedge between the United States and Europe.
While Americans were preoccupied with the hung election in Florida, they could have been forgiven for missing another issue generating heated argument on the other side of the Atlantic—the European Rapid Reaction Force. In the run up to the European Union (EU) summit in December 2000 in Nice, a significant element of the British press and the opposition Conservative Party raised fears that this force would threaten the cohesiveness of NATO. While this reflected a degree of hyperbole, over the subsequent months, there has developed an almost self-fulfilling problem, which appears to be increasing in complexity. If not handled carefully by both sides, it has the potential to drive a wedge between the United States and its European allies.
The NATO Madrid Declaration of July 1997 envisaged that the Western European Union (WEU) would undertake lower-level peace-support operations, known as Petersberg tasks, which the Americans would support but not wish to join, and that NATO would conduct the higher-level missions. For more than a year, there was little contention, and the plans for Europeans to develop a capability to undertake such action through the WEU within NATO progressed sedately. At the end of 1998, however, the British, stung by Europe's seeming ineffectiveness in dealing with the various Balkan crises, altered their hitherto sacrosanct view that the EU should not have a military dimension, proposing that "a more effective European military capability" was required to support the union's common foreign and security policy. The subsequent Anglo-French St. Malo Agreement of December 1998 endorsed the "progressive framing of a common [EU] defence policy." While placing a premium on NATO, it alluded to independent action by the EU in approving military action and the need for the EU to have recourse to suitable military means.
This caused unease in some circles in Washington, in spite of the regular cry for Europeans to provide a greater contribution to their own defense. In essence, many Americans wanted Europe to do more, but only under a U.S.-led agenda. After initial hesitation, the Clinton administration supported the initiative and the new philosophy was written into the text of the revised NATO Strategic Concept. Announced at its 50th Anniversary Summit in Washington in April 1999, it states, "The European Union has taken important decisions and given a further impetus to its efforts to strengthen its security and defence dimension" (para. 17). Great premium was placed on the development of the European Security and Defence Identity within the alliance. At its subsequent June 1999 summit in Cologne, the EU assessed steps for the assimilation of the appropriate bodies of the WEU and its relationship with NATO, which hitherto had been nonexistent.
In the autumn of 1999, Javier Solana, formerly NATO secretary-general, was appointed the European Union's high representative for common foreign and security policy—at last, the man, in Henry Kissinger's famous phrase, to be telephoned when the United States wants to talk to Europe. Meanwhile, the Helsinki European Council meeting of December 1999 decided on a number of very significant political and military steps to introduce crisis management mechanisms for the EU. Most important was its declaration that member states must be able by 2003 to deploy within 60 days (hardly a rapid reaction force) and sustain for at least a year military forces of up to 50,000-60,000 persons, capable of the full range of Petersberg tasks. By the following November, EU members had drawn up a catalogue of military assets for future operations amounting to 100,000 troops, 400 combat aircraft, and 100 warships.
The reality behind all this political maneuvering has been clear for some time, and as technology advances, the discrepancy between the capabilities of European and U.S. forces is magnified. With a combined budget of about 60% of that of the United States, Europeans provide about a third of the forces of the alliance.3 In addition, the capability of these forces leaves a significant amount to be desired, and the conflict against Serbia highlighted the limitations of the European element of NATO, particularly among the air forces. One heard about air raids conducted by NATO forces, but in reality about threequarters of the attacking aircraft were U.S., and an even greater percentage of the "smart" attacks were carried out by the United States, because most European states do not possess such weapons. Under the severe limitations placed on attack profiles, this discrepancy was even more critical than normal.
This leads to a separate but related issue, which is the extent to which measures can and must be taken to ensure that Europeans keep up with U.S. technological advances. At the same time that Europe is improving its force structures, therefore, both sides of the Atlantic must consider technological development. The Americans must ensure they do not get so far ahead, and the Europeans that they do not get so far behind, that the two are not able to operate together. This would be greatly to the detriment of NATO and even to U.S. policy, depending as it often does on political legitimacy conferred by allied cooperation.
It has been calculated that a realistic goal for Europe would be a contribution of 10-15% of the total allied force posture, yielding a commitment comparable in size to the U.S. forces earmarked for a major Persian Gulf requirement. Adjusting the priorities of the respective national programs and, where relevant, reducing large force structures that still are geared mainly to border defense should rectify most of the shortcomings in European power-projection capabilities, especially in long-range transport and mobile logistic support, without necessarily increasing defense spending. Nevertheless, with ten years of peace dividend accrued, now is the time to assess whether cuts have gone too far, particularly in the light of shortcomings in both capability and numbers evident in the campaign over Kosovo. Having argued forcefully, admittedly from a position of strength as the most militarily effective European nation, for increased European capability, the United Kingdom eventually put some money where its mouth is with a marginal increase in spending, but not before Spain had increased its budget, and the United States took action more than a year earlier and more substantially. Subsequently, 11 other NATO countries have promised similar action, but whether it will materialize remains to be seen.
Franqois Heisbourg, highly influential in Paris and one-time director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, considers that "current European defence-spending priorities make it impossible to reach the headline target mandated by the European Council at Helsinki, that is to say, fulfilling the whole range of Petersberg tasks, including the most demanding" (his italics). He thinks the principal problem is one of misallocated resources, and he feels only the United Kingdom comes close to U.S. levels and ratios of defense expenditure.
There was a genuine attempt by both France and Britain to cast aside the suspicions generated over many years and combine, as Europe's two most capable defense forces with a broader vision on global issues, to give a strong lead to Europe, but recently this rapport has been strained. For the British, the problem will be to balance this new-found dialogue with its long-established understanding with the United States, without raising French suspicions that beneath it all beats the old Atlanticist heart that has always caused them concern, or, alternatively, causing the Americans to believe they have "gone soft" on Europe. The French, once the turmoil over command of NATO's Southern Region subsided, had developed a good working relationship with the Americans, but they have made a shaky start with the new Bush administration, not least because of contentious remarks by President Jacques Chirac, both before and after the Nice Summit. One had the impression that the French, having signed up to the NATO Strategic Concept, were having second thoughts.
Washington began to show concern again, and the outgoing administration in the person of Defense Secretary William Cohen warned that, if Europe erected a competing military structure, NATO could become "a relic of the past." By March 2001, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was warning his British counterpart Geoff Hoon that the Rapid Reaction Force could "inject instability" and put at risk "something that is very special." Prime Minister Tony Blair had sought to reassure President George Bush at Camp David in February 2001 that the force would, as the latter put it at the subsequent joint press conference, "in no way undermine NATO." However, the ground was rapidly cut from beneath his feet by French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine, who insisted that, although complementary to NATO, the force would be autonomous and that some operations would be planned without NATO involvement.
At the same time, the Turks, feeling, not without some justification, that they had been treated badly by the European Union, threatened to veto the procedure by which NATO assets can, if necessary, be allocated to the EU. Before the agreements of 1998-99, Turkey, as an associate member of the WEU, was fully involved in the planning and decision-making processes, but under the new format the procedure for involving non-EU NATO members, although promised, has yet to be decided, and the Turks felt they had a lever to obtain more favorable consideration by the EU. However, at the EU summit last December, under pressure from London and Washington, and having received reassurances that European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) would not be used in disputes between NATO allies, the Turks withdrew their objections—only for the Greeks to block the agreement, fearing that too much had been conceded. Plus ca change...
To compound the problem, in April the EU ignored the Italian "anointed candidate" and selected by a single-vote margin a Finn as chairman of the EU Military Committee. Apart from the offense to Italian amour propre it seems a contentious decision to select a member of a neutral and non-NATO country at such a sensitive time. What is more, the gentleman concerned, General Gustav Hagglund, instead of trying to reassure the United States, immediately fueled the fires of controversy, saying, "We are not talking about a subsidiary of NATO. This is an independent body. We are talking about co-operation with NATO." This might have been an unbriefed burst of euphoria, because since then he has played a perfect diplomatic hand.
Meanwhile, the process moved on to a Capability Improvement Conference in Brussels in November to assess progress made in meeting the Helsinki "Headline Goals." In essence, the EU had fulfilled about two-thirds of the 144 capability requirements identified, but with 20 of those unresolved considered as "serious." One key issue is the failure to sign, by the end of 2001, the agreement to go ahead with the A400M military strategic lift aircraft—an important project for ESDP—because of problems with the German and Italian budgets. The subsequent EU summit at Laeken in Belgium was able to do little more than describe progress to date, and was unable to deliver the crucial NATO-EU agreement on asset sharing, largely because of the Turkish-Greek impasse.
So, the problems are not inconsiderable, and things probably will get worse before they get better, but eventually both sides of the Atlantic, perhaps pressured by a crisis, will have to find a working modus vivendi. Pushed by influential commentators, such as Frangois Heisbourg, the French could well eventually take a more pragmatic approach.
The crunch factor is that after all this talk, after all the treaties, the European Security and Defence Policy now needs substance if it is to be effective. An American academic provides the perfect summing up on the capability issue: "The way out [of the basic misalignment between the American and European positions] is quite straightforward. The U.S. should enthusiastically and unequivocally support Europe's defense efforts. It will then be up to Europe to produce the promised defense capability. If and when such capability is available, Washington should accord Europe a voice commensurate with its new station. Capabilities buy and justify influence. . . . The central issue at hand is capability."
As for the political dimension, if there is to be progress, the U.K.-U.S. special relationship—however that is defined and markedly enhanced as it has been for a while, at least, after the outrages of 11 September—will be an issue and a matter of significance. Although it exists in certain military and intelligence spheres and the United States has hitherto felt much more able to trust the United Kingdom with various sorts of highly sensitive information, the time has arrived for the United States to be more forthcoming with its other allies and perhaps to be less sensitive about Europe's attempts to develop a defense identity. It also is incumbent on Europe not to destabilize NATO, for without it and its essential structures and procedures, no EU defense architecture could function. Perhaps there is a role here for the United Kingdom, acting as an honest broker, to bring understanding on both sides and harmonize the process, but at the risk of falling between two stools, which is Mr. Blair's fear. That all depends, however, on the fundamental issue of Europe's taking substantive action to improve capability, and of that, as yet, there is little sign.
Captain Wilson, lately a senior research fellow at the European Union Institute for Security Studies in Paris, is an independent strategic analyst. Previously a career Royal Navy officer, he commanded a ship and was for five years head of Defence Studies, the Royal Navy’s link with defense academia.