House of Commons - Defence - Written Evidence

Select Committee on Defence Written Evidence

Memorandum from Mark Phillips

1. SOME CONCLUSIONS FROM DEPLOYED/ONGOING OPERATIONS

1.1 NATO's role in Afghanistan is significant. Failure risks the reputation of both the US and Europe given the commitments made, and will therefore not only damage the idea of NATO as a strategic stabiliser but also that of the EU.

1.2 Force generation and operational effectiveness

NATO's experience in Afghanistan illustrates the likely future challenges any coalition or alliance will face in accepting new operational commitments:

1.2.1 The effectiveness of alliance/coalition force generation and military operations depend upon a high level of political cohesion among nations which assumes:

(i) a shared view of desired campaign objectives;

(ii) a common acceptance of risk;

(iii) shared rules of engagement.

1.2.2 The increasingly non-linear operational theatre will require military actions that frequently lie outside existing treaties and their associated and agreed obligations. Operations will thus tend to be characterised by a lack of clarity and unanimity in defining strategic goals, making it difficult to establish shared interests between members of any coalition or alliance. [7]By way of initial conclusion, NATO's experience in Afghanistan clearly demonstrates the dangers for any coalition or alliance of accepting new operational commitments without these preconditions properly in place and the likely impact on lead nations. [8]

1.2.3 An immediate concern for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is that systems need to be developed and put in place for determining rules of engagement that are sufficiently flexible and responsive, given that expeditionary operations will often require new, uncertain and rapidly changing rules of engagement. [9]More generally, if both NATO and the EU (assuming the EU develops a greater independent security role/capacity—see point [4] below) are unable to foster political cohesion as a pre-requisite for this, the potential for future ineffectual coalition deployments under their auspices is significant. [10]

1.2.4 What seems increasingly likely is that future coalitions will always be ad hoc "coalitions of the willing". An implication of this is that the character of any coalition will change from operation to operation. Moreover, it is also highly likely that the character of any coalition will also change within a given operation over time. [11]The risk of this approach is two-fold: that working practices will be developed during the crisis (an approach not fully adequate to achieving successful outcomes—standard operating procedures should ideally be established in advance of a crisis); [12]and that those contributing nations who are not members of organisations such as NATO and the EU will pose challenges of interoperability in and for multinational operations, even if their military strategic concepts and political visions are similar to those of other (lead) nations.

1.2.5 A future role that NATO and the EU will have in these circumstances will be to use their institutional structures to address (a) interoperability and (b) capability requirements amongst a larger number of states to develop a large pool of potential coalition partners for all phases of an operation. This necessitates an examination of the expansion and transformation processes of NATO and the EU. The latter is addressed briefly immediately below.

1.3 Transformation

1.3.1 Ongoing participation in operations can be actively detrimental to nations' chances of meeting transformation targets.

1.3.2 Adjustments in both NATO Allied Command Transformation and the transformation concept are underway to reflect lessons learned in Afghanistan and Iraq, but need to be hastened.

1.3.3 At present, NATO transformation and ESDP are working in opposite ends and opposing each other. They need to be complementary: it is recognised that it is not practicable for NATO to be the "sole engine of interoperability" or, indeed, to be the sole driver of transformation. [13]This is particularly so because NATO transformation to date has focused specifically (like national US counterpart programmes) on developing rapidly deployable forces and networked, high technology weapons and command and control systems. Experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, however, has driven home the fact that "transformation at the sharp end", although necessary, is not sufficient to address current challenges to international security: transformational thinking in future peace support, reconstruction and counter-insurgency capabilities will be as valued. [14]

1.3.4 Herein lies a probable role for the EU. This not least because technological advances have provided opportunities for the development of strategic and operational concepts that are not available to many partners of the US, but in any event also seem unwelcome to them: in all likelihood, it seems that the majority of EU member states would prefer to become the focus of less technologically dependent strategic concepts. [15]It would nevertheless be wise, however, for NATO to be the repository for all standards to ensure a coherent approach from trans-Atlantic countries in all phases of expeditionary operations, and to avoid duplication in "role specialisation". This will require further thought on cross-institutional working arrangements. This has the potential to create a "pick and choose" system or pool of nations for future expeditionary operations.

2. COMPREHENSIVE POLITICAL GUIDANCE

2.1 NATO's Strategic Concept is being progressively replaced by the national caveat. This is driven by a range of factors including the risks a state is willing to take with its armed forces, the robustness of political leadership and public opinion, and the level of capability and capacity of the deployed force.

3. US INVOLVEMENT IN NATO AND WITH THE EU

3.1 The US is currently quite disengaged from the day-to-day life of NATO. In the near future it is likely to look to the UK, however, to help restore its role within the alliance.

3.2 The US will likely assume that the EU should take the lead in addressing its near-abroad and Africa. Britain should therefore make ongoing efforts, alongside the French and inter alia through the EU and NATO, to rehabilitate the armed forces of other Europeans for the purposes of stabilisation missions.

4. EUROPEAN DEFENCE

4.1 There is a gap (¹/₃ of the declared size or less) between declared ESDP capabilities and what is available given a lack of understanding of readiness profiles. This will likely also be an issue of concern for NATO given shared membership.

4.2 The second version (2006) of the Strategic Trends project of the MoD's Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre (DCDC) notes that "depending on the success of ESDP, the extent of US unilateralism and the nature of future threats, the EU could develop collective defence and intervention capabilities by 2030".

4.3 The division of labour and forms of cooperation between NATO and the EU are still being decided upon on an ad hoc basis. Moreover, there is a mismatch between NATO and EU decision making procedures.

4.4 There is a risk that NATO and the EU will both have similar political and security competencies in light of the EU's increasing common foreign, security and defence policies. ESDP should be complementary to NATO, and therefore particularly focus on the development of civil-military operational capabilities that do not yet fall within NATO's remit. This will go some way towards delineating the roles of the two organisations by utilising proven NATO-EU arrangements, and help to prevent tension and competition for resources between them in the future.

4.5 The ability for autonomous EU planning in military missions where NATO involvement is unlikely is to be welcomed, but much greater attention needs to be given to issues of force generation/sharing in this area.

12 March 2007