Memorandum from Michael Codner
EVOLVING PURPOSE AND ROLES OF NATO AND THE
EUROPEAN UNION BY MICHAEL CODNER, DIRECTOR OF MILITARY SCIENCES,
ROYAL UNITED SERVICES INSTITUTE FOR DEFENCE AND SECURITY STUDIES
THE EVOLVING
PURPOSE OF
NATO
Since the end of the Cold War NATO has moved
incrementally towards the necessary consensus for the development
of the competence for intervention outside the Washington Treaty
Article VI area and for operations other than the direct defence
of the territory of member nations under Article V of the Treaty.
Interventions in the former Yugoslavia were technically outside
the Article VI area but directly related to the security of Europe.
NATO's resolve was very much tested in the Kosovo operation but
a positive outcome, for whatever reasons history will conclude,
reinforced NATO'S expeditionary role. However the ISAF operation
in Afghanistan has been the first significant test of its will
and capacity for intervention at distance and for reasons indirectly
related to European security[139].
The shift in emphasis from territorial defence
to intervention at distance has important implications for NATO's
force planning. The force structure conceived for intervention
includes the Allied Command Europe (ACE) Rapid Reaction Corps
(ARRC) which was deployed operationally in Afghanistan. More recent
development of the NATO Response Force (NRF) concept is directly
related to capacity for intervention. The capability requirements
including strategic lift and other logistic considerations are
directly related to the scenarios defined by NATO's military commands
and endorsed by member nations.
There are a number of factors which affect NATO's
ability to encourage member nations to develop their individual
military capabilities to contribute to effective intervention
capacity with the reach of Afghanistan and other conceivable emergencies
world wide. There is the continued importance of territorial defence
for East European nations in particular coupled with re-emerging
problems with Russia. Any perceptions of failure in Afghanistan
will make nations reluctant to commit to elective operations at
range. US initiatives on European missile defence appeal to European
concerns about homeland defence even though theatre missile defence
could be an important enabler for interventions in the future.
On the other hand a more positive attitude by France to NATO could
allow for a strengthening of NATO's Strategic Concept and a more
robust force planning process.
NATO's Strategic Concept and Force Planning Process
During the Cold War NATO's Strategic Concept
of forward defence and flexible response was a powerful influence
in individual nations' force planning. The NATO force planning
process included an interrogation of individual nations as to
their contributions to the capabilities identified as the minimum
necessary by the Strategic Commanders. It supported individual
ministries of defence in their internal arguments for funding
and sustained defence budgets. In the present situation, without
any obvious imminent threat of invasion, there is evidence that
NATO's requirements do not have significant influence over the
defence spending and capability choices of member medium powers.
However NATO's common acquisition programmes
and processes do provide some opportunities for defence manufacturers
beyond conceptual and assessment studies and NATO does provide
justification for smaller nations' niche capabilities and for
new members to improve their force capabilities to NATO standards.
In the longer term, as unit system costs are
likely to rise more rapidly than defence budgets, the members
with larger military capability are likely to see more value in
a more integrated approach to acquisition. NATO could indeed be
more useful in this timeframe in this respect. Of course in the
NATO context US military capability dominates. The argument in
favour of significant European and Canadian medium power capability
is strongest in scenarios in which the US is not participating
and these are not the bedrock for current NATO force planning.
NATO is unlikely in the short to medium term
to be a dominant factor in the force development of major and
medium powers. In the longer term however NATO and the EU between
them could be increasingly important in achieving greater efficiency
in European defence spending. Greater coherence between NATO and
the EU is likely in the longer term and would also enhance efficient
acquisition.
Continued Importance of Territorial Defence v
Expeditionary Competence
Concerns about territorial defence and, in particular,
about Russia, are a significant motivator for East European nations
to join NATO and specifically to benefit from the Article V protection
and extended deterrence provided by the US. Extended nuclear deterrence
is but one aspect. The trans-Atlantic focus of these nations has
been a reason for the willingness of some to support the US in
Iraq and Afghanistan.
European nations may be disinclined to acquire
capability for expeditionary operations but may focus on enhance
defensive capability. NATO conceptual work should focus on commonalities
of capability between the needs of intervention, territorial defence
and deterrence to ensure flexibility and cost effectiveness.
It will be important for the sustainment and
development of NATO's expeditionary competence for current operations
in Afghanistan to provide evidence in the short to medium term
of NATO's military effectiveness. There is a risk that it will
be assessed as a "bridge too far" by many NATO nations
and this will directly affect their willingness to support and
contribute to expeditionary competence. The reluctance of member
nations to contribute to ISAF[140]
could be reinforced if there are not obvious incremental successes.
Perceived success in interventions will be important
in influencing member nations' expeditionary capacities and their
support for NATO's expeditionary role. There is likely to be stronger
consensus in the future for the "near abroad"—the
fringes of Europe, the Mediterranean, Near East and Maghreb.
If NATO's involvement in Afghanistan were to
be perceived in the longer term by member nations to have been
useful, members would be more likely to commit to an expanded
expeditionary role for NATO. Notwithstanding these uncertainties
Afghanistan will have been particularly useful in developing structures
and process for the Alliance's contribution to a "Comprehensive
Approach" (discussed subsequently).
NATO's expeditionary focus is likely to remain
tentative into the medium term. However the ability of the Alliance
to contribute military capability to an inter-agency approach
should be greatly enhanced by the experience of Afghanistan.
French Support for NATO
Previous French-led arguments in favour of an
independent EU combat capability have attempted to strengthen
the role of the EU as a competitor and therefore the inefficiencies
of two parallel force planning systems that have not been well
integrated. President Sarkozy's recent statement suggesting the
return of France to NATO's Integrated Military Structure could
be hugely significant if the idea is taken forward. It would enable
the full integration of NATO and European Union force planning
processes in the medium to long term and for NATO to factor the
"minus US scenarios", which should be the basis for
EU force planning, into its own specifications of capability requirements
or member nations. In the short term of course President Sarkozy's
needs to manage internal politics in favour of a substantially
more trans-Atlantic approach and it is early days.
There is a good possibility that improved French
attitudes to NATO would allow for more coherence between NATO
and EU force planning, greater efficiency and better use of available
national funds for defence.
Russia
Russia's recent provocative behaviour must reinforce
concerns amongst East European nations about territorial security.
Indeed for NATO generally it resurrects the need for conventional
military deterrent capability. There is no confidence in the intelligence
community that the Russian political system will alter in a way
that is benign from a Western viewpoint in the medium term.
The perceived requirement could be for "inherent"
deterrent[141]
capability for European nations. The US has never abandoned the
requirement to be able to dominate militarily against any potential
opponent. For Europeans the need in the short in the medium to
long term is to sustain and develop military capability not to
defend against a specific aggressor but to deter any potential
opponent from using the military instrument for inducement of
European nations. Clearly some East European new members will
see "direct deterrence" as highly relevant and perhaps
increasingly so. West Europeans are likely to view direct deterrent
policy and rhetoric as unhelpful in engaging Russia politically
and economically. NATO as a whole is likely to use Russian capability
as a benchmark of sorts for European members to sustain and develop
aspects of common capability that relate to any future needs for
containment and deterrence.
NATO is likely to agree a new Strategic Concept
at some stage after the Bucharest Summit. A more robust Concept
than hitherto since the end of the Cold War with more emphasis
on the need for enduring conventional deterrence (with Russia
as a benchmark) and expeditionary capability would be useful in
galvanizing trans-Atlantic force planning certainly into the medium
term. This is a matter which governments would do well to emphasise.
European Missile Defence
One important area in which NATO could have
an emergent purpose beyond conceptual work would be in the development
of missile defence capability on a US led multilateral basis.
If Iran were to acquire nuclear weapon capability, this could
be the catalyst for NATO.
If a clear threat emerges in the short or medium
terms, investment in missile defence by NATO and member nations
could move rapidly beyond assessment and development on a wider
scale than current projects. Significant investment is likely
to be beyond the short term but could be urgent when initiated.
NATO is the obvious vehicle for taking forward US aspirations
and Europe's needs coherently. The support of France under Sarkozy
will be crucial to a comprehensive programme. In the longer term,
as missile ranges of emergent threats increase, solutions which
address both home and theatre missile defence needs are likely
to command the greatest appeal to the largest number of members
particularly where there is obvious cost benefit in enabling and
enhancing US capability in what would otherwise be an unaffordable
programme.
NATO's Purpose in the Longer Term
There are some broad possibilities for the evolution
of NATO's purpose.
Political Alliance It could cease to have much relevance
as a military alliance and would be essentially a political alliance
preserving the trans-Atlantic relationship perhaps with a new
understanding between the US and EU which would allow acceptance
that the EU would be the agent for European integrated command
and control and the development of coherent capability.
NATO/EU integration Paradoxically a more coherent
relationship with the European Union could strengthen both organizations
militarily through the efficiencies of an integrated command structure
and force planning processes. The EU could supply the diplomatic
and economic instruments of power to military operations where
these are conducted by NATO.
Global Interventionist NATO At the other extreme
success in short and medium term interventions could provide NATO
with the role of the de facto provider of military capability
and command and control to the United Nations (UN) with possibly
a membership that extended beyond Europe and North America, or,
more likely, that there will be formal relationships with other
regional multinational organizations and nations.
Repository of interoperability standards In
any event NATO is likely to retain the important but low profile
role of repository of standards for interoperability for North
American, European and other nations.
The most likely range of possibilities for NATO
will lie between the first and second above with NATO's intervention
capability focused predominantly on the near abroad and regions
of direct relevance to European interests. If there is not more
coherence between NATO and the EU, the EU is likely to be more
influential in shaping the military capabilities and force structures
of European nations in the longer term if only because it is "US
minus" scenarios which have the greatest significance for
European military capabilities except in a necessarily trans-Atlantic
capability area such as missile defence.
EVOLVING MILITARY
ROLES OF
THE EUROPEAN
UNION
The 1998 St Malo Accord between France and the
UK raised for the first time the possibility of a capability rather
than institution based approach to ensuring the greater military
effectiveness of the EU. Progress had hitherto been stalled by
the perception that the EU and NATO were alternatives to European
defence capacities. The former alternative had the sponsorship
of France. The latter was supported by the UK conscious of the
importance of US engagement in European security. Progress after
St Malo was stalled as a result of disagreements over the Iraq
War. Change of political leadership in the UK, France and Germany
and the prospect of the presidential election in the US have allowed
for a renewal of European initiatives perhaps taken forward in
concert with a new US Administration which may see Europe's Common
Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) positively as a way of sustaining
European military capability and military commitment to global
security against declining defence budgets. However internal political
priorities have prevented the leadership of any of these nations
to announce major initiatives. President Sarkozy's pro-US statement
and reference to France rejoining NATO's IMS is potentially very
significant.
In any event progress in the EU to a more integrated
approach to security and defence is likely to continue to be slow
with no substantial change in the short term. There has been some
real but incremental progress in bringing together the EU Council's
responsibilities for defence and foreign policy and the European
Commission's (EC) function in controlling the economic instrument
towards a more integrated approach to EU interventions. The EU's
potential is huge in this respect in having considerable funds
for international development on the one hand and access in total
to substantial military capability. However there are huge cultural
barriers particularly within the EC. There is also a dominant
focus on institutions and process rather than on outcomes. Internal
concerns within many member nations about a federal Europe and
the symbolism in this respect of greater military integration
(a `European Army') are also impediments to rational change. And
the EC is largely responsible for resistance to close cooperation
with NATO.
Factors associated with the EU's ability to
influence the force development and military capabilities of its
members in the short term include perceptions as to the value
of the military instrument in achieving security, funding priorities,
and the difficulties of achieving internal coherence within the
EU organization.
The Military Instrument
Most European nations had extremely traumatic
experiences in the Second World War and earlier conflicts. The
most powerful motivator in the formation of the parent institutions
of the EU was to create an environment in which war would never
again be an eventuality on the continent. Although the UK was
not actually invaded, it shares a common European view as to the
unpredictable consequences of violence and the limits to the usefulness
of the military instrument in initiating and developing security
policy beyond territorial defence and the direct protection of
vital national interests. The view that the global security environment
can be managed by the effective use of the military force has
little support in particularly in Western and Northern Europe.
Recent interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq
have reinforced the common European view that problems cannot
be solved by the use of the military which is an instrument to
be used to contribute to conditions in which other non-military
activities can work towards better security. The threat of terrorism
to internal security and its perceived relationship to external
interventions also reinforces a reluctance to commit forces to
intervention.
This common perception is unlikely to change,
rather to strengthen, in the short term. Member nations of the
EU will not become more militaristic.
National Defence Budgets
In relation to other nations in the world European
nations, relatively prosperous as most are, are in the upper echelons
of the global league. The total EU defence budget and military
capability is very considerable. One problem is inefficient use
of the money available across the EU when viewed and inability
to exploit advantages of scale. Also individual European national
defence budgets are proportionally far lower a proportion of national
GDP than the US and the trend is downwards. One or two nations
who still perceive external threats have somewhat higher budgets
but they are the exception. Indeed new members of the EU are likely
to see their membership of the EU and NATO in part as means of
reducing defence budgets by virtue of common security and defence.
The UK and France, the principal expeditionary European powers
have defence policies born of their histories, interests and responsibilities
that support somewhat larger defence budgets but these still fall
short of the US.
In the short term European defence budgets are
very unlikely to rise as a proportion of GDP and will probably
continue to decline somewhat in particular in relation to the
problem of rising unit costs of military systems. This decline
is related to a European view that existing defence spending levels
are reasonable in the absence of direct military threats.
Another factor discussed earlier is the view
that the military instrument is not the only—nor necessarily
the most effective—agent of security and that diplomatic
and economic instruments, particularly international development,
play to Europe's strengths and the wishes of electorates. There
may be very modest progress in using defence funding more efficiently
through greater cooperation.
Coherent Security and Defence Policy
Real progress in the evolution of coherent and
efficient development of military capability by integrated force
planning is to a large extent dependent on the development of
robust common security policy which can spawn a similarly robust
common defence policy and military strategy. Such a process similar
to that developed by NATO in the Cold War would allow common military
concepts and common capability development. This process would
not necessarily relate to greater federalization. It did not for
NATO during the Cold War. But nations would be able to specialize
in the capabilities that they developed at the strategic, operational
and tactical levels depending on the size of the nation. Small
nations would be able to develop niche capabilities comprehensively.
Evolution along these lines would be dependent on individual nations
sharing the large majority of their security objectives. In the
absence of this commonality larger nations will resist creating
dependencies on other nations whose contribution to operations
cannot be guaranteed.
In the short term there is not the necessary
commonality of national objectives. Nor is there clear evidence
of trends in this direction. However smaller nations are more
dependent on the EU and NATO to give purpose to their military
forces and are more likely to develop niche capabilities and role-specialize
in spite of this lack of common security objectives among nations.
There is of course some regional commonality within Europe which
allows for bi- and multi-national rationalizations (Baltic Republics
are an example) and these initiatives are likely to be more promising.
Common Acquisition Structures and Processes
There have been a number of EU initiatives to
develop the efficiencies of common procurement. The establishment
of OCCAR and the European Defence Agency are the most prominent.
The usefulness of EU procurement agencies will
remain modest and incremental in the short term because a robust
overarching strategic policy framework does not exist. The value
of multinational European procurements tends to be in harmonizing
requirements to achieve advantages of scale when individual nations'
needs coincide in requirement and timescale. Because all European
nations possess and develop land forces and because there are
a large number of land requirements that have lower costs, and
shorter procurement times and life expectancies than ships and
aircraft, the land sector could benefit proportionally from existing
common acquisition structures.
Inter-Agency Coherence and the "Comprehensive
Approach"
There are big institutional and cultural impediments
internally between the EC and Council as well as in achieving
coherence with NATO, the UN and other entities such as the International
Committee of the Red Cross/Red Crescent (ICRC). However, if it
could resolve there civil-military issues, the EU would be ideally
placed to direct and control all the classic instruments of power
(diplomatic, economic and military) for effective intervention
to address security crises.
Military Aspects of the EU in the Longer Term
Long term trends would indicate a greater integration
of European defence capability in the medium to long terms born
of greater commonality of security objectives in the face of globalization
and the rise of Asian power. Another factor for the larger European
Slow progress is being made internally in the short term. Better
integration reinforces the value of the military contribution
to interventions and indirectly supports individual nations' defence
spending but principally in the constabulary and benign capabilities
of military land forces, their communications, information systems
and networking.
Military powers is rising unit costs and the
fact that balanced military capability for autonomous operations
will be increasingly unaffordable. This factor itself is likely
to force a reinforced St Malo type of approach emphasizing capability
over institutions and process.
In the longer term the EU is likely to be an
increasingly significant factor in defining member nations' military
capabilities and indeed those of non-member European cohorts.
Greater integration and the strategic role specialization of member
nations will be very slow in coming. However rising unit system
costs against defence budgets make the aspirations of medium powers
for autonomous balanced military capability increasingly unaffordable
and unrealistic. 2025 has been identified[142]
as the timescale for real change but this may be optimistic.
Nuclear Deterrence The costs for the UK and
France of maintaining independent nuclear deterrent capability
could force closer cooperation particularly if the EU is in other
respects becoming more integrated in security and defence. It
is most unlikely within the long term period of this study that
the nuclear deterrent would become an EU owned capability. It
is more likely that the UK and France would make savings on deployability
by a more integrated approach reducing the requirement to maintain
numbers of warheads, systems and platforms individually.
Director of Military Sciences
RUSI
10 January 2007
http://www.dcdc-strategictrends.org.uk/viewdoc.aspx?doc=1
139 Although some might argue that the initial US
led operation following the 911 attacks was in the direct defence
of the US, a NATO member, and was in accord with NATO's invocation
of Article V following 911. Back
140
International Security Assistance Force Back
141
"Inherent" deterrence is deterrence that is not in
published policy or rhetoric directed against any particular nation.
"Directed" deterrence is deterrence against a particular
threat. A directed deterrence policy would typically be reinforced
by rhetoric directed at the particular nation or coalition that
posed the threat. The Warsaw Pact in the Cold War was a threat
that demanded direct deterrence. Inherent deterrence of course
requires some benchmark potential threat capabilities on which
to base deterrent force structures. These fundamental concepts
are derived from Edward Luttwak's classic work in this area. Back
142
By the UK MoD. See DCDC Global Strategic Trends Programme 2006. Back
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