Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-59)
SIR PAUL
LEVER KCMG, MR
CHARLES GRANT
AND DR
ROBERT DOVER
19 JUNE 2007
Q40 Mr Hamilton: We were in Washington
a few weeks ago and met congressional members, senators and staffers.
There seemed to be a re-engagement, if you like, of the need for
America to get involved in NATO to a far greater extent. Do you
agree with that comment?
Sir Paul Lever: That is also my
impression. Even the present administration is already re-engaging.
Dr Dover: I agree broadly. I believe
that for common cause to break out spontaneously across NATO the
US will have to stop, or stop being perceived to be, pursuing
some kind of hegemonic power enterprise. That may well come as
a product of having their fingers burnt in Iraq. They may well
become more isolationist necessarily in their PR as their foreign
policy and their approach to the world changes. One wonders whether
there is almost a need to go back to the mid-1990s and the doctrine
of benign humanitarian intervention, doing what was known at that
time as Chapter 6 and 7 operations for peace support and peace-keeping
to re-connect the two blocs across the Atlantic into a common
cause. I think there is a desire to do that across the pond and
also on this side of the Atlantic as a way of getting away from
high-end controversial power projection and into the sort of operations
on which there is common agreement.
Q41 Mr Hamilton: Is it the case that
more and more often, depending on what the issue is, there will
be the involvement of certain core countries, such as the UK and
maybe America, and others will join or not join? Afghanistan is
an example.
Dr Dover: Yes. When I say that
I think NATO ought to become involved I mean, though it sounds
slightly paradoxical, that it also has to become more voluntaristic.
One can just form ad hoc coalitions of the willing and
then second order questions as to how to share the burden of funding
arise, because if one just relies on a core of four or five countries
which must bear the cost of those operations when they are supported
by the majority of the 26 NATO states one sees coalitions of the
willing break down because people will become more selective about
where they intervene.
Q42 Chairman: I should like to turn
to the relationship between NATO and the European Union and how
you characterise it. Perhaps I may start this series of questions
by asking each of you to say one word that in your view best characterises
the relationship between NATO and the European Union. See what
you can do. This is a very unfair question, but it may give us
insight.
Dr Dover: "Plagiarising".
Mr Grant: "Poor", for
stupid reasons.
Sir Paul Lever: "Evolving".
Q43 Chairman: Please expand on those
words.
Dr Dover: ESDP was ESDI with a
different hat on. Therefore, ESDI was impossible for NATO to carry
forward because of the French, putting it crudely, and so ESDP
came about as a new version of ESDI. As one moves into this century,
NATO is constantly seeking to reinvent itself and adapt to the
changing international environment. One then sees NATO increasingly
doing the sort of Petersburg-type task that ESDP was designed
to do. It is a curious form of plagiarism where each of the two
blocs starts to move and dance with each other which results in
a classic double-hatting. It is a relationship that is fraught
with problems because if the relationship was resolved one would
not have this duplication and confusion with multiple hats.
Q44 Chairman: At what level do you
say the problems lie?
Dr Dover: They lie at the very
highest level largely because of the choice of whether or not
to include the US in any given particular discussion or operation.
That is when you see the switch between the hats.
Q45 Chairman: Is it president to
prime minister?
Dr Dover: It is probably a little
lower than that; it is department to department. It is difficult
to pinpoint a particular level. It is at a high level but it certainly
does not arise at the operational level.
Mr Grant: Most members of the
EU are in NATO, and vice versa, so it is extraordinary that there
is a difficult relationship when the same governments are involved
in the two organisations. In part, the problem is a natural law
of human society which is that bureaucracies protect their own
interests and do not like different bureaucracies made up of different
people. One has two bureaucracies in Brussels, NATO and the EU,
which mistrust each other, do not like each other and do not talk
to each other. That is very silly. There are particular reasons
which prevent them co-operating and talking together. One is the
awfully boring dispute between Cyprus and Turkey.
Q46 Chairman: I should like to turn
to that in a few minutes.
Mr Grant: Cyprus and Malta have
not signed the NATO security agreement which gives Turkey an excuse
to prevent the two organisations discussing certain things. But
it is not just that; it is also France. France has a fear, which
I do not understand, that too much close contact between NATO
and the EU will lead to the fragile flower of EU defence being
contaminated by the big monstrous elephant that can stamp on it.
France has done quite a lot to prevent contacts. Others will be
more aware of the details. Certainly, when I looked at it last
year NATO and EU were not allowed formally to talk about counter-terrorism,
Afghanistan or many issues in the wider world because in part
France believes that NATO should not be global. They can talk
about the Balkans where they worked together very closely. This
is pathetic. I hope that the new leadership in France in particular
and Germany will allow us to overcome it. Thanks to EU enlargement,
most Member States are now atlanticists. I think the time has
come to try to overcome French resistance to contact between NATO
and the EU. I expect Mr Sarkozy to be quite helpful in that respect.
Sir Paul Lever: I endorse everything
my colleague has said. If one goes outside Brussels into the real
world one will discover that co-operation takes place rather satisfactorily
and that the people with an EU mandate and those undertaking a
NATO mission not only talk to each other but collaborate practically
and effectively. The reason I use the word "evolving"
is that I believe over time it will become apparent that the sorts
of missions which the European Union chooses to undertake through
ESDP will naturally be ones where the United States is happy for
the Europeans to take it on. The United States was happy for the
EU to do Macedonia and take over Bosnia when the time was right.
I think it is quite happy for the EU to do things like the Congo.
In those areas where the EU has a niche advantage because of its
ability to mobilise the non-military components of an intervention—to
bring in policemen, judges and elements of civil society—and
it becomes apparent that those are the areas where the EU will
focus, with less fear of potential duplication with both EU and
NATO somehow competing with each other to take on a mission, I
hope that even in Brussels the relationship can become better.
Q47 Mr Jenkin: As far as concerns
Macedonia, I put it to you that when operation Amber Fox was first
threatened with a veto in the NAC in early 2003 the Americans
were not at all happy about it, and it rather gave the lie to
the assurance given by the Prime Minister that it was only when
NATO decided as a whole that it did not wish to become engaged
that the EU would take over an operation. The way it works is
that France can veto a NATO operation and it falls into the lap
of the EU. Concern was expressed to us in the United States by
a former military officer who had worked for SACEUR that this
was very debilitating in the NATO military structure. One never
knew with which operation one might be left in the fullness of
time. Do you agree that that is a bit of a disadvantage as a result
of creating the ESDP?
Sir Paul Lever: My memory of the
ins and outs of the decision-making process in relation to Macedonia
has become opaque with the years. I think it was an issue where
mutual vetoes were being threatened and it was not handled well.
I still think that with hindsight when the Americans look at what
the EU is doing, or aspiring to do one day, as opposed to what
it purported to do sometimes in its declarations of public policy,
they are now more reassured than they were perhaps in the initial
debates over Macedonia.
Q48 Mr Jenkin: Mr Grant, you were
the one who with the Prime Minister came up with the idea of developing
ESDP in the run-up to the St Malo agreement. You now say that
the relationship between the two institutions is not working for
stupid reasons. Should we not have anticipated these stupid reasons?
Did not Madeleine Albright warn about these stupid reasons and
that the exclusion of non-EU members of NATO would create exactly
this kind of paralysis?
Mr Grant: That requires some answer.
Q49 Mr Jenkin: It sure does!
Mr Grant: I believe that you are
confusing NATO-EU relations which are not working as well as they
should in Brussels, although as Sir Paul rightly said they tend
to work all right in the field. I accept that there are problems
there. On the specific point you make that Americans want NATO
to be the organisation of first choice and it should decide whether
it wants to tackle a mission and, if not, it goes down the line
and the EU is allowed to pick up the tab, the Europeans, including
I believe the British Government, never really accepted that.
There has always been some ambiguity there. The Americans have
their view and the Europeans theirs and sometimes it leads to
disagreements. I am not aware of the problem over Macedonia. I
understand that more recently in relation to Sudan there was a
problem about who should do the airlift of aid to Darfur and so
on. We now have a NATO mission and EU mission to do that; and
there are missions to support the African Union peace-keepers.
This is a bit silly, but I do not think it is fundamental. Usually,
things work out: either the EU does the stuff or NATO does it.
The bigger point on which perhaps you and I disagree is that overall
I believe ESDP has been fantastically successful. There have been
18 missions in various parts of the world. If one talks to some
of the people who have worked in the Congo they say that those
two small but significant missions that the EU sent to stabilise
Bulia and Kinshasa were useful. I think that today in Bosnia EU
peace-keepers are doing a tremendous job. In Ache they have done
a tremendous job monitoring the ceasefire. I believe that some
of the EU's ESDP missions, most of which are not military, have
been really useful and that alone justifies the creation of the
ESDP.
Q50 Mr Jenkin: Looking at the United
Kingdom's national interest, which institution should have primacy
over defence and security policy in Europe? Is it NATO or the
EU?
Mr Grant: For hard security questions
and significant threats to our security it is NATO, and for some
of the softer issues—the less urgent issues—the EU
is very important. You should not have to choose one or the other.
I have always said that NATO and the ESDP will sink or swim together.
If one is successful the other will succeed; if one fails the
other will fail.
Dr Dover: I agree that for hard
security issues right down to peace support it is NATO; for counter-terrorism
it is the EU but not necessarily through the ESDP.
Q51 Chairman: What can be done to
encourage greater co-operation between NATO and the EU? For example,
how can we address the issue of Cyprus?
Mr Grant: I believe that this
can be addressed only in terms of the broader problem of Cyprus.
You cannot solve the NATO-EU aspect of the Cyprus-Turkey problem
without solving the issue of Turkey's broader relationship with
Cyprus, and indeed Turkey's relationship with the EU. We are not
here to talk about the Turkish accession talks, but I believe
that they cannot succeed, and certainly will not do so in the
long run, unless some way can be found to do a deal on Cyprus,
perhaps some son of the Kofi Annan plan. If one reaches a broad
political settlement which means that both Turkey and the Cypriot
Governments are happy with the resolution of the problem of Cyprus
the NATO-EU problem will automatically be solved. I do not think
one can solve the NATO-EU-Turkey-Cyprus problem without solving
the broader political issue, but I am not an expert on the problem
of Cyprus.
Dr Dover: I am not sure that I
am sufficiently expert on Cyprus to hazard a guess.
Q52 Chairman: Do you agree with Martin
Wolf's assessment that no intelligent person thinks that Turkey
has a hope of joining the European Union?
Mr Grant: I do disagree with that.
I agree that at the moment it looks unlikely, but the world can
change in 10 years. Turkish accession is not on the cards for
at least 10 years. If, for example, France becomes a prosperous,
successful and confident nation that feels good about itself and
globalisation I do not believe that the French will necessarily
oppose Turkish membership, especially if by then Turkey has become
as rich as Greece is today, which is quite possible. It all depends
on how Turkey evolves in the next decade and how some countries
in Europe like France, Austria and others evolve over the period.
It is not impossible.
Q53 Chairman: Therefore, do you say
that on all sorts of fronts the key to improving relations between
the EU and NATO is Sarkozy?
Mr Grant: For a number of reasons
we have discussed this morning, yes, he is rather crucial.
Q54 Chairman: Does either of the
other two witnesses disagree with that?
Dr Dover: No.
Sir Paul Lever: No.
Q55 Willie Rennie: Do you think the
ESDP has been successful at getting countries that traditionally
under the cold war arrangements have just had their own territorial
armed forces to perform activities outside their own boundaries?
Has that been a crucial part of it?
Mr Grant: Yes, it has. We have
seen France, Italy and Spain adopt fully professional armed forces
which have enabled them to supply more troops for peace-keeping
operations. We have seen Germany not abolish conscription but
greatly reduce its role and increase the number of soldiers able
to deploy overseas. We have also seen countries like Germany and
Italy deploy at times up to 10,000 people on various peace-keeping
missions in different parts of the world. That is progress. It
is not enough; one wishes that countries would do more. As to
Europe's capacity to deploy peace-keepers in various parts of
the world, I believe three or four years ago a paper written and
published by William Wallace said that about 75,000 people were
deployed at that time. That is pushing the limit and one could
probably not go much beyond 100,000.
Q56 Willie Rennie: Do you think that
NATO would have been able to persuade those countries to go outside
their own boundaries and achieve that?
Dr Dover: Potentially, it would.
Mr Grant is right that one of the great successes of ESDP is that
more countries are involved and there are regional specialisations.
The Nordic countries have their own particular impact on operations
around the world, for example. What it has not done is stop member
states free-riding in terms of capabilities and increasing the
amount of money put into capabilities and expertise. That is an
area in which the ESDP and European Union, particularly with the
Lisbon agenda and the tying of defence procurement and technologies
to a wider trade agenda, have profoundly failed. As to whether
in the absence of ESDP NATO would have been able to do all these
tasks, the answer may be yes, but it depends on the historical
question of whether there would have been the same political motivations
to do so, and that is unanswerable.
Q57 Chairman: That answer brings
me to your memorandum in which you say that equipment choices
being made by the UK and now at a European level are ill-suited
to the sorts of conflicts in which the UK and European states
are involved. Mr Grant wants to say something about industrial
issues.
Mr Grant: I go back to the points
raised at the beginning about NATO's role in the arms industry
generally. I have always thought that it would be a very good
idea if NATO played a role in fostering a transatlantic armaments
market, setting the ground rules and ensuring fair competition
and so on. This has never happened, one reason being that the
French have not wanted NATO to broaden its ambit in that way.
But the EU is increasingly playing a useful and potentially valuable
role in encouraging armaments co-operation. We have seen in the
past year the so-called code of conduct pushed by the European
Defence Agency so that all contracts over one million euros must
be posted. This encourages the opening up of procurement, but
the danger is that the EU could be protectionist. There are people
in the EU system who would like this sort of procedure to exclude
American products from our market and encourage a Europe first
choice, which I would be against. Therefore, it would be good
if NATO could play that role. If one is exchanging defence technology
and shifting it from one part of the world to another one needs
to trust other people. The Americans at the moment do not sufficiently
trust the British to make it easy for us to get weapons and equipment
transferred here. Nevertheless, if one trusts anybody one will
trust one's close allies. Therefore, since NATO is a collection
of countries that more or less trust each other it seems to me
it is quite an appropriate forum in which to encourage free flows
of technology. If there was to be a body that encouraged transatlantic
defence industry consolidation and technology transfer it should
be NATO, but sadly I see no signs of that happening.
Q58 Chairman: Do you blame the French?
Mr Grant: In part, but the Americans
in their own way are as protectionist as the French on some issues.
Q59 Linda Gilroy: Sir Paul, is membership
of NATO fulfilling the expectations of the new members of the
Alliance? What challenges have they encountered?
Sir Paul Lever: My impression
is that the new members joined NATO essentially for two reasons.
First, it was part of the emergence from their old world of communism
and the Warsaw Pact and part of the process of becoming true free
sovereign states. NATO like the EU was a natural institution to
which to belong. The second reason, though not second in scale
of importance, is that they joined because of Article 5, that
is, because the North Atlantic Alliance offers a collective security
guarantee which for them—they chose not to play it up too
much in public—was still something relevant given their
geographical situations. Having joined, how have they performed?
I would say that on the whole they have performed rather well.
They have been good, loyal members; they have shown a lot of solidarity
and contributed militarily to NATO missions within their still
modest but improving military capabilities. One may say that these
are fairly symbolic contributions and they are doing it just to
show that they are good allies. That may be so but they are doing
it. I would say that overall NATO enlargement has been a success.
For those who worried about taking in countries actually or nearly
bordering on Russia, up to now that problem has been reasonably
well managed. I guess that what is happening in Russia would convince
people that we were right to take them in and it would have been
very dangerous to leave them in the cold.
Dr Dover: I broadly agree with
that. I think the post-cold war situation in which those countries
were brought in from the cold was part of a wider package of "improvements",
including security sector reform which was much needed after the
end of the cold war. It also allowed Western European governments
to influence the governance structures of those countries, which
can be seen only as a good thing from a Western European perspective.
Anecdotally, these countries tend to be very enthusiastic members
of Western Europe as they see it. Less good is that they have
provided us with an opportunity to sell them arms equipment which
feeds into my hobbyhorse about the fetishism of high technology
equipment when other stuff may be more suitable. But the major
impact has been on a newly-resurgent Russia which is currently
almost trying to roll back the frontiers of this westernisation.
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