Memorandum by Centre for European Reform
(CER)
WHY EUROPE
NEEDS A
NEW SECURITY
STRATEGY
The 2003 European Security Strategy (ESS) surpassed
expectations in many ways. Its drafters rose above the transatlantic
tensions of the day and took a pragmatic view of security. They
called attention to the same threats that the US National Security
Strategy had identified two years previously: terrorism, the spread
of weapons of mass destruction and, most worryingly, the combination
of the two. The security strategy recommended a few specifically
European approaches to security, emphasising prevention and the
need to root all action in international law. But equally—and,
at the time, controversially—the strategy reminded the Europeans
that the EU, too, will sometimes need to use "robust responses"
(code word for military force) to answer new threats.
Unusually for EU documents, the 2003 ESS was
also succinct and highly readable. This helped to popularise it.
New concepts which the strategy introduced, such as "effective
multilateralism", have entered the foreign policy lexicon.
Arguably, the 2003 ESS shaped the European discourse on security
and defence far more than many such national "grand strategies"
do for their country's policies.
Given its accomplishments, many think the European
Union should retain the 2003 ESS. Senior German officials have
argued that the ESS remains relevant, and that if the EU tried
to replace it, it would produce a weak document because the member-states
would never agree on Russia.
The CER disagrees. We acknowledge that the discussion
on the new ESS could be divisive. But for any grand strategy to
remain relevant, it must keep up with changes in the security
environment. And the 2003 European security strategy has become
dated. It says little about Russia, and virtually nothing about
energy security or climate change. The EU needs a new document,
or documents, that explain how the world has changed since 2003,
and suggest new policies for addressing the changes.
We also believe that the circumstances for rethinking
the security strategy are more propitious than the opponents of
a new strategy suggest. Disagreements on Russia remain but the
Iraq war is no longer shaping the EU member-states' views on foreign
policy and defence. America's closest allies have ceased to defend
the US as unquestioningly as before, while its critics no longer
attack it gratuitously. France is even planning to rejoin NATO
military structures. So we think that the new security strategy
stands a good chance of steering clear of low politics and retaining
the pragmatism of the 2003 document.
What are the new challenges faced by Europe in
2008?
The new ESS must above all take note of the
shifts in global power and influence. This is not to say that
climate change or energy security are unimportant, on the contrary.
But they cannot be successfully addressed without a rigorous analysis
of the global distribution of power.
The rise of new powers is making the world increasingly
multipolar. By 2020, the US, China and the EU will each have a
little under 20% of global GDP, while India will have almost 10%
and Japan about 5% (according to the Economist Intelligence Unit,
on a p.p.p. basis). Militarily, the US will remain the preponderant
super-power, but its relative political influence is declining
with its share of the global GDP. Russia has already returned
as a significant geopolitical actor and is likely to remain one.
China plans to use its growing economic strength and diplomatic
clout to check American power.
The multipolar world could evolve in two ways—one
undesirable from a European point of view, and the other desirable.
In the undesirable model, the various poles
will coalesce into two hostile alliances, rather like in the Cold
War. In one version (suggested by Robert Kagan), the "western"
poles, proponents of democracy, would line up against the "axis
of autocracies" (such as Russia and China) that oppose political
liberalism. In another version (popular with some Russian analysts),
a western attack on Iran would spark off a long-running world
war between the West and Islam, with the other poles doing their
best to keep out of it.
This kind of multipolarity, based on great power
rivalry, would be unfavourable for Europe. In any global system
ridden with ideological fault-lines, Europeans would find it much
harder to tackle the problems they care about—climate change,
the economic development of the poorest countries, the proliferation
of dangerous weapons, and so on.
The desirable model of multipolarity, by contrast,
would be multilateral. The more democratic powers would have a
natural affinity to work together, but there would be shifting
coalitions among the poles, depending on the issue. All the poles
would be committed to the rule of law and play an active role
in international institutions and treaties. As the 2003 EU Security
Strategy (ESS) put it: "In a world of global threats, global
markets and global media, our security and prosperity increasingly
depend on an effective multilateral system".
What should Europe's responses be?
Neither energy security nor climate change can
be tackled by individual countries—even when they are as
powerful as the US or China—or a collection of countries
such as the EU. They require effective multilateralism. The EU's
own attitudes, policies and actions will help determine whether
the world that develops is based on multilateralism or rivalry.
An EU that is stronger will be better able to
persuade the US, China, Russia and other powers to think multilaterally.
One that is economically stagnant, divided over key policy questions
and inward-looking will have little hope of shaping the international
system. So the ESS must clearly outline what are the necessary
building blocks of a stronger and more influential Europe. In
our view, they include:
— A successful European economy.
Some of the ingredients are: further EU enlargement, to boost
competition in the single market; new schemes to attract skilled
migrants to the EU; an economic reform agenda that prioritises
innovation and a stronger competition policy; the liberalisation
of energy and services markets; and the reform of higher education,
leading to more autonomous and better-funded centres of excellence.
— An EU that leads the world on
climate change. Europe's fairly successful track-record on
tackling carbon emissions contributes to its soft power. If the
Europeans can make a success of their own carbon-trading scheme,
persuade the Americans to sign up to a global system, and offer
their best environmental technologies to developing countries,
they may convince most of the world to join them in the post-Kyoto
system.
— Continued EU enlargement.
Taking in more countries would not only bring economic benefits.
A truly continental Union that included Muslim states would have
more influence, and be treated with more respect, in many parts
of the world. The EU should make a clear statement of intent to
keep its doors open to newcomers. But because enlargement is likely
to move slowly, and because there are finite limits to the expansion
of EU frontiers, the Union needs a much stronger neighbourhood
policy than it has today. The more politically and economically
advanced the neighbour, the more the EU should integrate it into
EU programmes and policies.
— A greater capacity for delivering
common foreign and security policies. This objective requires,
more than anything, a unity of purpose among national governments.
They need to understand that where they have common interests,
they will often achieve more by acting together. But the EU's
institutions also have the potential to make a positive impact
on foreign and security policy. Irrespective of the fate of the
Lisbon treaty, the EU needs to reform its foreign policy institutions.
The External Action Service (EAS) proposed by the Treaty is a
good model. It would produce the kinds of analysis that helps
governments to recognise their common interests, and it would
enable them to pursue those interests in a more focused and strategic
manner. The European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP), too,
will need more beef than it has today (see below).
— Strong EU support for international
law, and for renewing the institutions of global governance.
Europeans sometimes forget that an important source of their soft
power is their respect for international law. One reason for the
decline in America's soft power in recent years has been its disregard
for international law, especially in the first term of President
George W Bush. But the cause of multilateralism has suffered setbacks
since the ESS was approved four years ago. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty has been undermined by the North Korean and Iranian nuclear
programmes. Russia has threatened to pull out of the Intermediate-range
Nuclear Forces treaty and it has suspended compliance with the
Conventional Forces in Europe treaty. There has been no progress
on negotiating the Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty or the Prevention
of Arms Race in Outer Space Treaty. The EU needs to highlight
its attachment to the framework of international law and institutions,
and to lead efforts to revitalise it. It should make a point of
encouraging others, such as Russia and China (and of course the
US), to support these efforts.
— The EU must engage constructively
with other global powers. The Union's most important relationship
will remain the transatlantic link. If the EU can show itself
to be a useful and effective partner, the US is more likely to
choose a multilateral path. But the same applies to the other
poles, which the EU will find much more difficult to deal with.
If the EU can find the right policies for Russia and China, it
will increase the chances of them supporting a multilateral system.
And if it can find the right policies for the Middle East, it
will reduce the risk of that region erupting into violence—and
quite likely creating new great-power rivalries. Russia, China
and the Middle East are existential for EU's development in the
coming decades. How, and how well, the EU deals with them will
determine whether the Union becomes an effective international
actor.
Defence in the European security strategy
The world will not take the EU seriously as
a foreign policy actor unless it strengthens its capacity in defence.
This is all the more important because for the next few years,
the US will still be suffering the after-effects of the Iraq trauma.
Europeans should not expect Americans to be enthusiastic about
sorting out the world's trouble spots, especially when they are
close to Europe. Those tasks will increasingly fall to the EU
alone.
By mid-2008 the EU had launched 21 ESDP missions,
generally with success (although the scope of most of them has
been modest). However, the ESDP has not fulfilled expectations,
notably on the capability side. On current trends the EU member-states
are unlikely to have enough military personnel to fulfil the likely
future demand. NATO's response force, made up mainly of Europeans,
is short of 25% of the soldiers it is supposed to have.
To strengthen Europe' defence capacities, the
new ESS should lay out the following principles:
— Adopt a target for its member-states'
defence budgets to reach the 2% threshold. Admittedly, NATO
has done the same, without much effect. But the rationale behind
the EU setting such goal is to re-emphasise the necessity of adequate
spending. In recent years the EU has placed too much emphasis
on the non-military side of security, as opposed to hard power,
and too much emphasis on military reform, as opposed to larger
defence budgets.
— Deepen military reforms. For
any given level of spending, much more can be achieved by militaries
and ministries that have been modernised. Those countries that
have not abolished conscription should do so: what Europe needs
are professional, mobile troops who are ready and able to go anywhere
in the world. The liberalisation of defence procurement markets
would allow governments to improve capabilities without spending
more money. So would more role specialisation, and the pooling
of military assets, particularly in non-sensitive areas (such
as maintenance, transport, medical, catering and support operations).
— Improve NATO-EU co-operation.
The ESDP will not become more effective unless the EU and NATO
work much more closely together, in a complementary way. The EU
and NATO need to collaborate on "comprehensive planning",
meaning that both would start working together at the beginning
of an operation, on the assumption that they might both have to
become involved. Arrangements could be made for NATO to have access
to the EU's expertise and tools in civilian crisis management,
just like the EU can now draw on NATO assets for its ESDP missions.
The European Defence Agency and NATO's Allied Command Transformation
are both concerned with boosting capabilities, harmonising procurement
and promoting joint R&D. They should work together, not separately.
NATO and the EU should do all they can to harmonise their procedures
and soften the differences in the cultures.
Ultimately, the difficulties in building a strong
ESDP lie with different strategic cultures among the member-states.
The more EU countries work together on defence, the more the relatively
robust strategic cultures of the British and the French should
percolate among their partners. But cultures cannot change and
defence budgets cannot rise unless politicians make an effort
to explain to their publics that the world is dangerous, and that
it would be less dangerous if Europeans gave themselves the means
to tackle those dangers. So far virtually no European leader has
made that effort.
How to rewrite the European Security Strategy?
Many EU governments feel that the 2003 security
strategy is approaching the end of its shelf life; France and
Sweden have led the calls for a fresh start. But EU governments
disagree whether the ESS should be amended or replaced, and if
replaced, how exactly. We believe the EU needs a new security
strategy, that it should be completed in the second half of 2009,
and that it should be written by the secretariat of the Council
of ministers.
The process matters enormously. The 2003 ESS
was successful because the drafting team maintained control of
the writing. It consulted extensively with the member-states,
but resisted their attempts to dictate the content, which would
have turned the document into an incoherent list of various national
priorities. The 2003 ESS is a brief, accessible document, which
accurately captures the common ground of the security analyses
of the EU governments.
Future updates of the ESS should follow the
same path. The secretariat of the Council of ministers should
retain ownership of the drafting process. (Should the EU adopt
all or parts of the Lisbon treaty, the responsibility would shift
to the High Representative for foreign and security policy, and
his team.)
Partial updates and amendments to the security
strategy, like the 2008 Solana/Ferrero-Waldner paper on climate
change, can be a useful tool for addressing new and emerging challenges.
But they need to be used with caution. The more the EU amends
the strategy, the more the original document loses its influence.
This is all the more true if those "new"
threats, addressed by amending documents, rise higher on the European
citizens' list of concerns than the "old" threats covered
by the original strategy. And that is precisely the case with
climate change. Authoritative polls like the Transatlantic trends
or the Pew Global Attitudes poll now show that Europeans worry
about climate change more than about any other threat.
Given the depth of change in threat perceptions
since 2003, and given that five years have elapsed since the original
ESS was written, we believe the time has come for the original
document to be revised, rather than amended.
The European security strategy should be rewritten
in co-ordination with NATO's plans to draft a new strategic concept.
The two documents will inevitably cover some of the same ground.
Both will outline threats, and the respective institution's responses
to those threats. Because 21 of the EU's 27 governments are also
in NATO, many of the threats and responses will presumably be
the same.
We believe that the need for transatlantic co-operation
has increased, given the global nature of the new threats, and
the declining relative power of both the US and Europe vis-a"-vis
China and India. That is not just a view from Europe; More Americans
are aware that their unipolar moment has ended, and that a multipolar
world requires more transatlantic co-operation. In this "new"
transatlantic relationship, NATO will remain important but US-EU
co-operation will be just as, if not more, significant. The threats
that both the EU and the US confront—energy, climate, terrorism—tend
to be handled by the EU, not NATO.
So the EU and the US should use the process
of drafting a new ESS and a new strategic concept to re-launch
closer relations. Both documents should be re-written at the same
time, borne out of a transatlantic dialogue. The EU should have
a role (through the High Representative, Javier Solana) in drafting
the strategic concept. And the EU, too, should give the US a more
visible role in the new ESS. It should devote one of the "workshops"
(which the Council secretariat used in 2003 to sound out EU member-states'
views) specifically to transatlantic relations.
3 July 2008
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