European Defence: About Neighbours and Distant Friends

This article was external pageoriginally publishedcall_made by external pageEuropean Geostrategycall_made on 24 March 2015. It forms part of external page"The CSDP: National Perspectives"call_made series.

Increasingly, European countries are deepening cooperation between their armed forces in bilateral or regional clusters. In most cases the driving factor is a lack of money. Capitals are forced to cooperate in order to maintain capabilities which they would lose if they continued alone. It seems logical that decreased budgets would drive them to Evere or Schuman Square in Brussels to cooperate with the widest possible group of partners in the EU or NATO. However, while some progress is being made in the pooling and sharing projects of the European Defence Agency and in the smart defence programme of the Alliance, deeper defence cooperation at the level of the twenty-eight turns out to be cumbersome and painful, if not impossible. There are many reasons for the lack of substantial progress on capability development in the EU and NATO – beyond the often used logical argument that it is inherently more difficult to agree with a larger number of players than just with one or two partners.

One explanatory factor is geography. Finland or the Baltic States, bordering Russia, have other primary security concerns than Italy or Spain who have to cope with huge flows of immigrants crossing the Mediterranean. Last year, a new record of about 200,000 boat migrants was set. History also comes into play. This is still most visible in the expeditionary and interventionist orientation of the former big colonial empires France and the UK. On the other hand Germany remains reluctant to play its full role in deploying forces, in particular in high-risk operations. The German political overtures at the 2014 Munich Security Conference have not been backed up by the Bundestag or the population. Other factors also come into play: language, culture and, certainly not least, past experience in military cooperation – they all make it easier or more difficult to cooperate across national borders. In this respect, defence is not much different from other sectors of public government, like law enforcement, education or environmental matters. In these areas practical cooperation between neighbouring countries is often more deeply and structurally developed than at the EU level.

This preference for cooperation among neighbours does not mean that defence cooperation in clusters is an easy game. The Franco-British Lancaster House Treaty is making progress in the nuclear area and with regard to its operational leg, the Combined Joint Expeditionary Force (CJEF) for crisis intervention. But once industry gets involved the pace is much slower. Yes, London and Paris have decided to buy the same anti-ship missile, but it will be produced by an already integrated European defence company, MBDA. With regard to future combat aircraft systems both countries are working together on the drawing board, including at the industrial level. But for land systems, ships and other platforms armaments cooperation between the two countries proves to be difficult because national production lines are still protected.

The same argument comes into play in the Franco-German defence cooperation, which is primarily characterised by a record of declarations rather than by concrete results. Even the often praised Nordic Defence Cooperation (NORDEFCO) suffers from the same spoiling factor. The Norwegian decision to buy the F35 Joint Strike Fighter was in sharp contrast to the declared intent to invest in the same equipment and a slap in the face of the Swedes who had hoped to sell the improved Gripen to their neighbour. As a side-show the combined Norwegian-Swedish acquisition of Archer artillery pieces equally failed. The protection of national defence industries, which continues despite Directive 2009/81, provides the biggest stumbling block for common capability development and acquisition of the same equipment. Clusters do not escape from this reality.

More progress is made on the side of operational cooperation in clusters. Although it might look more difficult to integrate forces than to buy the same kit, in fact the opposite is true. National political-economic interests hardly play any role when it comes to military-to-military cooperation. But there are important prerequisites. Partners have to trust each other, they must have comparable organisational cultures and positive past experience in defence cooperation is also important. Equal size in terms of GNP, defence budgets and armed forces is not really required.

The German-Netherlands defence cooperation is developing well, with the integration of the 11th Dutch Air Mobile Brigade into the German Division Schnelle Kräfte as the most recent example. The next step will be the merging of the 43rd Mechanised Brigade of the Netherlands with the 1st Armoured Division of Germany. For the Dutch Army it offers the option of a return to using tanks, needed for operations high in the spectrum. Through clustering with the Germans, The Hague will rectify its 2011 decision to abandon all remaining Leopard 2 tanks. Also with regard to the Patriot missile system and in the naval sector both countries are striving for deeper defence cooperation.

The German-Netherlands example shows that different sizes of countries is a not a show-stopper. On the contrary, smaller countries have an interest in cooperating with bigger countries as it will not only help to maintain but to increase their capacities. The Framework Nations Concept, developed in NATO at the initiative of Berlin, is based on this interest. For enablers even larger groups will work, as proven by the Strategic Airlift Capability (SAC) with 12 participating countries. Another example is the European Air Transport Command (EATC) which plans, task and controls the missions of about 200 transport and air-to-air refuelling aircraft of seven countries. When all A400M transport aircraft have been delivered the far majority of them, some 140 planes, will be deployed under this multinational command. It only leaves the UK as a future A400M user out and perhaps London would have joined EATC if the ‘E’ letter had not been in the command’s acronym….

Increased operational cooperation might help to overcome the more difficult obstacles for standardised equipment procurement. Most of the clusters have that challenge ahead, once low hanging fruit on increased cooperation in concepts, doctrine, training and exercises has been harvested. In particular, clusters which are integrating operational forces should now start to look at the next step, i.e. the harmonisation of their defence planning and armaments acquisition in the areas where operational needs already converge. Standardising equipment will not only prove beneficial for the forces – opening up huge potential for using each other’s equipment and cut on test and evaluation facilities – but also allow for common maintenance, acquisition of spare parts and equipment upgrades. It is a win-win situation: better operational capabilities and more cost-efficient through-life equipment management.

International defence planning in NATO and the EU has failed. The NATO Defence Planning Process (NDPP) has rarely produced results in capability improvement. It is nothing more than an accountancy system of the defence plans of the member states. Rather than continuing the false image of a defence planning system, the Alliance should focus on what is needed and what goals member states might accept for a collective effort. NDPP should be replaced by NCMA: NATO Capability Monitoring and Assessment – a process in which the Alliance directs capability development by the member states through the setting of overall objectives, monitoring the results and assessing if they contribute to the Alliance’s collective needs, in particular in addressing well-known shortfalls. The outcome should be more visible and of use in a political rather than a technical-bureaucratic way in order to create peer pressure.

The same would apply to the EU. With the Capability Development Plan, the Code of Conduct on Pooling and Sharing and other instruments the EDA has the in-house tools. Unfortunately, the EDA is too small to play its part properly. It suffers from a few participating member states opposing defence cooperation in the EU. The famous caveat ‘on a voluntary base’ is blocking each attempt to create a system of peer pressure and to start measuring if and how member states are closing European capability gaps. The new Policy Framework for more systematic and long-term defence cooperation, approved by EU Defence Ministers in November 2014, suffers from the same shortcoming. Perhaps clusters could help to overcome these political obstacles by showing that in smaller groups progress can be made in common long-term defence planning. This might serve as an example for others.

The slow progress with European defence cooperation stands in clear contrast to the quickly deteriorating security environment in the East and the South. It should be a wake-up call for all EU and NATO member countries, not just those close to the periphery. Equally, all of them have the obligation to contribute, not only in terms of declarations on solidarity but also with real capabilities. An old Dutch proverb reads ‘Better a good neighbour than a distant friend’. Capabilities can be maintained and improved more quickly and effectively in clusters of close neighbours than in larger settings with distant friends. The EU and NATO should bind them all together, but deeper defence cooperation and integration of armed forces will have to be realised first in smaller clusters of recognised, trustworthy and reliable partners.