Mars & Venus Revisited

Wednesday, 24th February 2010

Bob Gates' criticism of european defence shortcomings yesterday was couched in unusually harsh terms. Then again, NATO faces an uncertain future and there's a growing sense in the United States, I think, that europe is failing to lift its weight when it comes to defence matters. As Gates pointed out just 5 of NATO's 28 members spend more than 2% of GDP on defence. Consequently:

The demilitarization of Europe — where large swaths of the general public and political class are averse to military force and the risks that go with it — has gone from a blessing in the 20th century to an impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace in the 21st.

And:

Right now, the alliance faces very serious, long-term, systemic problems. The NATO budgetary crisis is a case in point and a symptom of deeper problems with the way NATO perceives threats, formulates requirements, and prioritizes and allocates resources. It is hardly two months into the new year, but we already face shortfalls of hundreds of millions of euros – a natural consequence of having underinvested in collective defense for over a decade.

All of this should be a wake-up call that NATO needs serious, far-reaching, and immediate reforms to address a crisis that has been years in the making.

Much of this is fair enough and it's certainly true that european capabilities have not kept pace with NATO's transformation from, as Gates put it, "a static, defensive force to an expeditionary force – from a defensive alliance to a security alliance." Nevertheless, this seems more complicated a matter than simply a question of irresponsible ~~europeans~~ Venusians failing to meet their obligations. That is, while european countries certainly deserve some share of the blame for the metal-fatigue afflicting the alliance, so too do the ~~Americans~~ Martians.

If europe has failed to build a stronger defence, that's partly because the Americans have both been happy to subsidise european defence in return for military primacy but also because the United States has, generally speaking, not looked too kindly upon efforts at creating, or even designing, an independent european defence mechanism.

For instance, after the Anglo-French agreeement at St Malo in 1998, Madeleine Albright, then Secretary of State, argued that any European Defence and Security Policy (EDSP) was fine so long as: a) it didn't duplicate anything done by NATO, b) there be no decoupling from the US and NATO and c) no discrimination against non-EU NATO members such as Turkey.

In other words, european defence would still be guaranteed by the United States and Washington would resist the development of any credible independent capability. You can certainly argue that this made sense and was, even, the correct policy. But it hardly created any incentive for european countries to increase their defence spending. Indeed, quite the reverse, it may have exacerbated the "free-rider" problem, albeit for perfectly understandable, even laudable reasons.

For that matter, it may also be the case that Britain has to take some of the responsibility for this too and not only because our own defence capability has been eroded. It seems at least possible that absent a credible lead from Britain (and France) there simply won't be any beefed-up european defence capability.

Again, our preference for the American rather than the european end of the alliance may well be sensible but it comes with a price and part of that, I suspect, is a weaker european contribution. Once more, this isn't a question of malice or incompetence necessarily, rather a reflection of choices made and the consequences of those reasonable, even rational, choices.

UPDATE: This is Brother Korski's territory of course, so I also recommend this post.

Filed under: Afghanistan (321 more articles) , Britain (679 more articles) , Defence (343 more articles) , Europe (698 more articles) , NATO (121 more articles) , War (144 more articles)

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Anthony

February 24th, 2010 7:34pm Report this comment

Interesting post and there's a lot to it. I recall Sir Christopher Meyer noting, accurately, a few years back that there's hypocrisy on both sides. The Europeans are the ultimate free-riders, contributing limited amounts of men and material with even more limited effect whilst noisily demanding control over strategy far beyond what the scale of the contribution would seem to justify. The Americans understandably dislike this and try to prod the Europeans into having a bit more spunk and putting more money where their collective mouth is, but only in a manner that will allow the US to remain militarily and politically dominant. Things may be changing somewhat, given the increased EU contribution in numbers terms, coupled with the fact that Washington is now becoming increasingly comfortable with the idea of a coherent European defence identity. But I'm not going to hold my breath.

On the issue of British defence leadership (lack of) in Europe, I think it's completely understandable. We have a defence establishment that is perceived to more or less "work" and which is also perceived as sustaining us as a reasonably serious independent player. The history of European defence co-operation in the last couple of decades is not positive. My personal view is that, regardless of the desirability of EU defence co-operation in principle, in practise there is a very real risk that the whole will prove to be distinctly less than the sum of its parts. From a British perspective, defence leadership in Europe may hold some promise, but it also holds the risk of essentially forfeiting our ability to undertake independent action and committing ourselves irrevocably to a massive bureaucratic quagmire the main achievement of which might very well be to insure that nothing ever gets done again.

Admittedly, the current state of our defence finances, coupled with the fact that both Labour and the Tories seem to be looking at increased inter-operability with the French, arguably makes the above objection less pressing than it has been in the past. But that's a discussion that's too lengthy for an internet comment box.

David Bouvier

February 25th, 2010 9:29am Report this comment

You seem to conflate without explanation the defense policy and defense cooperation of European nations, with EU defense capability.

I am profoundly against the constitutional implications of changing the allegiance of our armed forces from a politically neutral sovereign to some political entity - whether in the UK or Brussels, or for that matter any revision to the principal of the Army Act that is buffer against non-parliamentary tyranny.

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