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Debates > European military structure: a vital necessity |
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Myths and Reality
It seems always to be risky if military experts are trying to be political and I have the feeling that LtGen Pitarch might be walking far on this dangerous path.
The overall assessment that Europe needs to improve the ability to defend its territory (and global interests) will meet overall agreement in most political and military circles. The same might even be true with the author’s overall impression that Quote: the facts reveal a certain lack in leadership and political will to engage in an irrevocable commitment to a Europe of defence
But unfortunately, his conclusions drawn from these observations might be seen as military-technical but are very political in nature. And this is were the General missed the point when he identifies the problem as threefold: Quote: the rationalization of NATO military structures, which would certainly need to be downsized; the creation of a European military structure, even basic to initiate the first steps; and an agreement between the EU and the US in order to maintain an adequate level in terms of continental security during the transformation process
If the deficiencies of European Defense capabilities are caused by a lack of leadership and political will, than why wasting our efforts on structures and institutions instead of addressing the political root causes? If the causes are political, why investing in new structures that will lack exactly the leadership and will to be efficient while abandoning already existing and – more or less – well working structures? As it seems to me it would be even dangerous in political and in military terms to weaken the only reliable source for European Defense, i.e. NATO, without any real chance of a successful replacement. That is exactly what he calls for when arguing for a serious downsizing of NATO's military structure.
It doesn't really help to call for an EU-US agreement for the transformation process. The lack of EU Defense capabilities is partly caused by the unwillingness of some nations to spend more on defense, by the ongoing national egoism of most EU member states and partly by the lack of trust in the solidarity between EU Partners. All of this leads to a continuing strong role of the United States in European security policy. As much publicly criticized as it is, the US presence in Europe provides a counterweight for the lack of capabilities, it counterbalances the national egoisms of European Nations at least partly (although also occasionally encouraging exactly this kind of behavior), and helps to overcome the lack of trust among them or makes it irrelevant due to its own promise of protection. The latter is of special importance for the new EU member states in Eastern Europe, feeling more threatened than most of their Western European partners and lacking the overall feeling of solidarity that has developed over time among the older members.
Only by understanding this political background we would be able to understand the existing lack of political will to invest into purely European defense structures. As long as Nations still think in terms of national gains, are still looking for political profits through bilateral relations to the US in addition to their multilateral relations in the EU, we will not be able to build up the necessary political will to realize the dream of a real capable European defense.
Interestingly this Article argues only with reference to NATO and the United States (were he asks for at least non-opposition for the development of the ESDP) while basically ignoring the domestic European difficulties. Here I see another flaw of this article.
It is true that the US has played sometimes a not very helpful role regarding European security policy. Fortunately, this has changed almost radically in the last three years. Since 2006 the US policy towards ESDP has changed from open opposition first to passive acceptance and finally to active support. The rational behind that change - in addition to a much more positive atmosphere in transatlantic relations since the start of the Obama-Administration - is basically the hope for improved burden sharing. A hope that Obama shares with most US administrations in their initial phase - and a hope that was constantly disappointed due to a continuous lack of European support.
The article also disregards completely the prospects of improved cooperation between NATO and EU that would help much to avoid unnecessary duplication of efforts. As long we are not even able to overcome the political difficulties hindering a more cooperative relation between the EU and NATO - i.e. solving the issue of Cyprus and Turkey, how can we hope to gather the political will to defend Europe completely on its own? We should not start to establish new and more complex structures as long we are not even able to overcome the distrust between the civil crisis management structures and the already existing small military structures in today’s ESDP. Only this would establish a real European civil-military crisis management capability and, thereby, creating substantive added value to international efforts world wide. In the light of current needs for a more comprehensive approach in security policy a new purely military structure not only runs the risk of duplication but will also be outdated from the beginning.
To sum it up, in my personal point of view the article missed the point of the real root causes for the problems of ESDP and offers false solutions for these problems. Overall it is only adding to the myths of a lack of European structures while ignoring the reality of a lack of political will and leadership.
Olaf Theiler
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