Recently, German soldiers in Afghanistan told President Christian Wulff that they would not have survived combat injuries without US Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) helicopters evacuating them from the battlefield. During the Libya campaign, France and the UK ran out of bombs and the US had to help them out. Robert Gates was right in saying many European countries are just unable to contribute to combat missions. So can the EU be a credible actor in international security if it is unable to evacuate the wounded, has no ammo, and includes many incapable states? No, it can’t!
From the beginning, the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) and its predecessors were more prestige projects than necessary efforts. The EU never needed to be an actor in international security, but it wanted be one. Look at the EU´s first “stand alone” mission in the Congo in 2006, EUFOR RD Congo. The EU community was happy that the EU had demonstrated the ability to act on its own; with a look into the details, however, EUFOR RD Congo was more a joke than a stand-alone mission. From 1100 EU soldiers in Kinshasa, a city with more than 8 million inhabitants, only 130 Spanish troops were combat capable. Had there been escalation in Kinshasa, the EU would have been severely outmatched. Additionally, the EU Battlegroups have never been used in a significant way. The groups are more a paper tiger than a credible instrument. According to military officers, the contributing countries would be unable to send the troops counted on paper if called to action. During the Libya crisis, the idea of EUFOR Libya occurred, but quickly disappeared into the archive.
Within this decade, and due to likely demographic consequences beyond, the EU´s financial and material situation will only worsen. So why continue pursuing on an already failed prestige project? The EU has neither been a credible actor in international security nor will it ever become one. Before ever dealing with security policy, Brussels should try to make its common foreign policy work.
Any EU security policy means a second bureaucracy beside NATO. However, in times of austerity, two bureaucracies with more or less the same job are just a waste of taxpayers’ money. If the EU countries spend even less on defense, they would be better off concentrating the remaining money on one organization rather than splitting it on two. Furthermore, the examples of the CSAR helicopters in Afghanistan and the bombs for France and Britain cited above prove Europe’s inability to act alone. Hence, even if US engagement in Europe and NATO may shrink, any kind of US involvement is better than no US involvement, and, by the way, likely cheaper for the Europeans.
Yes, CSDP is anchored in the Lisbon Treaty. Nevertheless, an alteration of the Lisbon treaty is unnecessary; governments can just wipe the CSDP out of the agenda. It is unnecessary and the EU is not able to execute it anyway.
So why concentrate on NATO? In contrast to the EU, NATO’s major value is that it has proven its ability to act, even when member´s views differed and capabilities lacked. With the smart defense initiative, NATO is already on a good track to compensate for austerity. We definitely need more pooling and sharing among countries. However, we do not need pooling and sharing among countries within two bureaucracies, and any formal intensification of NATO-EU cooperation is not about to happen.
The major argument for strengthening NATO is that the alliance, as opposed to the EU, has the capabilities needed to deal with the threats emerging in the current security environment. Prospectively, the means needed are expeditionary navies, a well-equipped air force including space capabilities, special operation forces and, most importantly, cyber capabilities. Without a doubt, the EU has none of these capabilities working.
While NATO’s Emerging Security Challenges Division is already tackling cyber threats, the EU has no serious cyber security agenda. It is NATO which is running institutions like the Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE) protecting people against cyber threats. CSDP just does not deal with this drastically emerging threat. So if CSDP does not protect the taxpayers against the most important threat, why should they pay for it?
Moreover, the CSDP has no Special Forces component. As we saw in Libya, NATO would not have been successful without US, UK and French Special Forces engaged. In all of the last decade’s conflicts, Special Forces played an emerging role and this is likely to continue. However, Special Forces capabilities are quite rare, so cooperation with the US is a must; don’t forget that NATO already has established Special Forces coordination facilities. And as we have seen in Kosovo and Libya, Europe is simply unable to conduct stand alone air campaigns, because it relies on US aerial refueling and C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) capabilities.
Yes, the EU conducts the naval Operation Atalanta in the Horn of Africa, but that is not an effort making the EU unique. Instead, Atalanta is an argument against CSPD. Two operations doing the same job and undertaken by largely the same countries are unnecessary. Taxpayers’ money could be used more effectively in one single operation, which should be NATO’s job due its better maritime security expertise.
Obviously, the EU’s CSDP completely lacks the capabilities necessary today. Thus, the prestige paper tiger CSPD failed and should be scrapped. If European countries want to stay relevant in international security, they should not think “what do we want,” but rather “how can we be most useful.” NATO has proven its ability to use the capabilities the EU lacks. Thus, NATO is the organization that Europeans should focus their fewer resources on.
EU prestige thinking was yesterday. Streamlining and efficiency should be the new zeitgeist.
Felix F. Seidler graduated with an M.A. in political science from Würzburg University and blogs about security policy at Seidlers Sicherheitspolitik.
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October 26, 2011
Oliver James Frost, Bath University, (5)
The one issue that would act as an argument against ‘wiping the CSDP out of the agenda’ is the fact that the CSDP is a solely European venture, while with NATO the dominant force is undeniably the US. Surely there exists the possibility that at some point down the line a conflict of interest may arise?