CIAO DATE: 02/02

European Political Considerations on Operations Beyond Europe

Klaus Becher
Deputy Head, Research Section on Strategy, Arms Control, and Technology
Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), Ebenhausen, Germany

GCSP-RAND Workshop Papers: "NATO's New Strategic Concept and Peripheral Contingencies: The Middle East"
Geneva, July 15-16, 1999

The Geneva Centre for Security Policy

The nations of the European Union represent not only one of the two most important economic actors in the world, but also include some countries of world-wide political importance. Half of the G-8 membership is from the EU, as are two permanent members of the UN Security Council. The responsibilities and obligations that, historically, European powers accumulated in all continents still have many remnants. The two big European wars of the 20th century were also fought in Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Asia. Europe, while enjoying the benefits of a large, expanding internal market, depends for its prosperity on a secure and functioning global order.

Since the 1950s, however, the combined effects of World War II and the Cold War left West Europeans looking inward, concentrating on their political and economic reconstitution in a process of increasing regional integration under American tutelage. In the 1990s, major results could be locked in - the Single Market and a common currency - and the process of integration began to be extended into Central and Eastern Europe, too.

Lagging behind the long-regained economic clout and the pride in the cultural and political achievement of European integration has been the international role of EU nations, especially in security and defence. This can easily be explained by the dependence on the US defence umbrella against the Soviet threat, combined with the American insistence on full respect for US global policies that, after Suez 1956, left little room for Europeans.

After the end of the East-West confrontation in Europe with its military implications, and after the ambitious and successful new departure toward building a strong European identity as embodied in the Treaties of Maastricht and Amsterdam, it is now understood that foreign and security policy - inseparable from defence if taken seriously - are the field with the most urgent need and opportunity for improving EU members' common performance.

In addition, recent experience underlines the need for a stronger European role: the volatility of US leadership vis-à-vis the Balkans throughout the 1990s; a growing tendency in the US to underestimate Russia's importance for European security; the blockage of US policy towards so-called rogue states such as Libya and Iran; and above all, the agreed primary responsibility of EU countries to promote and manage the inclusion of Central, Eastern and South-eastern Europe into the Euro-Atlantic zone of stability, prosperity, and democracy. In the longer term, the same European responsibility exists vis-à-vis the Mediterranean littorals.

I. The use of force

On the use of force in the pursuit of peace and stability, there are obviously major differences today between the US and other NATO allies, as well as among European allies. To a large extent, these differences simply reflect the various levels of military preparedness for missions beyond territorial defence. Many European countries have a strong tradition in manning UN peacekeeping missions on a global scale. Only Britain and France, though, consider force projection beyond Europe as core tasks for their military. No European country can possibly have the ambition to match the global military reach of the US. If Europeans prepare for military interventions outside Europe, the main driving force is a desire to be present in US-led operations for the sake of alliance cohesion and a modicum of political influence.

Germany for the longest time played a special role, mainly due to its partition at the line of confrontation between East and West in Europe. Benefiting from its full integration into NATO's peacetime structures, however, Germany managed to overcome the widespread political reservations at home and abroad against a German military role for international security. Traditional doubts concerning the constitutionality of any Bundeswehr role beyond common defence under Article 5 of the Washington Treaty were largely put to rest when the Constitutional Court stressed its respect for a wide margin of discretion in the German government's decision-making on security and defence.

In principle, Germany can today act militarily more or less within the same framework of reference as other Europeans: international law must be observed, parliamentary support is required, and operations must have the blessing of multinational institutions. In practice, of course, for many reasons Germany remains bound to be reluctant, especially because the Bundeswehr, designed to defend German territory against a large-scale invasion, is far from ideally structured and equipped for the kind of missions most likely to come up.

II. Europe's military role outside NATO territory

It is the purpose of this paper to look at European perceptions of Europe's military role, within NATO, at the periphery of Europe and beyond. This should allow an assessment of the likely nature and scope of evolving European defence activities outside the Allies' territory.

In looking at such operations, it is helpful to distinguish several different constellations, characterised mainly by the attitude, in a particular case, of the US as the world's, and the Alliance's, dominant power.

1. US-led operations

The first constellation includes operations with determined US leadership, with NATO allies and other countries being invited, or urged, to participate as junior partners. The classic example would be the coalition war in 1990-91 for the collective defence of Persian Gulf allies and the liberation of Kuwait.

Then, all NATO allies, including France, were prepared to do what they could to make the operation a success. Even Germany, then just in the process of unification and limited by the need to assure ratification of the Two-plus-four Treaty by all parties, did not only - in addition to its huge financial contribution - offer its territory for essential command, control, and logistics roles, but also supplied materiel and sent armed forces, albeit only for the defence of Turkey and security of the Mediterranean. It is reasonable to assume that European allies, if the need were to arise again, would be at least as willing today to make a substantial contribution in similar operations again.

It is important to understand, though, that the clear UN Security Council mandate for the Gulf War against Iraq made a crucial difference. In future cases of US-led wars, this can be expected to be so, too. It may well be true, on the level of European governments, that the main reason for engaging in US-led out-of-area operations is the perceived desire to demonstrate alliance solidarity in order not to help those in the US who would prefer a retreat from Europe and NATO. However, in most European countries this line of reasoning alone would not justify, in the public mind, sending their soldiers into action outside Europe.

In the absence of a direct military threat, e.g. by weapons of mass destruction likely to be used against Europe, only a UN mandate, and the international request for participation in the name international peace and security it expresses, would probably suffice to help build public support. This is especially true if the underlying analysis of the situation is not entirely congruent in the US and Europe. Also, the wish and need to maintain a co-operative relationship with Russia in the interest of stabilising and developing Europe as a whole creates a strong desire on the part of European allies to seek a UN security council mandate, with the G-8 increasingly serving as an important additional forum.

In Iraq, the subsequent use of military power to coerce Saddam Hussein's regime into accepting the comprehensive disarmament of its capabilities in the area of weapons of mass destruction and delivery vehicles was, unlike UNSCOM's important efforts in Iraq themselves, only indirectly approved by the UN Security Council. The political wisdom of these air strikes and other military measures was doubted, for procedural as well as factual reasons, by some European governments. In the end only Britain, having special historical responsibilities as well as economic interests in the region, was willing to always go along with US leadership there.

NATO's Kosovo War of 1999, conducted with determined US leadership without even seeking a UN mandate, should not be interpreted as a precedent for European acquiescence with the doctrine sometimes advocated by American voices that the US can use military force unilaterally, and expect European followership, whenever it sees its interests or values threatened anywhere in the world. Even if those interests and values as such are shared by Europeans, all non-US NATO members - possibly with exception of Britain, Greece, Hungary, and Turkey in the general context of transnational population groups - feel always bound by the rule that in the interest of international peace and security under the UN Charter, the international use of military force is only permitted for individual or collective self-defence against actual or imminent armed aggression directed at sovereign states, unless specifically authorised by the UN Security Council.

The notion that NATO, or any grouping of democratic nations, can self-mandate military intervention, properly belongs in the realm of propaganda, not public international law. However, within the Europe of the Council of Europe and OSCE, it has been convincingly argued that a more highly integrated legal regime has been established in this region that indeed requires its member states to intervene, if other means fail even with force, to uphold fundamental standards.

For those cases where European allies do indeed participate in US-led operations within their limited means, the Gulf War experience taught a number of lessons that have not been implemented in all European countries yet: preparedness for short-notice, long-distance power projection, requiring air and sea lift capabilities; command, control, and communication facilities; and proper medical and logistics arrangements. Without strategic intelligence resources of one's own, European dependence on US-supplied, selective intelligence reduces control and jeopardises political sustainability at home.

Most importantly, the doctrinal evolution in the US that results from the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA), especially through application of networked digital information technology, requires major adaptation to maintain the necessary degree of technical and organisational interoperability. Here, the Bundeswehr - hobbled by a collapsing defence budget, the need to first finalise the structural changes resulting from unification, and the absorption of energy and resources by the Balkan engagements - seems to be lagging behind. However, no European ally, nor all segments of the US military, can claim full commitment to implementing the RMA yet.

It is important to realise that many of the military adaptations and improvements required for strengthening the European allies' capacity for conducting a EU security and defence policy in and for Europe can also help to provide a better ground for potential European contributions to operations with the US outside Europe, provided that artificial technical limitations regarding range, versatility, mobility, and flexibility of weapons systems, logistics and supply, intelligence, command and control are duly avoided.

2. NATO crisis management operations

In order to enhance the stability of the Euro-Atlantic area at a time of complex new risks, including oppression, ethnic conflict, economic distress, the collapse of political order, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the Alliance is prepared to contribute to effective conflict prevention and to engage actively in crisis management, including crisis response operations. NATO's role in Bosnia provides a good example for this second constellation.

All such cases require consensus within NATO. In the future, most European allies can be expected to remain insistent that NATO either acts at the invitation of all states concerned in the region of operations, or under specific UN authority. Possibly, the OSCE can also be involved as the regional organisation of choice.

The geographic range of potential NATO crisis response operations is theoretically vast: the whole Euro-Atlantic area, defined since 1991 as reaching from Vancouver to Vladivostok, plus its immediate vicinity. In practical terms, Europeans will continue to focus their attention in this context on a much smaller area in and around Europe: above all the Balkans; if necessary Eastern Europe; potentially the Mediterranean basin; and as a remote possibility also the Caucasus area. The scarcity of available manpower for such operations, combined with the lasting engagement in the Balkans, is likely to force European allies to be very selective.

3. ESDI operations

The third constellation is an innovative one that has not been tested yet: NATO operations under European instead of US command, i.e. under the political control and strategic direction of European NATO allies in WEU.

Irrespective of the various flavours of world order rhetoric practised by US presidents in the 1990s, it appears unlikely that the US will always be available as a global policeman, taking the lead in all crises that demand action. From a European viewpoint, the long wait for US military leadership in ex-Yugoslavia after mid-1991 and the continuing American reluctance to commit ground troops underline this point, as does the increasing American desire to leave it to European allies themselves to sort out European crises as long as US global interests are not at stake. The logic of the US electoral system, in the absence of a credible outside threat, does not permit the US to act consistently as the world's leading power. As a result, strategy is more and more overlaid by symbolism and spin-doctoring in Washington.

Unlike in the past, European allies cannot therefore restrict their defence considerations to "participating" in US-led operations. Rather, on the one hand, they must work at mobilising US political will to lead effectively if needed; on the other hand, they must be prepared to act militarily without direct US involvement in cases when non-action would cause serious harm to Europe.

Regional crises at the periphery of the Alliance, potentially resulting from ethnic and religious rivalries, territorial disputes, inadequate or failed efforts at reform, the abuse of human rights, or the dissolution of states in an environment of serious economic, social, and political difficulties, can affect regional stability, lead to unacceptable human suffering, and to armed conflicts that could eventually spill over on the territory of European allies or otherwise affect their security, e.g. through large-scale population movement.

If the US is not prepared to act in such a given case, European allies must have a chance to go ahead without direct US involvement. After almost a decade of resistance to this line of reasoning, there is agreement now in the Alliance, based on its 1996 decisions in Berlin, to provide flexible options for selecting a European NATO commander, using NATO Headquarters, and releasing Alliance assets and capabilities for WEU-led operations. In this process, DSACEUR is increasingly wearing a European hat, just as SACEUR has always worn a US hat in addition to his NATO role.

If WEU as an organisation will be disbanded and merged into EU by 2000 as envisaged in the European Council's Cologne declaration on the further development of a common European security and defence policy, the EU is going to assume WEU's recently-gained role as Europe's organisational anchor within NATO.

4. EU-led crisis response operations

In a very recent new development, made possible by the Franco-British St.-Malo Declaration of December 1998, a fourth constellation has to be taken into account that involves European operations outside NATO, thus not identical with WEU-led operations within NATO.

The development of a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) of the EU includes the intention, as expressed in the Amsterdam Treaty, to progressively frame a common defence policy. NATO's Strategic Concept of 1999 calls for this CFSP to be compatible with the common security and defence policy established within the framework of the Washington Treaty. Obviously, when looking at the rather academic past achievements of CFSP and its predecessor EPC, such a call seems very much in place.

While on the one hand, WEU's operational dimension has now been firmly embedded in NATO as its European pillar, accommodated by the Combined Joint Task Forces (CJTF) concept and the Alliance's decision, in 1996, to make its assets and capabilities available for WEU-led Alliance operations, EU members have also decided, on the other hand, to merge WEU into the EU.

In a first step, WEU's Petersberg tasks as developed since 1992, i.e. robust military support for political, diplomatic, and economic crisis response efforts, have been incorporated into the EU's CFSP in the Amsterdam Treaty, in force since May 1999. The fundamental idea is that the EU, in the European Council of heads of state and government and the Council of foreign and defence ministers, can decide on and authorise crisis response operations in cases when NATO as a whole, and the North Atlantic Council, cannot be used for some reason. Unlike for WEU-led operations, the necessary arrangements within NATO for ready access by the EU, for EU-led operations outside NATO, to the collective assets and capabilities of the Alliance and European force components assigned to NATO roles have to still be defined and adopted.

NATO walks a tight rope to accommodate this development. While the Alliance fully supports the development of the European Security and Defence Identity (ESDI) within the Alliance, it is not prepared to do more than "acknowledge" the resolve of the EU to have the capacity for autonomous action for taking decisions and approving military action. In the Strategic Concept, allies pledge to handle non-Article 5 crisis response operations through a common set of Alliance structures and procedures. It is indeed hard to imagine how EU members could possibly conduct successful crisis response operations without making full use of the procedures, agreements, and integrated military structures created in NATO.

The French failure to fully return into NATO's integrated structures and force planning in spite of the close co-operation practised in the Balkans, exposes European efforts to constant fears about unnecessary duplication and strategic decoupling. Suggestions that the EU should set up structures for collective force planning and common operational planning separate from NATO's are highly problematical in this context. It seems as if, in a wave of pro-European rhetoric after the Franco-British declaration of St. Malo and, above all, after Kosovo, many European governments, including Germany's, have not done the necessary thinking about the proper, most effective way of developing the EU's defence capability. The historically grown French reluctance towards NATO, while it must be respected for the time being, should give way to a determined European policy of adopting NATO as the EU's own defence alliance, thus finally giving political substance to the idea of a European pillar of NATO.

The suggestion, supported by France, that the EU should develop and promote defence convergence criteria for its members to harmonise defence spending and operational abilities, and thus foster convergence of defence policies, poses a similar problem. It is of course true that in most EU countries painful reforms are more readily accepted if they can be shown to be part of an agreed multilateral effort. In defence, however, it is very doubtful whether the EU, so far a highly non-military institution, would be perceived to have the authority for setting binding targets for national defence policies.

Especially from a German viewpoint, being politically able to sell an increase in defence procurement and R & D spending as a crucial element of a multilaterally agreed policy would certainly be extremely helpful, if not indispensable. If such a request came from NATO, however, e.g. as a Europeanised effort on the basis of the Alliance's recent Defence Capabilities Initiative, it would be much more likely to have the desired effect than if pursued outside NATO in ill-prepared EU structures. This is especially true if one of the goals of increased spending is interoperability with RMA-type US forces.

This should not exclude utilising the EU to complement NATO's established, but limited multinational defence funding efforts. Creating a common EU Defence Investment Programme, with annual national contributions based on an agreed key, would be a major breakthrough, especially with a view to major infrastructure requirements, e.g. for strategic intelligence. The pervasive national-champion approach to defence and aerospace industries, combined with the tradition of negotiating a fair industrial return, however, make such a development rather unlikely as long as European companies haven't been integrated in transatlantic industrial structures that create an environment of less-politicised competition.

As stressed in NATO's Washington summit communiqué as a matter of utmost importance, EU-led as well as WEU-led operations would have to provide an option for non-EU allies, including Canada, to participate if they so wish. Also, in case of larger-scale operations, there might be a need to consult with the US about necessary reinforcements in Europe to maintain the required military capability and clear preparedness for the common defence of the Alliance's members.

While NATO is generally believed to possess the overall capability to manage crises successfully, the EU still has to earn that reputation in the realm of security and defence. Institutionally, the EU - including the council framework - lacks what could be called a defence culture. Just as the CFSP, structurally, has so far had little to do with an encompassing, operational, responsible, and result-oriented foreign policy, let alone security policy, like individual democracies try to have it, one must fear that a EU defence policy would initially be quite remote from defence, too.

This makes it even more imperative to establish serious and effective mutual consultation, co-operation, and transparency between NATO and EU without delay. While this can in part evolve from the recently created mechanisms between NATO and WEU, the much higher political weight and established identity of the EU will not permit NATO to dictate its own terms, even if they represent the best solution. Developing this consultation will be a tedious and demanding learning process for both sides, jeopardised even by fundamental things such as the uncertain willingness to share confidential information.

Currently, NATO and the EU are worlds apart as institutions, even though they are based in the same city. This distance and mistrust is reflected, with admirable diplomacy, in the Washington summit communiqué: "Co-operation between the two organisations on topics of common concern, to be decided on a case-by-case basis, should be developed when it enhances the effectiveness of action by NATO and the EU." This is not language that conveys a sense of strategic unity in the Alliance.

The less than impressive reputation of the EU for cohesion and standing power in security and defence puts a heavy burden on its future first steps into military accountability in EU-led operations. Adversaries will try their best to exploit perceived differences between individual EU member states as well as between Europe and the US, just as the Serbian leadership did quite successfully for some time earlier in the 1990s.

One way around this problem would theoretically consist of entrusting a specified EU-led mission, or all of them, to a given lead nation that would provide the bulk of the forces, hold the command, and speak for the Union. Only France and Britain would probably stand ready for such a role. The present German government has announced that it does not seek a leading military role in Europe (but of course insists on its share of high-level posts in the Alliance). None of these countries, however, seems to fit the description of a natural and convincing leader, and none of them has military resources that would set it a class apart from the others.

This leaves no option but to develop a sui generis approach. The most fundamental precondition for the EU's defence policy and potential EU-led operations to succeed would be a much-intensified debate about the fundamental strategic outlook of the EU as a whole, combined with a visible effort to move from national philosophies and traditions in foreign policy, security, and defence to a multilaterally generated, viable community view. One telling example for what will be needed with respect to the whole range of international security affairs is the intention, announced in St. Malo by Britain and France, to harmonise their African policies and display their new communality of approach to African states, e.g. by joint visits of their foreign ministers in African states. A long process of internal and external confidence-building is still needed in many parts of the world before the EU will ever be perceived as a strategic actor that can credibly engage in military operations beyond Europe without the US.

It would take even more efforts to convince observers in Africa, Asia, and especially the Middle East, that American and European approaches to these regions represent a unified Alliance strategy. As long as this state of affairs persists, each military intervention in such areas will come with the twin risk of allies either being played out against each other, or actually finding themselves on different sides, as temporarily seemed to be the case in the African Great Lakes region in the very recent past. Thus, caution must be advised.

Realistically, EU-led crisis response operations will be geographically restricted to OSCE Europe west of a line from the Baltic to the Black Sea; for WEU-led operations, with the consent of the North Atlantic Council, an even more restricted area seems likely due to Russian sensitivities. However, it is possible that EU members will at one point decide to promote WEU as NATO's European identity in a prominent role for protecting maritime and littoral security in the Mediterranean.

This would amount to an interesting challenge to the geopolitical dominance of the US in this region, closely linked to the American role in the Middle East. However, as long as EU countries cannot offer convincing, viable, and commonly agreed strategies for dealing with challenges such as the Greek-Turkish rivalry and Cyprus, the Kurdish problem, Albanian irredentism, Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian issue, stability in the Gulf, the Arabian peninsula, and Egypt, or the Algerian situation, one should not get too excited over this prospect.

Towards a definition of the EU's defence interest

In order to make their future military role more calculable to the outside world and plannable within, EU countries should, with priority, arrive at a high-level understanding of the security challenges and risks it faces. They must answer the question which scenarios demand action from a European angle, and would thus likely to meet sufficient political will to act even if NATO is not prepared to engage.

One aspect deserves particular attention: From a European viewpoint, the indivisibility of security does not only apply to NATO membership but also to EU membership. This is especially true among those countries that share the Euro as a common currency and therefore also depend on a common guarantee of their peace, security, and freedom.

Furthermore, membership candidates in Central and Eastern Europe, the Baltic and the Mediterranean should be able to expect being treated as part of this "European security zone" as far as possible. The history of reform consolidation in Central Europe in the 1990s has shown clearly how valuable the credible projection of a sense of perspective, belonging, and security is for navigating through the difficulties of societal transition towards open, market-economy democracies. Implicitly, EU membership candidates already enjoy a political security guarantee. It behoves the EU to provide the military power it needs to fulfil this guarantee without active US involvement.

Given the limited defence resources available to Europeans in the foreseeable future, as well as their reluctance to use military force as a global political tool, a European definition of defence interests is likely to concentrate on dealing with direct attacks against this European security zone and indirect risks that arise from crises on its immediate periphery, with a tangible spill-over into this zone.

Any scenario beyond these geographic constraints, even if it is of fundamental importance for the world as a whole, will likely be treated as secondary for the purpose of European defence planning. This does not exclude active European participation like in the Gulf War. However, European preparedness for such participation should not be expected to increase significantly.

Accordingly, the initiative by US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in December 1998 to give NATO a global role was rejected by the European allies, and soon dropped by the US long before the Washington summit meeting. This leaves the US with the enormous responsibility of being the only power that looks at international security as a whole, in all continents. The best that can come out of this situation is that Europeans succeed in their effort to at least control and guarantee international security in Europe itself without having to draw upon the US excessively in the future, thus helping to reduce the deplorable overburdening of US military resources.