SECURITY & DEFENCE
How governments should compensate for defence spending cuts
Spring 2010
Many European governments cut their defence budgets last year, intensifying fears that the EU’s military outreach, and thus the goals of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), will be seriously weakened. The European Defence Agency’s Dick Zandee puts his case for a European approach to defence cooperation.
At first it was called a “peace dividend”, but now it’s seen as a very real problem. In the years following the end of the Cold War, European defence budgets shrunk alarmingly. Only in recent years have they begun to stabilise, with some national defence budgets even showing small increases as the result of political support for military campaigns in the Balkans, Africa and in the Middle East. The EU’s member states together spent €193bn on defence in 2005, €201bn in 2006, €204bn in 2007 and €200bn in 2008.
But in the fall-out from the global financial crisis, many European defence ministers once again have to slash spending. The impact of these cuts will be felt over the next few years when European governments are forced to delay equipment procurement and reduce the numbers of military personnel they send on foreign missions.
Defence ministers are going to have to contend with some uncomfortable facts. Defence inflation goes up faster than normal inflation, and one factor that contributes to this is the price of military equipment, which each year will cost 5-10% more than the previous year. Military deployments are in any case very expensive, with the average expenditure for, say, a Finnish soldier deployed in KFOR in Kosovo running at about €95,000 for a six month deployment period. And for the EUFOR operation in Chad the comparable bill went up to €250,000 per soldier. The 1,800 Dutch troops in NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) operation in Afghanistan cost twice what was envisaged four years ago. All in all, modern missions cost far more than peacekeeping missions of the past. Last year France had to spend an extra €260m in its missions to address urgent operational requirements. This was double what it spent the year before and five times more than in 2007. Such operational cost increases mean that most probably European countries will have either to cancel or postpone military spending to the future.
In the face of defence spending cuts, how can European countries best maintain their military capabilities? Those European governments that have already scaled-back on military spending have so far failed to coordinate these measures on an international basis. Their cuts have also been very uneven, so that some governments greatly reduced certain services, but left others intact. The Danes, for instance, gave up their submarines while the Dutch sacrificed their maritime patrol aircraft. But the bottom line is that with less money available, the only way European countries can maintain if not improve their military capabilities is by setting priorities together.
Last year, the European Defence Agency set 12 priorities aimed at addressing shortfalls in areas like helicopters and defence against roadside bombs and shoulder-fired missiles. But these priorities can only be achieved if European governments put an end to nationally-focused policies that are wasting money through unnecessary duplication. More standardisation is needed and we must encourage Europe’s very different national military organisations to work more together.
The figures speak for themselves; there are still four main battle tanks in the EU, seven different attack helicopters and 23 types of armoured fighting vehicle. Sixteen naval shipyards produce an assortment of frigates, submarines and other equipment, whereas only three shipyards supply the United States Navy. In Europe, 80% of defence investment is spent with national suppliers.
To address the fragmentation of defence spending in Europe, cooperation between EU countries should be more the rule rather than the exception. And this cooperation should not be limited just to procurement as countries also need to pool and share their resources. The European Defence Agency’s project for a European Air Transport Fleet is now looking at how to pool training and logistics as well as procurement, how to exchange flight hours and how to make aircraft available to others. Role-specialisation and task-sharing have long been taboo, but are now increasingly necessary for more and more countries. Multinational cooperation between clusters of European countries is becoming practice. Nordic countries have shown the way, with Norway and Sweden already aligning their military education, training, procurement and other investments and with Finland and Denmark now joining the effort. The establishment of the ‘European Air Transport Command’ by Belgium, Germany, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands is another example of European defence collaboration. From 2010 onwards this new European command will replace separate national commands – saving costs and improving air transport.
We should also encourage further collaboration between military and civilian bodies. Terrorism now poses one of Europe’s greatest security threats and the traditional separation between external and internal security is no longer relevant. Illegal immigration, drug trafficking, environmental challenges and the disruption of energy flows are at the top of Europe’s homeland security agenda. The three pillar EU structure created by the Maastricht treaty in the aftermath of the Cold War was out of touch with these issues. But now of course all that is at an end with the introduction of the Lisbon treaty and Catherine Ashton’s new role as High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy as well as Vice-President of the Commission and Head of the European Defence Agency.
Thanks to the Lisbon treaty the Commission and EDA will find it easier to synchronise research investment. Up till now this was done per project, such as for Software Defined Radio or Unmanned Air Vehicles. Under the “European Framework Co-operation for Civilian Security, Space and Defence-related Research” this synchronisation will be carried out systematically. Each project can now be co-ordinated between the EDA, the Commission and the European Space Agency, and this will ensure that taxpayer’s money isn’t spent twice. Another advantage will be that civilian and military communities can operate more easily together, which will be increasingly the case in conflict zones and across Europe.
But cross-pillar co-operation should not be limited to investment in technology. A variety of national and international systems exist in the area of maritime surveillance, but most lack co-ordination. Last November, the Council decided to aim for an integrated approach to maritime surveillance that would involve both civil and defence actors. This will lead to more effective co-operation across pillars, agencies and national borders. For too long civil-military co-ordination has been a buzz-word in Europe but no more than that, so now is the time to turn it into a practical reality.
In a world of multiplying security threats, the coming decades will be critical to Europe’s defence capabilities. Even when we emerge from the economic crisis our resources will be constrained, so European nations will have no other choice but to co-operate more fully. While a “European Army” is an unattainable goal, European defence co-operation should aim at pooling, sharing and even integrating military means. EU member states need to join together in different groups to invest in military equipment, and we should avoid creating any core group that exclude others. The EU’s member states can perform a lot better on defence if they spend their scant resources wisely, but this means collaborating.