Sir,

I was intrigued by Karl von Wogau's article “Plugging the gaps in Europe’s defences” because although I agree with most of his points I nevertheless feel that we in Europe are in a situation where we have to get things in perspective. Yes, we've achieved a lot since the EU started to articulate a security and defence policy in 1999; Yet when one considers how much common knowledge and operational expertise we could all draw on from our NATO experience, we haven't so far been able to show impressive results.

 

There has been a marked tendency to draw-up plans in a cumbersome fashion that owes more to inter-rivalry and procedural etiquette than it does to any sense of urgency. Perhaps we feel ourselves to be too much at peace.

 

I would really have liked Karl von Wogau to answer his own questions on whether we are looking at unnecessary duplications of effort, and whether we are to some degree jeopardising relations between Europe and the United States. Personally, I believe that the answer to both questions is Yes. I should like to draw the attention of Europe's World readers to the recently published study by the Washington DC think-tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) “European Defense Integration, Bridging the Gap Between Strategy and Capabilities”. Its main point is that we in Europe get far too little value for money from our military budgets when compared to the US. The CSIS report points out that we could substantially improve this through greater defence integration, meaning better coordination of the efforts of individual European countries, the EU and NATO to enhance our collective defence capabilities and thus meet Europe’s future security needs.

 

There is, without getting into detail, a lot we can do to get better value in Europe from our defence spending. But it will take political courage, and a vital first step will be to improve the dialogue across the Atlantic. It takes two to tango, and you have to get real close to tango. We need to get closer to each other, no matter whether we are speaking of Europe and the US, NATO and the EU or even about competition or cooperation between industrial rivals. In this context, I should add that the CSIS study recommends a tenfold increase in the budget of the newly-formed European Defence Agency.

 

I believe we Europeans can foster cooperation by entering a new era where we place speed and effectiveness ahead of our more narrow national interests. At times of crisis, we must show that we have the will to find common solutions. This may sound empty and rhetorical, but our recent history holds too many examples of failure; the air-to-ground surveillance system and strategic airlift being just two of them.

 

Considering the billions of dollars that have been spent on winning wars, how come we have not yet learnt to win peace? We in Europe recognise that the United States is the strongest, and indeed the only global, military power. Why should we not create the capability for Europe to be the strongest peace-making power in the world?