Sir,

Karl von Wogau embodies a long-awaited step towards real defence cooperation in Europe: At last there is a body in the European Parliament dealing with security and defence issues, and he is its chairman. Hopefully, its existence  will help the EU to have a real and long-needed debate on the sort of missions that European forces must be ready to carry out, and on the forces needed to effect these missions.

 

Serious discussion of what the European Union wants to do with its military capabilities is now unavoidable. The real problem is that we still suffer from an inferiority complex vis-à-vis the United States, and consequently we dream about creating forces that can fulfill similar missions. Another inferiority complex Europeans have is vis-à-vis NATO, so we continue to struggle with the dilemma of whether or not the EU needs an Article 5 type commitment built into its defence arrangments.

 

But this is the wrong approach. Common defence, within NATO too, has acquired a totally different dimension. It is no longer about deploying massive military might to defend territory against an attacking enemy. Instead, it is about continuous cooperation on security issues, especially those relating to the “unholy triad” of catastrophic terrorism, organised crime and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. This is not a one-off action but an ongoing task that has to be performed daily. In a way it is a permanent Article 5 situation, even though there is no point in declaring it formally as the threats we face are unpredictable in terms of both geography and time. In a sense, the European Union already practices common defence.

 

As to the military forces Europe needs, we should relinquish our secret dream of building military forces comparable in effectiveness if not in size to those of the United States. We would do better to concentrate on likely contingencies and develop the sort of forces needed to cope with these. That quickly brings us to the conclusion that the European Union will not, in the foreseeable future, have to fight lengthy or high-intensity conflicts. The military demands place on European troops will be of a traditional nature, perhaps with a short high-intensity phase at the beginning. The bulk of the conflicts we are likely to face will be traditional wars that need boots on the ground.

 

Boots are what we in Europe have aplenty. What we do not have is the technology needed to make our soldiers as invulnerable and as efficient as possible. What we also do not have is reconnaissance strengths  – not necessarily strategic reconnaissance using satellites but tactical battlefield reconnaissance derived from unmanned aerial drones and similar techniques. Above all, we lack the means to transport our soldiers and their equipment to possibly remote battlefields and ensure their logistical long-term support.

 

These are therefore the areas we need to concentrate on; available technology and adequate training rather than prestigious strategic assets. And we need these on a multinational basis involving all the European nations that both want and are able to contribute. US-led coalitions will continue to play an important role in lengthy high-intensity conflicts, and it is highly unlikely that such operations would be carried out by Europeans only, even if we in the EU had the means to do so. Our capabilities should concentrate on contributing to such operations rather than carrying them out on our own.