A new report from
a British think tank says that to enhance their influence in Washington and
the world, European governments need to improve their military capabilities
and develop their own distinctive approach to warfare. That approach should build on core European military strengths related to postwar
stabilization after a military conflict. These approaches include nation-building,
peacekeeping and counter-insurgency warfare.
The United States also has much to learn from its European allies about these
approaches, the report said, especially as both Europe and the United States
work to stabilize, rebuild and establish democratic regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Moreover, the report suggests that Britain and France, Europe's leading military
powers, lead by example in developing a European way of war and a common European
approach to relations with the United States, based on partnership and autonomy.
The report highlights the need for Europeans to retain the ability to work alongside
U.S. military forces, which are becoming increasingly sophisticated technologically,
because Europeans are not expected to undertake major military operations at
the higher end of the conflict spectrum without the United States. The report further suggests that Europe develop military forces that complement
those of the United States and reflect the changing nature of warfare. Toward
that end, it says Europeans need better combat skills and equipment. It also recommends that the United States enhance capabilities related to the
post-conflict period, or winning the peace, specifically by increasing the number
of troops that are trained for peacekeeping and nation-building. European forces
have more extensive experience than American forces in those tasks as a result
of European colonialism and their recent nation-building efforts in the Balkans
and elsewhere.
EU military operations
Last year, the European Union mounted its first military operations by working
with NATO to enforce the peace in Macedonia, leading police missions in Bosnia
and Macedonia, and undertaking its first independent, long-range military deployment,
which was in the Congo.
At the end of this year, the EU will take over command of a large peacekeeping
mission in Bosnia from NATO through an arrangement known as Berlin Plus, under
which the EU can use NATO military assets. NATO, however, will retain a presence
in this region after the handover.
NATO leaders agreed at a summit in Istanbul last month to train Iraqi security
forces and to expand the alliance's peacekeeping force in Afghanistan.
EU leaders agreed on a constitutional treaty last month that aims, among other
goals, to enhance the bloc's global profile by creating an EU president and
foreign minister. They also agreed to create an EU diplomatic corps and an EU
defense agency that will work to strengthen European military capabilities with
better procurement decisions and increased resources for military research and
development.
Moreover, EU leaders appointed Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Manuel Barroso
as the next president of the European Commission and reappointed Javier Solana
as EU foreign policy chief. Mr. Solana is expected to become the first foreign
minister of the EU.
"A European Way of War," published by the Center for European Reform
(CER), a London-based research institute that focuses on European integration,
was prepared by six prominent defense analysts from both sides of the Atlantic.
They include Michael O'Hanlon, an American defense expert at the Brookings Institution,
and five Europeans. The Europeans include Charles Grant, director of the CER;
Steven Everts, director of the CER's transatlantic program; and Daniel Keohane,
a fellow at the CER.
The other European authors are Lawrence Freedman, one of Britain's best-known
authorities on defense policy and a professor of war studies at King's College
of Oxford University, and Francois Heisbourg, a prominent French defense expert
who is director of the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research and chairman
of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
America as benchmark
These authors explain that U.S. military forces are widely viewed as the inevitable
benchmark for assessing Europe's progress in enhancing its military power.
For example, military experts often note that Europeans collectively spend about
two-thirds as much as the United States on defense but have only about one-tenth
of the U.S. capacity for force projection and only half of the latter forces
can be deployed rapidly. Such comparisons unfairly slight European military contributions, these experts
said, because Europe has different strategic priorities from the United States
and does not need, nor could it afford, to emulate the overwhelming U.S. military
prowess.
The authors said that vast increases in defense spending, which in any case
would be extremely unpopular among European citizens, are not necessary to enhance
European military capabilities because the required capabilities can be developed
by using existing funds more efficiently and by better allocating current resources
instead of directing the bulk of them toward maintaining conscript armies.
Defense experts say that in addition to certain key capabilities that are lacking,
such as improved communications and logistics, Europe needs additional professional
military forces. Mr. Grant added that in some issues, such as air-to-ground
cruise missiles and air-to-air missiles, European equipment is superior to that
of the United States.
The British model
The British military provides a more suitable model for continental European
militaries than does the U.S. military, said Mr. Freedman of Oxford. The British
model, he said, is based primarily on the importance of separating insurgents
from local populations and working closely with the locals.
Mr. Freedman called U.S. military doctrine "dysfunctional" because
of the reluctance of U.S. military commanders to engage in the unconventional
warfare associated with counterinsurgency and peace enforcement operations.
U.S. concern about force protection, he said, "often leads to overreaction
by [American] soldiers that pushes insurgents and locals together."
In recent months, British military commanders in Iraq reportedly have said that
their American counterparts have used overly aggressive tactics against insurgents
in Iraq, especially in Fallujah, which they say has heightened Iraqi concerns
about the U.S. military presence. Mr. Freedman also suggested that a new war sequence has emerged as a result
of Iraq and other recent conflicts, in which actual war-fighting ends relatively
quickly because no enemy can match U.S. military power, but the post-conflict
period can become almost indefinite. As a result, he added: "The key question is not whether the Europeans can
adapt to American military doctrine but whether the Americans can adapt to the
European way of war."
Division of labor
According to the conventional wisdom among defense experts, Michael O'Hanlon
of the Brookings Institution explained, there is a division of labor in trans-Atlantic
military operations in which the U.S. "cooks dinner" while Europeans
"do the dishes." That analogy is a reference to how the United States dominates military campaigns
because of its overwhelming military forces, but Europeans are often left to
carry the largest peacekeeping burden because of their strengths in that task.
As Mr. O'Hanlon said, "European soldiers are arguably better at peacekeeping
than U.S. forces."
He rejected the notion that there is or should be a neat trans-Atlantic military
division of labor, however, explaining that each side of the Atlantic needs
both combat and peace enforcement capabilities. Mr. O'Hanlon also said the distinction between the combat and post-combat phases
of military conflict is eroding because post-conflict stabilization can require
high-intensity combat operations, as happened recently in Iraq. As he said:
"Iraq has demonstrated that the U.S. needs to be good -- and indeed get
better -- at post-conflict stabilization. He also suggested that European militaries use Britain as a model by developing
"somewhat smaller professional forces that are well-provisioned logistically,
even on a remote battlefield."
U.S. concerns
Ever since the EU began the drive to develop its own military forces in 1999,
U.S. officials and commentators have raised two main concerns: that an independent
European military might become a competitor to NATO and that the Europeans would
duplicate what was done through NATO to enhance their military capabilities.
As Mr. Everts and Mr. Keohane explained in "A European Way of War,"
however, such concerns are largely misplaced: "The reality is the EU will
not have its own army for decades to come -- if ever, nor will NATO's status
as Europe's pre-eminent defense organization change any time soon.
"For most European defense ministries," they wrote, "NATO will
continue to be the principal multinational military organization. That is not
only because NATO is a military organization -- which the EU is not -- but also
because of NATO's large and experienced military headquarters."
They also pointed out that NATO, rather than the EU, is currently providing
the main impetus for reform of European military forces -- primarily through
the NATO Response Force and the NATO command in Norfolk -- that promote trans-Atlantic
military transformation.
European countries are developing military forces designed to enable them to
keep up with the U.S. "revolution in military affairs," which uses
digital technology to improve the battlefield assessments of military commanders.
Moreover, EU officials frequently explain that European military forces are
available for both NATO and EU missions and are intended for use when the United
States decides not to participate. Most European countries belong to both organizations.
EU vs. NATO
In the past couple of decades, EU integration was dominated by efforts to create
the euro and establish a single market, said Charles Grant, the CER director.
"In the coming decades, it will be cooperation on justice and home affairs,
and also on foreign and defense policy, that drives European integration."
"Justice and home affairs" refers to police and judicial cooperation
and efforts to protect the EU's homeland security. EU countries have stepped
up their efforts in those tasks since the March 11 terrorist attacks in Madrid,
such as by appointing a terrorism policy czar, although they still have a long
way to go to develop an effective antiterrorism strategy, according to the CER
report.
Mr. Grant also discussed the differences between the EU and NATO, noting that,
unlike NATO and other international organizations, the EU can draw on a unique
combination of hard and soft power, or on "the military and civilian instruments
for managing crises." As he explained, the lesson of recent interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq
is that hard power is sufficient to overthrow a regime, but stabilizing and
rebuilding a country requires the use of soft power. Moreover, the main strengths
of the EU, which until recently has been a civilian power, lie in the domain
of soft power.
Mr. Grant also said that, although Europeans are criticized for being overly
bureaucratic and for emphasizing institutions over capabilities, the NATO bureaucracy
is substantially larger than the nascent EU military bureaucracy. NATO has a
headquarters staff in Brussels of almost 20,000, but the embryonic EU defense
agency has fewer than 300 staff.
Relations with Washington
The CER report concludes that the key issue in the European defense policy debate
is what relationship to pursue with Washington. As Mr. Freedman of Oxford explained,
Europe has two main approaches to relations with the U.S. -- the French and
British perspectives: France believes that Europe should enhance its ability to act independently
in the military realm to build Europe as a counterweight to the United States.
Britain, in contrast, said Mr. Freedman, believes that by enhancing its military
capabilities and pursuing a partnership with the United States, Europe stands
a better chance of Washington's taking its views into account.
As Mr. Grant has argued elsewhere, the French are too quick to oppose the United
States, but the British tend to support the United States reflexively. Moreover,
as the report's authors noted, these internal European divisions substantially
reduced European influence on recent world events.
Mr. Grant suggested that Europe, therefore, needs to reconcile the French and
British approaches to the United States in order to develop coherent and unified
foreign and defense policies. Toward that end, he favors "a stronger Europe
that is usually supportive of U.S. policies but a Europe which can act autonomously,
and which, on matters of vital importance, is capable of opposing the U.S."
Both the new president of the European Commission, Mr. Barroso of Portugal,
and the EU foreign policy chief, Mr. Solana of Spain, are considered pro-American
leaders.
