At the NATO/GMFUS Conference Brussels, 3 October 2002

Address by Julian Lindley-French, Senior Research Fellow, European Union Institute for Security Studies, Paris Julian Lindley-French: Thank you Chairman, Mr Secretary General, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, Good Afternoon. I am going to start with a salutary tale about the dangers of working in European defence. I was in a pub in my native Sheffield in Yorkshire recetly when this guy I’ve known for years said to me, So what is it you exactly do then”? and I said, well you know in a pompous way, Well I am an academic working on how we are going to construct European defence, how the various nations are going to work together, how they’re going to project power globally. And he looked at me very sternly, and he said, So like Star Trek then? and I must admit there are days on the coal face when I feel like that, it’s a bit like Star Trek, that sometimes seems more realistic. Now I could stand here on the eve of the Prague Summit and rattle through the list of European deficiencies that is now well tried and tested and which Klaus has done so eloquently, C4, ISTAR, Deployable Headquarters, Precision Guided Munitions, Suppression of Enemy Air Defences, Lift, Protection of DSWMD etc. etc. I could talk about creative financing, techniques or smart procurement to get more bang for our Euro, as it were. But I am not going to do that, I am not going to do that because that is not where the problem - and there is a problem - is at. It is like trying to create grand strategy from operational tactics. They are symptoms rather than causes. So instead I am going to talk about gaps, the gaps that really matter, the gaps in the way Americans and Europeans perceive security and its management, and how to close those gaps. My core message is this: gaps in both policy and capabilities are functions of a rapidly changing strategic environment which are in themselves leaving policy makers profoundly unsure of the tasks required to manage security, their geographical and military scope, and thereafter the requisite mix of civilian and military tools. Shared values and interests are all very important but they simply are not enough, given the world we’re moving into. Consequently we have, if you like, an emerging crisis in our respective strategic concepts, because like it or not, we are now confronted across the Atlantic by several versions of how to do security. At its most simple, and it really is very simple, Europe has the policy, in theory at least, without the capabilities, whereas, on occasions I wonder if the US might have the capabilities but not the policy. We are faced therefore with not one deficiency but two deficiencies, that if they’re not managed carefully, could mangle the alliance rather than reinforce it. First, the American policy engagement gap. There has never been a power in the world such as the United States but the recently published National Security Strategy revealed for me a profound paradox in US security policy. The new Doctrine of Strategic Pre-Eminence that was implied therein suggested that the US would reserve the right to manage security pre-emptively if necessary. Now, I have no particular problem with that. America is the force for good in the world. I for one am proud, as many in this room, to be a friend and ally of the United States. I am also happy to be led, but I want to be well led. The question of American goodness therefore is not an issue. What is at issue legitimately is the American strategic method, and the conflict in Afghanistan has for me demonstrated a mismatch between the ends and the means of contemporary US security policy. General Ralston’s excellent presentation reinforced a basic reality. Such is American military power that no-one will challenge the US Army, Air Force or Navy directly. Thus, by definition, all the threats the US is likely to face will be asymmetric. Unfortunately the US military seems as ill suited to doing asymmetry as it does to doing mountains in that now well used and well worn phrase. Moreover the much heralded transformation process which is designed to make the US military lighter, more joint and more flexible is not going as well as some in the Pentagon would have us believe. It is unlikely therefore that the US will increase its capacity in the non high intensity war fighting aspects of security as quickly as the challenge demands. The obsession with force protection is preventing effective peace keeping doctrine. It is an important American capabilities gap, the problem does not go all one way. Put simply, given that managing security in the modern world requires a doctrine of continual engagement, the US does not have the military, nor the political aptitude to make the policy work. Now herein lies the paradox. The National Security Strategy will only be effective with the support of allies, therefore to work, broad unilateralism, which is what it is, needs multilateralism. America might be invincible in war, at least certain types of war, but is in danger, as ever, of losing the peace. Thus reports of the death of a transatlantic relationship are in fact profoundly premature, be they in Europe or America. We need each other, period. They don’t just want us, they need us. We are merely haggling over the price, now the price is legitimate European influence over the American strategic method. Now a word on Iraq. The US is right about Saddam. Let us make no mistake about this. Indeed , what America is trying to do is introduce a vital coercive element into global security governance to underpin the credibility of what are essential co-optive elements and instruments. Should war take place the greatest test of US, and I suspect European, policy will take place after the final bullet has been fired. For all their many imperfections institutions such as the UN, EU or NATO remain vital for world security governance because only they can effectively legitimise the peace. However, in a world in which ever smaller groups are likely to get their hands on ever more destructive power, a world in which increasingly everyone is becoming vulnerable to everyone else, co-optive regimes and approaches are not enough to do the job. But the US must be clear on this. The US must be clear that it is buttressing the UN, not replacing it. Now, let me turn to Europe. America needs Europe but it needs a capable Europe. Indeed Europeans must understand an important truth that Klaus Naumann touched on, an awful lot of any influence that Europe might have in Washington will be linked to the quality and quantity of the military capabilities it can bring to the table. Frankly for most Europeans the past ten years has represented little more than a period of closset disarmament with all the consequences for its respective strategic concepts that such weakness entails. Indeed some Europeans seem only prepared to recognise as much threat as they are prepared to afford. Consequently if the gap between threats and European capabilities increases many Europeans will be left with but one policy option in this ever more turbulent world - the new appeasement. Indeed such is the state of many European armed forces today, they can neither reconstitute, nor project. Only Britain and France have strategic concepts of note and forces to match. The rest of Western Europe wallows uncomfortably between dependency and deficiency. Let’s not beat about the bush on this. European defence is failing for want of defence expenditure, or what should be more properly called, security investment, and for all the talk of Europe as a soft security power, even that will not work unless it is underpinned by a core, credible, hard military power. So even if Europe does not do security the same way as the US, and believe me it does not and will not, there are too many Western European states that do not do security at all. The strategic pretence has got to stop. Thus whether Europe is a strategic partner of the US or merely America’s strategic garbage collector is as much Europe’s responsibility as it is America’s. For too long Europe has been more interested in the institutional political structures of defence, i.e. the mechanism, and by and large, ignored the threats that have been steadily increasing in the world beyond, i.e. the environment. The result is not only a transatlantic gap but an emerging strategic disconnect between much of European defence planning and the threat environment in which it resides. Certainly Europe has legitimacy but it is legitimacy without power. Consequently to those who champion such legitimacy without power, I say this, you are forgetting three verities of power. First if an institution fails to reflect power, it becomes marginalised. Second, institutions are enablers of power, not ends in themselves. Third, it is the great powers who must lead. Britain and France, the only two European states with a willingness to invest significantly in Europe’s security, are often criticised by the free riders for being bad Europeans, for not wanting, for example, the much fabled European Army, a European army founded on weakness. In fact, as far as matters of security and defence are concerned, they are by far the best Europeans. Sadly, Britain and France are not, in themselves, enough to bridge the gap between Europe’s global security responsibilities and its frankly lamentable capacities. The Emperor might not be naked but he is certainly in need of a new tailor. The first mission of Europe and European defence, therefore, in what is a new strategic environment must be to organise itself optimally, given the threats that are emerging and the resources that a robust Europe could generate. Europe’s new strategic concept, be it official or unofficial, must be founded on the premise that we are back in the global security business, and for that we will need new policies, re-invigorated institutions and modern capabilities and forces. One thing is absolutely clear, no state, not even the United States with its new Doctrine of Strategic Pre-Eminence, can deal with such menaces alone. The bottom line is this: the gap between Europe’s security responsibilities and capabilities will only widen if European states continue to set expenditure benchmarks of around 1% of GDP, spend that badly and then look around the world to see what they can do with it. It is no longer a question of spending better, Ladies and Gentlemen, but spending more and spending better. NATO’s role will be pivotal in this, make no mistake. However, NATO too will only work if Europeans invest in capabilities and the US reinvest politically in a reformed properly funded organisation. From where I sit, one gets the impression that with each task added a further cut is made. At Prague we can at least start by closing this NATO gap. NATO will be pivotal, first to ensure transatlantic and inter-European operability between European forces at very different levels of military capability, and indeed between war fighting and crisis response operations; second, through enlargement to ensure that the pool of forces that we can field grows in line with the demands that are placed upon us, and those demands will increase, as the Secretary General pointed out this morning; third, to ensure Europe can go global. If the ESDP progressively takes on responsibility for security defence in and around Europe, and I hope and believe it will, NATO is the only platform that can project power beyond; and fourth, to provide effects based defence planning and command rigour. To realise that goal NATO must be able to generate and manage European expeditionary coalitions with global reach, and as the Secretary General has said, that means capabilities, capabilities and more capabilities. But it also means better organisation, and it also means more money. There simply is no way around this. ESDP. Well for me ESDP is still a vital project, above all because it represents the most effective mechanism for many Europeans for the progressive convergence of the various security traditions and strategic concepts that exist in Europe today. Thus it is a work in progress, like some great ocean liner or aircraft carrier under construction. But we Europeans have a choice to make and the evidence of that choice will be military capacity. Indeed, if we do not pull our collective finger out, ESDP’s future will rapidly be behind it. At best ESDP could one day be the platform for all European military power. At worst, it could become a cop-out for the strategically and militarily challenged to play at power, to go on pretending that they are preparing for power when in fact they are avoiding its hard responsibilities and harsh disciplines, the WEU-isation of ESDP, if you will. The jury is still out on ESDP. However what the new age of terror has done is to set a time limit on how long this European navel gazing can continue. Make no mistake. Without strategic conceptual convergence Europeans will remain unsure as to their role, the tasks that they must fulfil and the capabilities they must afford. Bridging the European capabilities gap is therefore not a military technical question, it is not even a defence economics question, it is a question of political leadership. It was Henry Kissinger who said “Power without legitimacy tempts tests of strength, whereas legitimacy without power tempts empty posturing”. Closing those two gaps is a challenge we must all confront today, Americans and Europeans. For Europeans the choice is simple - do we build the England football team or the Scottish, sir? Thank you.