Robert Walter MP, Strasbourg/London

Fresh policies must drive Europe’s thinking and planning How to harmonise national defence and security interests within Europe

by Robert Walter MP, Vice-President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Strasbourg/London

The drawdown of ISAF forces from Afghanistan may be firmly in sight, but the Euro-Atlantic alliance still has a lot of work to do. Without a doubt, Afghanistan in 2013 is far different from Afghanistan in 2001. Transition has brought about many positive changes, from increased access to education and healthcare to improvements in infrastructure and economic activity.

A fragile road to stability However, while the progress is encouraging, the process remains fragile. History has shown us that the road to stability is invariably long and tough. Trust and confidence, the cornerstone of true reconciliation, is difficult to build and even more so to maintain. Be it in the Balkans, Iraq or Palestine, we know that stalemate wrought by continuing suspicion can come at tragic cost. Mindful of the past, we cannot afford to be complacent in the future: if we are to help Afghanistan through the next phase, it’s essential we have the right strategy in place to tackle the root causes of the conflict which still persist: extremism, radicalism, illiteracy and poverty.

The EU needs a new Security Strategy The importance of strategy cannot be overstated: without it, solutions are impossible to attain. Unfortunately, the speed and scale of global changes have not always been matched by comparable overhauls in vision and action. In a world which is becoming increasingly volatile, where intra-state violence is

British Forces – between tradition and the future. The Queen’s Birthday Parade also known as Trooping the Colour, Horse Guards Parade, London, June 2013. Photo: Corporal Paul Shaw, defenceimagery.mod.uk, OGL v2.0

Robert Walter MP has been a British Member of Parliament since 1997. He is also Chairman of the European Democrat Group and Vice-President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Born in 1948, he graduated in 1971 from the University of Aston in Birmingham. Before entering the House of Commons, he was an international banker and farmer. Robert Walter MP was President of the European Security and Defence Assembly/Assembly of WEU in Paris from December 2003 until June 2011. In 2011 he was elected President of the European Security and Defence Association (ESDA). He is a member of the board and acting President of the Berlin Security Conference.

growing and new patterns of interdependence are emerging, the rationale for a new security strategy is plain to see.

The EU as a collective security provider? As the US shifts its attention to the Pacific, eyes are turning more and more to Europe to take responsibility for its own security. There is mounting pressure on European states and particularly on the European Union for Europe to prove itself a capable and credible strategic player. At the EU summit in December member states, for the first time since 2008, will reflect on the EU’s role as a collective security provider. The debate is much needed and long overdue. Since its inception in 1999, the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) has had a mixed record of success. There have been positive examples of EU deployments but there have also been less successful missions. As a result, there have been growing misgivings about the EU’s ability to develop and maintain credible military capabilities, not least the credibility of standing “battlegroups”. By extension, this leads us to question the EU’s ability to assert a serious and substantive role on the global stage.

Paucity of political will and other shortcomings The CSDP’s shortcomings stem from a variety of interlinked and complex factors, ranging from weak institutional coherence to a paucity of political will. The economic and financial circumstances precipitating cuts to defence budgets across 28 nation-states have made it all the more difficult to build the long-term political consensus upon which an effective CSDP depends. Ten years after adopting the European Security Strategy (ESS), the EU has still not managed to agree a clear

set of criteria against which member states could decide where, when and how to get engaged. In the absence of clearly defined objectives, strategic planning has remained elusive. This has to change – and the December summit provides an opportunity to agree a way forward.

We need a proactive crisis-prevention policy However, if the EU is to carve out a workable long-term vision, it has to be realistic and pragmatic. One of the main lessons learned from Afghanistan and recent conflicts, is that we need to tackle the underlying causes of conflict before they have a chance to spread and escalate. As we have witnessed time and again, war rarely springs out of nowhere: it is the result of piecemeal deterioration. And yet, until now, EU deployments have tended to be reactive rather than preventative. Allocating more resources to preventative measures as part of a sustained strategy would not only resolve some of the political, economic and institutional obstacles associated with conflict intervention; it also offers an alternative approach at a time when Europe’s strategic environment is changing. As NATO prepares to wind down its military operations in Afghanistan, it will face what has been described as an ‘inflection point’: it must seek a new balance in the contributions made on both sides of the Atlantic at a time of heightened fiscal austerity. There is no escaping the fact that Europeans will have to do more – both individually and collectively – to tackle emerging challenges in the face of reduced defence budgets. If the Alliance is to maintain the essential capabilities it needs to implement its Strategic Concept – such as reconnaissance and surveillance assets, or strategic lift aircraft – multinational cooperation will be increasingly relied upon to provide them in the future. To this end, NATO’s Smart Defence Initiative – which is intended to complement, not compete with, the European Defence Agency (EDA) – has set the scene for closer and deeper collaboration on logistical support and equipment.

Lancaster House 2010 – a smart defence approach Across Europe, additional initiatives such as the bilateral British-Franco agreement are springing up in response to economic and political challenges. These have been viewed with some suspicion, with critics claiming that in bypassing the Lisbon Treaty’s vision of permanent structured cooperation, the emergence of so-called ‘islands of cooperation’ threaten to create a 2-tier Europe. However, they are a manifestation of the Smart Defence approach. As such they should be seen as a help rather than a hindrance to fashioning a forward strategy.

More concerted cooperation in defence The fact is that Britain and France need greater economies of scale to preserve certain capabilities in the current climate. If Europe’s top two militaries can save capabilities despite Royal Marines from Alpha Company, 40 Commando brace themselves against the downdraft from an incoming Royal Air Force Chinook helicopter during Operation DAAS 7B in Afghanistan.

Photo: Rhys O'Leary, defenceimagery.mod.uk, OGL v2.0

budget cuts, EU defence will have benefited. Moreover, these types of agreement encourage concerted cooperation in areas where achieving consensus among 28 member states is difficult. Indeed, an increasing number of countries are recognising the benefits of smaller military groupings as a means of bridging differences in national strategic cultures and procurement processes. These efforts should not be seen as isolated, mutually exclusive pursuits to dominate European defence at the other’s expense: on the contrary, developed in the right way, they could be the catalyst to a stronger and deeper panEuropean military zone that would create a more confident, open and effective defence partnership.

Fresh policies must drive Europe Looking beyond Afghanistan 2014, it’s clear that fresh policies must drive Europe’s thinking and planning in a changing security environment. Wider and more flexible European partnerships should be at the heart of a reinvigorated defence and security strategy. Multinational cooperation does not mean compromising national interests. It means setting clear and achievable priorities, pooling and sharing capabilities and coordinating efforts better. This will not be plain sailing. But if Europe is to secure its own neighbourhood, if it is to build on its achievements in Afghanistan and thwart future threats, it must rise to the challenge.