NATO NEEDS BRITISH-FRENCH LEADERSHIP NOW
These are confusing times for supporters of NATO. On the one hand, the transatlantic alliance has completed its Libya mission without suffering a single casualty. On the other, NATO’s future looks uncertain in the face of fiscal austerity, growing burden-sharing problems and dwindling US faith in its utility. The onus is now on Britain and France to show the way forward.
In 2000, the US share of total defence spending among NATO members was around 50%. Today, it has risen to 75%.Many European nations have cashed in on continental peace, re-directing spending towards other priorities and free-riding off the US in dealing with overseas threats.
This burden-sharing problem will only get worse. Every European NATO member will see severe defence cuts over the foreseeable future, including France whose review of the Livre Blanc begins next year. So we can expect European capabilities and share of NATO defence spending to decline further.
But Europeans are not just spending less on defence; we continue to spend badly. Military spending is channelled through dozens of separate national programmes and structures creating enormous duplication and failing to achieve economies of scale. As a result, while there are half a million more European military personnel than the US, Europeans can deploy just a fraction of those that America does on overseas expeditions.
The second concern is future US foreign policy. In his last European speech as US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates warned that the US is looking west across the Pacific as much as east across the Atlantic. Meanwhile, what they see in NATO is yesterday’s vision of the future: allies with declining capabilities, reluctant to put troops in harm’s way, an institution ill-suited to addressing US overseas interests. Moreover, looming US defence budget cuts means the mood in Washington is to focus US overseas commitments its core interests.
Libya is a case in point. After the initial airstrikes, the US played a substantial but supporting role, encouraging Britain and France to lead what they saw as an operation primarily of European interest. As a result, the mission suffered from substantially reduced firepower with less than a quarter of the planes used in Kosovo, flying less than a fifth of the air sorties and ammunition running dangerously low at times. Without US military assets, the mission would have been impossible.
As in Bosnia in the 1990s, so again in Libya today, this operation has cruelly exposed how poorly equipped, organised and prepared we Europeans are for undertaking serious and sustained missions, even in our own backyard. Given that the Americans are clearly less willing to lead this sort of operation in the future, this should be a sharp wake-up call.
So what can we do? How do we reassure the Americans that Europeans are fully committed to the transatlantic alliance? How do we Europeans deliver greater military capabilities when money is tight? How do we provide for our own security interests if and when the US declines to lead in a cause vital to Europeans in the future?
Some say the answer is a European army. But this is a pipedream for lazy thinkers requiring a common budget, common equipment, and integrated command, under clear political direction: none of which are intended by its advocates. Yet the status quo is equally unpalatable. I welcome last year’s British-French Defence Treaties. If we will them, these could deliver real cost savings through joint procurement, R&D, maintenance, training, and shared military doctrine essential for joint operations. But therein lies the rub. Without the will to develop a wider vision, they risk descending into the black hole for good intentions that swallowed up St Malo.
The first deficiency of the London-Paris defence axis is the assumption that deep co-operation can be achieved by bringing the Generals together to agree how to collaborate on the battlefield; or fitting aircraft carriers with catapults. This is a perfectly sensible idea. But it is neither big, new nor original. It’s what Blucher and Wellington tried at Waterloo, Hague and Foche attempted at Flanders, what my father hoped for in the British Expeditionary Force before Dunkirk, and what I did with the Dutch Marines in the 1970s. Working co-operation, even integration, between troops is sensible. But it will not lead to the deep co-operation and cost-saving we need.
Proper defence co-operation will not be driven by the Generals at the top, but by integrating defence industries at the bottom. Address this and we will open up genuine co-operation driven by the requirement to rationalise a common interlocking strategic view as a prelude to achieving common procurement. That’s what will give reality to genuine defence co-operation. That’s where the huge savings we need will be made. That’s how we can finally begin to construct a globally competitive European defence industrial base.
The second problem is that London and Paris see these Treaties differently. For Euro-sceptics, it’s a step back to the future; the entente cordiale re-created; an exercise stopping at Paris. But for Paris it is much more. There is already an active structure for Franco-German co-operation, the UK-Dutch Amphibious Force and the Nordic Grouping. The London relationship adds to it. The French vision is to create a wider process of pragmatic defence co-operation between like minded European parties based on practical steps and what is in our interests to do. This is the right vision. But it is anathema to some in London.
London must realise that in isolation, British-French cooperation will not provide the European capabilities required to strengthen Nato. By itself, it will not deliver the cost-savings needed to rescue defence budgets. Without others, Britain and France will not be able to provide for our collective security interests when the US declines to lead.
So we must deepen our bilateral cooperation. We need to actively explore defence cooperation with other serious European partners. And we should be relentless in exporting our cooperative model across Europe. As British-French leadership in Libya comes to an end, British-French leadership in Europe needs to begin.