The European Defence Integration, Driver of Transatlantic Burden Sharing?

By Commander s.g. Kurt ENGELEN

Times are gone when the evocation of European defence resulted at best in smiles of Eurosceptics and at worst in virulent criticism of the most militant Atlantists. For the observer outside the circle of the initiated, however, European defence, although more present on the international security scene since the activation of Permanent Structured Cooperation, better known by its acronym PESCO, remains a source of confusion and misunderstanding.

Two factors are at the root of this lack of understanding and the often-erroneous conclusions it leads to. The first results from a simplistic comparison between NATO and the European Union in implementing its Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). The second is related to the lack of knowledge of the evolution of our security environment, the profile of the threat and the hybrid war doctrines of our enemies. I will come back to the inadequacy of the qualifier "hybrid", which fails to accurately describe the type of threat to which we are exposed.

The first part of my argumentation will demonstrate the essential role of the integration of European defence in making a more substantial European contribution to the defence effort, mainly within the framework of NATO but also in other collaborative formats.

The second part will address the integration mechanisms that are at work in order to provide the European Union with the structures that are necessary to achieve its security ambition set out in its 2016 Global Strategy.

The third part will attempt to define a new defence paradigm and envisage the necessary evolution in the international security architecture to evolve from a logic of collective defence towards one of integrated resilience.

The EU and NATO, complementary but not comparable

Let us give full credit right away to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for having fulfilled the role it was founded for in 1949. For over forty years until the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact in 1991, NATO guaranteed the security of its members against the external threat through a dual nuclear and conventional deterrence. This success has, however, deeply marked our collective experience. Within the context of psychological trauma inherited from World War II, the magnitude of the military forces deployed along the line of contact and the fear that the use of nuclear weapons might lead to an apocalyptic conflict between East and West, has strongly and lastingly marked the minds.

The European integration process, which, treaty after treaty, has shaped our internal security, has made the European Union the safest and most prosperous place on earth without ever using force. Unfortunately, it hardly receives the credit it deserves for its contribution to our security in a geopolitical environment, which has changed radically, compared to even recent history.

When the Petersberg tasks of the Western European Union (WEU) were defined in 1992, NATO was still focused exclusively on its collective defence objective. The envisaged force projection outside EU territory for humanitarian purposes of peacekeeping and crisis management did, strictly speaking, not constitute a duplication when compared to the use of forces in a collective defence context within NATO. Unfortunately, year after year, the reduction of the available military capacities, simplistically justified by the famous peace dividends, raised the fear that resources committed under European command for the Petersberg tasks would deprive the alliance of necessary forces for the accomplishment of its missions of deterrence and collective defence. This perception was moreover strengthened by a systematic and immutable American narrative that managed to convince a significant proportion of European allies that the implementation of a European Security and Defence policy would weaken the transatlantic alliance.

This persistent belief that it would cause a fratricide competition between NATO and the European Union, as absurd as it is, unfortunately continues to hamper a most needed synergistic partnership between two organizations, which are complementary in their capabilities and respective objectives.

The European members of the Atlantic Alliance, who represent twenty-two of the twenty-nine allies, have never considered and are not considering transferring NATO's primary mission to the EU. The deployment of forces under the European flag remains limited to the missions already described in 1992. It is therefore not in the capacity to provide the command structures for collective defence operations in the high-end spectrum of the military force that we should seek the added value of the European Union for the construction of our security. Moreover, the multinational deployment of our military under the European flag, while relevant and even essential to the integrated EU crisis management approach, only constitutes one of the many aspects of European defence integration. The focus of this integration is to be found in its capability dimension; the integration of the European defence industrial base is of paramount importance, not only in a European context, but also to reach a better burden sharing between European and North American allies in NATO.

US criticism about the reluctance of Europeans to take on their share of defence spending has never been fiercer than today. The communication style has become more confrontational, but the content and relevance of the message have not fundamentally changed.

European countries must contribute more to the common defence effort. This is a mere fact that the recent evolution of our immediate security environment can but confirm. Yet, even if we put aside the thumb rule - and the arbitrary figure - of two percent of GDP, it appears that the need to take our defence more seriously, which nobody questions, does not translate into delivering the kind of military capacities that would match the set objective. The level of ambition, which Member States regularly express in a collective manner, remains far above the sum of the individual efforts that these same Member States are willing to contribute. The apparent political conviction alone will clearly not suffice to rebalance  the burden- sharing   of  the transatlantic defence effort. The solution will once more have to come from the economic model that has made the success of European integration from the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) until the present day. We must transform our defence industry in such a way that its model becomes sustainable and macro-economically viable at the Union's level. The integration of the still highly fragmented European Defence Technological and Industrial Base is an indispensable condition for reversing the political reluctance to increase investments in military capabilities.

The rationalization of the industrial supply according to the needs and, consequently, the demand, must allow a reduction of fixed costs of research, development, prototyping and production start-up per unit produced. The economies of scale generated by the pooled production through industrial collaboration between several European countries will, at the end of the supply chain, result in more competitive unit prices. This will enable Member states to acquire more capacities for a given budget. Armies will largely operate identical equipment, which will, in turn, make pooling of training and maintenance possible. The industrial model, which at this stage of the process will have become economically sustainable, will still need to seduce the European political class. For that to happen, the model will need to demonstrate its ability to convert a budget-spending logic into a macro-economically profitable investment logic for the governments of the Member States. Every euro invested in the procurement of military capabilities supplied by the European defence industry will partly be reinvested in research and development of new generations of equipment. Another part of the money will pay the salaries of European workers, technicians and managers of European companies. Some of that money will find its way back into the states’ budgets in the form of income tax or VAT. Yet another part of the money will contribute to the turnover of European businesses; their profits will in turn generate taxes for the European states. Jobs generated by a more competitive defence industry will contribute to reducing unemployment and social costs for the states. A more competitive position of European companies will also attract more non-European customers and the additional turnover will further enhance the economic attractiveness of the model for policymakers. Delivered from the economic burden that military equipment expenditures represent today, European governments will, hopefully, be keener to re-equip their armies, increasing the contribution to the defence effort in general and to the Atlantic Alliance in particular.

 More supranational and less intergovernmental competences

As long as Member States retain control over the integration of the European defence industrial base, the need for consensus will continue to hamper the process. The most reluctant member states will be the ones imposing the speed of progress; national interests and protectionist reflexes will curtail the European ambitions. We should clearly not put our hopes in a hypothetical shared vision of European policy makers to transfer responsibilities to a supranational community level for the integration and operation of the European defence industry, even if it is clear that this would be far more efficient. Let us remember that the federalist vision, which enabled the creation of the ECSC in 1952, was unable to outbalance sovereigntist reflexes and, consequently, the treaty of the European Defence Community failed to be ratified two years later. Ever since, the Member States have kept the Common Security and Defence Policy in the realm of intergovernmental policies and that is precisely its biggest problem. The solution, therefore, can only come from another integration mechanism than vision- driven federalism.

Article 1 of the Treaty on European Union refers to "an ever-closer union among the peoples of Europe". The idea of a gradual progression towards an ultimate goal of integration constitutes the essence of the "neo- functionalist" logic. Slow but steady progress is the result of successive acknowledged successes. The neo-functionalist mechanism counts on an emulation effect called "spillover". This effect allows supranational governance to extend its controle to new activity areas, which are similar or closely related to other areas where supranational governance has already proven successful. The establishment, within the new Commission, of a Directorate-General "Defence Industry and Space" constitutes a clear occurrence of such a neo- functionalist spillover from the Directorate-General "Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs ". The nearly ten billion euro-strong European Defence Fund, which the Commission will spend to stimulate multinational defence industrial projects might not constitute a global game changer, but it nevertheless introduces an element of supranational governance in the field of European Defence, which until now has been exclusively intergovernmental. It will increase the influence of the Commission and, according to the principle of neo-functionalist spillover, the supranational economic mechanisms embedded in the treaty will eventually prevail also in the European defence industry. It is only a matter of time before the Union delivers at a supranational level what Member States failed to achieve through their intergovernmental policy model.

The integration goal will ultimately benefit all the member states. In order to reach it more rapidly, we must quickly determine which prerogatives remain intergovernmental and which decisions can be transferred to a supranational governance level. While policy decisions on overarching guiding principles could probably remain at an intergovernmental level, the actual implementation of programmes should be exempt of national or protectionist influences and entrusted to an institution that will rigorously and impartially apply proven economic mechanisms embedded in the treaties. Shifting away from intergovernmental control will eventually benefit everybody, and above all the industries of the smaller Member States. They will receive a more equitable share of the common means, without the political pressure, which today hampers the progress towards integration.

The evolution from collective defence to integrated resilience will be EU-driven

The contribution that the European defence could bring to the transatlantic solidarity, however, goes way beyond more capability contribution to NATO. The integration of the European defence industry is only one neo-functionalist episode  in  a   wider  conversion   process from a collective defence logic towards a strategy of integrated resilience. This conversion is needed to address the non-military threats resulting from our opponents' hybrid warfare doctrines. From a semantic point of view, "hybrid" suggests that the threat contains characteristics at the intersection of several activity areas. The reality, however, is that the threat is more the result of a systematic and simultaneous use of all of these activity areas. The term "integrated" therefore seems more appropriate to define the threat we face.

The EU's ability to synthetize and integrate resilience mechanisms against both military and non-military threats will likely constitute its greatest contribution to the common defence effort. The evolution to an integrated resilience concept will be no more than a next step, in line with the integrated approach to crisis management that the EU has developed over the years. As stated in its Global Strategy of 2016, the EU has to address both the external and internal dimensions of its security nexus. In this endeavour, the diversity of the available expertise in the different Directorates General of the Commission will prove a valuable asset. It will allow to swiftly put in place tools and mechanisms to support this integrated resilience. From a human resources perspective, the Commission has both the required knowledge to recognise and understand the threats in different activity domains and the necessary legislative tools to enforce compliance with the mechanisms it puts in place.

This change in paradigm must also lead us to rethink the way the EU and NATO cooperate in the area of security. To abide by the well-established principle of "no unnecessary duplication", both organizations must distribute responsibilities in a more efficient way. European NATO Allies have long understood that the transatlantic organisation will remain the keystone of their collective defence in Europe. The next step must lead to acknowledge that duplicating EU defence mechanisms within NATO makes no sense either.

The best way to convince all stakeholders of the relevance of a sound distribution of roles between the EU and NATO is to bring Allies and Member States of both organisations around the same table in a genuine joint large-scale crisis management exercise featuring a complex hybrid attack on Western Europe. It is the only way to draw lessons from this natural complementarity and to silence forever the obsolete criticism of unnecessary duplication.

 About the author

After Three years spent as staff officer at the Permanent Representation of Belgium to the NATO Military Committee, Commander s.g. Kurt ENGELEN becomes Head of the European Union Section at the Belgian Strategy Department of the Belgian Defence Staff. From April 2020, he is Defence Counsellor at the Permanent Representation of Belgium to the EU. He is also lecturer in international politics at the Belgian Royal Military Academy and the Riga Graduate School of Law and a non-resident research fellow at the Center for Security and Strategic Research of the Latvian National Defence Academy.