The author would like to thank Klaus Becher, Helmut Schmidt Senior Fellow for European Security at the IISS. For valuable input and comments on drafts, thanks also to Alyson Bailes, Giles Baldwin, Hans Binnendijk, Lawrence Freedman, Nils Gyldén, François Heisbourg, Björn Müller-Wille, Alessandro Politi, Sven Rudberg, Lars Wedin and Erik Windmar. Mats Berdal, Katarina Engberg and Bo Huldt have also been greatly supportive.
1 For historical background on the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) and initial debate around it, see: François Heisbourg, European Defence: Making It Work, Chaillot Paper 42 (Paris: WEU Institute for Security Studies, 2000); Jolyon Howorth, European Integration and Defence: The Ultimate Challenge?, Chaillot Paper 43 (Paris: WEU Institute for Security Studies, 2000); Alyson Bailes, ‘NATO's European Pillar: The European Security and Defense Identity’, Defense Analysis, vol. 15, no. 3, 1999; Strobe Talbott ‘Transatlantic Ties’, Newsweek, 18 October 1999; Charles Grant, European Defence Post Kosovo? (London: Centre for European Reform, 1999); James Thomas, The Military Challenges of Transatlantic Coalitions, Adelphi Paper 333 (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the IISS, 2000).
2 Where NATO provides assets and capabilities to the EU, political sensitivities have added further facets to these two terms. Here, ‘capabilities’ describes a function or service, such as information, airborne early warning or access to communications. For EU-led operations, NATO would not transfer capabilities to the EU; NATO would remain in command of its own capabilities even while they are used to support an EU operation. An asset (HQ, units, personnel, specific equipment) could, however, be temporarily transferred to the EU and placed under its control and command for the task at hand. This paper will however use the more generally accepted definitions of capabilities and assets as described in the text.
3 ‘Military crisis management’ encompasses traditional peace-support operations, from preventive deployment and peacekeeping to armed intervention and peace enforcement. It also includes humanitarian and evacuation operations, civil-protection tasks that use mainly military instruments and proactive engagement against weapons of mass destruction and counter-terrorism. Examples include UNPROFOR, embargo operations in the Adriatic, the Sierra Leone operation and military counter-terrorism strikes. Civilian crisis management, as defined by the EU Summit at Feira in June 2000, comprises four areas: police, the rule of law, civil administration and civil protection. The first three are sometimes referred to as ‘state-building’ activities. Civil protection is essentially humanitarian support in times of crisis, and can include military components such as airlift, medical support and logistics. ‘Conflict prevention’ is a formal term used officially by the EU. It is defined as the use of primarily non-military means to stabilise a state or a region in the pre-crisis phase (i.e. before the use of force). Initiatives include preventive diplomacy, defence diplomacy, observer missions, the sharing of intelligence and promoting human rights and democracy. Confidence- and security-building measures, arms control and non-proliferation initiatives may also be included.
4 Should vital interests be at stake, states tend to either redefine those interests or go to war, whatever the legal, institutional or multinational context. This paper defines ‘vital’ interests as interests that are of overriding importance to the survival, safety and vitality of a state.
1 US aircrews flew just over half of the Kosovo campaign's 10,484 strike missions, delivered 80% of munitions and conducted 70% of support missions. Of the 38,004 sorties flown, Italy accounted for 3%, the UK 4% and France roughly 10%. France and the UK dropped just 4% each of the 23,614 air munitions released by NATO aircraft. Of the 4,397 Suppression of Enemy Air Defence (SEAD) sorties flown, the UK carried out less than half a dozen, and France none. Only the US had long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), advanced radar-jamming aircraft, strategic bombers, stealth capabilities and battlefield ground surveillance, in the form of the Joint-Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint-STARS). There were, however, gaps in US capabilities as well, particularly in ‘jointness’, readiness, interoperability, logistics and infrastructure support; several of the above mentioned assets were severely stretched. See Linda Krzaryn, ‘Cohen Calls On Allies To Share the Load’, American Forces Press Service, 8 July 1999; Report on Allied Contributions to the Common Defense, A Report to the United States Congress by the Secretary of Defense (Washington DC: Department of Defense, March 2000), pp. II-10; Kosovo – Lessons from the Crisis (London: Ministry of Defence, June 2000), Annex F; and Les Enseignements du Kosovo, Ministère de la Dèfense; Jeffrey Lewis, Preliminary Lessons From Operation Allied Force (through June 1, 1999) (Washington DC: CSIS, 1999); Dick Diamond et al., Raytheon Kosovo Lessons Learned Study, Raytheon Systems Company, 9 September 1999; and Kosovo Air Operations: Need to Maintain Alliance Cohesion Resulted in Doctrinal Departures, US General Accounting Office Report GAO-01-784 (Washington DC: USGAO, July 2001).
2 Strategic lift was a major bottleneck. Even the UK's request for airlift support from the US was turned down because of a lack of US assets. The Europeans could not rely on strategic airlift or sealift assets owned by states not sympathetic to the NATO operation, such as Russia and Ukraine.
3 The UK's after-action report noted shortfalls in precision all-weather strike capabilities, strategic lift, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, SEAD, electronic warfare and air-to-air refuelling. The French assessment focused on pet projects such as conventional cruise missiles, electronic counter-measures, UAVs, intelligence satellites and satellites for global positioning. Kosovo/Operation Allied Force After-Action Report, p. 25; Sharon Hobson, ‘NATO Allies Agree Need To Upgrade Capability’, Jane's Defence Weekly, 29 September 1999; Kosovo – Lessons from the Crisis, chapter 5; Joseph Fitchett, ‘Allies Emphasize Need To Prepare for Kosovo-Style Air Wars’, International Herald Tribune, 12 November 1999.
4 Elinor Sloan, ‘DCI: Responding to the US-led Revolution in Military Affairs’, NATO Review, Spring/Summer 2000.
5 The flaws exposed during Operation Allied Force and set out in the DCI, as well as US criticism of European capabilities, were balanced by a report to the US Senate from the US General Accounting Office. The report, issued in September 1999, concluded that, during the 1990s, the allies had made their armed forces more mobile and deployable. The majority of European NATO states had increased their air and sealift, in-flight refuelling, interoperability and precision-strike capabilities. The GAO report concluded that the Europeans had done what they had agreed to do in the 1991 NATO Strategic Concept. NATO: Progress Toward More Mobile and Deployable Forces, Report to the Chairman and Ranking Minority Member, Subcommittee on Defense, Committee on Appropriations, US Senate (GAO/NSIAD-99-299 NATO), September 1999. Since then, however, institutional ambition and peer pressure have both increased.
6 NATO's Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) produced over 200 recommendations some months after the Kosovo campaign, and not surprisingly gave added support to the DCI. According to SHAPE, major flaws lay in nations contributing strike aircraft lacking the full spectrum of targeting capabilities, targeting training, battle-damage-assessment capabilities and intelligence data-processing systems. The North Atlantic Council (NAC)'s procedure for approving targets was criticised as too complicated and slow. Member states' national operational planning was not fully integrated with NATO's, and there was no comprehensive campaign plan. SHAPE also noted the need for a NATO information-operations doctrine, and for more legal advisers at NATO headquarters.
7 See Susan Ellis, ‘NATO Prepared for New Multi-threat Security Environment’, USIA, 16 April 1999; Hans-Christian Hagman, NATOs Strategiska Koncept 1999, MUST EXO 5/99, J2 (Stockholm: Swedish Armed Forces HQ, 1999), chapter 3.2; and Hans-Christian Hagman, Europeiska Militära Krishanteringsförmägor, EXO 11/99, 10433:74782, J2 (Stockholm: Swedish Armed Forces HQ, 13 December 1999), chapter 3.3.
8 See Hagman, Europeiska Militära Krishanteringsförmägor; Sloan, ‘DCI: Responding to the US-led Revolution in Military Affairs’.
9 Colin Clark and Luke Hill, ‘NATO Extends Defense Capabilities Initiative to Partners’, Defense News, 10 January 2000.
10 See Report on Allied Contributions to the Common Defense.
11 Kosovo/Operation Allied Force After-Action Report, pp. 25–26.
12 See Lawrence Freedman, The Revolution in Strategic Affairs, Adelphi Paper 318 (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the IISS, 1998); Yves Boyer, ‘Joint Vision 2010 and the Allies: When Conventional Wisdom Meets Strategic Issues’, RUSI Journal, April 2000; Michael Codner, ‘Some European Concerns About Joint Vision 2010’, ibid., April 2000.
13 Luke Hill, ‘TMD: NATO Starts the Countdown’, Jane's Defence Weekly, 3 January 2001.
14 See Report on Allied Contributions to the Common Defense.
15 According to the Petersberg Declaration of 1992, and later the Treaty on the European Union, these would include ‘humanitarian and rescue tasks; peacekeeping tasks; [and] tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peacemaking’.
16 See WEU Council of Ministers Audit of Assets and Capabilities for European Crisis Management Operations, Luxembourg, 23 November 1999. For a more detailed assessment of this and other capabilities reviews, see Hagman, Europeiska Militära Krishanteringsförmägor.
17 As some states had reported entire orders of battle, the WEU staff had to make a ‘realistic’, albeit subjective, assessment of what could really be committed for Petersberg operations.
18 Until Helsinki, the collective term for European defence- and security-related initiatives had been the European Security and Defence Identity (ESDI). In 2000, ‘Identity’ was replaced by ‘Policy’, and ESDP became the accepted acronym for these EU initiatives.
19 Annex IV, Presidency Reports to the Helsinki European Council on ‘Strengthening the Common European Policy of Security and Defence’ and on ‘Non-Military Crisis Management of the European Union’, Nice, 11–12 December 1999.
20 See the European Council Declaration on Strengthening the Common European Policy on Security and Defence, Cologne, 4 June 1999, paragraph 1.
21 Presidency Report on the European Security and Defence Policy, Presidency Conclusion, European Council, Nice, 7–9 December 2000. The UK-originated formula came from the St. Malo declaration, and was also used at the NATO summit in Washington in April 1999. In Cologne, France argued that this formula gave NATO first choice. The word ‘where’ in the formula ‘where NATO as a whole is not engaged’ can mean both a geographical limitation (the Euro-Atlantic area) and a reference to time; the latter is more generally accepted. This double interpretation may in the future limit NATO in relation to the EU in crisis-management operations.
22 Annex IV, Presidency Reports to the Helsinki European Council on ‘Strengthening the Common European Policy of Security and Defence’ and on ‘Non-Military Crisis Management of the European Union’. See Peter Norman, ‘Plans for EU Military Force Agreed’, Financial Times, 7 December 1999.
23 IISS, The Military Balance 2000/2001 (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the IISS, 2000).
24 For an official point of view, see EU Military Structures: Military Capabilities Commitment Declaration, http://ue.eu.int/pesc/military/en/CCC.htm.
25 Presidency Conclusions, European Council, Helsinki, 10 and 11 December 1999.
26 Presidency Conclusions, European Council, Santa Maria da Feira, 19 and 20 June 2000.
27 See Carlo Jean, An Integrated Civil Police Force for the European Union: Tasks, Profile and Doctrine (Brussels: Centre for European Policy Studies, 2002).
28 See Graham Messervy-Whiting, ‘The European Union's Nascent Military Staff’, RUSI Journal, December 2000.
29 Presidency Report to the Gothenburg European Council on European Security and Defence Policy, Brussels, 11 June 2001.
30 See the French EU Presidency Report on European Security and Defence Policy, 4 December 2000.
31 Statement on Capabilities, issued at the Meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Defence Ministers Session, June 6, 2002, NATO Press Release (2002)074.
32 See Prague Summit Declaration, Press Release (2002) 127, NATO, November 21, 2002, and Joseph Fitchett, ‘U.S. Urges NATO Allies in Prague to Update Forces’, International Herald Tribune, 21 November 2002.
33 See initial thoughts from Hans Binnendijk, ‘A European Spearhead Force Would Bridge the Gap’, International Herald Tribune, 21 October 2002; and Hans Binnendijk and Richard Kugler, ‘Transforming European Forces’, Survival, vol. 44, no. 3, Autumn 2002.
34 See Charles Grant, ‘What role for NATO’, Centre for European Reform, November 2002.
35 ‘Quote/Unquote’, International Herald Tribune, 29 April 1998.
36 ‘Britain's Thatcher Attacks EU Force as Folly’, Reuters, 22 November 2000.
1 Operating combat aircraft, air- and sealift, carrier battle groups and surface combatants for a year – even for the less-demanding missions – would engage tens of thousands of airmen and sailors. The more demanding missions call for 300 aircraft and 75 surface combatants, requiring a massive support structure.
2 For a half-year deployment (the norm for most contingents), the military unit cannot be used for other missions for 18 months as it must have stand-by readiness and tailored pre-deployment training, time for the operational engagement itself and post-deployment reconstitution and retraining.
3 The Helsinki Headline Goal Task Force (HTF) used NATO definitions for readiness. The same five categories are used by the EU.
4 Statement by General Wesley Clark, Commander-in-Chief US European Command, before the Senate Armed Services Committee, 29 February 2000.
5 No NATO pilots were killed in action, while some 500 Yugoslav civilians were killed as a result of NATO air strikes. Less than 1% of missions led to unintended fatalities (collateral damage). Kosovo – Lessons from the Crisis, chapter 7.
6 Presidency Reports to the Helsinki European Council, Annex IV, paragraph 7.
7 Final Communiqué, Ministerial Meeting of the North Atlantic Council, Berlin, 3 June 1996, paragraphs 5–8.
8 Washington Summit Communiqué, 24 April 1999, paragraph 10. Throughout 2000 and 2001, there were lengthy debates within NATO over what had been agreed to in the Berlin-plus package. Often, the term ‘asset’ was defined as personnel, HQs, units or equipment, which could be temporarily placed under EU control. ‘Capabilities’ such as sealift, operational planning, intelligence, communications and airborne early warning are thus functions or complete services provided to the EU. These definitions are politicised, and relevant only in the EU-NATO/Berlin-plus context.
9 Report on Allied Contributions to the Common Defense, p. II-3.
10 See Frank Boland, ‘Force Planning in the New NATO’, NATO Review, vol. 46, no. 3, Autumn 1998.
11 SHAPE/ARFPS planning for a possible ground engagement in Bosnia began in mid-1992. Since then, a vast array of Balkans-related plans has emerged. See Hagman, UN-NATO Operational Cooperation in Peacekeeping 1992–1995, University of London PhD, 1997, chapter 7.
12 The NATO budget in 1999 was $1.6 billion, composed of the civilian budget ($164m), the military budget ($720m) and the NATO Security Investment Program ($734m).
13 The fact that EU scenarios have a geographical limitation is only relevant for generic planning. It could be noted that NATO's Article 5 was related to direct support for US territorial defence. The fact that NATO gave the US political support for its counter-terrorist engagements in Asia did not mean that those operations were NATO operations, or that they reflected a collective response by NATO.
14 For operational force planners such as those in NATO, who did most of the number crunching in order to produce credible force requirements, the level of manipulation was frustrating.
15 By late November 2000, this scenario contained two sub-levels: Separation of Parties by Force; and a case where the mission was to maintain the separation of parties in a ‘Stable State’ setting. The latter would require only some 20,000 troops.
16 Operation Deliberate Force had the support of a warring faction, and the Rapid Reaction Force was deployed on non-hostile territory.
17 ‘Strategic decision-making’ describes processes related to decision-making at the highest level. In the EU, the strategic level is the EU Council, COREPER (with decision-shaping from the Political and Security Committee and the SG/HR), and the European Commission. In NATO, strategic decision-making is the domain of the NAC. Strategic planning, on the other hand, is done by the highest-level planning staff at the military strategic level, which in NATO means SACEUR. As of 2002, the only EU strategic planning capability lies with the EU Military Staff.
18 See EU Presidency Report on the European Security and Defence Policy. Realistically, the parameters would have been set in London, Paris and Berlin before there was EU agreement to act collectively.
19 See Messervy-Whiting, ‘The European Union's Nascent Military Staff’.
20 The envisaged command structure would be: Council/EUMC, Operational HQ, Force HQ, tactical HQs/component commands and forces.
21 See ‘Designing an EU Conflict Prevention Capability’, summary of the EU-NGO CFSP Contact Group meeting, European Parliament, 19 September 2000.
22 Lars Wedin, Chief Concepts Branch, EU Military Staff, interview with the author, 2 March 2001.
1 Alyson Bailes notes that converging interests do not necessarily and automatically produce joint action or joint approaches. See ‘National Interests vs. European Approaches to Crisis Management: A View from Brussels’, paper presented at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs Conference ‘Making the CFSP Work’, Stockholm, 30 September 1999.
2 Opening Statement before the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 17 January 2001.
3 See Julian Lindley-French, ‘Terms of Engagement’, Chaillot Paper 52 (Paris: EU Institute for Security Studies, 2002) and William Drozdiak, ‘US Seems Increasingly Uncomfortable With EU Defense Plan’, International Herald Tribune, 6 March 2000.
4 Two-way trade was valued at $507bn in 1999. EU investment in the US totalled more than $480bn, and US investment in the EU more than $430bn. See Strengthening Transatlantic Security – A US Strategy for the 21st Century (Washington DC: DoD, December 2000); and Ed Gunning, The Common European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) (Washington DC: Atlantic Council of the United States, 10 May 2000).
5 See Stanley Sloan, The United States and European Defence, Chaillot Paper 39 (Paris: WEU Institute for Security Studies, 2000); and then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's warnings of ‘decoupling’, ‘duplication’ and ‘discrimination’, in Drozdiak, ‘US Seems Increasingly Uncomfortable’. See also François Heisbourg, ‘European Defence Takes a Leap Forward’, NATO Review, Spring/Summer 2000; Stafano Silvestri and Andrzej Karkoszka, ‘The EU-NATO Connection’; and Nicole Gnesotto and Karl Kaiser, ‘European-American Interaction’, in Heisbourg, European Defence: Making It Work.
6 See Willem Van Eekelen, EU, WEU, and NATO: Towards a European Security and Defence Identity, Defence and Security Committee, North Atlantic Assembly, 22 April 1999, paragraphs 29–30.
7 See Henry Kissinger, ‘The End of NATO as We Know It?’, Los Angeles Times, 15 August 1999. In December 2000, Cohen warned that NATO could become ‘a relic of the past’ if the Europeans opted for increased autonomy. See William Drozdiak, ‘NATO Allies Grow Edgy as Security Choices Loom’, International Herald Tribune, 15 December 2000; and Jim Garamone, ‘Cohen Says Allies Must Invest or NATO Could Become “Relic”’, American Forces Press Service, 5 December 2000. See also Kissinger, ‘The End of NATO?’.
8 Nicole Gnesotto, ‘Transatlantic Debates’, Newsletter, WEU Institute for Security Studies, no. 29, April 2000. See also ‘Excerpts from Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's Interview With the International Herald Tribune’, International Herald Tribune, 15 January 2001. For expressions of US concern, see Charles Babington, ‘A “Strong Europe” Can Depend Less On US Power, Clinton Declares’, ibid., 3 June 2000; and then US Ambassador to NATO Alexander Vershbow's comments in Drozdiak, ‘US Seems Increasingly Uncomfortable’.
9 As argued by William Pfaff, ‘NATO's Europeans Could Say “No”’, International Herald Tribune, 25 July 2002; see also ‘If Forced To Choose, Europe Will Ditch NATO’, ibid., 17 August 2002. See also Klaus Becher, ‘Organizing NATO for the Future’, in Christina V. Balis (ed.), Beyond the NATO Prague Summit, CSIS Conference Report, Washington DC, September 2002, pp. 65–73.
10 See the US DoD Quadrennial Defense Review Report, 30 September 2001.
11 Strobe Talbott, ‘Transatlantic Ties’, Newsweek, 18 October 1999.
12 William Cohen, ‘Preserving History's Greatest Alliance’, Washington Post, 8 January 2001; ‘Cohen on NATO-US-EU Partnership, Joint Defense Planning’, Washington File, US Department of State, 6 December 2000; and the 2000 Report on Allied Contributions to the Common Defense.
13 Ibid., p. II-2.
14 In 1997, the US Congress took it upon itself to set targets for its allies. Allies should increase the proportion of their GDP spent on defence by 10% over the previous year, or to a level commensurate with the US; they should increase military assets contributed or pledged to multinational military activities; offsets for US stationing costs should increase to 75%; foreign assistance should increase by 10% over the previous year (or to a level equal to at least 1% of GDP). Ibid., p. F-1. Canada, Luxembourg, Netherlands and the UK failed to achieve these targets in all four categories. All but Greece and Turkey failed to meet the targets on defence spending, and no NATO ally met the cost-sharing target.
15 See Strengthening Transatlantic Security – A US Strategy for the 21st Century, US DoD, December 2000, part VI.
16 For a different view, see Charles Kupchan, ‘In Defence of European Defence: An American Perspective’, Survival, vol. 42, no. 2, Summer 2000.
17 Van Eekelen, EU, WEU, and NATO, paragraph 37.
18 Peter Schmidt, ‘ESDI: Separable But Not Separate’, NATO Review, Spring/Summer 2000.
19 Not all duplication is bad, as argued by Kori Schake, Constructive Duplication: Reducing EU Reliance on US Military Assets, CER Working Paper, January 2002; and ‘EU Should Duplicate NATO Assets’, CER Bulletin, Issues 18, June–July 2001.
20 Stephen Walt, ‘The Ties That Fray’, The National Interest, no. 54, Winter 1998/1999; and Charles Grant, ‘NATO's New Role’, Financial Times, 7 August 2002.
1 See Hagman, Europeiska Militära Krishanteringsförmågor, pp. 31–37.
2 Report on Allied Contributions to the Common Defense, p. III-24.
3 A conventional C-130 takes some 90 combat soldiers compared to the A400M's 120 soldiers. The C-130J-30, the extended version, takes more troops but slightly fewer cargo pallets and tons in comparison to the A400M. According to the UK, during Operation Essential Harvest in Macedonia in 2001 the C-17 took as much as four C-130 loads.
4 Haig Simonian and Ralph Atkins, ‘Scharping Urges Joint Air Command’, Financial Times, 1 November 1999.
5 The Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Belgium and Portugal are increasing their day/night and all-weather strike capabilities, and upgrading their F-16s. This is a step in the right direction, but the upgrade is long overdue, the numbers are small and the added value is marginal. However, should the above states procure substantial numbers of PGMs such as JDAM, the increase would be significant.
6 Report on Allied Contributions to the Common Defense, p. II-2.
7 As correctly noted in Strengthening Transatlantic Security – A US Strategy for the 21st Century, US DoD, December 2000, part III.
8 Report on Allied Contributions to the Common Defense, p. II-2.
9 See Burkard Schmitt (ed.), Between Cooperation and Competition: The Transatlantic Defence Market, Chaillot Paper 44 (Paris: WEU Institute for Security Studies, January 2001).
10 See Hans Binnendijk, ‘A Trans-Atlantic Division of Labor Could Undermine NATO’, International Herald Tribune, 7 April 2001.
11 Several thousand US Marines, plus US air assets, were on call in the area should the European operation have required them. The ARFPS, later the CJPS, has experience of evacuation plans for non-NATO operations dating back to UNPROFOR and AFSOUTH OP 40104, 1992–95.
12 Annex IV Presidency Reports to the Helsinki European Council.
13 See J. P. H. Wathen, The Justification of Humanitarian Intervention Operations, unpublished paper, St. John's College, University of Cambridge, 17 July 2000.
14 The UK MoD conceded in its Kosovo after-action report that cluster bombs, because of the negative public perception, will be a less attractive alternative to precision-guided munitions and missiles such as the Maverick. Depleted-uranium armour-piercing ammunition, used by the US, will probably also fall into the same ‘unsuitable’ category. See Kosovo – Lessons from the Crisis, chapter 7. In humanitarian interventions and smaller-scale contingencies precision-guided munitions are a prerequisite for low collateral damage. Roberg Hölzer, ‘Military Trends Demand More Complex Weapons’, Defense News, 25 October 1999.
15 Joseph Fitchett, ‘Clark Recalls “Lessons” of Kosovo’, International Herald Tribune, 3 May 2000.
16 Both the UK and France committed this capability to the EU in November 2000. France committed a capability to the Capability Commitment Conference in November 2000 that matched this label. The EU Military Staff Intelligence Division is composed of three branches: Policy, Requirements and Production. Each member state has its own intelligence cell. The linking of national intelligence data is primarily done in the Joint Situation Centre. However, the staffing of the Intelligence Division is small, and there are no formal plans to develop it into a multi-functional and effective intelligence function.
17 The Military Staff Intelligence Division does not have civilian analysis functions or civilian leadership. It is too small and too narrowly focused, as it does not cover the whole spectrum of international assessments, conflict prevention and operational intelligence functions for EU-led operations.
18 US intelligence satellites reached 0.1m resolution in the 1980s. US-operated commercial high-resolution satellites have recently crossed the 1m resolution barrier. Helios II and the German SARLupe satellites will have resolutions of 0.8 and 0.5m respectively. ‘Satellite Pictures – Private Eyes in the Sky’, The Economist, 6 May 2000; Charles Grant, Intimate Relations, Centre for European Reform Working Paper, April 2000; ‘European Military Satellites’, Strategic Comments, vol. 6, no. 10, 2000; Peter de Seiding, ‘Three Nations Find Common Uses for Helios’, Defense News, 13 December 1999.
19 The commercial satellite market is dominated by the US. The close links between the US government and US satellite firms mean that commercial imagery would only be available to Europeans as and when the US wants to release it (see ‘European Military Satellites’). For the same reason, Europe should also look to military satellites for its communications, rather than using commercial sources. European reliance on US global-positioning systems (GPS) for sensors and weapon systems is growing. Furthermore, the US is developing precision-guided munitions for GPS-denied mode situations (i.e. GPS jamming). The US is thus free to switch off or encrypt the GPS network, either regionally or globally, albeit with consequences for trade, civil shipping and air transport. The Galileo European GPS satellite system may, in the distant future, increase European self-sufficiency, while enhancing related capabilities.
20 Naturally, any EU member state could block the CFSP/ESDP, but this would not do as much damage.
21 Helmut Schmidt, ‘Don't Believe What Critics Say About the Euro’, International Herald Tribune, 25 June 1997.
1 This paper does not advocate the creation of a ‘Mr ESDP’ (see Daniel Keohane, ‘Time for Mr ESDP’, CER Bulletin, no. 26, October–November 2002). In practical terms, the workload of the SG/HR is a major challenge to this coordination. There would be an advantage in giving the Deputy SG a more active role. However, there are already enough cooks in the Brussels kitchen; see David Hannay, ‘EU Foreign Policy: A Necessity, Not an Optional Extra’, ibid. See also Hans-Georg Ehrhart, ‘What Model for CFSP?’ Chaillot Paper 55 (Paris: EU Institute for Security Studies, 2002).
2 See Gilles Andréani, Christophe Bertram and Charles Grant, Europe's Military Revolution, Centre for European Reform, London, 2001.
3 These are contacts beyond what is managed by the European Commission's Directorate-General External Relations. In mid-2002, the EU had some 140 representatives in international organisations and states. Ideally, the pillars should be able to share international points of contact. Should this not be possible, an overlapping system may be the only realistic option.
4 Some EU candidates are concerned that EU Headline Goal demands may conflict with NATO's criteria, and thus force them to take sides. In practice, if the DCI and NATO interoperability are seen as the guiding principles, candidates' capabilities will be equally relevant for EU crisis management.
5 Of the 2,700 employees in the General Secretariat of the Council, some 2,200 work with translations and document distribution, and only 500 focus on the various elements of the CFSP and coordination functions.
6 For an assessment of the plans for an intelligence division in the EUMS, see Messervy-Whiting, ‘The European Union's Nascent Military Staff’. As of 2001, the EUMS had established an Intelligence Division, which was composed of national representatives (and their secure communication systems) tasked with channelling national intelligence of primarily operational nature.
7 See Becher, ‘European Intelligence Policy’.
8 Grant, Intimate Relations. Grant also observes that not all national intelligence services are coordinated. This adds to the challenge of funnelling national intelligence into a central EU structure.
9 See Björn von Sydow's prescription, in ‘Sweden: Swedish Minister Urges Europe To Intensify Weapons Production Co-operation’, Reuters, 22 January 2001. It could be argued that defence industries in Europe and the US are already intertwined; see Andrew James, ‘The Prospects for a Transatlantic Defense Industry’, in Schmitt (ed.), Between Cooperation and Competition.
10 Heisbourg, ‘European Defence Takes a Leap Forward’.
11 IISS, The Military Balance 2002/2003.
12 Heisbourg, ‘European Defence Takes a Leap Forward’; and François Heisbourg, ‘Europe's Strategic Ambitions: The Limits of Ambiguity’, Survival, vol. 42, no. 2, Summer 2000. See also the recommendations in Andréani, Bertram and Grant, Europe's Military Revolution.
13 See Tim Garden and John Roper, Pooling Forces, Centre for European Reform, December 1999, www.cer.org.uk.
14 See Klaus Naumann, Europe's Military Ambitions, Centre for European Reform, June–July 2000, www.cer.org.uk.
15 Preferably, there should be a correlation between EU and NATO rapid-reaction forces for interoperability reasons – whatever the institutional banner for an operation.
16 See ‘Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament “Towards integrated management of the external borders of the Member States of the European Union”’, Secretary-General of the European Commission to Javier Solana, 12 May 2002 (9139/02).
17 The current division of labour between the Director-General for external affairs (more specifically DGE VIII), which has responsibility for police operations, and the Military Staff, focused on operational military crisis management, is not satisfactory.
18 Much institutional coordination depends on such banal factors as the cooperative nature of individuals in the two organisations, competence and time.
19 For suggestions as to how to develop an EU White Paper, see Heisbourg, ‘Europe's Strategic Ambitions’. See also John Vinocur, ‘EU Defense Autonomy Lacks a Unifying Voice’, International Herald Tribune, 9 April 2001.
20 Nicole Gnesotto and Karl Kaiser, ‘European-American Interaction’, in Heisbourg (ed.), European Defence: Making It Work.
21 In January 2001, it was decided that the Political and Security Committee and the NAC would meet at least three times during each EU presidency. Formally, the first PSC-NAC meeting was held on 5 February 2001. Extra ad hoc meetings are also arranged to discuss operational matters. The first GAC-NAC meeting was held in Budapest on 30 May 2001.
22 The experience of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, OSCE and UN, although different in scale and scope, may indicate that the main function of a joint forum is dialogue and confidence-building, rather than far reaching cooperation and decision-shaping.