European Security and Defense Policy – baby tiger or paper tiger?

Transatlantic Roundtable, Crisis Management Simulation

31.12.2004 · Improving Responsiveness

On Monday, 22 November 2004, the Council of Defense Ministers of the European Union decided to launch European tactical battle groups in order to give teeth to the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP). Whereas the official EU line is set towards improving its tactical capabilities, the U.S. is rather skeptical about the political and military effectiveness of this new tool and whether it will make the EU a more reliable global actor. Just days before the EU's summit, security and defense oriented transatlantic young professionals met at C·A·P to discuss the shortcomings, opportunities, limits, and prospects of ESDP in the transatlantic context. The participants came from think tanks, universities, foreign policy and defense journals, and business corporations from Europe and the United States and followed an invitation by C·A·P's "Improving Responsiveness" project in the framework of its Transatlantic Roundtable series.

The roundtable which was jointly chaired by Sebastian Brökelmann, C·A·P fellow for transatlantic relations, and Eva Feldmann-Wojtachnia, C·A·P senior research fellow, consisted of three parts which were especially designed for a better understanding of the scope, chances, and problems of ESDP in a transatlantic setting of topics and participants: After an introduction into ESDP with special focus on involved bodies and organizations the main part of the roundtable was filled out by a simulation on European crisis management. It covered a crisis scenario of terrorism and civil war in Algeria spreading into Europe and urged for immediate action by the EU foreign ministers. The roundtable was then concluded by discussing necessary political steps towards improving the efficiency of ESDP decision-making and relating ESDP and its future to transatlantic security relations.

View of the Transatlantic Roundtable at C·A·P's conference room

Phase I: Introduction

The workshop took off with individual assessments of the participants of the current state of transatlantic security cooperation and the state of the game of ESDP and NATO. The division of rather American and rather European approaches to the topic became clearly apparent as became different inter-European views. The debate focused on the question whether the EU should militarily be more engaged in global action at all and which price in terms of money and blood toll it may be willing to pay. Currently the EU lacks a common strategic approach to its own role in the world and it lacks a strategic culture within the decision-making process and the general public's debate, both hindering it from adopting a responsible global role.

C·A·P fellow and military expert Thomas Bauer then gave an introduction into the current development of ESDP. Several developments and weaknesses of ESDP became apparent in the debate: Whereas the EU's tactical battle groups are to be deployable by 2007 to 2009, the European Rapid Reaction Forces which were still included in the Helsinki Headline Goal were deleted from the Headline Goal 2010. Besides many of the new member states still have a much higher military commitment towards NATO than to the EU and see NATO as the primary alliance. There is also huge gap between military spending of the EU and its efficiency: Even though the EU spends a cumulated amount of app. 200 billion $ a year on defense, its resources are used highly inefficiently since European thinking is countered by national acting, e.g. in procurement issues. Of more than 1,5 million troops in the EU member states, less than 100,000 are actually deployable. Therefore it is not necessarily more financial capital, but rather more political capital that will make Europe's military more effective. What is needed is the political awareness that the EU's military mission debate does in no appropriate way reflect the capabilities debate and vice versa. Even though one can say that ESDP is still "a baby in diapers" and one does not know where it will be in 10 years time, the EU has to deliver as a global actor; as the EU cannot and will not equal the U.S. in military capability, one such possibility besides state-building measures may be its experience with counter-insurgency operations from former colonial countries.

Phase II: Simulation

The scenario of the ESDP simulation which was developed by Tamir Sinai and is part of the European Security Project of C·A·P's Research Group Youth and Europe, dealt with a civil war-like crisis in Algeria with terrorist attacks occurring in Algeria as well as in several European cities and thus touches upon several organizational levels of the EU. Special input to discussions and the simulation came from high-level experts on ESDP: Antonio Missiroli, Senior Research Fellow at the European Union Institute for Security Studies in Paris and Jolyon Howorth, Professor at the University of Bath (UK) and currently visiting professor at Yale University (U.S.) boosted discussions on the current state of ESDP and were supported by Alison Weston, expert on civilian crisis management at the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union in Brussels, and Fraser Cameron, Director of Studies at The European Policy Center in Brussels, in providing substantial input on all technical and political questions about ESDP arising during the simulation.

Questions immediately arising from the scenario covered mainly technical military and organizational aspects such as available airlift and intelligence capabilities, the role of and interaction with NATO and national command centers in the given crisis, different views of legitimacy of any eventual action, but also domestic issues such as finance problems and ethnic minorities. Weston also pointed out that the EU has no civilian or military crisis management assets of its own. ESDP assets, both civilian and military, are those of the member states, and for both, civilian and military ESDP, the EU has to make use of national assets. However, EU's civilian crisis management varies from its military options in a significant aspect: The European Commission is responsible for the funding for civilian crisis management operations via the CFSP budget, whereas military crisis management operations are not funded via the general CFSP budget but via national funds for the specific operation.

Antonio Missiroli, Jolyon Howorth, Alison Weston

During the simulation two different dilemmas of ESDP decision-making in a consensus body became apparent. The first one is about analysis and interpretation of the given facts in the scenario. The authors of the simulation purposely provided only information as it may have been available shortly after the occurrence of terrorist attacks. This caused the participants to not agree on a single interpretation of the actual events. Questions remained open as to were the terrorist attacks actually linked to the events in Algeria, and who was to be held responsible? Consequentually, this resulted in huge differences in what each participant thought should be the EU's response. This lack of a shared understanding and analysis of the situation on which to act, a phenomenon that became especially apparent between most of the American and the European participants, again led to the second dilemma. Whereas some countries pushed for considering military options and at least starting military contingency planning, other countries – less effected by and more remote from the destabilized region – opposed any such move. The options ranged from no action at all via fact finding missions and monitoring missions, via diplomatic contact all the way to full military engagement in cooperation with the Algerian government. The only consensus seemed to be the waiting for a UN resolution.

	Fraser Cameron

After one day of intense negotiations and several compromise-finding attempts by the Presidency of the Council, the result could only be called the maximum of the minimum: a declaration of solidarity with the victims of terrorism and with the call for the improvement of EU homeland security to prevent further terrorist attacks, as well as a declaration launching a fact-finding and cooperation mission to Algeria. No other concrete action could be agreed upon, although - according to the scenario - the Algerian president had asked for more. Even though this result is - according to the experts present during the simulation - more than the EU would probably have produced in reality, it was still a rather frustrating experience for most of the participants. Especially the U.S. participants became more familiar with the problem of inefficiency in ESDP decision-making and realized that even though some member states may have the necessary political will, the EU is not likely to deliver on the world stage as a global actor any time soon.

Click here for the declarations: Declaration 1; Declaration 2.

Phase III: Lessons and Recommendations

Finally lessons were drawn from the simulation itself with respect to different individual and national security concepts and were then transferred to their broader impact on transatlantic security policy. One of the main "problems" for effective ESDP decision-making in a political and military crisis was identified as laying in the policy of the neutral EU member states who opposed any active step towards using military force - and thus opening a huge gap between them and France and the United Kingdom, the European main victims in the given scenario. It became also clear that the EU is far away from a real and sound solidarity clause-like behavior when one of the member states faces a crisis. National interests still outweigh the need for common action to support other member states in a crisis, not only but especially when they do not belong to the "core" members (those with the main military capabilities for any ESDP military action) but rather to the periphery. The simulation also showed that there was no consensus amongst EU members as to what multilateralism they wanted to pursue: Is multilateralism an end by itself or is and should it be used to counterweigh the U.S. or alternatively rather to simultaneously engage and constrain the U.S. in Europe? Although all member states could easily agree on the fundamental values of ESDP, esp. the importance of international law and a UN mandate for any external action, a split between those member states with the military and financial capabilities for conducting a mission and those member states without these capabilities became apparent. The question of capabilities will thus be decisive for the future of ESDP. The EU constitution, when being in force, would ease this problem as it allows several member states to act without consensus amongst all member states, but the solidarity clause that the constitution enshrines will still be a weak one due to the EU's heterogeneity of military and financial resources and the resulting political will to act.

On the transatlantic layer the simulation also proved to be insightful for the problems and opportunities of transatlantic security cooperation. It became clearly visible and sensible that the U.S. and the EU differ in their views on security, both strategically and tactically. Even it they may face similar dimensions of threats and possible interventions, the short-term as well as long-term policy responses are too different to facilitate easy cooperation. Effectiveness in ESDP is not only hindered by the EU's neutral states, but also by domestic problems, esp. the need for national approval in almost all parliaments for any military action being taken as well as the domestic impact of ethnic minorities in some member states (as it was the case in the given Algeria-related scenario).

In the near future, transatlantic political leaders will have to find answers in order to bridge these strategic and tactical gaps. They will also have to find ways how to deal with the very different decision-making styles on both sides of the Atlantic, especially concerning the effectiveness of the decision-making procedure and how the different procedures can be combined towards finding quick and meaningful decisions. This will be decisive as to whether they can make transatlantic coalitions capable. They will also have to agree on a more effective use of military and civilian aspects and assets of tactical crisis management. Should NATO with its NATO Response Force act first and stabilize the situation and the EU with its Tactical Battle Groups then take over and "do the dishes"? Once answers to theses questions are found, the U.S. and the EU and maybe third actors could become the future "coalitions of the willing".

Generational changes were identified as further problems for enhancing current transatlantic security cooperation: Whereas the U.S. Administration consists of several "Cold War warriors" who have an outdated view of the development of Europe, many Western European governments are today headed by politicians whose political socialization occurred in the 1960s, especially the 68-generation, and many of the new EU member states from Central and Eastern Europe have fairly young politicians and parliamentarians in the thirties and early forties who only entered the political stage after 1989/90. The different generational attitudes towards the means for maintaining peace and security as well as towards the importance of transatlantic relations as the main anchor for peace and stability within Europe prove difficult for overcoming the political rift and personal animosities across the Atlantic.

Another problem for enhancing transatlantic security cooperation is the uncertainty of payoffs for aligning with the U.S. The engagement in Iraq did not pay off for, e.g., the Czech Republic; neither is the benefit of the British engagement clearly visible. Even though Downing Street did have an impact on the U.S. Administration over the Iraq issue, e.g. in the move towards the United Nations, Britian could not prove to its European partners that it did have such an impact and that the cooperation with the U.S. did pay off. Without that, however, many EU member states are even more reluctant to invest in military capabilities as primary means, and to invest in improving transatlantic security ties.

If the transatlantic gap is to be overcome, lessons will have to be learned on both sides of the Atlantic. The U.S. currently talks about threats in a militarily rather optimistic and active but also overheated way which is counterproductive to Europeans who are rather cynical about threats. This is not new as such and may even root in different mentalities on both continents, but it hinders any effective strategic dialogue. Both continents also have to become more realistic about each other concerning one another's different risk averseness both in terms of one's own threat assessment (e.g. concerning WMD proliferation and rogue / failed states) as well as military engagement. The EU cannot keep looking back at the post-1989 time in Central and Eastern Europe with its peaceful regime changes. Peaceful regime change is not guaranteed and any regime change in the future may always very well require coercive force.

One of the big topics of the future transatlantic security agenda will be the question of legitimacy. Legal and political legitimacy is essential for any ESDP mandate; it thus is one of EU's main terms of reference. The international community, however, today faces the dilemma that international law cannot always keep track with international developments and may be outdated to deal with a specific crisis situation. The European view that legitimacy always stems from the international legal order will, thus, be jeopardized as to whether output legitimacy is acceptable, too, and whether legitimacy will come from the affected country that is to be "saved" or "liberated". As the Middle East, especially with Iran and the Arab-Israeli conflict will remain on the transatlantic security agenda, the question will be which role international law and its bodies are to play in this context. From the tactical and legitimacy standpoint the bar may have to be lowered in a future crisis as to what is to be achieved and by which means. A failed state will still have to be stabilized, but it will not necessarily have to be transformed into a Western democracy; cultural realism and relativism will rather have to be learned by the Western powers.

The two chairs of the conference, C·A·P fellows Eva Feldmann-Wojtachnia (left) and Sebastian Brökelmann (right) in discussion Mirjam Dittrich of the European Policy Center in Brussels.

The overall result of this Roundtable which was a pilot project for integrating elements of C·A·P's own simulation expertise into the Transatlantic Roundtable series was very positive: Not only did all participants approve of the simulation as an essential part of the learning experience, they also developed a better understanding of the complexity of ESDP decision-making and its resulting inefficiency as far as quick operational action is concerned. As ESDP is a political tool, not primarily a military one, negotiations in the simulated Council were a lot longer and more complex than in a primarily military body, e.g. NATO. The Roundtable which followed a holistic and hermeneutic rather then purely fact-based approach resulted in an in-depth discussion of action and legitimacy for domestic and external security, where U.S. and European opinions drifted widely apart; European and U.S. political leaders will have to engage in a strategic dialogue not only about their respective goals in foreign policy and the technical means how to achieve them, but also in a dialogue about the importance of international law and the United Nations as the guarantor of international legitimacy for any kind of military action. But the question of legitimacy proved twofold difficult: Not only do Americans and Europeans have a different approach towards legitimacy of military action, but all ESDP actors have the additional problem of getting domestic legitimacy before any action can be taken.

This Transatlantic Roundtable conference was already the twelfth of its kind of the "Improving Responsiveness" project. It was made possible by the support of the key institution program of the German Marshall Fund of the United States and by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation. The German Marshall Fund of the United States is an American institution that stimulates the exchange of ideas and promotes cooperation between the United States and Europe in the spirit of the post-war Marshall Plan. The Fritz Thyssen Foundation is a private foundation in memory of Fritz and August Thyssen for the advancement of sciences.

Downloads

Agenda

List of Participants

Working Papers

Asle Toje: Europe's Consensus Expectations Gap

Jolyon Howorth:  The European Draft Constitutional Treaty and the Future of the European Defence Initiative: A Question of Flexibility

Jolyon Howorth: From Security to Defense

Jolyon Howorth: The Euro-Atlantic Security Dilemma: France, Britain, and the ESDP

Antonio Missiroli: ESDP - How it works

Radek Khol: The Czech Republic and ESDP in 2004