NATO and the UK: the impossible agreement on European Defence.

While reading in detail the report of the group of experts on a new strategic concept for NATO, lead by Mrs Albright, I felt as if I was dreaming. Indeed, page 25, the experts dared writing: “The new strategic concept should recognise that the EU’s Treaty of Lisbon is designed, among other purposes, to strengthen Europe’s military capabilities and command structures”.

My extreme surprise was provoked by the comparison between this statement and the government program endorsed by the Britsh Conservatives and their LibDem allies. I just remind you that this agreement does not contain one word on European Defence. Clearly, it means that both parties could not reach an agreement on this point, and by such it will remain pending as long as the situation remains as such.

Frankly, it will not change. The coalition will be complicated enough for every day business, they will not need additional conflicts, all the more that those conflicts are conceptual ones and are not the result of some campaign stances or programs. To have more details on this point, everybody can refer to the conservative manifesto, which states: “we believe that NATO, whilst in need of reform, should remain the cornerstone of our defence. Matters of enormous national sensitivity, such as defence procurement, are better dealt through inter­governmental bilateral and multi­lateral negotiations, rather than through supranational institutions.

We will therefore examine resources currently spent on bureaucratic and wasteful EU defence initiatives and spend the money on our servicemen and women. As part of that we will re­evaluate our position with the European Defence Agency as part of the Strategic Defence Review.” (I already made use of it in a previous post).

However, in order to have a more accurate approach of the current British policy as for the EU, or Common Security and Defence Policy refers, I would rather read the speech, very interesting by the way, that Mr Liam Fox, the new British Secretary for Defence made on 11th February 2010. He then said: “With the Lisbon Treaty we have what is now called "Common Security and Defence Policy" - an arcane change in the nomenclature, you might think, but in the detail lay the foundations of EU integrationists leaning away from NATO”.

Obviously, Mrs Albright, who hence pleaded against duplication must be looked at as an ‘integrationist’.

Therefore I cannot see any significant and real progress regarding European Defence, within the few next years:

-Conceptually the UK conservative Secretary for Defence, Mr Liam Fox, is against. As former member of the conservative shadow cabinet, his position opinion is for sure the valid one within the whole party.

-The LibDems, the other party of the coalition, is not strong enough to amend such a view.

-Being one of the two European nuclear powers and the European country spending the most on Defence, it is almost impossible to build a credible defence in Europe without or, worse, against the UK.

For these reasons, the nice statement of the group of experts will for sure remain a wish for a couple of years if not more.

Otherwise, we should resign ourselves to build up a European Defence without the UK, making use of the Reinforced Structured Cooperation, as foreseen by Lisbon Treaty. But, who would be able to do so?

NATO concept: Further discussion on ecological correctness

Two persons expressed their concerns on my statement criticizing the fact that Mrs Albright expert group mentioned the climate change as a geopolitical issue. I do appreciate those comments as they encourage me to think it over, may be a little bit more.

Indeed, like any citizen, I take into account ecology in my daily life. We buy only the fruits of the season; we sort out glass, paper, boxes, garbage, newspapers, bier cans, batteries, etc. Personally I would be happy if the defence forces could support as well fair trade, sustainable development. However, I only mean that in any geopolitical paper one can read, there is always one sentence on the climate change. In French we say ‘tarte à la crème’. This expression originates from the old movies where, for any gag, you had sooner or later inevitably, a custard pie to be thrown at someone’s face.

Therefore, my comment is, from a purely military and tactical point of view: if there is a vital threat, it is to be addressed. If you address it, you dedicate assets. And once you have the appropriate assets, you solve the issue. This report mentions this issue. And so what? The authors of the report don’t really care about the way to solve it. Simply because nobody is really willing to address the issue and dedicate the necessary assets. As there is no real consensus on the level of the threat, everybody is waiting for it to be solved by itself, or simply to disappear from world’s opinion concerns.

I was born in Brittany, where already in the 60’s, environmental crisis was a reality: remember the Torrey Canyon, the Amoco Cadiz, the Olympic Bravery, the Boehlen, the Gino, the Tanio, the Erika (read here). Hence, nobody was taking care of Brittany. Now the situation is much better, it has been “only” phosphates for 30 years.

Again, thank you for your comments that I fully support. Ecology is paramount. However, anybody who considers it as a parameter to take into account in a geopolitical study, should as well assess how it could be addressed properly and specifically. Or if it is only one parameter among others, we should take it as minor one of secondary importance. We should not forget that Groenland gets it name from Greenland, that less than some 10,000 years ago Finland was covered with glaciers, and finally French revolution was probably ignited by several years of bad crops.

Therefore, I persist in thinking that, in this report, the mention of climate change was only a rhetorical vehicle to give to NATO expert group some political correctness.

NATO concept: can we stop with the political ecological correctness?

Included in the Group of Experts report on the new NATO concept, I could read the usual sentence that any politician should use, in order to be sure that he will not be to much contested: “In the current day, uncertainty is magnified by such factors as: … the accumulating consequences of environmental degradation, including climate change”.

Great. And so what? Should the military transform their armoured brigades in Green brigades in charge of protecting Amazonia, should the USA change their nuclear submarines into offshore control service? Nobody will ever propose anything concrete on this topic. The only countries that may adapt their tools are countries for which internal policy is driven by ecology and that have no ambition as for foreign policy refers.

I mean those countries in which the military action can be showed only when the military is taking care of children in a Third World village, and most important, is in no case involved in combat operations. More precisely, as war is a bad and dirty thing, those armies which are conceived to have in any circumstance the role of the good guy, while larger powers are the bad guys who make use of their weapons.

However, nobody will deny the need for the defence forces to contribute to defence of environment, by patrolling in their waters to check the tankers, or cleaning the beaches when polluted. In any case, that is not new: since the 19^th century (at least) armies contributes to all those tasks, for instance by giving a hand for the crop, cleaning the beaches of Brittany in the 70’s, or fighting against the flood in Germany in the 90’s.

Therefore, my conclusion is such statements belong to the pure political correctness and the best proof of the report, is that it does not really give a clue of the way to adapt our defence systems to environment protection.

NATO: the impossible reform of the military capabilities

Thanks O. Kempf and his blog, I could get some insight in Mrs Albright’s report on NATO 2020. Well, the group of experts is really impressive, as they encourage the NATO to do all what it could not achieve in the past 20 years.

Depending on the time available I will try to demonstrate that the reform of the NATO that the group of experts is promoting will surely fail, or at least become reality not earlier than in 2040. When writing ‘reality’, I mean an effective ‘reality’, not the reality of the political statements. That is a different organization, with less headquarters, stronger defence forces within the European countries. In a way, a defence organization which gives our nations the tools to implement their policy.

Although the conclusions of the expert start like the homework of a college student (“the world has changed significantly since 1999”; for sure, it will be of great help to Mr Rasmussen), page after page it becomes more interesting.

For the time being, let us focus on the military capabilities. In a subsequent post, I will look at the political organization.

The main quote I will use is that one: “The primary limiting factor hindering military transformation has been the lack of European defence spending and investment.
Contributing to the problem is the fact that, in the past twenty years, European defence spending has been consumed disproportionally by personnel and operational costs. As a result, European national forces generally do not have nearly enough transformed forces.” (P. 38)

Indeed, I fully disagree with that belief that Europe does not spend enough on defence. In contrary, I support the statement that the money was and is not properly spent. Let us have a look at the defence expenditure of European Union countries (including the UK). Every year, the EU state members spend 200 billion Euros for their defence (Source: EDA). For what result? Out of 1.800.000 soldiers, a maximum of 80.000 is deployed. What the hell the other soldiers are doing all year long? Simply they guard borders that no enemy will cross within the next 20 years, because those very countries will not and will never accept to put down their armies, still largely inherited from Cold War time, and build up lean and expeditionary forces.

A good example is Poland: a few years ago, in 2002, they bought, with a strong US support, F-16. Against whom? Russia? Impossible, the same year, the NATO-Russia Council was set up. Since then, the Polish F-16 have not been deployed yet.

As well, I don not support at all the promotion of Research and Development that is expressed throughout the report: currently, only the USA would take profit out of it through programs like the Joint Strike Fighter, for which only a very few countries, mainly the UK can really get access to the most sensitive data.

Thirdly, regarding current needs in Afghanistan, the NATO asks regularly for more boots on the ground. Well, you do not need high-tech, Robocop style soldiers for those missions. You rather need well-trained troop, ready for patrolling in villages. The issue is that such soldiers do not match with the US technologic approach of military operations.

Therefore, the proposition for a greater effort in R & D or for more versatile and lean defence organizations is not the expression of an operational need. This is the expression of a US desire to see the European build a system, which fits to their own objective, including their industrial development, like in the F-16, the JSF and now the ballistic missile defence.

UK, LibDems and Conservatives: the impossible agreement on European Defence.

After the coalition agreement signed by both Conservatives and Liberal Democrats on 11th May, some analysts casted a shadow on the solidity of the new British government. I will now just have a look on their respective programs regarding European Defence. Just to have an idea if this process could develop despite the new government.

Frankly I would say now. Nothing at all will happen, and even to reproduce what de Gaulle said when the United Kingdom bought the Polaris missiles to the USA in the 60’s, the LibDems could still abandon their ideas for some governmental seats.

Firstly, let us read the conservative armed forces manifesto. For instance, the NATO “should remain the cornerstone of (…UK…) defence”. Moreover, they “will therefore examine resources currently spent on bureaucratic and wasteful EU defence initiatives”. Which is rather surprising, is that all those provisions are already included in the Lisbon Treaty. Precisely the article 42 mentions that “the policy of the Union in accordance with this Section shall not prejudice the specific character of the security and defence policy of certain Member States and shall respect the obligations of certain Member States, which see their common defence realised in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), under the North Atlantic Treaty and be compatible with the common security and defence policy established within that framework”. Indeed, a restrictive reading of the Lisbon Treaty is not so far from the conservative stance. From the very beginning the Treaty has foreseen such cases of a country not willing to take part. Regarding the “wasteful EU defence initiatives”, we can say all right: give back the jobs you have in EU Military Staff (including the boss), the HQ for Atalanta and that’s it, UK will be no more involved in those wasteful initiatives. But I really do not believe so.

However the compatibility with the LibDems is more questionable. In Autumn 2008, the LibDems were more audacious. Then, strongly supporting the ESDP in their conference paper, “Liberal Democrats see the potential for ESDP as encouraging more EU countries to play their part in European and wider international security “.

“Moreover, the ESDP also has the potential to reduce the costs of defence to the UK taxpayer, whilst maintaining our defence capabilities and improving the safety and welfare of our armed forces. This potential arises partly from the prospect of the European Defence Agency being able to reduce the costs of procurement and improve inter-operability”. While on their side the Conservatives think, that “matters of enormous national sensitivity, such as defence procurement are better dealt through inter-governmental bilateral and multi­lateral negotiations, than through supranational institutions” like European Defence Agency.

Finally, what is the synthesis of those diverging views? For the time being: zero, nada, nichts. Their coalition agreement will be completed later on by a final agreement covering defence…

Such different views will not allow the UK to be a driving country as for European Defence refers. Therefore countries like France, which are more active in the issue will have to choose:
-Either the UK, which will remain at least very passive, although its defence policy and organization, with nuclear deterrence and expeditionary warfare knowhow is rather close from French one,
-Or, Germany, which is opposed to nuclear weapons and is in favour of a European Army, which do not match, but quite not the French views.

I will not be very optimistic on the capabilities of those three major countries to find an agreement on the issue.

The limited but realistic ambitions of Spanish presidency of the Union.

Recently I have run my eye over the program of the Spanish presidency. The program is available on different languages on presidency’s website (here).

The Spanish ambition in that field, during those six months is the following one: realize a qualitative jump in promoting more efficient and flexible EU battle groups, consolidating the association between the EU and the NATO and going forward in the civil-military cooperation. That’s it.

Frankly a presidency, modest in its goals but remaining in the field of the possible is preferable to an ambitious one in which nobody will believe. Usually those presidencies end up with a declaration aiming at expressing the historical progress made during the last 6 months.

Anyway, even if a great country like Spain focuses on 1,500 man strong units, I do not assess this to be a great success in June. The EU battle groups suffer many weaknesses, already from their conception.

They are intended to provide the EU a quick military response to contingencies, in order to defuse a situation before it worsens. From a military point of view, what is hidden behind the idea of “quick response”?

Usually, when you need such a unit, it has to be:
-Air transportable,
-Multi-faceted, in order to face and overcome any unexpected worsening of the situation.
-Usable, which is the basis, therefore interoperable, trained and able to operate with the same rules of engagement.
-Sustainable. I mean that a battle group is not a one shot tool. Logistics must follow and if necessary reinforcement or replacement.

Le’s now have a closest look at the planning for the battle groups and let us take two examples. May be my data are not up to date. Any contribution will be welcome. I will not focus on the political side of the usability, but only on the military one. The examples I will take are from the second semester 2010 and first semester 2011. One of the battlegroups designated for 2010/2 is composed with Italian, Romanian and Turkish units. From a purely technical point of view, they are alike any other ad hoc coalition. They do not own the same equipment, their command and information systems have limited compatibility and their logistic organizations are independent. Despite the best will of the soldiers engaged in those battlegroups, it couldn’t be otherwise.

-The procurement of equipment is not European, but national, with national budgets. Due to the legitimate preservation of national industry, special partnership with one or the other country, due to the 40 years cycle needed to change the full equipment of an army, the equipment of this battlegroup cannot be homogeneous. Therefore, the planner has to organize the logistic not for one battlegroup, but for three independent units. Going further in details, the various national regulations usually demand a national certification for any equipment or spare part. That means that even if a weapon or any other system is supposed to be compatible with the incoming spare part, we are not certain of having the right to make use of those same foreign parts or ammunition.

-The command and information systems are usually built up as well on national criteria and because of national sovereignty, the cryptology remains purely national. In NATO operations, NATO will provide all the CIS assets down to headquarters level below the lowest NATO command level, in order they can communicate with the higher echelon. As the EU does not own such agencies able to equip headquarters, one must rely on the assets of one of the framework nations. During the operation in Chad, the EU could apply the same policy than NATO. However, the EU had more than one-year time between the decision to deploy and the effective presence there. In case of quick deployment, I do not know who would guarantee the CIS.

From a more political point of view, some battlegroups are simply not credible. Looking at the Helbroc (Greek, Romanian, Bulgarian, Cypriot battlegroup, what are their projection and logistic capacities? Those are armies have never deployed abroad in a single national operation. The Nordic battlegroup is for sure the most powerful and best trained. However, who would believe that countries like Sweden or Ireland would commit themselves in robust operations, while they claim neutrality and refuse, like Ireland, any binding alliance?

Therefore I fear that the Spanish presidency ambition as for defence refers will remain an ambition and not a realization, despite all efforts: as long as the issues of interoperability and political intention to go forward will not have been addressed, nothing will really happen.

It’s a long way to an EU operational headquarters

The main reference of this post will be fact sheet published by the Real Instituto Elcano (here), which has published on 23 March 2010 a paper written by Luis Simon, dealing with the EU operational headquarters. The paper can be found in Spanish on the Institute website. I really liked reading it, as it gives a good insight of the whole planning process, even if it does not deal with the issues of parallel planning, which permit to compress significantly the time needed for preparing an operation.

Like many other people more or less involved in European Defence, I think that this operational headquarters will be needed. Therefore, I am really happy seeing Luis Simon supporting the idea. However Mr Simon is realistic, when saying that neither Germany nor the UK ever supported the idea. As for the UK refers, nothing new. The fight against this supposed duplication between the NATO and the EU is an ancient issue, when everybody knows that the real duplication lies within the NATO itself. Germany could be more surprising. I am not. The best expression I could read is “destructive ambiguity” (‘ambigüedad destructive). L. Simon attributes this German ambiguity to their civilian perception of operations, in which they reject a pure military approach.

May be, this explanation is to simple, as the Germans do not reject, and in contrary fully support the NATO purely military headquarters. I would rather think that of course the Germans have expressed at this occasion some of their belief that being a nice and peaceful country would be enough to ban war and solve conflicts. One could think as well that the German intend was to copy in the EU their perception of operations (vernetzte Sicherheit) and therefore take an informal leadership, supported by their civilian experience in conflicts, knowing they would not be able to challenge countries like France or the UK on the expeditionary warfare, on which both are much more experienced than the Bundeswehr. In Afghanistan, when the Germans built up the Provincial Reconstruction Team Kunduz, they applied this integrated civ-mil way of operating while France and the UK were still on more conventional schemes.

Therefore I prefer thinking that they tried to capitalize on their know how (here for more info on PRT Kunduz), instead of being exclusively angelic.

Anyway, L. Simon assesses clearly and rightly that ‘the current planning system and the command and control of CFSP military operations do not fill the minimum quality standards’. Any operation supposed to deploy in a short time need several planning layers working in parallel. The fact is that the current structure in place in Brussels does not permit developing this modus operandi, as something is missing between the strategic (political) and tactical (military technical) levels. The recourse to national operational headquarters is not satisfactory in a EU context, as suspicion of national hidden agendas will always prevail. Furthermore, putting a national operational headquarters at disposal of the EU implies that you declare yourself ready. Who can still imagine that the German operational command in Potsdam could command and control a deployment in Africa, when one see what has happened for Chad, where Germany was politically supporting the operation and militarily refusing it?

Therefore military credibility needs a minimum of assets guaranteeing the possibility to deploy. In that field M. Simon is totally right. Nonetheless, when he proposes the EU situation centre in Brussels to be designated as the ‘preferred HQ’ for CFSP operations, I do not believe it realistic, at least yet, at least as long as every European country thinks that power and influence lie by their capacity to control an EU operation via their national operational headquarters.

France and Germany: the Janus of European Defence

France and Germany belong undoubtedly to the pillars of European Union. Both are founding Member States and are present on almost all the fields they are required to. According to European Defence Agency figures, both countries have spent together more than 77 billions Euros in 2008, which represent more than 1/3 of the total defence expenditure within the EU.

I have decided to join both countries together, as Mr Lellouche, the French State Secretary for European Affairs did some weeks ago in the French Senate on 2^nd February 2010. That day he stated that, when ‘France and Germany cannot delineate common positions, as it happened when the Yugoslav federation collapsed, consequences could be unforeseeable’. Taking stocks of such a statement implies to scrutinize those strong links, especially in the field of European Defence, as France and Germany share the ownership of the French-German brigade, of Eurocorps (along with Spain, Belgium and Luxembourg) and even train cadets of their ally.

Indeed, this idea of a sort of Janus came to me when having a look at the visible success of this partnership, while on the other side, on the conceptual side, situation seems being really intricate in various and sometime opposing interests.

On the one side the military technical level, put under pressure by the politics to prove their attachment to the French-German military cooperation stick firmly to the German-French Brigade in which they do not believe at all. For example, while the French Army intended to withdraw its regiments of this brigade from Germany, the final result was the unexpected creation, ex nihilo, of a German reconnaissance battalion, which will join its barracks in the outskirts of Strasbourg in 2010. As well, both armies share the school for the Tiger helicopters. Whereas our countries are eager to save any single Euro, money is not that important when the symbols of French-German cooperation are at stake.

However, shared symbols, even if visible, do not constitute a policy. This is completely true in fields of conventional military operations, industrial cooperation and nuclear deterrence.

Regarding military operations, the last time France and Germany have committed together their common tool, the French-German brigade, was in 2006, during Eurocorps NRF exercise in Cape Verde Islands (here). By the way, I do not include the 2009 operation in Kosovo within the brigade operations: the commander was not FGB commander, but French 1^st mechanized brigade commander, BG Bras. To support this view, by going on KFOR Webpage (here) dealing with the change of command you will see on the pictures of the flag pole that French and German flags are not hoisted at the same level! May be the best proof is as well to be found on the French-German brigade website: the text explaining the creation of a German battalion in France has nothing to cope with operational and military efficiency. All the arguments are based on political considerations.

Well, regarding the field of armaments, no comment is needed. I would like somebody to name a major common equipment of both defence forces. Nothing relevant has happened since the moment France and Germany started with the development of the Tiger. When saying nothing relevant, I mean a coherent program, which would significantly improve interoperability between our troops, which are supposed to fight side by side.

However, there is may be something more important than simply interoperability, even if interoperability is a key for operational and tactical efficiency. The most important thing is the perception of our future. While German political parties all aim at the creation of a common European army, France is far from being in this direction. In the French defence white paper, largely inspired by the French current majority, one can read that France will any preserve its autonomy of decision, which is a fundament of national sovereignty. So if Germany wants a European Army, who will decide? German constitution is clear: this is a matter of the national parliament. How can you set up a European army, when from the two major partners, the one claims full autonomy and the second one integration under the control of the parliament?

Then regarding nuclear deterrence, German has expressed itself in favour of a Europe free of weapons of mass destruction, while France says that “deterrence remains an essential fundament of French strategy. How is it possible to make compatible such different policies?

Therefore, this Janus face of France and German common defence policy really seems having become more important than addressing the real issues and asking the parliaments to answer those critical questions if we really want Europe to go forward.

A European inter-parliamentary assembly : a forum that we need

Lately, Mr Robert Walter, chairman of the WEU Assembly, or more precisely ESDA (its new name) published on ESDA a statement named “Parliamentary scrutiny of CFSP and CSDP: the way forward”. More recently, in exclusive release for a blog named “Mon Blog Défense”, Robert Walter detailed his views on the issue.

Mr Walter being a UK Conservative is for sure not a federalist. May be he is even a eurosceptic person. I do not mind. What I read from him is extremely pragmatic, taking into account the European reality, without building castles in the air.

Among his arguments the fundamental one is that Common Foreign and Security Policy, even after the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty remains an intergovernmental issue.

Indeed the power of European Union as for Defence issues refers is extremely weak. A good example could be the following one: out of the 27.000 EU employees, about 200 are from the military. Except some badges on shoulders, there are no EU soldiers, and there is no defence budget.

Even more, who is paying for the security of Europe?

Firstly the USA, and among the Europeans, a few countries, while the other ones maintain defence forces only for pacific tasks where the danger is minimized. Therefore the following sentence of Protocol N°10 of Lisbon Treaty remains the best proof of this intergovernmental approach: “the performance of these tasks is to be undertaken using capabilities provided by the Member States in accordance with the principle of a single set of forces”. When the capabilities are provided by a Member State, which pays for it, the Member State decides. That’s so simple.

Until now, no agreement could be found among the Member State to alleviate this stupid principle of “the costs lie where they fall”. Concretely a country decided to take part to an operation is in front of three disadvantages:

1. It pays, from its own budget, the largest part of its participation to the operation, while the Union, some months later can give him a warning shot for its budgetary deficit.

2. Solidarity will remain mainly verbal, and as soon as the situation on the field worsens, even verbal solidarity will be too much.

3. In case of difficulties on the ground (casualties, collateral damages, etc), the national support to the operation will decrease and could go until the fall of the government.

In such conditions, although I am personally a strong supporter of European Defence, I can only support a strong and efficient scrutiny of national parliaments on European Defence issues.

If the wish of Mr Walter to establish a permanent and light structure to maintain the scrutiny of the national parliaments in replacement of the WEU assembly is to be supported, I fear that it fails: to reach this objective, he would need political support, at least from the country presiding the Union. His hopes were lying on Belgium, which is not in the best situation when looking at the current political crises, to negotiate such a structure with the partners.

By the way, in order to confirm, that EU Defence Policy is far from really existing, you can have a look here

Non proliferation treaty: the German ambiguity

Regarding the building up of a unified European Defence, which scares some Anglo-Saxon people, everything is all right. We are still very far from removing the US nuclear umbrella and lifting the ambiguities.

Today, let us have a look at German policy.

Lately Guido Westerwelle, German Minister of Foreign Affairs expressed his satisfaction for seeing some European joining German stance on the ban of Nuclear Weapons from the European soil. Of course, getting partners in such an essential issue for our security is definitely positive. However, those partners are Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg and Norway. I would have preferred Germany to discuss a stance with partners of the same level, which are France and the UK in the first row and then Poland, Italy and Spain.

On 26^th March 2009, Mrs Angela Merkel expressed herself in favour of the total ban of the weapons of mass destruction. Indeed, at that time she expressed the opinion of a vast majority of Germans who have grown up in the belief that being a nice guy was enough to avoid war. Let us remember the huge demonstrations against the Euromissiles and the intense debate when Joschka Fischer, the then Green minister of Foreign Affairs, expressed his support to the NATO Air campaign in Kosovo.

Firstly, France and the UK are among the major European countries and belong to world’s nuclear powers. I really do not think Belgium able to influence France on nuclear weapons. In the second circle, Italy, Poland and Spain are simply the other major European partners, considering that a constant element drives the foreign policy of Poland: security. Whatever can improve the feeling of security is good for Poles, and US nuclear weapons belong to those assets.

I can hardly think that Germany really wants to ban all nuclear weapons from Europe. Indeed, while declaring in this statement from 2009 her commitment for the ban of nuclear weapons, Mrs Merkel reaffirms simultaneously its strong support to the German involvement in the nuclear capability. After some research on the web, I could learn that the Luftwaffe Tornados of Büchel Airbase were equipped to fire the US nuclear weapons. By the way, I could not confirm this information on any official or governmental website. The only and thin piece of information I could get access to are on the Luftwaffe Website and are really elliptic: “keep ready for national defence tasks” (in German language: Verteidigungsfall’). This terminology is used only in cases related to defence to the national territory, in the NATO collective defence framework. Mrs Merkel assesses this nuclear and not so public nuclear role of Germany as a vector of influence of her country in the NATO.

On the other side, France, Germany’s major partner in Europe does not specify that all the WMD should be ban. Of course: this is the main, or the only trump that this country has in its hands when referring to the UN Security Council. Therefore, taking a rather different stance than Germany, France promotes a reduction of the arsenals of the main powers as well as the inclusion of the tactical nuclear weapons in the negotiations. By the way, one should say that French nuclear weapons are not included, in the French concept, within the tactical weapons: they belong to the strategic autonomy (cf French White paper on Defence).

Therefore his German initiative is really to be looked at quietly: in the conclusions of EU council of 29th March 2010, one of the strongest statements is when the EU is “reaffirming the commitment to seeking a safer world for all and to creating the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons”.

Of course dreams cannot be banned. French and UK nuclear deterrence systems will not be dismantled, and that better, as long as a major partner like Germany will not look frankly at the issue and will not be truly coherent.

F.

We shouldn't disregard the German Army!

I am pretty much used going on French blogs dedicated to defence issues. One of the most known of them is named ‘secret defense’ (self explanatory). The author, JD Merchet is talented and has become a reference in the whole French military.

For different reasons, he does not believe so much in European Defence. Some of them are really excellent, and some of them are irritating (at least for somebody like me who believes in European Defence), as JD Merchet wrote in 2009, when publishing ‘European Defence: the great illusion’. I did not buy it yet.

I fully support him when he writes that when it’s dealing with death of soldiers or combats, Europe cannot endorse this responsibility. It is still and for a long time a matter of national sovereignty.

However the comments in this blog are often very nationalistic ones, disregarding our allies. And they are obviously written by French soldiers. One of the frequent targets is the German army, that some reproach not being able to fight adequately and to remain quietly in the North of Afghanistan.

I could read in ‘die Zeit’ that on 15^th April 4 German soldiers had been again killed in Afghanistan, in an ambush. The German Minister of Defence does not hesitate using the word ‘War’ to describe the situation over there. For a country like Germany this word has a really strong meaning, as it recalls the Germans a long time ago that everybody wanted to ban from the German future. Some Germans already intend to deploy heavy artillery, attack helicopters, tanks in Kunduz area. Angela Merkel does not exclude to authorize the Germans to act pre-emptively.

The great strength of the Germans is that they are able, beyond the political parties, and a great sense of responsibility, to discuss sincerely any issue and find a solution. But they do not speak from a withdrawal, and they are even more numerous than the French soldiers in this country.

Therefore, I really think that the best and first step towards European Defence would be to stop holding in contempt our allies and neighbours and in contrary to try learning from them, or to try discussing whether how to make the operation more successful by creating synergy, instead having among the three largest European nations, one in the North, one in the East and the third one in the South.

F.

Finnish F-18 and the volcano cloud

The Icelandic volcano has put such a mess in the European airspace that nobody can ignore it. Having heard on the radio about their F-18s damaged by the particles of the cloud, I paid a visit to the website of the Finnish Defence forces. There I could find a press release dealing with this incident. Unfortunately this press release is not available in English. Therefore I translated it for one or the other who would read this post.

As I haven’t worked on my Finnish for while, there could be some mistakes. With my most sincere regrets.

There are some words that I am not sure of. For instance: “jäähdytysilmakanava”. Directly translated, it would mean: channel for cold air. According to the context I have translated it as the exhaust. A second difficult word was ‘näytteenottosäiliö”. My understanding is that this is a pod designed for gathering particles in the air.

I suppose that Finavia is the Finnish air traffic office.

Text of: “Tuhkahiukkasista konkreettista vaaraa lentoturvallisuudelle Suomen ilmatilassa”

The Air Force has investigated on the damages that occurred on Thursday and Friday on the F-18 of the Lapland squadron. The aircraft took off on Thursday morning for an air exercise in the North-Finland airspace. Then the airspace was still fully open.

After they had landed, the aircraft were checked and volcanic slag was found in the air inlets of the engines. Both engines of one of the Hornet were investigated with a fibre optic camera. On the pictures one could observe, that even with a short flight that smoke particles could cause significant damages to the aircraft engines.

Pictures of engines have proved that the particles accumulated in the combustion chamber, where they melted approximately at a temperature of 1000°. Melting ashes accumulate in the cooler engine exhaust and provoke overheating of some parts and weaken some metal. Weakened metal generates for the rotating parts of the engine the danger of cracks. In extreme cases some parts could break and destroy the engine.

The Hornets exposed to the ashes are scrutinized carefully. In any case some engine parts will be replaced and running tests will be conducted at he Patria workshops. Damages parts are to be taken down as far as deemed necessary in thee engines, in which we would observe anomalies because of the smoke particles. This will apply for instance if particles are detected in the exhaust.

Operational flights will be operated as usual.

Despite the particle cloud, an Air Force Hawk training jet, equipped with a pod conceived to take samples, is ready the period the airspace will remain closed. The aircraft will fly anywhere on request of the civilian authorities.

On the basis of the information gathered by the aircraft, we will be able to determine how much smoke particles are in the air. The results will be forwarded to the civilian authorities, which will make out of the results of the gathered knowledge their decision as for the use of the Finnish airspace refers.

The reconnaissance aircraft will fly at a defined altitude and will gather in a filter the particles it will cross. After the landing of the aircraft, the samples are sent to the National Defence Research Centre in Lakiala. To get the results we need about two hours, which are then sent to Finavia. When deemed necessary pilots will report in real time their direct observations. The observation aircraft is operated by people from Kauhava Air Force school.

Despite the smoke cloud the Air Force operates as usual the operational flights, like activities linked to the preservation of the sovereignty of our area.

Missile Defence: a must? we need a sword rather than a shield

Ivo H. Daalder published in ‘Die Zeit’ on 13th March 2010 an article named “Stärker, schlauer, schneller “. Looking at the US report on missile defence, he reveals that the USA assess that the main threat against the USA and Europe is now based in Middle East and more precisely Iran and Syria, at least for the time being.

Indeed he stresses that the risk of invasion of Europe by hordes of bloodthirsty soldiers is rather thin and he proposes therefore that NATO, the USA and Russia work together on this subject, so that Europe is protected from 2018 on.

Beyond the fact that Ivo H. Daalder preaches for the USA, being the US ambassador to NATO, some points are missing in his article, while some other ones remind the Europeans that their current defence systems represent an incredible waste of money.

On the one hand one can only approve Mr Daalder statement when writing that the risk of invasion is really weak. After a period of waiting Russia to stabilize in the late 90’, we did not really optimize our armies against new threats, which would emerge far from our borders. The fact that we still face huge problems with our transport aircraft is the best illustration. Another one could be a look at the efficiency of the defence organizations of the Member States. Their cumulated budgets reach 200 billion Euros for what concrete results? Some thousands of soldiers are risking their lives every day in Afghanistan and unable to operate without a strong American support.

On the other hand, anyone a little bit aware of the armament programs could guess that involving a country, or more complicated a bunch of countries in a project as big and as complicated as missile defence is would mean years and years of negotiations and development, alike what happens with the Joint Strike Fighter. Therefore, the US proposal is simply to pay for being protected, without having the possibility to voice on the necessary defence of the industry jobs in our countries.

Furthermore, as missile defence is supposed to constitute the shield against those states, where the sword. At least since the Middle Ages, French now perfectly that a good system consists in the balance between the sword and the shield, or at least, when you are willing to fight light, a good sword alone can make it. Indeed, missile defence is a shield without a sword will be more or less efficient during a while and then? Without a sword, the enemy will finally bypass the sword and kill you anyway. Currently the USA offer us to share their shield, while they would retain the sword.

Frankly, getting some inspiration from the samurais, I would be in favour of

1. a good sword, which would mean a restructuration of European defence forces,

2. then, if there is some money left, a shield, that I would use myself, for my protection, not leaving it in the hands of my suzerain.

Poland in European Defence

The tragedy that occurred while the Polish Presidential flight was near to land haseen the death of the President as well as the main Polish military leaders and family members of those who had been assassinated in Katyn.

As for European Defence refers, in the recent years Poland has irritated France, while buying the F-16, supporting the USA in Iraq, then Germany about the issue of the borders and Russia when reinforcing its links with the NATO and the USA.

Again very active in the field of Defence, Poland has decided to seat at the rank it deserves in Europe. Being one of the largest European nations, Poland doesn't want to stay at the outskirts of the EU, including in the field of Defence. In order to fully play the role that Poland has assessed to be the one it ought to play, this country is investing in Eurocorps, final aim being to become a full member (or framework nation) with the same rights and duties than France, Spain, Germany, Belgium or Luxembourg.  Click (here) for the Eurocorps source and (here) for the press.

This large movement of integration of European armies should not been neglected: being obviously a top-down approach, imposed by the political power, this movement will not be seen positively by our respective defence forces which struggle strongly against the cuts in their budgets. However, it will come up sooner or later, as our nations are fighting to save the single Euro. Defence is a perfect gold mine. 

I will try to write a post on EU defence expenditure in the near future.

Eurocorps: avant-garde of a European army?

After a post on Mr Westerwelle’s statement on a European Army, I think interesting to have a quick look on Eurocorps.

I will not come back to the history of this headquarters and the debate over its military capabilities. The focus will be put on its political relevance.

A major issue of European Defence is its ability to remain as neutral as possible in the midst of the various and sometimes opposing national interests of European countries, that we face, even in the official statements on a common decision (you can refer to my precedent post on the WEU –ESDA). To come back to neutrality, I do not mean neutrality during an operation, or in other words passivity in front of the opposing parties. This neutrality is a positive one, which can be understood as objectivity of the action as for the national goals of the participating parties refers.

Indeed, most of the current so to say multinational units are in fact national units with an international flavour. All of them are designed to keep the capability to set up a purely national headquarters and to lead an operation, even if one or the other participating nation withdraws for an operation. For instance, at the ARRC (Allied Rapid Reaction Corps) the commander and the chief of staff will always remain British officers five of the eight branch chiefs are Brits, a sixth one being an American officer. In contrary, in Eurocorps, the responsibilities as well as the burden, is fully shared between France, Germany, Spain, Belgium and Luxembourg (in the order of the contribution) and very soon Poland.

In contrary, Eurocorps owns a unique structure in which the different nations are completely interwoven. You can see on Eurocorps website (here). This confidence mechanism prevents any single nation to confiscate the use of the force for its own purpose. One could say that such a system hinders dramatically the efficiency of a force a makes it unusable in real war. May be. However, I do not think if we really can choice. None of the European Nations is currently able to take the lead on behalf of the others. The example of the Napoleonic wars, where France owned the exclusive leadership within the ‘Grande Armée’, or the example of WWII, when the Wehrmacht was leading alone the units provided by their allies in the campaign against the Soviet Union is definitely over.

The cuts in Defence expenditures of our countries are a good illustration that the ‘Splendid isolation’ or the ‘Great nation’ syndromes should belong to the past. At least, this is the opinion of the European Parliament that our Nations (with the significant exception of Great Britain) claim to reinforce, by disbanding the WEU assembly. Mr Kuhne, then Member of the European Parliament (Germany- SPD), proposed in a resolution on ESDP, “to place Eurocorps as a standing force under EU command and invites all Member States to Contribute to it”.

This proposition was passed with a very large majority of 500 votes on 5^th June (here). This peculiar point on Eurocorps was not a matter of discussion. When referring to Mr Kuhne on the German position on this matter of a European army, at that time, Mr von Wogau (Germany- CDU) was the chairman of the subcommittee for Defence and Security.

Already at that time, German views on a potential European Army where not so much different than today.

Therefore I would say, may it please or not, at least in the minds of our German allies, there will be a European Army, and Eurocorps will play a role.

F.

PS: 13-02-24 : Link to a more recent article explaining why Eurocorps will not be committed in Mali

PS: this is the cover page of a book written by Mr Couraud, editor: Editions Hirlé.

Western European Union coming to its end. Was it really opportune?

On 31st March O. Kempf, wrote on his blog (here), that the WEU was coming to its end.

Of course, the author expressed his strong regrets and in his analysis assessed that this decision was not totally opportune.

I fully support his assessment, firstly because he is very competent in all geopolitical issues, secondly because the press statements of WEU member nations do not match.

As a first approach I do not see this as a major decision of our governments: most of the WEU had been already since a while handed over to the EU Council, as the Secretary General of the EU was double hatted SecGen of the WEU. Torrejon is the best example of this transfer of authority. The only remains of the WEU was the parliamentary assembly, renamed lately ESDA.

1. Statement of the French Government (here)

France and its partners have decided to withdraw from the WEU as a consequence of the Lisbon Treaty and the progress of the European construction, as the EU has taken over all the functions of WEU.

2. Statement of the German Government (here)

The German federal cabinet has decided to withdraw from the WEU. Continuing with the WEU would create duplication with the EU structures. Dissolving the WEU means that the place to discuss about European security is the EU.

3. Statement of the Spanish Government (here)

Firstly Spain speaks on behalf of all the contracting parties.

NATO and the Lisbon Treaty are the basis for collective defence. Spain will make sure that the discussions between the national Parliaments will go on, based on the protocol n°1 of the Lisbon Treaty.

I suppose that the Spanish Government refers to the article 9 (page 203 of the Lisbon Treaty).

4. Statement of the British Government (here)

The WEU role was essentially symbolic referring to collective defence. The current work of the parliamentary assembly is not the cost of 2 millions Euros a year for UK alone worth. And the most important: “Given the inter-governmental nature of CSDP, we believe, however, that this remains fundamentally a matter for national parliaments. There is no reason and no case for the European Parliament to expand its competence in this area”.

An easy conclusion is that Germany has a very federalist approach, while the UK relies on the inter-governmental relations, agreeing with Spain, only on the role of the NATO, while France and Germany simply ignore it.

Obviously the role of forum that the Parliamentary Assembly of the WEU was playing was not that stupid, as it could help our nations getting a common approach on defence matters. Indeed, for the time being, the European Parliament, in accordance with the Lisbon Treaty plays no role in the issue as Defence and its budgets (of course) remain purely in the national field of competence.

Therefore, I join O. Kempf: we know what we loose, not what we gain. Having met Robert Walter several times, I really think that he will strive maintaining an inter-governmental parliamentary structure. Isn’t he a UK –conservative member of the House of Commons? In any case, the UK will never (at least in the next decade) support the German federalist approach.

EADS versus Boeing

One could think that the recent events regarding the bidding process for the famous MRTT supposed to be purchased by the US-Air Force was a new proof of the war between Boeing and EADS. French President, Nicolas Sarkozy made even a statement about this.

Of course there is no problem between both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Indeed Boeing and EADS are the best friends in the world, and I have a proof.

A few days ago I got the opportunity to meet some people of Eurocopter, a subsidiary of EADS, and they offered me a gift. This splendid ‘Dauphin’ in die-cast, produced by Eurocopter and bought by the US Coast Guards.

Looking more carefully at the box, I could that this toy was made in China, and that it was a ‘Boeing Officially Licensed Product’.

I really think that EADS public relations service should be either strongly reinforced or at least be more coherent in its policy.