The Handbook of European Defence Policies and Armed Forces

1318 Pages·2018·9.396 MB·English

by  Hugo Meijer, Marco Wyss

Title Pages
The Handbook of European Defence Policies and
Armed Forces
Hugo Meijer and Marco Wyss
Print publication date: 2018
Print ISBN-13: 9780198790501
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: July 2018
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198790501.001.0001
Title Pages
Hugo Meijer, Marco Wyss
(p.i) The Handbook of European Defence Policies and Armed Forces (p.ii)
(p.iii) The Handbook of European Defence Policies and Armed Forces
(p.iv)
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Dedication
The Handbook of European Defence Policies and
Armed Forces
Hugo Meijer and Marco Wyss
Print publication date: 2018
Print ISBN-13: 9780198790501
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: July 2018
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198790501.001.0001
Dedication
Hugo Meijer, Marco Wyss
(p.v) To Ingrid, Laura André, Bert (p.vi)
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Page 1 of 1
Foreword: National Defence at a Time of Doubt
The Handbook of European Defence Policies and
Armed Forces
Hugo Meijer and Marco Wyss
Print publication date: 2018
Print ISBN-13: 9780198790501
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: July 2018
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198790501.001.0001
(p.vii) Foreword: National Defence at a Time
of Doubt
Lawrence Freedman
STUDENTS of international affairs have a tendency to believe that they are
living through a uniquely transformational period, full of uncertainty and with
hitherto unimagined dark possibilities lurking round the corner. We might now
look back to the cold war and see a time of remarkable stability, when the
international hierarchy was understood, the dividing lines between the two blocs
were well established, and a shared fear of nuclear deterrence ensured caution.
Yet that was not always how it appeared at the time, from the alarms in the
1950s that the nuclear arms race was spinning out of control to the great crises
of the early 1960s in Berlin and Cuba. Even once these crises had been survived,
the literature of the time is full of warnings about the determination of the
Soviet leadership to get into a war-winning position, and how they were cowing
sections of European opinion into an appeasing mentality (‘Finlandization’) or
were making advances in the Third World to get into a position to cut the West
off from its raw materials. NATO was forever in disarray, caught up in
intractable disputes about burden-sharing and whether the Americans were
leading their allies into disaster or were on the verge of abandoning them. There
was a period in the mid-1970s that was particularly gloomy when the United
States was hampered by the Watergate scandal and Western economies were
coping with the dramatic rise in the oil price, inflation, and stagnation. The early
1990s, with the cold war now over, is recalled as one of cheerful optimism. The
Soviet bloc dissolved with good grace, and liberal democracy look set to be
embraced by all. Yet at the time reasons were found to be wary of the future.
There were warnings (not all misplaced) that great power politics would return
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Foreword: National Defence at a Time of Doubt
as toxic as ever or that nationalism could also replace socialism as a ruling
ideology and that ethnic tensions were ready to rush to the fore.
So it is entirely possible that historians will look back to our times and wonder
what the fuss was all about. To be sure there is a general sense of foreboding,
but it does not focus on a particular scenario. The reasons why a great power
makes little sense and will probably be avoided remain as compelling as they
have been since 1945. The international economy has regained its equilibrium
after the 2008 financial crisis and for the moment energy supplies seem
plentiful. Climate change remains a worry, although its implications for security
remain unclear. There are major geopolitical changes underway, notably China’s
rise to superpower status, and this has caused tensions, but these have thus far
been managed, and Europeans tend to think that this is largely an issue for the
Asia–Pacific region and not their own.
Yet the sense that big changes are underway that will have a major impact on
our security is hard to avoid. It is often described in terms of an unravelling of
the liberal international order that was established in the years after 1945 and
has by and large served (p.viii) the international community well. The concerns
that an era is about to end focuses on the quality of American leadership, but
also on whether values are sufficiently shared and interests recognized to be in
common for the West to stick together through whatever crises may be coming.
This may not yet be a time of great transformations, but it is a time of doubts, of
not quite knowing how the institutions and systems that have developed over
many decades, and thus far adapted well to new circumstances, will cope with
their next severe test.
One reason for doubt is that the two countries that have long been to the fore in
setting the Western security agenda have been losing their interest in this role
for some time. This is more than a Brexit or Trump phenomenon. The United
Kingdom and then the United States both developed their global positions (and
in the UK case an empire) as a result of their naval mastery. This enabled them
to exercise influence around the globe and act whenever their interests were
threatened and also to encourage international trade in a way that helped them
grow prosperous. The British Empire has been long consigned to history and the
United Kingdom can no longer really consider itself a global power with a
distinctive set of international interests that might need protecting by force. Yet
it has not been left in a particularly exposed position. For decades British
leaders worried about Dean Acheson’s 1962 jibe that their country had lost an
empire without finding a role, assuming that Acheson deserved an answer and
that there was a special role that only the United Kingdom could perform. One
regular favourite was as a bridge between North America and Europe, though
this, as with such claims, could not withstand much scrutiny. Only in its close
ties with the United States, especially in the nuclear and intelligence fields, did
the United Kingdom offer something different from other European nations.
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Foreword: National Defence at a Time of Doubt
What has been ducked was the possibility that there was no unique role and that
this might not matter. The advantage of being an island on the western edge of
Europe is that it takes less to guarantee national security than if it were placed
closer to the likely trouble spots in the former Soviet space, the Balkans, or the
Mediterranean. This is not to say that it is ready to opt out, although the Brexit
vote was an indication that it might be. British leaders still assert a sense of
responsibility, not least because of the United Kingdom’s role as a Permanent
Member of the United Nations (UN) Security Council, and it will not explicitly
embrace passivity. But, when new issues arise, it no longer seems to be anxious
to take a forward position.
One reason for this is that for a whole range of reasons, from the long ties of
history and culture and a similar geopolitical outlook, the United Kingdom feels
most comfortable when acting together with the United States. If the United
States was active, then the United Kingdom was also likely to be engaged. But,
by the same token, if the United States concluded that it wished to accept fewer
of the burdens of international leadership, then so might the United Kingdom.
The British example is not the normal one cited when one is thinking about the
consequences should America ease back on its leadership role. Japan and South
Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Israel would have more pressing reasons to be
concerned. In Europe those closer to the trouble spots would have more reason
to reassess their security policies. But this illustrates the importance of
American leadership in pulling others along.
The United States accepted in the 1950s a set of alliance obligations and other
treaty commitments that gives it an unparalleled position in international affairs.
This went against the isolationism and neutralist instincts of the interwar years.
Where disengagement (p.ix) prior to 1939 did not prevent major war,
engagement after 1945 has helped prevent a Third World War. But
disengagement has always had its attractions and a constituency in the United
States, not least because it removed the country from territorial risk. For
whatever reasons, President Trump picked an old isolationist slogan in ‘America
First’ for his inaugural address in January 2017. But the issue has been around
for some time. Until the attacks of 9/11 it was more tentative in dealing with
crises that did not touch directly on its alliance responsibilities. As a result of the
draining counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United
States now appears fatigued by its international responsibilities and is looking to
reduce its liabilities. This was the case even under President Obama. Trump has
given mixed signals on this as on so much else, as his inclination has been to
appear belligerent on any issue in which the United States is being tested, while
at the same time talking openly about being ready to abandon established US
positions on free trade and alliance obligations. Even though he does not always
actually follow through, the net effect has been to aggravate that ever-present
element of doubt about whether the United States will honour its alliance
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Foreword: National Defence at a Time of Doubt
obligations. Despite the rhetoric, so far mainstream policies have been
sustained.
One reason for anxiety is that Russia has taken a belligerent turn. This was
evident in the war with Georgia in 2008 and the much more severe confrontation
with Ukraine that has been underway since 2014. During the 1990s Moscow
began to feel it was being taken for granted. The problems faced in securing
distinctive Russian interests through institutional mechanisms left Moscow
isolated diplomatically. The promotion of Western concepts of the good life and
good government were seen as a neocolonialist effort to create a global system
that suits Western purposes and denies alternative cultures. President Putin’s
dislike of the ‘colour revolutions’ in other former Soviet republics leads to his
fear that one will be triggered in Russia. This was one—defensive—reason for
the attack on Ukraine, a punishment for a popular swing away from closer ties
with Russia to the European Union (EU). But the annexation of Crimea,
aggression in eastern Ukraine, and the menacing of countries such as Estonia
have served to isolate Russia further. The conflict with Ukraine has not changed
in character (although it remains violent) since the autumn of 2014, and Russia
has not taken military moves against others. Its room for manoeuvre has been
limited by a weak economy, because of sanctions and the fall of commodity
prices, and a more demanding intervention in Syria. It invested in Donald Trump
during the 2016 election campaign, but its interference may have backfired, as
the evidence of Russian interference has ended up with Trump’s hands being
tied and deeper sanctions in place.
Yet the evidence that Trump would have liked to work more closely with Putin
has unnerved Europeans. He has also created another source of doubt. During
his short tenure in the White House he has shown extraordinary levels of
incompetence and disregard for the normal conventions of public life. While
many agreed with Trump’s pressure on his NATO allies to spend more on
defence, the idea that the shortfall was in some way owed to the United States
provided more evidence of ignorance of how the alliance works. This has been
mystifying and alarming for those who have traditionally looked to the United
States for political leadership. All this has been more corrosive than
transformational, weakening the position of the United States without displacing
it. Such behaviour encourages hedging, with allies thinking about alternative
arrangements without rushing to put them in place in the hope that they might
not be necessary.
(p.x) More serious is his challenge to a collection of core principles that have
helped hold together the West. Whether or not his challenges to free trade
amount to much, his evident dislike for the underlying principle has chipped
away at one of the conceptual foundations of the post-1945 international order.
Pulling out of the Paris accords on climate change, his distaste for social
liberalism, his readiness to dismiss statements he does not like as ‘fake news’,
Page 4 of 6
Foreword: National Defence at a Time of Doubt
and his refusal to make human rights a prominent feature of foreign policy
distance his administration from the European establishment. They legitimize
attitudes that are certainly current in Europe, and in this way help undermine
the consensus that facilitates cooperation across the Atlantic and within Europe.
This is not to argue that these principles are beyond challenge, or that they have
suffered by being part of an elite outlook that can come over as being
complacent and indifferent to the views and circumstances of ordinary people.
Yet, where it gets a hold of a government, it can lead to a creeping
authoritarianism—even in allies such as Turkey, Poland, and Hungary.
One hedge for Europeans against the loss of American leadership is to build up
the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). It was long a Gaullist
aspiration to exclude the ‘Anglo-Saxons’ from European affairs, and the idea that
the EU could look after its own defences appealed to those who believed that it
could never really be complete until it could take on all the functions of a state,
including war-making. When the cold war came to an end, and it was unclear in
both Washington and Brussels whether the United States needed to play much of
a future role in regional affairs, then the Europeans looked to play a more
assertive role in sorting out local crises. The first test came in the summer of
1991 in Yugoslavia. European ministers proclaimed this as Europe’s hour—a
time to demonstrate its crisis-management capabilities. Its palpable failure, with
the issue effectively handed over to the UN and NATO, diminished rather than
enhanced the EU’s reputation. This encouraged the view that it was preferable
to have the Americans involved, but there had to be some provisions made just
in case they did decide to disengage. This was the origin of the CSDP, which was
launched with great fanfare by President Chirac of France and Prime Minister
Blair of Britain at Saint-Malo in 1998. It soon got bogged down in institutional
wrangles—over how the CSDP should relate to NATO and what functions could
be usefully duplicated. In the event, CSDP has tended to concentrate on
important tasks, such as peacekeeping missions or dealing with piracy and
refugee issues, where there has been no need for an American input, but not on
the big security issues, such as deterrence and coping with conflicts like Ukraine
(although on the economic sanctions side the EU already plays a leading role).
As the United Kingdom has always been opposed to the more ambitious
proposals for a European defence force, its impending departure from the EU
has appeared to open up the possibility of the issue being revived.
The problems that have always hampered the replacement of NATO with the EU
remain. First, most do not want to signal to the United States that it could
manage without them lest they persuade Washington that it was safe for it to go.
Only the United States can provide nuclear deterrence and the military weight
to cope with a developing conflict. Does France expect to take over the job of
extended deterrence from the United States? Second, doing more is expensive.
There have long been complaints from the United States that European
countries have not spent enough on defence and that their military capabilities
Page 5 of 6
Foreword: National Defence at a Time of Doubt
are in poor repair. Third, the rhetoric tends to get muddled, so that any
cooperation, including on weapons procurement or joint units organized
bilaterally or trilaterally, or the sort of modest missions currently undertaken
under the CSDP heading, are presented as (p.xi) moves towards an integrated
European entity. Fourth, even with greater integration, the ability to deploy
forces would still be limited by the particular interests of individual countries,
especially in relation to major crises outside Europe. How many countries would
wish to join France, for example, in one of its overseas operations? There is no
evidence that Germans are keen to act on behalf of other European countries,
such as the Baltic states, if attacked by Russia. In principle, of course, Europe
should have the resources to deter Russia, which has a GDP equivalent to Spain
and well below that of Germany, France and the United Kingdom, but that will
require major investment.
This is the context against which national defence policies are currently being
formulated. It is one in which it is hard to make a case for a ‘peace dividend’, but
nor is there an emergency (other than perhaps for the non-NATO countries
bordering Russia, and Russia itself). Governments are thinking more about
defence policies but without yet striking out in new directions. It is the lack of
confidence about where this might all lead that justifies a careful look at where
countries currently stand in terms of their national defence policies. It is very
difficult to see what options there might be for the future, how well they might
cope with the distinctive challenges, whether from Russia or North Africa and
the Middle East, and the extent to which the context actually shapes the policies.
As the contributions to this excellent volume show, national governments still
respond to national needs in their defence-planning and procurement, shaped by
their countries’ histories, cultures, and circumstances. They have done so
through the decades of alliance and latterly the CSDP, and will continue to do so
in the future. Great geopolitical movements create the dangers of conflict, and
so they deserve our attention, but there are also changes going on all the time in
national capabilities, and they also deserve our attention. With the publication of
this volume there will be no excuse not to be informed about what is going on at
the national level and the implications for the management of future crises and
conflicts.
August 2017 (p.xii)
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Page 6 of 6
List of Figures
The Handbook of European Defence Policies and
Armed Forces
Hugo Meijer and Marco Wyss
Print publication date: 2018
Print ISBN-13: 9780198790501
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: July 2018
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198790501.001.0001
(p.xvii) List of Figures
Hugo Meijer, Marco Wyss
8.1 The frequency of foreign policy topics in NSC press briefings, 1991–
2002 161
8.2 The frequency of foreign policy topics in NSC press briefings, 2003–
2011 162
8.3 The frequency of foreign policy topics in NSC press briefings, 2012–
2017 163
8.4 Military expenditure of Turkey, 1991–2016 172
8.5 Military expenditure by country, 1991–2016 173
12.1 Defence spending by Belarus, 1997–2015 242
15.1 Military spending by NATO members, 1993–2015 287
15.2 Composition of defence spending, Czech Republic, Hungary, and
Slovakia, 1999–2014 288
15.3 Participation in international operations, Czechoslovakia/Czech
Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia, 1990–2015 291
21.1 NATO European defence spending in 2016: meeting the 2% of GDP
target 385
24.1 Top-level governance of UK–French defence cooperation 431
25.1 Number of German and French operations by frame, 1990–2015 454
26.1 Aggregate European military expenditures, 1989–2015 472
39.1 Alternative weapons acquisition strategies 679
39.2 The hierarchical structure of defence industries in the value chain
683
39.3 Government measures to protect national defence industries from
international competition 684
40.1 European collaboration activities, 1961–1995 697
40.2 Project participations per group, 1961–1995 697
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