European Defence

Alastair Cameron, Jean-François Morel

Description

Since 1999, Europeans have successfully launched and developed a European Security and Defence Policy. What is the core of the European defence project and is there a roadmap according to which is it developing in order to tackle current security challenges ? What are the main drivers that lead the Europeans to act together and how effective are they in the field of the international security ? A French naval officier and a franco-British defence analyst jointly set about identifying problems between the main players and the avenues to explore in terms of European Defence.

Sujets

• Armée
• Défense
• Securite

Informations

• Publié par: L'Harmattan
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 135
• EAN13: 9782296684065
• Langue: Français

Extrait

EUROPEAN DEFENCE
Breaking New Ground
© L’H armattan, 2009
5-7, rue de l’Ecole polytechnique ; 75005 Paris

http://www.librairieharmattan.com
[e-mail]
[e-mail]

ISBN : 978-2-296-09983-8
EAN : 9782296099838

Fabrication numérique : Socprest, 2012
Ouvrage numérisé avec le soutien du Centre National du Livre
Jean-François Morel
Alastair Cameron


EUROPEAN DEFENCE
Breaking New Ground


L’H armattan
Collection D éfense, S tratégie & R elations I nternationales
(D.S.R.I)
(Dirigée par Manga-Akoa François)

Depuis la chute du Mur de Berlin le 09 novembre 1989 qui a entraîné celle du Bloc socialiste est-européen dirigé et dominé par l’Union soviétique, puis celle de l’URSS le 08 décembre 1991, signant ainsi la fin de l’affrontement entre les pays du pacte de Varsovie et ceux de l’OTAN, la guerre a pris plusieurs formes inédites jusqu’alors. Le terrorisme international, les guerres asymétriques, la guerre économique se sont exacerbés grâce au développement exponentiel des nouvelles technologies de l’information et de la communication. Par ailleurs, la privatisation de l’usage de la force, jusqu’alors réservé à l’Etat, a rendu possible l’externalisation de plusieurs services de l’Etat. En effet, plus que jamais, se vérifie l’adage de Héraclite qui affirme que la guerre est la mère de toute chose. Tel un veilleur qui attend l’aurore, la collection D.S.R.I scrute l’horizon de ce nouveau siècle, décrypte et prospecte l’actualité internationale en ses aspects politiques, diplomatiques, stratégiques et militaires.
Foreword
In 2009, the European Union and its Member States celebrate the 10th anniversary of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). Jean-Francois Morel and Alastair Cameron are marking the occasion, ten years after the Franco-British Summit at St Malo, with the publication of this erudite and instructive study of the ESDP, its purpose and its prospects.

We have corne a long way in ten years, both with the operations mounted by the EU and the civilian and military capabilities and crisis-management structures developed to support them, and with our partnerships with other international security players. The EU has deployed 23 operations since 2003 – 12 of them are currently underway – in the Western Balkans, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

The European Union brings to bear a whole range of instruments that complement the traditional foreign policy tools available to its Member States, such as support for institution-building and good governance in developing countries, humanitarian aid, crisis-management capacities, and technical and financial assistance, as well as the more specifically diplomatic tools, such as political dialogue and mediation. This has established the EU as an ever more active player that is called upon to play a role in ensuring international peace and security. European security and defence cooperation has certainly lived up to its potential in establishing the EU as a global actor.

But we still have a long way to go. The European Union can only be effective if it combines all these instruments intelligently. Today’s conflicts demonstrate more clearly than ever that a military solution is neither the only nor the best option, particularly during the stabilization of a crisis. This is where the EU can provide real added value as the only organisation that has the necessary range of "stabilisation" instruments at its disposai, both to pre-empt and prevent a crisis and to restore peace and rebuild afterwards.

Over the next 10 years, to meet the demand for the EU and to realize our political ambitions, we must improve the efficiency and coherence of our external action still further. The entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty will help by enabling us to make more rational use of the EU’s instruments in the field of external relations. We also have to strengthen our civilian and military capabilities and increase their funding and we need to work on enhancing our flexibility, both in deploying rapid reaction forces and in our relations with our partners when we are engaged in the same theatre.

To achieve this, we need above all to strengthen the solidarity between Member States so that the political and economic entity to which they belong can live up to the European public’s expectations for Europe to be an even greater player on the world stage.

One of the great merits of this book, in addition to its exemplary maps and graphics, is its thorough and instructive account and analysis of these complex issues. Jean-Francois Morel and Alastair Cameron set out what is at stake and present scenarios for the future. Their book is an innovative contribution to the European Security and Defence Policy and to its continued development in the coming years.


Javier Solana,
EU High Representative for
the Common Foreign and
Security Policy
1. The Main Steps
The achievements thus far
Ten years after its creation, the European Security and Defence Policy is undoubtedly one of the main steps forward of the European Union. Whilst the EU had built itself up for 40 years largely on an economic basis, a key nucleus of European military officers joined for the first time in 1999, the brand new Brussels military structures. The aim was to assess security threats and plan the operations that the EU Member States would decide to launch together in order "to preserve peace and strengthen international security , in accordance with the principles of the United Nations Charter" {1} .

At the end of the wars in former Yugoslavia, Europe was indeed ready to confront the need, on the one hand, to be able to act at its borders and, on the other, to adapt European militaries to post-Cold War conflicts. All questions relating to the security of the EU were then included in the Common Foreign and Security Policy, "including the progressive framing of a common defence policy , which might lead to a common defence, should the European Council so decidé" {2} .

However, what dœs " European Defence " mean ? Well before military structures were established within the EU, Europeans had participated in their own collective defence for decades through the framework of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. In fact, NATO remains the foundation of Europe’s collective defence for those States which are members of the Alliance.

In an exclusively European framework, a number of countries had also cooperated in defence well before ESDP, with some such cooperation having materialised through multilateral forces and multinational staffs. Through these avenues, Europeans were thus already educating, training and sometimes deploying their forces together for military operations.
Source satellite imagery : NASA
The European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) which is conducted in the EU framework, was born out of a growing need for the EU to be capable of taking its own action. This self-proclaimed responsibility naturally creates expectations that the EU still has to live up to. However, it is not a common defence mechanism like that of NATO and applies to the territory of EU Member States only in very limited cases. ESDP has instead the potential to act anywhere in the world and its scope extends to civil crisis management including such priority domains as police, rule of law, civil administration and civil protection.

In spite of the different possible frameworks in which military forces may be employed, States have only one set of national forces. Armed forces are thus not dedicated either to NATO, to the United Nations or to the EU. The military decision makers are instead prepared for all types of operations, whichever structure exercises the political control. Military staffs and forces that are technically certified {3} by NATO, may act in other frameworks and often do.

In these conditions, " European Defence " should be understood as the whole set of efforts and defence achievements that are carried out by the Europeans in whichever framework.

But where is its heart of the European Defence project located and according to what roadmap is it developing ? The question of defining the aim of the European Defence project and its appropriate degree of autonomy, in particular in relation to the United States, is still so controversial that one should instead look for answers elsewhere : by identifying the main drivers that have led the Europeans to act increasingly jointly in the field of defence. Understanding the drivers pushing Europeans into any form of collective defence activity is crucial both to establish how European defence initiatives could eventually develop and to identify future evolutions.

After centuries of conflicts between Europeans on their own continent, resulting in much mistrust, the work that has been achieved thus far in security and defence co-operation in Europe is second to none in the entire world. While new global actors are appearing, what are the chances that a European defence instrument may one day support a fully-fledged European foreign policy ?
Set on the eve of the 1870 conflict, this comic map was drawn by the Frenchman Paul Hadol. It shows the multiple tensions betwe