Wars, challenges, and the US’s flamboyant rhetoric all push Europe to reconsider a joint security mechanism within NATO. Here is a possible path.
The subject of European defense has undoubtedly always been — and has become even more so in the wake of recent events — one of the most complex and difficult topics to address. It’s especially so if one wishes to avoid being swept away by emotion, ending up constructing intellectually interesting architectures that may have no real prospect of ever being translated into reality.
In approaching the subject, one must try to look ahead to that moment — undoubtedly distant, yet not impossible — when the dream of a common European foreign policy will materialize in a series of appropriate measures.
It will always be necessary to bear in mind the need to proceed exclusively by small steps, avoiding all the obstacles that millennia of separate and competitive histories may have strewn along the path. They should, tomorrow, be destined to advance together along the same road. These are by no means negligible difficulties.
There are states considered the driving engine of our EU — France and Germany — which must come to understand that the force they can express alone is absolutely no longer sufficient to pull the cart of the Union. The EU has grown extremely heavy through successive enlargements and is set to expand still further.
There are others — Spain, Italy, and — albeit for the moment in a different situation — the United Kingdom as well — that cannot think of living forever by having others defend them. Capitalizing almost exclusively on geographical positional rents and mediation capacity won’t be enough.
Finally, there are all those — Poland foremost among them — that emerged in relatively recent times from the Russian yoke and from the eternity of communism, that must now be drawn out of a historical immobility founded on the mantra: “the United States is good and friendly, while Russia — even without President Vladimir Putin — will remain eternally the imminent enemy.”
It’s a task that, incidentally, President Donald Trump’s behavior towards our Union is making considerably easier at this moment.
Until yesterday, we all had an instrument of defense on which we could count… or delude ourselves into thinking we could count… or pretend to delude ourselves into thinking we could count. It was NATO, the military instrument of the Atlantic Pact, which, for all its faults — and at times they were truly numerous — allowed us to enjoy more than 80 years of European peace under the dual nuclear and conventional guarantee of the United States.
As with all things, however, our membership of NATO has produced not only advantages but also serious disadvantages.
The prolonged duration of a peace that has ultimately proved to be without any comparable precedent in history has, in fact, progressively convinced us that our continent has become an area entirely foreclosed to armed conflict in the future.
Europe, from constant wars to eternal peace?
From this has followed a disarmament that has been not only material but also moral.
Eager to reap “the peace dividend,” we rapidly reduced, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, our force structures, our infrastructures, our stock of weapons and equipment. This occurred autonomously in each European country, without any state coordinating with the others or the Union taking charge of downsizing occurring simultaneously across all its members.
Particularly noteworthy was the speed with which conscription was abandoned almost everywhere. In the specific Italian case, care was moreover taken to avoid emphasizing that conscription had not, in reality, been definitively abolished, but only temporarily suspended pending a possible future decision to the contrary by the government.
Disarmament was thus not only material but inevitably moral as well, accentuated as it was by the choral atmosphere of demobilization and by the difficult adaptation to the new world situation that seemed about to take shape on the steps — once three in number: family, school, and military service — that provided the initial formation of the citizen. The suspension of conscription was reduced to two.
The process was more pronounced in Italy than in other European countries due to the presence of the Catholic Church’s headquarters, naturally oriented towards pacifism. It received a further impetus from the way the remaining armed forces, composed of volunteers, were employed almost exclusively for more than 30 years in peacekeeping missions or auxiliary policing tasks, something that inevitably conditioned their armament, equipment, and, certainly, their mindset.
“Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori,” the Romans wrote. But at the moment, an honest survey in Europe, and in Italy, would demonstrate that the young men and women genuinely willing to fight in defense of our Homeland and its values would be very few indeed.
If we wish to rebuild, then it is precisely here that we must start again – cultivating a new mindset more adequate to the extremely dangerous times we are living through. The era of illusions about the end of history and a perpetual state of world peace appears to have definitively ended.
The cost of a genuinely effective European defense across all sectors and against every possible threat would be truly prohibitive. Moreover, we already spend a great deal on NATO, and the commitment to raise, within a relatively short timeframe, the share of GDP devoted to security from 2% to 5% leaves no room for additional expenditure.
It is therefore within the Atlantic Alliance that European defense will have to take on adequate form and dimensions in the future — and this even though the future US participation in NATO remains extremely uncertain.
NATO
In his statements, President Trump frequently points out that the Alliance has been of no use to the American action against Iran, and that this could entail a future US withdrawal from the Organization. It is difficult, however — if not impossible — for this to occur, since a gesture of that kind does not fall within the powers of the President. He remains, in any case, in a position to emasculate NATO rapidly by withdrawing all or most of the American troops and equipment deployed in Europe.
NATO is therefore necessarily the framework to work within, setting the objective of developing a European pillar within the Organization. It should have sufficient weight to allow it to engage on a footing of absolute equality — and, if necessary, also of dialectic — with the Americans.
This is by no means a new idea, but rather an aspiration that has gained substance and consistency, especially after the Saint-Malo Declaration of the end of the last century. It eventually gave rise to a project destined to create, at least on paper, the possibility of rapidly deploying a European Army Corps with adequate support from naval and air assets — in the jargon of those in the field, the so-called “Headline Goal.”
Those same years had also seen the establishment within the EU, at its Brussels headquarters, of a series of political and military bodies that, if adequately strengthened, could have allowed the Union to operate with its “European pillar of NATO” even in the event of disagreement with the US pillar of the Organization.
This was a scenario that, at the time, appeared only as a “theoretical hypothesis,” but which now seems more than probable.
To complete the picture, the EU was still missing the most important piece, namely a European Command at the strategic level capable of taking SHAPE’s place when Washington had actually decided not to cooperate with Europe. Although mooted on several occasions, the creation of such a Command has never come about.
Within NATO, the proposal encountered, beyond the firm opposition of the US — which viewed its realization as something that would compel them to a “power sharing” — also the refusal of member states that were not EU members, with Turkey in the lead.
They feared, not entirely without justification, that such a measure would, in time, marginalize them, particularly on internal matters that risked becoming among the most important in the Organization’s future.
Adducing the argument that the main reason for abandonment was “to avoid unnecessary and costly duplication,” the project was thus shelved, and instead, within the framework of agreements that took the name of “Berlin Plus,” the decision was taken to assign SHAPE an additional mission beyond that performed until that moment.
In the event of an intervention intended to be exclusively that of the European Union, the strategic NATO command would thus have had to pass from SACEUR — always American — to the Deputy Supreme Allied Commander in post, who would have been alternately British or German.
The operation would moreover not have involved personnel and units from the United States or from any other non-EU member countries, or from those that had chosen, on the specific occasion, the path of “opting out.”
For the employment of the Alliance’s most valuable assets and capabilities, jointly owned by all member states, the right was instead reserved to decide on a case-by-case basis.
A Chimera
The result was a chimera absolutely incapable of functioning under any circumstances. Yet everyone — such was the climate at the time — pretended, albeit with varying levels of enthusiasm, to have the utmost confidence in it.
Nonetheless, subsequent attempts to change the situation by equipping the EU with a proper strategic-level Command were, on the French side at least, particularly numerous. The United States, the United Kingdom, and Turkey promptly quashed the various initiatives.
If a final decision were taken to move towards a real and effective European defense capability, the very first step would probably be to establish this strategic Command. It should constitute the apex of the Community defense pyramid.
It would moreover be necessary to revitalize, updating them promptly to the times. In fact, all the other political and military bodies over the past 25 years have led a more than tranquil existence, doing nothing but accumulating dust and obsolescence to an extraordinary degree.
Even if and when all the levers and instruments necessary to make the articulated machinery of collective security function are finally available, it will be necessary to bear in mind that it is essential to be able to count on a rapid and effective decision-making process to use them.
When one speaks of European defense, one inevitably, in one way or another, makes explicit reference to the EDC — the European Defense Community. It was blocked in 1954 by opposition from the French Parliamentary Assembly and is commonly considered the great missed opportunity in this field for our Continent. It was lost by a single vote cast by one of six states.
This is a point worth remembering, as the European Union has grown enormously. Yet it cannot find the strength to free itself from the “unanimity rule” which regularly paralyzes its most important decisions.
If we do not wish this to become a permanent feature in matters of defense and security, we will, from the outset, have to renounce any aspiration to move only by achieved unanimity. We should study instead the possibilities offered by variously qualified majorities or by mechanisms of temporary and partial opting out for those who do not share the common line.
Possible? Everything is possible when there is a will that genuinely tends in that direction, and when this occurs in a historical moment such as the current one, upended by the frenetic search for a new paradigm to regulate the new balances of power emerging on a global scale.
In such a climate, moreover, the experience of the Trump Presidency has at least taught us that, in such circumstances, things become possible that were once assessed as literally inconceivable.
There remain three more important topics to address.
The first concerns the nature of “current and future warfare.” The past five years, with the wars currently underway, have brought to light the fact that most countries — including almost all NATO members — had been preparing for a conflict that new weapons and technology had long since rendered obsolete.
The Ukrainian front in particular has shown us that future warfare will above all be a clash of robots — still guided by human beings, but authorized also, whenever necessary, to kill under the direction of Artificial Intelligence and without any prior human authorization.
All of this happens within a general framework of uncertain boundaries between peace and various forms of hybrid warfare. Moreover, there is an extension that will reach far beyond the normal three dimensions to encompass also the domains of space and cyber war. The change with respect to classical schemas is — and will be — so profound as to require in-depth analysis if only to be able to hope to move from the outset with a minimum of effectiveness.
It will be necessary to move from theory to practice, as some are already doing in part, with startling results. It would be troubling if a recently leaked report were true — in an exercise, a few dozen Ukrainian experts in the new instruments of warfare managed to prevail over two NATO Brigades in a very short time.
EU Defense Industry
The second topic to address is the European defense industry, whose deficiencies — both quantitative and qualitative — are being mercilessly exposed by events unfolding every day.
As regards the quantity produced, it suffices to note that Russian factories have proven capable of producing in three months what the entire European Union can field in a year.
A quantitative leap is indispensable, even if it would obviously be foolish to attempt to match the levels of a country that has for years been engaged in a ferocious war and that accordingly operates under a war-economy mindset. Seeking to halve our productive capacity roughly would constitute a reasonable objective.
On the qualitative plane, given our technological level, there should be no difficulties in producing across all fields equipment capable of holding its own against the most sophisticated equipment currently in service, or shortly to be, anywhere in the world.
Our real trouble is that our equipment is extremely expensive. At the same time, the consolidated historical fragmentation of national defense industries prevents us from enjoying all those economies of scale that would be possible if, for each category of equipment, we produced within the Union a single type or very few different models.
In each sector, the models are multiple, which generates a climate of constant competition that appears, for the moment, very difficult to change. There is already strong national resistance to any radical transformation of this sector, and it will only grow stronger in the future.
One must also consider that alongside this resistance — which on the French side, for instance, will certainly be very strong — there will be added the external hostility towards any possible rationalization process. Countries outside the EU, such as the United States, Turkey, and Israel, have found in the Union’s member states a more than profitable market for their defense products and will certainly not welcome the prospect of the EU working towards self-sufficiency in this sector.
One must therefore anticipate, beyond the uncertainty of eventual success, long timescales and astronomical levels of expenditure. It is no coincidence that European documents addressing the problem set their deadlines in the vaguely specified “the 2030s” and proceed with great, and perhaps excessive, hesitation, maintaining very low profiles and seeking to place the bulk of the expenditure on the private sector to address the economic dimension of the problem.
Finally, we must decide even now whether and to what extent the defense, and before that the deterrence, instrument of the Union will need to dispose, beyond the conventional component, of a nuclear component as well.
Doubts about the effectiveness and the real American willingness to provide us with a nuclear umbrella within NATO in the event of necessity have, in fact, intensified in recent times to the point of being more like certainties than doubts.
Moreover, the events of the past 50 years have demonstrated beyond any possibility of error that only those who possess nuclear weapons can consider themselves unassailable.
Before our eyes, we have the examples of Israel, China, India, and Pakistan, which, although not falling within the number of “Nuclear Powers” foreseen by the NPT, have been in all respects welcomed without much hesitation or remorse into the restricted club of those who possess this type of weapon.
The possession of an arsenal of this type, and of the related delivery systems, is, moreover, actually conferring respectability and rendering untouchable even an atrocious regime such as that of Kim Jong-un in North Korea. By contrast, Libya’s Gaddafi, who had renounced the nuclear option under the combined pressure and joint promises of the USA, Germany, and Italy, found death awaiting him the moment the West was presented with the opportunity to eliminate him.
One must also consider how recently there has been much talk of the necessity of preventing Iran from crossing the nuclear threshold. Yet, no attention whatsoever has been paid to all the other aspiring proliferators — Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Algeria… and perhaps others too — almost certainly at work behind their centrifuges at this very moment all around the Mediterranean.
European defense, therefore, cannot be exclusively conventional but must, of necessity, combine nuclear and conventional defense simultaneously.
An embryo of nuclear capability within our EU already exists: it is the French force de frappe, which, however, has always been capable — given the limited numbers of launchers and warheads — of exercising only that type of limited deterrence known as “dissuasion du faible au fort” — deterrence of the weak against the strong.
Moreover, at least until recently, French doctrine had always maintained that “le nucléaire ne se partage pas” — that is, that the nuclear deterrent is not shared. Now, however, President Immanuel Macron appears to be adopting a different attitude, which would initially favor — by virtue of the Aachen Treaty — above all the Germans, but which could subsequently involve other countries.
This extension of French deterrence to the full extent of European territory is certainly the path we should follow initially, even if its development appears, for now, fairly limited.
Thereafter — that is, in the medium and long term — it will instead be necessary to begin to think genuinely in broad terms, abandoning first of all every existing ideological aversion to this type of weapon — aversions, incidentally, that do not prevent us from hosting American nuclear weapons scattered across the entire European territory — and perhaps making reference from the normative standpoint to that vague “European clause” whose insertion into the NPT we at one time requested, and which would allow us to consider our adherence to the Treaty as open to renegotiation at the moment when it was a united Europe that wished to become nuclear.
Easy path — or rather easy paths — to follow?
Quite the contrary, given how, in view of the direction things have taken in the world of today, steps of this kind could not be viewed and received otherwise than with suspicion by the rest of the world — perhaps with our Great Friend of yesterday, Reluctant Ally of today, and Doubtful Rival of tomorrow, the United States, ranged in the front line among our accusers.
