A More Defensible Union: European Common Security and Defense Policy

Charles W. King

The European Union recently announced that its member states have decided to utilize Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) for the first time. A feature of the Treaty of Lisbon, the founding document of the European Union, PESCO will enable greater cooperation on security and defense issues. It does not represent a wholesale conglomeration of European militaries, or even the establishment of a rapid response force under a European flag as has been repeated mooted in recent decades. It is an evolution of the existing military-to-military cooperation that has been undertaken by European defense ministries, and important innovations in their future cooperation. The integration of Dutch, Czech, and Romanian battalions into the German Army’s (Deutsches Heer) force structure will only increase, as will bilateral command sharing between Germany, the Netherlands, France, and others. The implementation of PESCO and a Coordinated Annual Review on Defense (CARD) are the most significant steps towards European collective security since the failure of the European Defense Community (EDC) in 1954.

After World War II, Western Europe had to primary defense questions; the Soviet Union and Germany. Initially, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization did not address the German Question. West Germany was not a founding member of NATO, and what a re-armed West Germany would do was an open question. The proposed solution was the European Defense Community, which would integrate the defense policies and militaries of Western Europe, a radical move towards European Federalism decades ahead of the economic union that had just been founded as the European Coal and Steel Community. Ultimately the French legislature, led by Gaullists in the Assembly, balked at ceding so much sovereignty, despite the potential resolution to the German Question. Ultimately it was West German membership in NATO that resolved the German Question and permitted both the establishment of a West German military and the continued presence in West Germany of American, French, and British forces.

While some of the individual measures of the European Union’s PESCO and Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP) may seem trivial, they represent an effort by defense policy experts to resolve some of the major deficiencies that make it impossible for NATO to function without the United States. The 2011 intervention in Libya demonstrated that even when other nations, in this case France, were the primary conductor of air strikes they could not do so without American logistical support. The United States is the logistical backbone of NATO. It possesses the airlift and sealift capacity, the tanker and AWACS aircraft, and logistical capability and expertise not necessary or present in smaller European militaries. The creation of standardized medical training, a common Staff Officer School for the officers of European militaries, and the integration of European airlift and sealift commands under CSDP are the logistical and institutional foundation upon which future military cooperation, coordination, and integration will be built. These areas represent some of the most serious stumbling blocks to both a European defense policy that credibly projects power without American support and to an effective integrated European military. While the Presidents and Prime Ministers of Europe are a long way from announcing the total integration of European defense policy and military forces, the generals, admirals, and policy officials of Europe’s armed forces have realized their greatest shortcomings and are moving to resolve these deficiencies as effectively as they can in the current political climate.