European Defence in the Long Run: Can Europe Play a Leading Role in a Multipolar World?

The British economist John Maynard Keynes once famously commented on the value of long-range predictions, saying that ‘In the long run, we are all dead.’ While opining about the future of Europe and European defence in a multipolar world may not lead to quite the same stark conclusion, it is clear that on present defence trends, Europe is likely to continue, in the coming years, its long decline as an international force to be reckoned with. The proud continent that once bestrode world affairs will be reduced to internal navel gazing and ever-greater irrelevance on a global stage increasingly dominated by new superpowers and great powers which often will not share its values or strategic priorities. This notion of irreversible decline will remain Europe's inevitable destiny unless its leaders begin to comprehend that soft economic power is no substitute for hard military power in the conduct of global statecraft in the twenty-first century, just as it was not in the twentieth or nineteenth. Understanding this lesson, which was axiomatic to previous generations of European leaders—albeit with often disastrous consequences when that military power was unchecked or in the hands of those who did not share universal Western values—will determine whether Europe will remain at the forefront of global leadership in the coming age, or whether it will be subsumed as an international also-ran.

This may sound like a damning conclusion, but it is based on the confluence of the changing nature of the international landscape that Europeans inhabit and the simple reality of defence-expenditure figures. Since Greek and Roman times, Europeans have been accustomed to believing that the European continent has possessed an inherent geo-strategic value that automatically placed Europe at the centre of world affairs. From approximately 1,500 onwards, this belief was magnified by Europe's increasing dominance in international affairs. The conquest of the New World set the stage for European expansionism far beyond Europe's boundaries into Asia and eventually Africa. When taken together with the decline of the Ottoman world—although it should be remembered that as late as 1683 the Ottomans were encamped at the gates of Vienna—and the fateful decision of the technologically advanced Chinese empire to turn inwards, Europe's enduring relevance to the world order seemed obvious. Europe's rapid industrialisation in the nineteenth century merely reinforced the natural tendency of Europeans to see themselves as leaders in a world of their making. That world was multipolar; Napoleon's attempts to establish France as the global superpower of its day having eventually foundered on the battlefield, to be replaced by the ‘Concert of Europe’ system. But all of its poles were in Europe and the size of European economic and military power meant that Europe was the dominant force in world affairs.

Of course, that world no longer exists today. Challenges to the European order had already been evident in the early twentieth century through the increasing industrial might of the US and the military prowess of Japan. The European world order tottered through the crisis of 1914–1918 and then finally collapsed as a consequence of the carnage of 1939–1945, to be replaced by a Cold War paradigm where the US faced off against the Soviet Union in a bipolar clash of superpowers. However, despite being eclipsed as global leaders, European nations still found themselves at the centre of the international world order. They no longer possessed the world's dominant economies, although Europe's share of world GDP and trade remained high, with the West German performance particularly noteworthy. Nor could Europe boast the world's largest and best-equipped militaries, although the British and French remained major military players capable of global force-projection capabilities. However, Europeans retained seats at the top table of international affairs, as represented by British and French permanent membership in the United Nations Security Council and the growing influence of the nascent European Union. More importantly, Europe retained the geo-strategic importance to the world that it had possessed for the previous half-millennium. The symbolism of a divided Germany, with NATO and Warsaw Pact armies glowering menacingly at each other across that border, meant that Western grand strategy was predicated on the belief that any war between the superpowers would be fought at the Fulda Gap. Europe's countries could generate relatively less GDP and much less military might—European armies being propped up by the US in the latter case in the guise of NATO commitments—and yet Europe's relevance in the global system remained unthreatened by virtue of its geographic position.

But as we turn from the past to the future, this will no longer hold true. The rising powers of the world are not based in Europe or focused on Europe, with the partial exception of Russia, which will be beset by sufficient demographic problems in the future to render its long-term strength questionable, despite its current irritant factor to its immediate neighbours. The most obvious other examples are located in Asia, namely, China and India, both of whose primary security and international concerns are in the swath of territory located between Africa and the Pacific. Both possess the economic and military potential to become centres of power in a new multipolar world, and neither will be shy about using its military might in a way that has become anathema to most Europeans other than the British and French. However, once again, any potential flash points—and hence areas of strategic concern for the international community—will not be in Europe, limiting Europe's ability to involve itself in global leadership by virtue of being at the focal point of crisis, rather than through what it can contribute to resolving these crises.

China's strategic doctrine is understood to involve a desire to challenge US naval might in the Pacific and to ensure that a rising India does not constrict its ability to gain access to resources in Africa and the Pacific. Its authoritarian values and world view will also place it inherently in opposition to the West, as has already been frequently seen in China's foreign policy at the United Nations. India could easily become embroiled in a regional conflagration with its neighbour Pakistan or in a much larger conflict with China in its disputed border areas. The West does, of course, have a profound interest in ensuring that their rise is a peaceful one. But on current projections, the world of 2020 is likely to be far closer to the world of the 1890s—with a rising Imperial Germany competing aggressively for its ‘place in the sun’ with fellow European powers—than the world after 1815, when the Concert of Europe maintained peace and order through collaboration among powers satisfied with the status quo. It is quite clear that China in particular has a great interest in carving out a substantially larger role in international affairs than accorded to it by the present status quo.

Thus Europe is no longer the world's strategic pivot. A mercifully peaceful continental situation has meant that the eyes of the world no longer turn automatically to it. The corollary of this new reality is that for Europe to remain relevant in a changing world, it can no longer rely on its strategic importance but must count instead on its contribution to global power projection and to Western security strategy. While diplomatically, culturally and economically Europe has an established presence in the rising areas of the world, it is in the crucial field of military activity, and in the failings of European defence, that Europe will suffer in the long run. Soft power has been the favoured tool for many European practitioners of international affairs in the past two decades. But without a hard power component to match the rising hard power of new great powers and superpowers, Europe's counsels will remain unheeded in those moments of great crisis which will define the course of international affairs in the future.

The cause of Europe's likely future leadership decline is therefore obvious and dates from the curious evolution of European defence as well as the military configurations and defence expenditure of European nations. As Gisela Muller-Brandeck-Bocquet has effectively sketched out, unlike other external areas of cooperation—most notably trade—a common European approach to security and defence matters was not a part of the European Community's responsibilities from the very beginning of its existence. It was only in 1969 at a Heads of State meeting at The Hague that ‘structures to enable cooperation in foreign affairs were decided’ upon, ‘and in particular after the adoption of the Luxembourg Report in October 1970. Thus the European Political Cooperation (EPC) was founded.’ However, the events of 1989—the collapse of the East-West divide and the reunification of Germany—gave momentum to what ‘turned out to be the catalyst for a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) of the Community’ [4]. When the European Council (EC) met at Maastricht in 1991, the EPC was transformed into the CFSP as the Second Pillar of the Treaty on European Union (TEU). Subsequent reforms were made to the CFSP at Amsterdam and Nice and in two summits in 1999—Cologne in June and Helsinki in December—the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) was institutionalised. This provided for the establishment of a 60,000-strong Crisis Reaction Force by 2003. The latest evolution of ESDP, of course, came with the introduction of the Lisbon Treaty in December 2009. It has now been re-termed the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP).

While the CSDP sounds impressive, in practice the concept of European defence is riddled with problems. Owing to the piecemeal way in which they were constructed, the ESDP and now the CSDP have been beset by procrastination, weak coordination and persistent absenteeism. Many commentators have pointed this out, but one of the most succinct critiques has come from Nick Witney of the European Council on Foreign Relations. According to Witney,

As with all European generalities, more detailed statistics do point to very different outcomes for individual nations. Thus, as of 2008, the Netherlands could deploy 41% of its land forces and Britain 40%, but Austria and Ireland only 8%. ¹ Taken as a whole, however, European nations have been guilty of platitudes about the need to shift focus in a changing world but have failed to deliver on this owing to inadequacies in the structural and functional natures of their militaries, rendering large proportions of them not fit for any purpose.

Leading straight on from Witney's point, Europe's investment in defence is further hampered by ‘the low cost-effectiveness of a plethora of small-scale capabilities’ and ‘unnecessary intra-EU duplications’ [2]. The fact that, rather than focusing on core areas of competence, individual European nations have persisted in trying to maintain as large a spectrum of capabilities as possible has meant that many nations can deploy only limited numbers of the same types of combat, supply and command and control units, rather than larger numbers of tactically useful forces.

Added to this is the related problem of defence expenditure. As has been noted, Europe possesses larger numbers of military personnel than does the US. However, in every other key area, the relative contributions, strength and hence leadership ability of Europe pales in comparison with the US. Thus in 2008, Europe's total defence expenditure was ∊200 billion, its defence expenditure as a percentage of GDP was 1.63% and its defence spending per capita was ∊406. But these figures were dwarfed by US spending of ∊466 billion, that is, 4.7% of GDP or ∊1,532 per capita. ² While some larger countries like Britain and France have maintained respectable defence spending of 2.32% of GDP each, it is easy to see how Europe's military capabilities have declined on account of the failure of other large countries to match pace: Italy spends 1.44% of its GDP on defence, Germany 1.27% and Spain 1.16%. Only 5 of the 28 NATO members spend the minimum 2% of GDP that NATO recommends; 24 of NATO's 28 members spend less on defence than they did in the relatively peaceful year of 2000 [1]. With financial pressure growing to reduce Europe's already weakened defence budgets as a consequence of the global recession, it is difficult to see how in the long run European defence can be greater than the sum of its inadequate parts. This will have a direct impact on Europe's ability to play a leading role in a multipolar world: the Centre for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation noted, for example, in February 2008 that China's share of global military expenditure was already 8% and rising, with Russia at 5%, while Europe's share was 20% and falling.

The impact of the crisis of European defence can be assessed on relations with the US in the form of the functioning of, and worth attached to, the transatlantic alliance by the latter dominant power. Since the Second Wold War, the US–European relationship has formed the basis of Western and indeed global security, first in a specifically Anglo-American form and then from 1949 through the establishment of NATO. Throughout the Cold War, the Americans were content to shoulder more than their fair share of Western military expenditure on the grounds that US security was inherently tied to European security in relation to the Soviet threat and, at least in the early post-war years, Europe's shattered economies needed support. However, as the shared experiences of the Second World War and Cold War era recede from memory and Europe's strategic importance diminishes, US leaders have slowly begun to question the value of the transatlantic relationship as a functioning tool of Western security policy as opposed to a mere symbol in the form of NATO.

This can be seen most obviously in numerous attempts by the US—sometimes assisted by other NATO constituent members—to shift the focus of NATO from European territorial defence to promoting Western strategic interests. This article is not the place to detail the technical nature of these attempts and the repeated failure of NATO members to cohere around a new strategic imperative. However, in the form of NATO's involvement in Afghanistan, all of the problems of European defence and their resulting impact on US perceptions of the value of the European link have been laid bare, boding ill for the future.

In Afghanistan, despite an ever-increasing number of NATO members joining the organisation, the alliance has proved sclerotic and dysfunctional. With few exceptions, NATO's European members have contributed insufficient numbers of troops and equipment to be of major value to military operations—although the courage and commitment of those soldiers engaged in operations has been steadfast—and in some cases, those limited numbers have been further compromised by severe restrictions having been placed on where and how troops have been allowed to operate. The long-term effect of this European failure on US opinion has been devastating and was laid out by US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in a speech earlier this year: ‘The demilitarization of Europe—where large swaths of the general public and political class are averse to military force and the risks that go with it—has gone from a blessing in the twentieth century to an impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace in the 21st,’ he told NATO officers and officials at the National Defense University, the Defense Department-financed graduate school for military officers and diplomats. A perception of European weakness, he warned, could provide a ‘temptation to miscalculation and aggression’ by hostile powers [3]. If this trend continues, and the US decides that the burden of Europe outweighs its benefits, Europe's ability to lead will be hampered.

Nor is a more independent European defence a solution to this conundrum. Europe's ailments with regard to the transatlantic relationship will afflict any attempts to forge an independent global position—even if such an outcome were possible to attain, given the myriad disagreements between EU Member States on a multiplicity of foreign and defence issues which will understandably prevent the emergence of common positions on controversial issues—as a new pole in a multipolar world. Strategic diminution, falling defence expenditure and the problems of interoperability, deployability and duplication will dog European attempts to lead, rather than be consumed by, international affairs in the face of challenges from world powers able to master these situations.

If the prognosis for European defence, and for European influence, looks bleak, there remain possibilities for a resurgence of European leadership in the world. The most obvious way to achieve this would be to overcome the malaise that has afflicted European thinking on the defence issue. Committing to greater defence expenditures would be the surest sign of a new-found seriousness about European defence and a European willingness to continue to play a leading role in international affairs. At the very least, the amount of collaborative defence expenditure could be increased to ensure that the problems of duplication are minimised and that economies of scale can be achieved through a more harmonised European defence industry. While some countries have made great progress in this area—with Italy spending 65% of its total military procurement through European collaborative equipment procurement in 2008—some nations with the biggest spending, such as Britain and France, are not deriving as much benefit as could be achieved by cross-fertilisation, spending only 19.8% and 28.8%, respectively, of their budgets collaboratively. ³

One particular area European leaders could focus on is maritime security. In two incisive documents addressing this subject—one co-authored with Luis Simón— James Rogers has shown the possibilities and strategic necessity for European leadership in this area. As a legacy of their colonial past, Britain and France still maintain a number of military bases around the world, ranging from the Falkland Islands and Djibouti to Diego Garcia and New Caledonia [6]. These could easily be used as platforms for continued European force projection around the world. When it is considered that 90% of European trade is carried by sea, and that strategic choke points such as the Straits of Hormuz, Straits of Malacca and Straits of Taiwan could easily be affected in a global crisis in a multipolar world, the need for Europeans to take defence and grand strategy more seriously than they currently do seems self-evident [5].

One factor remains constant throughout this discussion: Europe's destiny remains in its own hands. At a gathering of the Atlantic Council of the US in February 2010, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke of a ‘crisis of leadership’ affecting NATO member countries and noted that the case needed to be made for ‘why we need to invest in deterrence, nuclear deterrence as well as missile defense, why we need to invest in protecting our energy supplies, or these new threats like violent extremism, and nonproliferation from non-state actors and potentially state actors.’ ⁴ This will not be an easy task. Europe's leaders have forgotten how to speak to sceptical publics about the need for defence. As US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ earlier comments suggest, the pacification of Europe has perhaps succeeded too well for the security needs of the twenty-first century. For if we are drifting towards a return to a multipolar world—and the rise of China, India, Brazil and Iran and the resurgence of Russia would seem to suggest that we are—and this multipolar world reflects a return to geopolitics in an aggressive form—as seems likely given the divergent values, systems of government and regional concerns of some of the most powerful of these new powers—then a simple equation will hold true. Greater defence expenditure and clarity of strategic focus will lead to a greater capacity to act and hence greater influence over global affairs. In tomorrow's multipolar world, no well-armed superpower or even great power is going to pay much attention to the concerns of a prosperous but militarily irrelevant group of European countries, located far from the centre of global flashpoints. It is time Europe's leaders recognised this and rediscovered their role and purpose in this changing world, if they are to hope to influence it.