Europe, Strategy and Armed Forces by Sven Biscop Jo Coelmont

Author:Sven Biscop, Jo Coelmont [Sven Biscop, Jo Coelmont]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Military, General, Europe, Western, Political Science, Security (National & International)
ISBN: 9781136639197
Google: pIWoAgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-03-01T15:55:18+00:00

Capability development: an assessment

As the year 2010 has passed without the HG 2010 being achieved, the question imposes itself: is the existing mechanism sufficient to generate the capabilities that the EU requires to live up to the ambitions of the ESS? The last Progress Catalogue still identifies more than 50 qualitative and quantitative shortfalls, mainly in the areas of survivability and force protection, deployability and transport, and in formation superiority. The operational con sequence of several of these shortfalls is a high to a very high risk of the objectives of an operation not being met, of delay in launching an operation, and of incurring casualties and loss of equipment. True, 11 years since the creation of CSDP is a short time to judge its effectiveness in terms of capability development, which is an inherently long-term process. But have the mechanisms that have been put in place the potential at least to generate the necessary quantum leap? The reasons why this appears doubtful can be found in the characteristics of the CSDP capability development process.

To start with, the Force Catalogue is indeed no more than that: a catalogue. For each Member State, it lists types and quantities of capabilities that can be made available to the EU, but it does not identify specific units. Hence, there is no permanent link between the different national capabilities listed, such as combined training and manoeuvres, except for the mere fact that they are on the list. Obviously, this approach, while not hindering it, does not promote cooperation between Member States either. In itself, it will not generate the synergies and effects of scale needed to overcome the fragmentation of Europe's defence effort. Only for actual operations, if a Member State decides to take part, are specific units identified. The availability of the capabilities listed in the Catalogue is thus not automatic but has to be decided on a case-by-case basis. The implications for preventive action and rapid deployment, as called for in the ESS, are obvious. Far from the “Euro-army” that some fear, there exists only the assumption of the availability of national capabilities. The actual readiness of those national capabilities is judged only by each nation itself. As the process is based on self-certification, no EU body assesses just how ready the capabilities listed in the Catalogue really are.

Most, if not all, Member States have assigned part of their national capabilities to multi national units, but most of these formations display a rather low degree of integration. Except for the area of command and control, pooling and specialization mostly remains very limited. Hence, many multi national formations do not amount to more than a catalogue themselves and do not contribute to overcoming the fragmentation of the European defence effort. Being assigned to a multi national unit should mean more than getting a new shoulder patch. . . . This is linked to the fact that multi national units, especially for land forces, are not usually seen as a primary framework for deployment of manoeuvre battalions on actual operations.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.