European Crisis Management and Defence by Hans-Christian Hagman

Author:Hans-Christian Hagman [Hagman, Hans-Christian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Military, General, Strategy, Political Science, International Relations, American Government
ISBN: 9781136052569
Google: 4cncAAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-09-13T15:58:01+00:00

The EU's military operational limit in 2010

On the basis of what has been decided as of late 2002, significant increases in European military crisis-management capabilities are likely by 2010 – at least by European standards, as defined in 1999–2002 – even if the ESDP process slows down. It is probable that both sea and airlift will increase, although whether they do so on the scale envisaged at the beginning of the decade is less clear. Nevertheless, mobility and readiness will improve. Precision-guided munitions and cruise missiles will be more readily available, and electronic-warfare and SEAD capabilities will probably also have increased. It is, however, difficult to see significant improvements in operational command-and-control networks and support elements, including logistics, engineering and medical support.

By 2010, military reform will have been completed in France, and probably also in Germany. Most European armed forces will be geared towards military crisis management, and expeditionary capabilities will play a central role. Multinationality and interoperability will probably have further evolved. Sustainability, deploy-ability and effective engagement will have moved forward. The EU structures, and probably also individual member states, will probably be better at strategic decision-making, intelligence-gathering and strategic (and perhaps operational) planning than they were at the beginning of the decade. By 2010, it is likely that EU states will be able to meet the 2003 Headline Goal in full. This does not, however, mean that Europe will have fulfilled every DCI objective or that the capability gap across the Atlantic will have decreased. On the contrary; the US will have made its own capability increases, particularly in high-technology areas such as command, control and communications and in the whole sphere of sensors and intelligence gathering and dissemination. Judging by the much larger investment being made in the US on network-centric warfare elements, the technical gap is bound to increase. The question is whether the doctrinal and operational gap will be even greater. Much will depend on the level of US-European cooperation in combined experimentation and force development.

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