Security, Strategy and Military Change in the 21st Century by Jo Inge Bekkevold Ian Bowers Michael Raska

Author:Jo Inge Bekkevold, Ian Bowers, Michael Raska [Jo Inge Bekkevold, Ian Bowers, Michael Raska]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Political Science, International, International Security, History, Military, Strategy
ISBN: 9781317565338
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2015-05-22T04:00:00+00:00

Part II

Military change in Europe

8 Perspectives on military change and transformation in Europe

Sven Bernhard Gareis

Over the past two decades military change and transformation in Europe has been characterized by three major trends. First, in the absence of an immediate threat since the end of East–West antagonism, most European countries wanted to realize their ‘peace dividend’ by downsizing their armed forces and shrinking their defence budgets. Second, the central mission of the military shifted from territorial defence to participation in international crisis management – often out of the European area. Finally, in order to maintain crucial capabilities that were no longer available on the national level, European countries started to build multinational military structures and units.

At the same time, military contributions to common security remained a neglected topic on the political agenda of the EU. The EU relied on its strengths in the traditional areas of treaty-based multilateral arrangements and close economic cooperation with its neighbours more than it relied on military power. The incentives of an association agreement with, or the prospect of eventual access to, the most prosperous community of states were strong enough for the partners to peacefully settle their internal and external disputes. The EU thus succeeded in establishing an extraordinarily stable zone of interconnectivity and interdependence encompassing practically all European nations on different levels of integration, ranging from partnerships to association agreements to full EU membership.

In the wake of the Kosovo war of 1999, the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP; the original name was the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) until it was renamed in the Lisbon Treaty in 2009) started out as an ambitious project. In practice, however, the EU’s military capabilities are still confined to small, low-intensity missions. Most notably, the CSDP has remained a strictly intergovernmental policy field that by no means served as a framework for the coordination of military change and transformation of the member states’ militaries. Military and defence issues largely remained in the national realms. Even the European Council held in Brussels on 19 and 20 December 2013, which had long been heralded as a kind of European Security Summit, was in the end dominated by economic topics, such as the negotiations on the European Banking Union. Any hopes for a new roadmap for intensified European security and defence efforts were dashed. In their conclusions, the Heads of State and Government called for enhanced cooperation among the various actors in the CSDP context without, however, mentioning substantial steps towards more concerted military reforms, not to speak of more integration in the field of European armed forces.1

This security setting, however, is being challenged by three major developments. First, in 2011, US President Barack Obama proclaimed the rebalancing of his country’s interests to the Asia-Pacific region.2 Although Europe and NATO are still considered to be America’s most important partners, as a result of this ‘pivot’ the US will have to decrease the number of its soldiers in Europe as well as its overall commitment to European security. Second, with

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