Silence surrounds the fate of the EU's 'European army' call

Giles Merritt contrasts the sound and fury of Trump’s threats to NATO with EU governments’ muted response to the idea of a ‘European army’.

The turmoil and looming economic chaos of America’s assault on Iran has, like Russia’s invasion of  Ukraine, driven defence and security to the top of the Brussels agenda. The gap between the EU and the US on the two conflicts looks like an unbridgeable chasm.

Europe’s room for manoeuvre, however, is limited by its dependence on America’s military muscle. How European leaders will eventually respond to Donald Trump’s belligerent threats to dump NATO remains to be seen. Much will depend on the speed with which Europe can replicate the US strengths it has long relied on.

Trump’s spiteful announcement of troop and long-range missile withdrawals from Germany –  and soon, perhaps, from Spain and Italy – has so far met with cool reactions from EU governments. None have referred publicly to the idea floated a few weeks ago by the European Commission for a ‘European defence union’ to help compensate for Trump’s trashing of NATO.

The proposal boils down to a ‘European army’, which has drawn only muted reaction from member states. Either they are digesting the idea and giving it careful consideration, or they’re ignoring it.

Details of the initiative are sketchy, but the broad idea advanced by the EU’s Defence Commissioner Andrius Kubilius in mid-April proposes a new treaty as the legal basis for concerting national defence responsibilities, topped by an EU ‘Security Council’ and buttressed by a ‘European army’ of 100,000 troops.

Kubilius is a former Lithuanian prime minister whose high-profile championing of the newly-created EU defence portfolio has drawn both plaudits and protests. The awkward questions about Europe’s defensive capacities with which he peppers policymakers has made him both friends and enemies.

Like so many politicians in northern and eastern Europe, Kubilius is anxious that the EU’s military capabilities should be urgently strengthened. The spectre of a Russian incursion into any of the Baltic republics haunts their thinking. Kubilius is crusading for greatly enhanced levels of deterrence in a  European security stance that has become dangerously complacent.

What, then, should the new defence union look like? Kubilius believes that, like the Schengen free movement area, it should be open to non-EU countries. He also suggests the Security Council’s permanent members could be the five largest states, to be flanked by three rotational ones and the leaders of the EU institutions.

Its projection of hard power would be a rapid reaction force under a single EU command. Learning from past errors, in which European governments ignored their commitments to provide stand-by units, Kubilius’ message is that immediate readiness of troops and weaponry is essential.

His persuasive warnings echo those of military planners and security analysts across Europe. However, the nationalism afflicting so many EU countries makes it hard to see its implementation. That said, unacceptable developments in Russia or even the United States might yet spark a dramatic reaction in Europe.

The deterioration of Europe’s military strength is alarming, yet not as apparent as defence chiefs would wish. Governments’ response to US President Trump’s criticism of their NATO spending has been to focus on increased defence budgets, even though these are just promises to be honoured in years to come.

The good news for defence planners in Europe is that outdated technologies can be replaced by far cheaper ones. Drone warfare in Ukraine and in Iran and the Gulf region has sidestepped conventional systems overnight. Much of the expensive kit now headed for the scrapyard is US-made, and America’s arms and aviation giants already complain that the EU’s ‘Buy European’ procurement programmes are unfair.

Trump makes much of the transatlantic imbalance in NATO spending, but the truth is that Europe has long compensated for the Pentagon’s spending by purchasing highly sophisticated US electronics and avionics. The multi-role F-35 made by Lockheed Martin, for instance, has been the combat aircraft of choice for many Europeans and has mopped up huge chunks of their defence budgets.

But the Iran conflict has shown that while the stealth attributes of American avionics are unchallengeable, they are nevertheless vulnerable to earlier generations of heat-seeking missiles. Many other high-priced weapons systems also risk becoming obsolescent.

These technological shifts don’t immediately resolve Europe’s security problems. National defence industries remain hopelessly fragmented and protectionist. Leading corporations like Rheinmetall in Germany, the UK’s BAe Systems and Thales in France dominate weapons purchasing and resist pan-European rationalisation. Innovative high-tech start-ups, meanwhile, are starved both of venture capital and government orders.

Armed conflict since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and now in the Middle East, has come as a huge shock around the world. It has also shown that satellite-borne intelligence and targeting are key strengths. Europe is alarmingly weak here, with its Ariane launches running at a tiny fraction of those of Elon Musk’s SpaceX reusable rockets. At the other end of the defence spectrum, the Commission warns that red tape and poor transport infrastructure mean troop reinforcements in response to a Russian attack would take weeks and probably months.

The Putin-Trump double-whammy has been fast and furious. The EU has been forced to speed up its decision-making on foreign and security policies while trying to adapt its economic model to external threats. This may explain EU governments’ muted reaction to a ‘defence union’, but it doesn’t excuse it.

The views expressed in this Frankly Speaking op-ed reflect those of the author and not of Friends of Europe.