The European defense and its needed reform

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 seemed a chance, however sad, to transform the European security that, up to now, has not been considered. A variety of actors stand as responsible for this situation, among which the European states’ governments, the NATO, the European Union, and the United States of America too. Although there may have been some improvements within the sector, such as the public European support to Ukraine and the increase of the expense for the defense, these may end up being useless if the structural issues of the European defense are still unsolved. Instead of using these attempts to overcome these problems, the war has empowered the issues: the conditions of the European strengths are undergoing worse conditions than believed, and the commitments to coordinating the European purchases are not enough. Furthermore, the United States have showed being so useless for the European security that loads of European leaders have perceived that as a natural flow of things, thus ignoring the cooperation with the other countries of the European community.

Not only are there problems at the bottom, but also the tendency to the reforms, which has been showed in the last decades, seems to have fade away: even though there are some bills to attempt facing these problems, none of them is able to lead to a concrete and different action, needed to sort them out. However, the current situation is unbearable anymore and needs strong action as, with the passage to a new generation of American political leaders, the foreign policy of the US may move to the East, the fight against terrorism and China, while the attention on the European security would decrease. The European should then change the defense forces and the provision systems, so as not to face vulnerability in case of an additional Russian threat to Ukraine. It cannot therefore be denied that the foreign politics of the US is undergoing a change and that doubts and insecurity are imposing on the European security within an even more challenging and complex geopolitical context.

As showed by the shortage of needed bases to face the conventional war, it’s possible to state that the European defense is facing a disarming state. Over the last twenty years, Europe has not invested enough in the army forces and the few that has been done has been used for the humanitarian, counter-insurgency and anti-terroristic missions far away from the continent. Indeed, many European countries are not provided with default ammo, and the fleet of tanks have decreased in terms of quantity and efficiency. Despite France and Denmark have sent many among their artillery resources to Ukraine, there’s concern about the time needed to make them ready for the fighting. Furthermore, the absence of a shared market within the European defense to satisfy the needs of the internal security makes the cooperation about the purchase of armaments a political and bureaucratic issue. Indeed, the budget of each member State to be used for the defense is highly fragmented and aimed at sustaining the industrial military difficulties on a domestic scale.

In this context, the United States seem an obstacle to the UE commitments to improve the industrial cooperation within the defense, as the American firms, in Europe, benefit from the contracts of which the European businesses cannot enjoy. Even the Biden administration has put a lot of pressure on the UE for the defense projects, by insisting upon the United States’ access to a market of European defense. All this has brought consequences on the rare attempts to ameliorate the coordination of the European cooperation within the defense, as proven over the last ten decades: in 2021, according to the European Agency for the defense, the cooperative expense for the military equipment, such as the collection of the money by the UE members to acquire armies, used to represent only the 18% of the total amount for the purchase of military equipment by the involved countries with respect to the UE objective, equal to 35%. This led to a huge difference between the European defense sector and the other ones, so onboard after the creation of a unique market. Consequently, the forces of the 27 Member States use different facilities one from another, by making the realization of shared projects more challenging.

The responsibility has to be related to the governments, even though the Transatlantic Alliance used to have a different influence: the NATO has overlooked the European defense over the last twenty years, thus taking over its independent capacities. Therefore, there are a coordination and an integration of the forces, but not of the European Defense Ministers, and this requires more investments to put the blame to Washington. In this situation, Bruxelles seems to give priority to the internal investments in domestic firms or third parties’ suppliers, such as the USA, rather than decreasing its own dependence from them.

In a nutshell, the EU should guide, enhance, and ensure that all countries gain interoperable systems and that they do not ignore the firms of internal defense in support of third countries’ suppliers, as the structure is aimed at integrating, coordinating, and supporting the expense for the European defense. However, the European community hasn’t succeeded up to now and the member States attempt to re-supply their arsenals, by buying defense systems from non-European countries, thus putting off the next chance to opt for internal supplies and consolidating the fragmentation of the Europe itself. This last one needs a plan to enhance the integration of the defense and to deploy its own industrial basis. After the creation of the European Defense Fund (EDF), the European Commission allocated 500 million euro for the next 2 years, in order to enhance the countries to rely upon the same equipment and, if purchased by European suppliers, the UE will partly compensate the cooperation’s costs. The European community needs more funds for the defense, but the current balance sheet is insufficient, and the member States are not happy to increase their investments, neither to sort out any technical problem. Concurrently, the United States are putting pressure to gain the chance to take part in the European funds, instead of supporting the mutual commitments and the NATO is focusing on unrealistic objectives.

To conclude, the EU has some good ideas but does not provide much funds, the United States are gaining prestige against the European commitments, while the NATO sets purposes other than cooperation skills.


Mondo Internazionale APS - Riproduzione Riservata ® 2023

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Fonte immagine: https://www.pexels.com/photo/crop-person-showing-toy-pistols-5217921/