Torygraph: EU defence strategy snatches stability from the jaws of victory
Defence ministers from Britain and other European Union nations will today be asked to endorse a bleak vision of future European military capabilities. According to the new European Defence Agency, traditional ideas of "victory" will have to be jettisoned in favour of limited, multi-national campaigns to restore "stability" to conflict zones, with the grudging consent of an ageing, ever more casualty-averse European population.
The vision of Europe in 20 years' time was drawn up at the invitation of defence ministers by the EU body, which exists to push for more common spending and research by EU defence ministries and industries. The paper, An Initial Long-Term Vision for European Defence Capability and Capacity Needs, paints a Europe in which plunging fertility rates leave the military struggling to recruit young men and women of fighting age, at a time when national budgets will be under unprecedented strain to pay for greying populations. At the same time, increasingly cautious voters and politicians may be unwilling to contemplate casualties, or "potentially controversial interventions abroad – in particular interventions in regions from where large numbers of immigrants have come."
Voters will also be insistent on having backing from the United Nations for operations, and on crafting large coalitions of EU member states with a heavy involvement of civilian agencies, and not just fighting units, the paper states. They will also want military operations to be environmentally friendly, where possible. The European approach can be "nested within Nato conceptual frameworks and standards", the paper says.
The tone could not be more different from the Bush administration's talk of fighting for victory in a global war on terror. The paper predicts future European defence and security operations "will be expeditionary, multinational and multi-dimensional, directed at achieving security and stability more than 'victory'."