The Continent without a Military Doug Bandow | February 25, 2013

Europe once was a military power many military powers, in fact. But no longer. Tod ay Europe is turning into a continent without a military. In January Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO secretary general, lauded France for taki ng decisive action in Mali. Of course, Paris is likely to find that it is easier t o disperse jihadist rebels than reestablish a stable state. At the same time Rasmussen noted Europe s gradual disarmament. The other European states have offered little help, prompting Arnaud Danjean, a French member of th e European Parliament, to complain that Europe cannot always give responsibility to one member state. His sentiment was echoed by Nick Witney, who once headed the European Defense Ag ency, who argued that the European Union is paralyzed, seemingly unable to do mor e than offer rhetorical support to France and the individual member states that are chipping in with logistical assistance. So Paris, naturally, has turned to Am erica. Alas, Rasmussen s efforts to strengthen the European alliance so far have had litt le effect. Over the last five years, as noted by Stars and Stripes, Cuts by count ries as large as Germany and as small as Latvia have resulted in program cancell ations, changed equipment orders and, in the case of Britain, a plan to mothball a new aircraft carrier. Clara M. O Donnell, a European scholar with the Brookings Institution, explained that what we re seeing is basically cuts in capability and l ittle thought on what to replace them with. Libya was the Europeans war, yet they punched far below their weight. As Con Coug hlin observed last month in the Daily Telegraph, in Libya shortages of fundamenta l equipment, such as air-to-air refueling tankers, cruise missiles and ships, me ant that the European military effort found itself at a distinct disadvantage th e moment American firepower was no longer available. Nevertheless, NATO officials like Rasmussen count Libya a success. A year ago he contended: If we are to respond to the challenges of tomorrow just as effectivel y [as in Libya], more allies should make sure they obtain and maintain those kin ds of critical capabilities. But the latest report acknowledged that the gap in m ilitary capabilities is widening among the European NATO members and between Eur ope and America. Last month Rasmussen declared that There is a lower limit on how little we can sp end on defense. But NATO members don t seem to agree. In 2006 the NATO members prom ised to spend two percent of GDP on the military. Yet today the Europeans collec tively spend 1.6 percent of GDP on defense, an astonishing one-third of America s 4.8 percent. Only Britain and Greece have joined America at above 2 percent, and Greece does so more to confront fellow NATO member Turkey than to assist Europe. Italy and S pain are devoting less than 1 percent to their militaries. The alliance members also pledged to devote a fifth of military outlays to procu rement. Just five of twenty-eight members do so. Jonathan Eyal of London s Royal U nited Services Institute confirms this trend: Almost every single initiative adop ted by the alliance, to put it kindly, has not met with success.

Rasmussen has launched a smart defense initiative, which he recently said is the wa y forward for allies to develop and acquire critical capabilities. However, multi national cooperation can succeed only if the Europeans do something. So far, fig ures O Donnell, smart defense initiatives have saved less than 1 percent of the spen ding cuts imposed since 2008. Some European states are essentially disarming. As Rasmussen explained, Defense s pending among the allies is increasingly uneven, not just between North America and Europe, but also among European allies. All the Europeans save Britain, Franc e, and Germany account for just 7.5 percent of NATO s expenditures. Danjean declar ed that Europe is giving up in terms of defense. No amount of whining by Washington will change this reality. There is no politic al will to increase outlays. And despite the Europeans unwillingness to fulfill t heir alliance responsibilities, some of them have criticized the Obama administr ation s pivot to Asia. Panetta claimed that Europe should not fear our rebalance to A sia; Europe should join it. But the likelihood of the Europeans deploying militar y personnel in Asia is about as likely as the Europeans conquering Mars. The Europeans rightly fear that the pivot will shift U.S. military resources from Europe. Yet there is no compelling reason why Washington should continue to prot ect the populous and prosperous continent from largely phantom threats. The latest example of America defending a NATO member able to secure its own int erests is the deployment of Patriot missiles backed by American personnel to Tur key. The Syrian civil war has spilled over the border, but Ankara has backed the opposition and aided rebel fighters. In any case, an attack on Turkey by the be leaguered Assad regime would be military suicide. Even more disturbing is Europe s assumption that America should fight the continen t s wars elsewhere. Philip Stephens observed in the Financial Times that Europeans have caught the interventionist bug just as the U.S. has shaken it off. The Fren ch and the British led the war to depose Libya s Muammar Gaddafi.They are in the v anguard of calls for intervention in Syria. And the French charged into Mali. Yet the Europeans ersonnel to wield rnated, receiving rosecute this war help. want to wage war without having to purchase weapons or train p them. Francois Hollande is posing as Napoleon Bonaparte reinca a hero s welcome in newly liberated Mali. Yet France could not p by itself. Nor have most European members of NATO done much to

Rather, wrote Stephens, the war has since been sustained by the United States: al ongside heavy-life and tankers,Washington is providing almost all of the ISR intelli gence, surveillance and reconnaissance that the French need to track and engage Is lamist militants. And, no, it is not charging. French and British claims of full spectrum military capability are pretty threadbare. Not only is Washington not sen ding an invoice for its services, but the Obama administration approved spending $50 million from the U.S. defense budget to aid France. Nevertheless, this administration is not happy with European fecklessness. But t hen, no American president has been pleased by Europeans who for years wanted to constrain U.S. power while relying on it for their own defense. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates rebuked such behavior before leaving office. His successo r, Leon Panetta, made similar criticisms mixed with a little more praise. Yet his call to invest in this alliance to ensure it remains relevant to the secu rity challenges of the future has gone for naught. Unfortunately, U.S. policy act ively discourages European investment. So long as Washington is willing to underwr ite not only Europe s defense, but also its adventures elsewhere, there is little pressure on any European nation to devote serious resources to its military.

British defense minister Philip Hammond has defended America s strategic shift as recognizing the emergence of China as a global power and called upon the European states to do much more of the heavy lifting in the security of their own region. H e even spoke of the U.S. acting in Asia on behalf of the alliance. However, NATO i s doing nothing to support America there. Moreover, Hammond expects the U.S. to remain active in Europe, sharing responsib ilities, duties, and costs. Europe will do much more of the heavy lifting which, tru th be told, wouldn t be hard, given its current disappointing efforts. But Washing ton s aid would still be required, even while confronting a potential peer competi tor on the other side of the world. True, Hammond pledged that we will seek to work more closely with our neighbors i n Europe, particularly France and Germany, to enhance the capabilities of our ow n region. But we see no renaissance of European defense capabilities. Indeed, why should European peoples see the need for anything more than a symbolic national honor guard? Except for the former Soviet republics bordering Russia, the Europeans face no s erious conventional military threat. Claims that an Afghanistan or a Mali endang er the continent fare little better. Noted Christian Moelling with the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik: At a time of significant financial hardship, some may r aise difficult questions about the legitimacy of such militaries, and others mig ht even begin to question the merit of having armed forces at all. Yet Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum recently waxed eloquent about Europ e acting as a superpower to fill the vacuum left by a retreating America. Perhaps t he European Union could become the world s policeman, she mused, despite the eviden t obstacles which she detailed. The only way to get the Europeans to do so is to tell them that they have no cho ice but to do more. The Yanks simply aren t coming. A decade of war is now ending, declared President Obama last month. The Europeans seem appalled. Libya, Mali, Syria, Iran: so many wars and potential wars, so lit tle time. Where are the Americans when they need us? The United States no longer needs to guarantee the security of prosperous and po pulous friends in Europe or elsewhere. Washington should tell the Europeans that they have graduated from America s defense umbrella. It is time for them to formu late their own foreign policy and create the force structure necessary to back i t up. Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. He is a former special ass istant to president Ronald Reagan and the author of several books, including For eign Follies: America s New Global Empire.

http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/the-continent-without-military-8152