Institutionalised cooperation and policy convergence in European defence: lessons from the relations between France, Germany and the UK

Abstract

What are the prospects for trilateral concord among Britain, France and Germany in terms of defence policies? Would more institutionalised links among them lead to more convergence of their defence policies? To answer these interrogations, this article investigates the relation between policy convergence and institutionalised cooperation, in particular by studying whether and when one is a prerequisite to the other. First, this article examines the extent to which these countries' defence policies have converged since the end of the cold war based on several indicators: their attitudes towards international forums, their defence budgets, the structure of their armed forces and their willingness to use force. Second, we study each of the bilateral relations between the three states to qualitatively analyse their degree of institutionalisation and the convergence of their defence policies. This article concludes that contrary to the arguments of many discussions, think-tank reports and political actors, there is no evidence that institutionalised cooperation leads to policy convergence as far as defence is concerned.

Keywords:

• European defence
• France
• Germany
• UK
• policy convergence
• institutionalisation

Notes on contributors

Alice Pannier is a PhD candidate in International Relations at Sciences Po Paris (CERI). In 2012, she received a joint PhD scholarship from the French and British governments to conduct research on contemporary Anglo-French defence cooperation. She recently published “Understanding the workings of interstate cooperation in defence: an exploration into Franco-British cooperation after the signing of the Lancaster House Treaty”, European Security, 22:4, 2013, pp. 540–558.

Olivier Schmitt is a PhD candidate in the department of War Studies, King's College London, focusing on multinational military cooperations and coalition warfare. He recently published “A Tragic Lack of Ambition: Why EU Security Policy is no Strategy”, Contemporary Security Policy, 34:2, 2013, pp. 413–416 and “Strategic Users of Culture: German Decisions for Military Action”, Contemporary Security Policy, 33:1, 2012, pp. 59–81.

Notes

1. The EU was approached through its successive institutional developments, that is, first the WEU, then the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) (since 1992) and finally the CSDP (after 2009).

2. The three latest national publications we used are:

• For France: Livre blanc sur la défense (1994); Défense et sécurité nationale: le livre blanc (2008); and Livre blanc défense et sécurité nationale (2013). We used the French versions of these publications.

• For the UK: Strategic defence review (1998); Delivering security in a changing world: Defence white paper (2003); and Securing Britain in an age of uncertainty: The strategic defence and security review (2010).

• For Germany: Weißbuch zur Sicherheit der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und zur Lage und Zukunft der Bundeswehr (1994); Weißbuch zur Sicherheitspolitik Deutschlands und zur Zukunft der Bundeswehr (2006); and Die Verteidigungspolitischen Richtlinien (2011). We used the official English versions of these publications.

We searched for keywords associated with each forum, for instance: ‘NATO’, ‘Atlantic alliance’; ‘WEU’, ‘European defence’; ‘United Nations’, ‘UNSC’. The same methodology was used to trace the evolution of political discourse towards the two other partners of the triangle. For instance, in German white papers we looked for ‘United Kingdom’, ‘Britain’, ‘UK’, ‘British’ and ‘Anglo-’ and for ‘France’, ‘French’ and ‘Franco’. This will serve in the second part of the analysis to identify potential links between a convergence of national policies and increased bilateral or trilateral links between Britain, France and Germany.

3. Assuming that nuclear deterrence would cost France and Britain 10 per cent of their annual defence budgets they would still be significantly higher than Germany's. If we subtract 10 per cent of British and French defence budgets, for instance for the year 2010, we would have: Britain, $56.6bn; France, $59.7bn; and Germany, $49.7bn.

4. British officials, interviewed by the authors in London on 21 March 2013.

5. French official, interviewed by the authors in London on 21 March 2013.