Western European Armed Forces and the Modernisation Agenda: Following or Falling Behind?

Abstract

This article looks at the changing nature of European militaries specifically within the context of the United States’s transformation agenda. The article looks at the key drivers of transformation in European militaries and asks the question to what degree has the American agenda impacted on the way Europe does defence. The article looks at three aspects of transformation across three case studies. The aspects are network enabledness, expeditionary forces and effects based operations. The analysis is applied to the United Kingdom, France and Germany. The findings suggest that local political and bureaucratic conditions have the potential to trump a larger process of force transformation led by the United States.

Notes

1 This paper is based on research produced by a grant funded by the Economic and Social Research Council entitled ‘The Drivers of Military Strategic Reform in the Face of Economic Crisis and Changing Warfare’ ES/K010190/1.

2 John J. Mearsheimer, ‘Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War’. International Security 15/1 (1990) pp.5–56.

3 US Secretary of Defense during the Ronald Reagan administration from 1981 to 1987.

4 From Donald Rumsfeld, US Secretary of Defense during the George W. Bush administration from 2001 to 2006.

5 Wade Jacoby, The Enlargement of the European Union and NATO: Ordering from the Menu in Central Europe (Cambridge: CUP 2004).

6 Yves Boyer, ‘The Consequences of US and NATO Transformation for the European Union’, in Daniel S. Hamilton (ed.), Transatlantic Transformations: Equipping NATO for the 21st Century (Washington DC: Center for Transatlantic Relations 2004) p.75.

7 Ibid.

8 See also the 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) at <www.defense.gov/pubs/qdr2001.pdf> (Last accessed 16 Jan. 2014).

9 Boyer (note 6).

10 Ibid. p.77.

11 H. Binnendijk and R. Kugler, ‘Transforming European Forces’, Survival 44 (2007) pp.117–32; Stephen J. Coonen, ‘The Widening Military Capabilities Gap between the United States and Europe: Does It Matter?’, Parameters 36 (2006) pp.67–84; D. Yost, ‘The NATO Capabilities Gap and the European Union’, Survival 42/4 (2007) pp.97–128.

12 Christopher M. Schnaubelt, ‘Whither the RMA?’ Parameters 37 (2007) pp.95–107.

13 Boyer (note 6) p.81.

14 Ibid. p.82.

15 Scott Jasper, ‘The Capabilities-Based Approach’, in Scott Jasper (ed.), Transforming Defense Capabilties: New Approaches for International Security (London: Lynne Rienner 2009) pp.2–3.

16 The ‘capabilities-based’ approach encapsulated what has been referred to as Effects-Based Approaches to Operations (EBAO). This label is used by Theo Farrell, ‘The Dynamics of British Military Transformation’, International Affairs 84/4 (2008) pp.777–807, doi:10.1111/j.1468-2346.2008.00737.x.,to discuss transformation in Europe and the UK specifically.

17 Jasper (note 15) p.4.

18 Christopher Dandeker, ‘New Times for the Military: Some Sociological Remarks on the Changing Role and Structure of the Armed Forces of the Advanced Societies’, British Journal of Sociology 45 (1994) pp.637–54.

19 QDR (note 8) p.32.

20 Ibid. p.33.

21 Ibid. p.37.

22 Ibid. p.40.

23 Ibid.

24 Patrick M. Morgan, ‘The Impact of the Revolution in Military Affairs’, Journal of Strategic Studies 23/1 (2000) pp.132–62, doi:10.1080/01402390008437781; Eliot A. Cohen, ‘Change and Transformation in Military Affairs’, Journal of Strategic Studies 27/3 (2004) pp.395–407. doi:10.1080/1362369042000283958; Daniel S. Hamilton (ed.), Transatlantic Transformations: Equipping NATO for the 21st Century (Washington DC: Center for Transatlantic Relations 2004); Frank G. Hoffman, ‘Complex Irregular Warfare: The Next Revolution in Military Affairs’, Orbis 50/3 (2006) pp.395–411, doi:10.1016/j.orbis.2006.04.002; Theo Farrell and Sten Rynning, ‘NATO’s Transformation Gaps: Transatlantic Differences and the War in Afghanistan’, Journal of Strategic Studies 33/5 (Oct. 2010) pp.673–99, doi:10.1080/01402390.2010.498247.

25 See the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute military expenditure index, <http://www.sipri.org/research/armaments/milex> (Last accessed 20 Jan. 2014).

26 Colin S. Gray, ‘National Style in Strategy: The American Example’, International Security 6/2 (1981) pp.21–47, doi:10.2307/2538645. In this article, Colin Gray points to the important cultural attention to technological progress in American strategic culture.

27 In Athena’s Camp – Preparing for Conflict in the Information Age (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Publications 1997); Thomas P. M. Barnett, ‘The Seven Deadly Sins of Network-Centric Warfare’, Proceedings Magazine 125/1/1 (1997) p.151; David S. Alberts, John J. Gartska, and Frederick P. Stein, Network Centric Warfare: Developing and Leveraging Information Superiority (Washington DC: US Department of Defense 1999); Erik J. Dahl, ‘Network Centric Warfare and the Death of Operational Art’, Defence Studies 2/1 (2002) pp.1–24, doi:10.1080/14702430208405009

28 Theo Farrell, Sten Rynning, and Terry Terriff, Transforming Military Power since the Cold War: Britain, France, and the United States, 1991–2012 (Cambridge: CUP 2013) pp.184–5.

29 Ibid. p.184.

30 See the UK Joint High Level Operational Concept (Joint Doctrine and Concepts Centre 2003) para. 704, <http://ids.nic.in/UK%20Doctrine/UK.pdf> (Last ccessed 24 Jan. 2014).

31 The 12 Mechanised Brigade began training with the Bowman system in 2003. See <www.army.mod.uk/structure/29026.aspx> (Last accessed 27 Jan. 2014).

32 See http://www.eur.army.mil/exercises/ (Last accessed 24 Jan. 2014).

33 Farrell, Rynning and Terriff (note 28) p.220.

34 Ibid.

35 Ibid. p.222.

36 See the Defence White Paper at <www.isn.ethz.ch/Digital-Library/Publications/Detail/?ots591=0c54e3b3-1e9c-be1e-2c24-a6a8c7060233&lng=en&id=156941> (Last accessed 24 Jan. 2014).

37 Ina Wiesner, Importing the American Way of War? Network -Centric Warfare in the UK and Germany (Baden-Baden: Nomos Publishers 2013) p.114.

38 Ibid. p.116.

39 See Thomas-Durell Young, ‘German National Command Structures after Unification: A New German General Staff?’, Armed Forces & Society 22/3 (1996) pp.379–400, doi:10.1177/0095327X9602200303.

40 Wiesner (note 37) p.117.

41 Sten Rynning, ‘From Bottom-Up to Top-Down Transformation: Military Change in France’, in A Transformation Gap? American Innovations and European Military Change (Stanford UP 2010), http://site.ebrary.com/id/10555806.

42 Wiesner (note 37) p.121.

43 See <www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/RP98-91.pdf >(Last accessed 20 Jan. 2014).

44 Incidentally, the value of expeditionary forces comes to the fore if one reads the conditions of the British response to the Argentine invasion of the Falklands.

45 Farrell, Rynning and Terriff (note 28) p.209

46 Farrell, Rynning and Terriff, 2013, p.260.

47 See Tom Dyson, ‘German Military Reform 1998–2004: Leadership and the Triumph of Domestic Constraint over International Opportunity’, European Security 14/3 (2005) pp.361–86, doi:10.1080/09662830500407929; Tom Dyson, ‘Managing Convergence: German Military Doctrine and Capabilities in the 21st Century’, Defence Studies 11/2 (June 2011) pp.244–70, doi:10.1080/14702436.2011.590047.

48 Binnendijk and Kugler (note 11) p.129.

49 Farrell, Rynning and Terriff (note 28) p.145.

50 Ibid.

51 Farrell, Rynning and Terriff (note 28) p240.

52 Dyson 2011 (note 47).

53 See Hew Strachan, ‘British National Strategy: Who Does It?’ Parameters 43/2 (2013) pp.43–52.