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EU ministers to explore common defence strategy

NATO in 'crisis'; Europe averse to military force: Gates
Washington (AFP) Feb 23, 2010 - The NATO alliance faces a "crisis" as European countries have grown averse to military force and failed to invest in weapons and equipment, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Tuesday. "Right now, the alliance faces very serious, long-term, systemic problems," Gates said in a speech to officers and officials from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In a blunt message as NATO-led forces face a tough fight in Afghanistan, Gates said a budget shortfall plaguing the alliance was a symptom of "deeper problems" with how it sets priorities and how European societies perceived the role of the military. Gates said peace in Europe after "ages of ruinous warfare" represented a triumph, but he said the trend had "gone too far," with much of the continent increasingly reluctant to back any military action. "The demilitarization of Europe -- where large swaths of the general public and political class are averse to military force and the risks that go with it -- has gone from a blessing in the 20th century to an impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace in the 21st."

The perception of weakness in Europe could offer "a temptation to miscalculation and aggression" by hostile states, he warned. Funding and equipment shortfalls, meanwhile, complicated efforts to stage joint military operations in Afghanistan or elsewhere, Gates said at National Defense University, a few blocks from the Pentagon. "For many years, for example, we have been aware that NATO needs more cargo aircraft and more helicopters of all types -- and yet we still don't have these capabilities." The shortage of helicopters and cargo planes was "directly impacting operations in Afghanistan" and NATO also needed more aerial refueling tankers and unmanned aircraft for surveillance and intelligence, he said. NATO was already short of "hundreds of millions of euros" two months into the new year, which he called "a natural consequence of having under-invested in collective defense for more than a decade."

The US defense secretary's criticism came as NATO officials draft a new strategic vision for the alliance, which was created in 1949 but has struggled to redefine itself after the end of the Cold War. The final strategy document is due to be presented at a NATO summit later this year. Despite scolding European allies over defense spending and urging them to take "tough decisions" on reform, Gates praised the alliance for increasing troop contributions in Afghanistan. The former CIA director said the primary threat to Europe was no longer "a land invasion by armored formations supported by massed artillery and waves of fighters and bombers" like in the Cold War-era. Instead, he said a more "diffuse" threat exists from extremists based in failed states pursuing weapons of mass destruction and from "rogue nations" such as Iran, armed with ballistic missiles that could strike Europe. Gates said bolstering missile defense and training other countries' troops would be crucial to future alliance efforts. Even as NATO built up a more agile force that could be deployed abroad, defending the territory of member states remained a "core goal," the US defense secretary said. Gates said that mission's importance was underscored by "Russia's invasion of Georgia and its recent military exercises on NATO's border -- the largest of that type since the collapse of the Soviet Union."
by Staff Writers
Brussels (AFP) Feb 23, 2010
EU defence ministers, meeting in Spain Wednesday, will consider increased military ties authorised by the bloc's Lisbon Treaty, but with EU diplomatic chief Catherine Ashton notable by her absence.

The two-day meeting will not be the baptism of fire which some had been predicting for Ashton, the EU's High Representative for foreign affairs and security policy -- a post also created by the new treaty,

She cancelled her participation in the defence talks, in part to represent the European Union at the investiture ceremony of the new Ukrainian president, her spokesman said.

Some participants at the Palma meet had been hoping to hear Ashton's intentions as the first holder of the beefed-up foreign and defence job.

"Especially as, thanks to the treaty, the opportunity is there to reinforce Europe's defence, to give it more visibility," as one European diplomat put it.

"Her predecessor Javier Solana didn't miss a single meeting of this type with the defence ministers," one European diplomatic source said, recalling the holder of the lesser pre-Lisbon foreign policy post.

"Something has changed in the order of priorities," she added.

Spain, which holds the EU's rotating presidency for the first half of the year, had made the relaunch of a European defence strategy one of the "fundamental" objectives of its six-month tenure.

"We are starting from scratch with the Lisbon Treaty," as another European diplomat put it.

That text, which had a long and painful gestation, offers the possibility of a pilot group of EU nations to work together in a particular military area, without fearing a veto from another European capital.

The only condition for creating such a "permanent structured cooperation," as the eurospeak puts it, is that there is a qualified majority of the 27 EU nations in favour.

The European defence ministers will also on Wednesday discuss the European operations already in place or in the planning stages -- in Kosovo, against Somali pirates, training for Somali police and military, and logistical aid for quake-hit Haiti.

On Thursday their thoughts will turn to Europe's own institutional evolution, with lively discussion on the cards.

Several countries, notably France, believe that defence matters should not be lost in the future European diplomatic service, under Ashton, and that it should conserve its specificity.

Regardless of Ashton's role, the key initiatives remain decisions for the 27 national capitals.

But in general there is support for a reinforcement of Europe's defence capabilities.

Paris has said it is prepared to lead by example, via a France-Germany security policy as a precursor to "a pan-European strategy" as foreign minister Bernard Kouchner put it earlier this month.

Italy has recently spoken in favour of some kind of European army.

That's a possibility the Lisbon Treaty opens the way for, according to its supporters, even if it recognises that "the defence of Europe" is the remit of NATO, as the more transatlantic, led by Britain, insist.

Nevertheless a British governmental report published this month spoke of the possibility of military cooperation with Europe, and notably France, in order to make budget savings at a time of belt-tightening on all fronts.

France's reintegration last March into NATO's military structure could also, counterintuitively, relaunch the European defence debate.

History invites caution.

The 1998 Anglo-French declaration of Saint-Malo, called for an EU "capacity for autonomous action." However serious differences among Europeans over the Iraq war in 2003 put the brakes on that initiative.

A British general election, expected in May, could return a Conservative government to power, a much more eurosceptic and Atlanticist prospect than the current Labour administration.



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