The Persistent Dream of an EU Army

It is an idea that filters through European bureaucratic circles at regular intervals – one with a scant chance of coming to fruition. Yet the dream of European Union (EU) officials and many elected representatives across Europe's political landscape - forming a supranational "European Army" under the aegis of the EU – persists.

Despite these persistent calls for the formulation of a unified EU defense arm – part of the calculus of European federalization supporters - the goal is further than it is near.

This is not, however, due to a lack of diligence.

Ideas and initiatives such as the Western European Union, the European Defense Community, the St. Malo summit of 1998, the Helsinki Headline Goal, former French President Jacques Chirac's goal of a unified EU foreign policy "pole" to offset American unipolar power and the stillborn plan of his successor, Nicolas Sarkozy, for a "hard-core" defense component comprising the six major defense nations in the EU (France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Poland and Spain) all indicate the earnestness of the proponents.

The strongest argument favoring an EU common defense initiative is that by synchronizing research and development, as well as military equipment procurement, less money would be wasted and otherwise limited defense funds maximized. This indeed is a worthwhile goal, particularly following two decades of military retrenchment across the Continent.

But this course is already well under way in Europe through the auspices of the European Defense Agency and the EU's Directive 2009/81/EC on defense procurement.

Another worthy pan-European initiative is the European Air Transport Command, under which military air transport fleets and services are managed. Yet it should be noted that this initiative is conducted on a participatory - and not mandatory – basis, much like NATO's Strategic Airlift Capability (under which even non-NATO members may participate). 

Defense cooperation on the micro level also continues to evolve, primarily through Nordic Defense Cooperation (NORDEFCO), but also via Benelux, the nascent Franco-British Combined Joint Expeditionary Force, and even the joint Czech-Slovak joint air patrol agreement. This allows nations with shared defense assumptions and needs to partner – voluntarily – on a bi- or multi-national basis.

Indeed, scale is important. The larger the component the more opportunity for fractures, which all the political glad-handing in the world would do little to prevent when sovereignty issues (both military and industrial) rear their head.

The smaller EU nations may welcome protective measures and assurances from their larger allies, but would they like to see their foreign policy approaches subsumed and directed by Paris or Berlin?

One could look no further than Great Britain where the idea of a pan-European defense arm is anathema, in effect rendering the proposition of an EU Army dead upon arrival.

For the British, as for other EU members, NATO already acts as Europe's security pillar. Seen from this vantage point, military cooperation is best conducted on a voluntary basis with partners sharing similar ambitions and concerns, with an EU Army merely serving as an unnecessary duplication of already-scant resources.

More importantly, if a Europe writ-large lacks the political willpower and seriousness to underwrite and support defense at the national level, how is a supranational formulation practical?

Many of Europe's scattered armies already struggle to provide a sustainable, combat-ready troop deployment capability. Furthermore, these armies often suffer from financial negligence, save for outliers such as Estonia, Greece (whose military orientation is geared toward fighting fellow NATO member Turkey), France and the United Kingdom – with the latter two resorting to accounting creativity in order to make their defense spending appear more significant on paper than it is in practice.

Of particular note, between 2008 and 2013 the combined defense expenditure of the current 28 EU members dropped by 3.5 percent (in nominal – not real – terms). As a result of the defense austerity approach practiced throughout European capitals, Germany is reducing its Army by 65,000 troops, the Netherlands has shed most of its heavy armor and Italy has slashed equipment orders across all three major service branches.

Meanwhile, despite the increasingly bellicose behavior of Russia, in the past year only four dual EU-NATO European nations – Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania - have publicly announced a commitment to bringing their military budgets up to (or near) the NATO minimum standard of 2 percent of GDP on an annual basis over the coming years. These countries are all – notably - positioned near Russia or a Russian military troop presence. Furthermore, (Poland perhaps excepted) these countries hardly represent the backbone of European military power, combining in 2014 for around $13 billion worth of defense spending – or roughly 33 percent of what France alone allocated.

While Russia's activities in Ukraine and along the European periphery have indeed concentrated minds in Europe's capitals, the net result has been little more than the creation – by NATO, no less – of a 5,000-strong Very High Readiness Joint Task Force in Europe. The longstanding habit of free-riding off U.S. security guarantees, in other words, remains the preferred option in Europe, as the political willpower necessary for strengthening the Continent's armies is predictably in short supply. 

Thus, while the past is not necessarily prologue in the case of a unified European defense, it certainly provides ample reason to give pause to EU army dreams.

Daniel Darling is an international military markets analyst at Forecast International Inc., an aerospace and defense market research company located in Newtown, Connecticut. A graduate of Kansas State University, Dan covers the Europe and Asia-Pacific Rim military markets for Forecast, and formerly was responsible for the Middle East as well. He has been quoted or his work cited in: Arabian Business, Defense News, The Financial Times, Flight International, The National, The New York Times, Bloomberg, National Defense Magazine and Small Wars Journal, among others.