New partnership prospects for Europe in the face of war

How is Europe adapting to today’s crises? To what extent has it presented a united front during recent conflicts?

Unfortunately, wars are being waged on a number of continents, in Europe as elsewhere. While we, in Western Europe, may consider that, overall, we have enjoyed decades of peace, other Europeans do not share this view.

To prove my point, let me simply reflect on my more than forty years of military experience, starting in 1975 and the Cold War period, the wars in the Balkans, 9/11, the wars in Afghanistan, Georgia in 2008, Crimea in 2014 and Ukraine over the past two years.

Your generation can probably ill imagine the true nature of the Cold War, so I will just say that we and Warsaw Pact members were trained to be ready for military action in the event of chemical or tactical nuclear warfare with all the attendant consequences you can imagine for the civilian populations. Our nations were armed, with compulsory military service to cater to what we feared could be long and large-scale military operations. Western Europe was a gigantic repository for military equipment and all kinds of munitions for western European or Transatlantic reinforcements. Military manoeuvres were organised on a regular basis, notably in the Federal Republic of Germany, to train the different partners for deployment and resolve western European national sovereignty issues to enable military equipment, fuel, members of the armed forces, weapons and munitions to be moved with due alacrity.

The Cold War was perhaps more “chilly” than actually cold, to quote Leonid Brezhnev, which is just as well. Today, in early 2024, the situation has (yet) to reach that point and our leaders are doing their best to keep things that way.

Then came the Balkan Wars (1991-2001) with their lot of dramatic events, war crimes or crimes against humanity and unspeakable acts such as those perpetrated in Srebrenica. Europe was ill prepared politically, diplomatically and militarily and failed in its response to a crisis so close to home. That said, it quickly learned its lesson with the Helsinki Summit.

War has thus been a constant in Europe throughout the ages.

But the threat is now much greater and, since 2022, many European countries have the impression that their existential sovereignty is once again at risk.

While some may have doubts about these developments, it is important to take them into account when seeking to achieve consensus among Europeans, because it is only by knowing the history, experiences and concerns of all the players that we will be able to help or convince them to come on board. However, to achieve consensus, we must seek to eliminate categorical negative responses and strive to obtain qualified rejections or, even better, qualified acceptance, in the knowledge that if we are sufficiently persuasive, the “YES” responses will come out on top.

In a decisive year for post-1945 international order, the current priority has to be that of building up European capabilities and, in particular, those of the individual European countries to support their own independent defence but also that of their European partners. Past experience has shown us that, whenever war breaks out, the country under attack is initially on its own. Then it begins to receive assistance from nations with which it already had very close relations, before ad hoc coalitions or multinational organisations join the fray for the duration of hostilities.

To prove this point, we only need to think of 7 October 2023 and then the few hours that followed the attack on the State of Israel. Similarly with Ukraine following President Putin’s declarations on 21 February 2022 recognising the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February in what it labelled a “special military operation”.

Other than on desert islands, bilateral or multilateral partnerships are obviously very common, but they are contingent on a number of conditions such as mutual trust, a willingness to share secret intelligence, firm governmental and parliamentary undertakings, and interoperable and mutually complementary armed forces.

Over the last few years, partnerships have become increasingly vital, which explains developments such as the Strategic European Security Initiative (SESI), which is independent of both NATO and the EU, a factor that is, for me, its greatest strength.

In truth, the latest partnerships are not so much about ensuring the interoperability of the armed forces, since there already exist processes within NATO for the purpose, but rather to develop closer relationships at the most senior decision-making military and, above all, political levels, this being the principal new development.

What do you think of the EU and NATO? Does the European pillar of NATO have any substance? And what of the EU’s strategic autonomy?

Let us make no mistakes and have no illusions. It is NATO and not the European Union that is responsible for Europe’s territorial defence, since for decades the continent has abandoned its power status while enjoying the security and prosperity largely afforded by US undertakings. Indeed for some of our partners whole areas of their sovereignty have been entrusted to NATO: air policing, maritime surveillance, etc.

Obviously, the EU and NATO are two distinct entities in terms of their purpose, goals and modus operandi since, while neither are warmongers, they have very different approaches to conflict situations.

In simple terms, we might say that NATO will try to dissuade or convince before using force, while the EU will seek to understand and convince before attempting to find a compromise, either through economic sanctions, regulatory restrictions or military engagement along with development and humanitarian aid operations.

Political messages in the form of military strikes are, therefore, not part of the EU’s DNA, in contrast to NATO and, for example, its intervention in the Balkans on 30 August 1995 (Operation Dead Eye) or, more recently, the ad hoc coalition founded by the United States and the United Kingdom to carry out strikes in Yemen on 12 January 2024 in response to Houthi attacks in the Red Sea.

For Europe was created in the aftermath of war in a bid to resolve conflicts using peaceful methods. During my six years in Brussels, I was never conscious of any anti-military antagonism, although, thankfully, there have always been strong reservations about the use of armed force.

Nevertheless, the EU has launched and will continue to launch robust, complex and dangerous military operations such as those of the last ten years in Somalia, the Central African Republic, or the Mediterranean. But these remain exceptions for the reasons mentioned above, a state of affairs reflected in the way European defence structures are organised: national prerogatives, no single point of contact in Brussels, and no permanent command structure for major undertakings.

Over the years, the EU and NATO have developed structures to tackle these issues at political, diplomatic and military level, which has enabled them to meet the challenges of the past. The time has now come to develop a Europe more involved in its own security.

This should not be done by accepting a “club within the club” through a European pillar within NATO, since this would have little appeal, given the rule whereby each country is entitled to a single vote. Moreover, how would Canada, Turkey, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Albania fit into such an arrangement? And what of the EU Member States not belonging to NATO, such as Austria, Ireland, Cyprus and Malta?

By contrast, European defence is a fundamental pillar of NATO, not least since greater involvement on the part of the Europeans in the form of increased capabilities is essential to boost their action capacity, especially within the Atlantic Alliance,
in the current extremely uncertain international political situation.

To conclude, I would like to highlight some of the progress made with regard to partnerships, starting with efforts over the “Nation – Citizen” concept, notably with the military reserve force but not forgetting the EU-NATO partnership over the strategic mobility of the armed forces in Europe and the development of contingency plans in the event of attacks on European territory. Last but not least, there is the partnership for Eastern Europe, which aims at greater responsiveness and active deterrence: as long as an existential threat continues to hang over certain Member States, partnerships will focus mainly on attempts to provide reassurance, along similar lines to what France is doing vis-à-vis the Baltic States, Poland, Romania, and, of course, Ukraine.

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In closing, I would like to leave you with a more personal message.

For the last two years, the geopolitical environment has been particularly tense. In times like this, it is vital always to keep our critical faculties sharpened over what is publicly stated. You can be sure that France is capable of diplomatic and military deterrence and, if necessary, of using force against an enemy that might decide to attack our country.

Be proud of our armed forces and those who serve in them, acknowledge the excellence of our arms industry, and have no doubt that France’s opinions are valued, respected and taken into account across the globe, an assertion that has been confirmed on numerous occasions during my military career[1].

Finally, find fulfilment in your future careers, which I hope will be rich in human experience, notably abroad.

General Patrick de Rousiers — Sciences Po Forum — 25 January 2024

Translated by ISIT Paris students, as part of their 2023-2024 Master project, and edited by Ms. Christine Cross.

[1] Through a combination of our political decision-making processes, a robust global diplomatic network, and extended military capabilities, we were able to intervene, albeit from a distance, in Mali in early 2013 and a few months later in the Central African Republic as Operation Serval continued. This robust expeditionary capability was praised both by NATO and the EU, as I can personally attest.

New partnership prospects for Europe in the face of war