Article by Rt. Hon Jim Murphy MP, June 2011
Introduction
The UK can remain a powerful force in the world through our global alliances. We have a unique diplomatic reach through our membership of the EU, NATO, UN and the Commonwealth and maximising our role within these institutions through greater co-operation and collaboration will be the principal means by which the UK can remain a lead influence on international trends and world events. Our international partnerships are the principal source of strength in our defence posture.
The threats we face today, from terrorism to climate change, nuclear proliferation to cyber attack, are shared and shared operations to combat them are increasingly commonplace. European nations worked together in the Balkans, Chad and Afghanistan and around the world in EU, UN and NATO missions. We share objectives and standards, priorities and interests.
We forge joint battles overseas based on mutual support and shared interest in order to protect each of our domestic borders.
Our futures are linked, so the action we take to enhance and shape them should be collective.
To argue, as I want to today, that we need to deepen European defence co-operation is not, therefore, a dramatic change in philosophy, but rather a logical step to ensure that European nations can each maintain a strong defence policy which allows us to intervene to protect and promote our interests and values.
In the same way we co-operate during conflict we must, I believe, better co-operate in the way we prepare for and prevent conflict. This must be based on a pragmatic approach, reflective of the world we live in, not an ideological construct.
Procurement co-operation
Greater European co-operation in defence procurement is a critical, enabling us to maximise our ability to project force and do so cost-effectively, supporting the both frontline and the bottom line.
It is vital that we promote more efficient industry and better value defence products, regulate out distortions in the market and support large defence companies and their supply chain. That means limiting the fragmentation which arises from differing national procurement regulations, reducing the number of national equipment programmes and ironing out the delays which arise from individual export authorisations.
There has been progress on this in recent years. The EDA voluntary code of conduct on procurement competition, the Directive on defence procurement limiting individual export licenses, and the EDA’s limits placed on offsets all work in favour of a strong European industrial base.
The key thing now is that implementation of these changes is based on mutual trust and sharing of best practice to ensure the benefits are reaped by all.
Co-operation over procurement is the only way Europe can compete in a very expensive and technologically-driven activity. Europe must learn to do this better together or have no other option that continually buying from US.
We should look first at where we can co-operation further with those with whom we have existing successful partnerships, namely France, Germany and Italy.
The economic crisis has ushered in competing sentiments. On the one hand countries need to shrink budgets and are actively seeking savings, which can come from economies of scale, but on the other hand their protective and protectionist instincts are stronger. We must fight the latter and cast aside practices that hinder legitimate access to markets. We must protect national discretion, but strong national export markets will be bolstered, not limited, by European co-operation, and that is our shared challenge.
Pooling force structures
As well as co-operation on procurement we can better integrate force structures. This does take place, but not nearly to the extent that we maximise the real potential for frontline benefits.
We should explore where there can be arrangements to pool maintenance, training, education infrastructure and skills on a bilateral or multilateral basis. We should pool R&D facilities and work-streams to develop specialisations together. The resultant economies of scale should be used to directly fund training and equipment programmes and to contribute to balancing domestic defence budgets.
We welcomed the UK-France Defence Treaty. It commits to limited interoperability, joint purchasing and sharing of expertise and facilities. It has the potential to build the trust essential for successful partnerships to work and lays the basis for further collaboration between two countries in future. It is characterised by perhaps the most important trait: seriousness of intent.
This should not be an isolated achievement. We hope that the Northern Group sees similar agreements emerge, and that other similar groupings can be assembled to discuss this agenda. Procurement, Research and Technology spend, maritime surveillance, energy security and combating piracy are all areas in which we should seek to work together.
The UK-France Treaty is a model which I believe can lay the foundations for a landscape of European co-operation based on distinct, sometimes regional co-operations. Where countries can and where it is in their mutual interests, they should work together. This is not about creating the basis for the “Euro army”, but pursuing gains where they can be found on a case by case basis, and making the pursuit of those gains the rule rather than the exception. The steps taken by Nordic countries and the Czech Republic and Slovakia in this direction, for example, are to be encouraged.
This approach must be balanced, however, with protecting national operational independence and the right for countries to retain the ability to defend themselves without NATO or the EU.
We must bring our publics with us on this. That means being open about the economic, security and political implications of the options open to us and the decisions we take.
It is key too that we involve industry from the outset. The European defence industry is central to future growth in our domestic economies, key to ensuring our troops have the equipment they need when they need it, and therefore key to our national and personal security. I do not underestimate the impact these sorts of changes would have on you and know they would need to be coupled with an obligation on governments to work closely with you throughout.
Europe’s attitude
The success of greater co-operation depends on Europe’s ability and willingness to contribute to tackling international security threats. Europe must decide if it is serious.
European governments have to be more honest with each other and about their capacity within NATO. There are too many never-to-be-used battle tanks, unusable fast jets and undeployable army conscripts. The 27 EU member states have half a million more men and women in uniform than the Americans but can deploy a fraction of the capabilities the US can. Amongst all the talk of coalitions of the willing, the act of creating a coalition of the capable may in the future be a bigger challenge. That is not sustainable it we want to prevent the power shift Eastwards from leaving us behind.
The choice is ours. And it is a choice brought into stark focus by the comments of Robert Gates, the outgoing US Secretary for Defence. He is right. We cannot rely on others to share the burden for our own security. We must reform or lose the protection of the transatlantic alliance. We must reform or see our own influence wane.
We have heard from Defence Chiefs in the UK that spending increases are required and, when conditions allow, that will be the right thing to do in the UK. I hope other nations across Europe will too, at very least meeting their NATO requirements, which the majority fail to do.
But alongside spending we need willpower. This is emphatically not an institutional debate; it is about attitude and our collective resolve to retain influence. It is great that the nations of NATO and the EU share values and goals. But to be truly meaningful these need to be acted upon when threatened. While the benefits of our alliances are shared by all, too often the contribution to military operations when tested is, as we have seen in Libya, unbalanced.
In spending and in resolve we must see more equal contributions.
Conclusion
Our mutual dependence is a fact. Our embrace of it is yet to be.
I believe strengthening our mutual positions demands of us greater collaboration and co-operation – financially, systematically in procurement and militarily to boost combat capabilities.
This is not a panacea for Europe’s defences, but we must ensure that when our values and interests face a serious test we can and do act collectively to the very best of our abilities.
