16 septembre* par Jean-Dominique Merchet

Le député européen Les Républicains critique les appels à une opération terrestre en Syrie

Député européen Les Républicains, Arnaud Danjean est un spécialiste des questions de défense et des affaires internationales. Il soutient Alain Juppé.

En Syrie, faut-il une opération terrestre comme le réclament plusieurs responsables de l’opposition?

Aller au sol, pour quoi faire? En Syrie, il n’y pas de lignes de front, il suffit de voir la complexité de la situation autour d’Alep ou de Damas. Avant d’intervenir au sol, il faudrait d’abord une coalition et une «exit strategy» - une stratégie de sortie de la guerre. Or, il n’y en a pas. Chez tous les acteurs régionaux, on constate à la fois ambiguïtés, double-jeux et intérêts contradictoires. Les Américains n’iront évidemment pas au sol, à l’approche des élections et avec le souvenir douloureux de l’Irak et de l’Afghanistan. Aujourd’hui, seul l’Iran est effectivement militairement engagé au sol, surtout en Irak, mais avec des motivations très spécifiques, pas forcément compatibles avec une solution politique «occidentale», tant à Bagdad qu'à Damas. La Turquie a malheureusement mais assez logiquement désigné les Kurdes comme ennemis prioritaires. Les Russes aident le régime syrien, affirment haut et fort des principes anti-Daech mais n'ont jusqu’alors jamais participé effectivement à des coalitions internationales offensives. Les monarchies sunnites du Golfe, qui font un effort minimal, ont leurs propres motivations vis-à-vis des régimes syrien et irakien. Et elles sont plus intéressées pour intervenir au Yémen, contre des milices chiites soutenues par l’Iran, qu’en Syrie ou en Irak. Bref, nous serions seuls !

Qu’en est-il du point de vue des opérations militaires ?

Le président de la République a annoncé lundi une petite inflexion, qui est une conversion au réalisme. Nous ne sommes plus tout à fait dans le ni-ni (ni Bachar, ni Daech) et il y a un début de priorisation contre Daech. Mais de là à vouloir pacifier la Syrie ! Certains rêvent de faire un coup, en imaginant une Blitzkrieg [guerre éclair] comme l’armée française l’a faite au Mali en 2013. Une intervention contre Daech, ce ne serait pas le remake de la conquête du massif des Ifoghas, mais celui de la bataille de Falloujah en 2004. Contre le même ennemi qu’aujourd’hui – c’était l’Armée islamique de Zarkaoui, le terreau de l’Etat islamique – les Américains ont engagés 15000 marines dans une bataille de trois mois. Ils ont perdu une centaine d’hommes, détruit la ville, tué entre 3000 et 4000 combattants ennemis et sans doute 2000 à 3000 civils. Et ils ont rapidement reperdu le contrôle de la ville, qui est aujourd’hui entre les mains de Daech. Une victoire à la Pyrrhus ! Aujourd’hui, il faudrait prendre des villes comme Raqqa, Mossoul ou Falloujah, puis les tenir avant de transmettre le pouvoir à d’autres. Mais à qui ?

On parle d’éradiquer Daech. Qu’en pensez-vous ?

Notre grille de lecture est à front renversé. On part du terrorisme chez nous pour aller le combattre là-bas. Mais ce à quoi nous faisons face, c’est à un extrémisme sunnite combattant. Peut-on l’éradiquer ? On peut décapiter Daech, lui infliger des pertes importantes, le contenir, le dégrader, mais le fond sunnite en ébullition persistera, faute de solutions politiques. Les fiers-à-bras ont la mémoire courte : le terrain en question n’est pas le Mali, c’est plutôt Mogadiscio ou Kandahar !

Vous êtes sévère avec ces fiers-à-bras…

Il y a, dans ma famille politique, une inflation de la terminologie martiale et virile, sans doute pour plaire à un électorat chauffé à blanc, en quête de fermeté. D’où les expressions d’éradication ou de guerre contre le terrorisme, que l’on retrouve aussi à gauche. C’est une posture et si on nuance, on est accusé de défaitisme. A droite, il y a une contradiction flagrante entre l’affirmation, non dénuée de fondement, selon laquelle l’armée française n’a plus les moyens de ses ambitions et la volonté de lui assigner un engagement militaire hors de proportion. Je me méfie de l’inflation terminologique. Je ne crois pas, par exemple, que nous soyons en guerre sur le territoire national. Cela ne correspond pas à la lutte antiterroriste, qui exige des moyens de police et de renseignement. Je m’interroge enfin sur le degré de résilience de la société française par rapport à la barbarie, au vu de l’émotion suscitée par les attentats de janvier. Or, si on fait une opération terrestre, on aura des pertes, peut-être autant en quelques jours qu’en dix ans en Afghanistan. Et vous imaginez des soldats français prisonniers et brûlés vifs par Daech ?

* Cet article est paru dans l'Opinion des 8/9 septembre, avant le débat parlementaire du mardi 15 septembre sur l'enagement militaire français en Syrie.

19.06.2015 source SEDE
 

This study examines the state of 'Pooling and Sharing' (P&S) at EU and Member State (MS) level. Instead of the demanded change in mindset, we witness another episode in the traditional struggle to make classic defence cooperation work. The marginal results of P&S are not yet adequate to the size of problems. The cooperation initiative misses definitions of success, useful models of cooperation and a permanent monitoring of opportunities and capabilities. MS make progress at a snail’s pace: many projects kicked off in the first phase of P&S are still in their early stages and thus do not deliver capabilities. At the same time, Member States paralyse efforts of the EDA. NATO has not performed much better. This underlines that the core of the problem remains the sovereignty question within Member States. The developments have to be seen against the simultaneous evolution of the European defence landscape: budgets and capabilities have been cut further. Member States have lost time and money but most importantly, they have also lost many options to safeguard capabilities through pooling or sharing. The European Parliament should encourage first, a new politico-military flagship project around which defence can be organised, second, an efficiency perspective towards spending and procuring capabilities; third, the discussion on the future of sovereignty in defence; and fourth, a European Defence Review that offers a sober assessment of the current and future European defence landscape, including the opportunities for cooperation. This would enable a public debate on Europe with or without defence.

Executive Summary

The disastrous impact of the fiscal crisis on the EU Member States’ (MS) defence capabilities and the unwillingness of the US to continue paying for European defence has forced EU capitals to rethink the way they generate and maintain these capabilities. The recently expanding and intensifying arch of crisis around Europe adds many more tasks to the EUs Security and Defence policy. The impression that more defence money will be available in the future should be balanced against the continued strain on public and thus defence budgets. Time is running out. By now, Europe has already lost about 20% of its capabilities since 2008. At the same time, it still pays enormous sums for redundancies, national wish lists and wrongly organised multinational procurement. Therefore, the risk of further shrinking military, industrial and technological capabilities in defence remains.

Pooling and Sharing shall provide the solution: as there is no more money available, neither now nor in the future, boosting efficiency remains the only option to keep and possibly rebuild capabilities. The increased efficiency shall result from MS sharing systematically: they should provide a capability that is missing in other MS, like airlift, or conduct tasks other MS are not able to undertake, like air policing. To pool a capability would mean that contributions by several MS are coordinated to make them available on a more constant basis or in greater numbers compared to individual, uncoordinated contributions, as it is done through the European Air Transport Command (EATC).

Since 2010, the EU has made P&S its official approach to defence cooperation. However, turning P&S into the default mode of defence cooperation implies significant changes: MS would have to move from an ad-hoc and bottom-up approach to a more systematic and top-down one. In essence, what is demanded from national politicians and decision makers is nothing less than a shift in mind-set: the acceptance that sovereignty is no longer based on the autonomy to decide but on the capability to act.

Since the 2010 decision, many activities evolved, not only on the national but also on the European level, as the Council has tasked EDA and the HR/VP to support the work on P&S in its military and political dimensions. This raises the question to what extent change has taken place, meaning whether P&S is on track and has started delivering the results that MS have declared they want to achieve.

The emerging defence cooperation framework shows some distinct characteristics: in EU level strategic documents EU MS show a mix of realism, illusions and activism: while the assessment of the situation is realistic and improving, the MS systematically overstate their current or earlier contributions, thereby creating illusions on the magnitude of their engagement. However, they do not tackle the vicious cycle of rhetorical sovereignty and de facto dependency.

The activities within the multilateral political cooperation frameworks among MS neither point to a change of mind-set taking place, nor have they delivered significant improvement of capabilities so far. The old logic of cooperation is blocking most multilateral frameworks from going beyond renewing the rhetoric on cooperation. The multilateral cooperation often consists of several bilateral cooperation arrangements. While bilaterals perform better, they cannot suffice when huge efforts need to be made in terms of investment (UAVs) or capabilities (strategic airlift). With the exception of the Ghent- Initiative, none of the frameworks is explicitly linked to the EU.

At the beginning of 2015, 393 military projects exist, most of them in the area of training and education, least in transport. However, a winning formula for P&S can hardly be deduced from them because they all work along the classic logic of cooperation. Variables like regional proximity and pre-existing political cooperation seem to enable cooperation. Also, most likely cooperation areas are difficult to retrieve from the data, because what is potentially subject to P&S is still defined nationally.

Multilateral operations pose a rich but mostly neglected source for lessons learned and successful cooperation. Ad-hoc Pooling and Sharing comprise examples in critical areas like CSAR and quick reaction forces – key is a strong framework nation.

EDA’s role has been cut back from an innovator to a facilitator: While EDA has kicked off the P&S debate, MS have marginalised the agency, instead of using its full mandate. The 59 projects EDA is or has been involved in are too small to influence the general mind-set or the structural determinants of the defence sector. With a few exceptions such as Air-to-Air Refuelling (AAR) or Medical Support, these projects rather tackle technical and regulatory issues, instead of concrete Pooling and Sharing of capabilities and large-scale projects. While the four flagship projects EU MS have agreed upon during the 2013 Defence Council make some headway, EDA handles only elements of these. The Capability Development Plan (CDP), even after its reset in 2014, does not interest MS very much because the CDP is found not to focus on their capability needs or not to reflect the relevant level of ambition.

NATO’s defence cooperation framework 'Smart Defence' (SD) shows similarities to the EU-one, especially regarding the problems to motivate MS to engage in cooperation. Important differences are that SD explicitly aims at specialisation and thus addresses the sovereignty issue directly, though with similar success to the EU’s. NATO has the mandate to facilitate and manage, but not to fundamentally shape or lead capability development and procurement. The NDPP (NATO Defence Planning Process) is perceived by many as a mature and influential defence-planning tool. However, in reality the NDPP has adapted to the conditions defined at national levels, i.e. nationally defined requirements, defence plans and procedures. It does not really guide capability development. NATO has nonetheless learned to use the NATO Summits to push NDPP priorities forward.

P&S can have a significant impact on the industrial dimension of efficiency in three ways: Pooling of demand, pooling of research and development activities (R&D), and specialisation by sharing industrial infrastructure. However, neither has the Defence Council 2013 aimed to push industrial P&S beyond the two flagship projects AAR and UAV, nor have EDA activities led to serious success. The impact of missing P&S is very obvious: Companies further cut their European business branches by selling key technologies to non-European companies and shift their production focus towards new markets.

Conclusion: Instead of a mind-set change, we see another episode in the traditional struggle to make classic defence cooperation work. There is a significant gap between the cooperation rhetoric of governments’ joint declarations within the EU and what they deliver. The marginal results of P&S are not yet an adequate response to the size of problems. The cooperation framework misses definitions for success and a permanent monitoring of opportunities and capabilities. MS make progress at a snail’space. At the same time, they paralyse joint defence planning in EDA. While the mis-achievement of the EU is most probably triggered by the dire political-institutional context of the CSDP and CFSP, NATO has not performed much better. This underlines that the core of the problem remains the sovereignty question within MS. Other blocking factors are bureaucratic politics, policy makers who are only interested in short term output, and resources that are widely tied into existing projects for the next years. The developments have to be seen against the parallel evolution of the European defence landscape: budgets and capabilities have been cut further, MS have lost time and money but most importantly they have lost the option to safeguard capabilities through pooling or sharing; an option that will not return very soon.

Recommendations: As there is a growing need for a more effective and efficient defence in Europe, the EU should engage in the underlying problems, instead of only scratching their surface: The European Parliament can play a crucial role in this. It can encourage a new politico-military flagship project around which defence can be organised: fusing the EU-Battlegroups into the Framework Nation Concept. An efficiency perspective towards spending and procuring capabilities can arrive from using output measures. The discussion on the future of sovereignty in defence can be kicked off by asking whether European governments want to be autonomous or capable. A European Defence Review offers a sober assessment of the current and future European defence landscape, including the opportunities for cooperation. This would enable a public debate on the European defence that we can have, i.e. grounded in realities rather than pipedreams.

Download State of Play of the Implementation of EDA's Pooling and Sharing Initiatives and its Impact on the European Defence Industry

19.06.2015 source SEDE
 

In its conclusions on the Common Security and Defence Policy, the December 2013 European Council stressed the importance of ensuring the full and correct implementation and application of the two defence Directives of 2009. The present study intends to provide the Parliament with an initial perspective regarding the state of implementation of the Directive 2009/81/EC on defence and security procurement (Part.1) and the Directive 2009/43/EC on intra-European Union transfers of defencerelated products (Part.2). It undertakes a first assessment of national practices, through qualitative and statistical analysis. It identifies the complex points and obstacles, which, if not overcome, may well call into question the Directives’ expected beneficial effects.

Executive summary

The directive 2009/81/EC on defence and security Procurement under scrutiny

In order to understand the evolution of Member States’ acquisition practices since the entry into force of the Directive, the first part of the study is structured around three main sections : (1) the situation before the Directive’s entry into force, an overview of the major principles introduced by the Directive and their implications for actors in the European defence sector, along with the process of transposition into national law; (2) An initial evaluation of national practices through qualitative analysis and statistical analysis (based on reprocessed data from the TED database, during the period from the 21st August 2011 to the 31st December 2014, covering all EU Member States) ; (3) An identification of the complex points and obstacles, which, if not overcome, may well call into question the Directives’ expected beneficial effects.

The Directive 2009/81/EC intends to provide procurement rules tailor-made for defence and security markets and is supposed to lead to more transparency and competition. Most importantly, it should limit the use of the exception clause of Article 346.

While the number of documents published on TED over these past two years has been increasing, this increase is not as significant as expected, and above all it is due to a small group of Member States (France, Germany, and the United Kingdom). This initial survey demonstrates an important disparity in the Member States’ publication practices (contract notices and contract awards). This poses the question of reciprocity. In value, contract awards notified between the 21st August 2011 and the 31st December 2014 represent around €10.53 billion. The year 2014 accounts for around 65% of the total, due to significant contracts notified by the United Kingdom in the field of services and facilities management, and by France on the segments covering Repair and maintenance services of military aircrafts.

The Directive 2009/81/EC is today favoured for contracts dealing with services, the acquisition of equipment deemed to be of a low strategic value, and sub-systems. Over the past three years, all of the major military equipment contracts, thus those that have had a structural effect on the DTIB, were notified without going via the Directive. Previous practices have continued, notably the use of Article 346.

When the contracting authorities/entities provide the name and address of the successful economic operators, in 84% of cases, the selected supplier is based on national territory. An analysis focused on the Member States that have published the most contract award notices (and if we consider non-specified addresses as national, as the European Commission does) demonstrates that the proportion of selected suppliers located on national territory reaches 98% for Germany, 97% for France, 96% for Italy, 96% for Poland, 92% for the United Kingdom, 90% for Romania, and 64% for Finland.

Concretely today acquisition practices seem to show an incomplete and incorrect application of the Directive, with de facto a limited or even non-existent impact on the DTIB. It is indeed too hasty and premature to draw conclusions from such a short period, all the more so given that it generally takes 5 to 10 years for a directive to be fully applied, and this is referring to the civilian sector. Although this new regime is not yet functioning satisfactorily at the present time, the Directive represents an important step in a sector such as defence, which is marked by a significant degree of opacity in acquisition practices.

The State of implementation of the Directive 2009/43/EC on Intra-EU transfers of defence- related products

In order to assess in details the current state of implementation o the Directive 2009/43/EC, the second part of the report proceeds in 3 steps and considers, first, the principles of the ICT Directive regarding the general licences, second, the state of the certification process and third the eventual impact of the Directive on the actors focusing specifically to topic of the end-use/end-user control.

The use of general licences appears to be quite limited considering its potential. This can be partially explained by the fact that the implementation of the new regulations is still in a transitional phase. However study reveals that the entire licensing process established by the EC suffers from major problems threatening the objective of simplification and harmonization. First, the report identifies a lack of availability of the relevant documents. Second, the general licences are too diversified in terms of scope and structure of the documents and conditions attached. Third Member states adopt different definitions of what sensitive products are, which is a corollary of the multiplicity of the defence-related product lists attached to the general licences.

To date, only 36 defence companies are registered on CERTIDER. The pace of certification is impacted by the relative complexity and diversity of the general licences, but there is obviously is some skepticism about the practical benefits of the enlisting process. It may not be considered worth the effort for the defence companies. The observation is even more valid for Small and Medium Enterprise.

Because of the slow pace on implementation of the Directive 2009/43/EC it is hazardous to analyze its effect on the European defence market. However, the actual trends allows the formulation of hypotheses notably on the eventual adaptation of the en use/end user control processes within the EU. States remain attached to their monitoring systems. It is an international or regional obligation for them but they also want to stay aware of any eventual re-export within the UE and of course, outside.

The benefits of the ICT Directive will not be felt similarly by all Member States, national authorities and defence companies. Their effects will certainly be different among Member States depending on the structure of their national defence sector and its reliance on exports. National factors and realities of the defence industry, as well as diverse perceptions of arms trade controls in Europe, can explain the current unequal level of implementation of the Directive and limit the overall benefits of the new regulatory system put in place by the Directive.

Download The Impact of the 'Defence Package' Directives on European Defence

On 28 May the Subcommittee exchanged views on the EU's Train and Equip initiative with by Maciej Popowski, Deputy Secretary General, EEAS and Marcus Cornaro, Deputy Director-General for Geographic Coordination, DG DEVCO, European Commission.

Further information

Brussels - 08 May, 2015 by European Defence Agency

Jorge Domecq, EDA’s Chief Executive, was invited to speak at the European Parliament Subcommittee on Security on Defence on 6 May. In the session on European defence capabilities, Mr Domecq explained his view on the Agency’s role in the future, the preparation of the June European Council and an update on EDA’s capability programmes.

Mr. Domecq explained that he saw EDA’s development along three main strands: as an enabler for Member States’ level of ambition in cooperatively developing capabilities; to support the European defence industry notably through stimulating R&T; and to act as an interface of military views in wider EU policies.

On the preparation of the June European Council on defence, the Chief Executive emphasised the need of the meeting to be more than a stockpiling exercise and the need to maintain sustained top-down impetus from the highest political level. 

He concluded his presentation with an update on the EDA’s key capability programmes on air-to-air refuelling, cyber defence, governmental satellite communications and Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems. 

Members of Parliament showed support for the work of the Agency and called upon Heads of State and Government to fully use the June European Council in order to achieve maximum results. 

More information:

• Jorge Domecq’s speech is available for download here.
• The audiovisual recording of the SEDE meeting is available here.

27-03-2015 - by SEDE

On 26th March a delegation of several Members of SEDE and DNAT visited the NATO Headquarters. Members were informed on the follow-on of the Wales Summit, on New Forms of Warfare as well as on Russia and Ukraine followed by an exchange of views with Jamie Shea, Deputy Assistant Secretary General and NATO experts.

The delegation of the Subcommittee on Security and Defence reiterated the European Parliament's global comprehensive support to Ukraine and its authorities. The SEDE delegation chaired by Anna Fotyga, included Ana Gomes, Michael Gahler, Eugen Freund as well as Andrej Plenkovic, Chair of EU-Ukrainian Delegation who joined the visit. Members were in Kiev in the framework of a joint mission with the Committee on Budgetary Affairs.

The delegation met with Ukrainian authorities including the Minister of Foreign Affairs Pavel Klimkin, the Speaker of the Verhovna Rada, Volodymyr Groysman and Members of the Parliamentary Committee for National Security and Defence as well as with the Head of the National Security and Defence Council Oleksandr Turchynov.

All Ukrainian interlocutors stressed that Russian strategy goal is to undermine not only the independence of Ukraine, but more generally European security. Turchinov said indeed that Russia has not achieved this goal and it will pursue, as before, by not implementing the Minsk ceasefire and preparing new offensive. To this "empire strikes back" strategy we need to build common counter strategy, a wall of economic sanctions and other measures that Putin will not be able to climb. For Klimkin a UN or EU peacekeeping mission is the solution, although a Russian veto is to be expected at the UN Security Council.

Members assured that sanctions will not be lifted before the Minsk agreement is fully implemented, which means that Ukraine will regain control over all of its border.

The delegation stressed the solidarity of the majority of EP with Ukraine and suggested that keeping this solidarity is key to deter further attempts to undermine Ukraine's and Europe's security.

The other meetings concentrated also on the difficulties in implementation of the Minsk agreements.

Members focused also on activities of EU Advisory Mission (EUAM Ukraine) under CSDP, which is a non executive civilian mission for the advise and mentoring to Ukrainian actors. Delegation agrees that EUAM costitutes an important element of the support in the process of reforms in Ukraine in areas of SSR, Rule of Law, fighting against corruption etc.

Brussels - 18 March, 2015 European Defence Agency

The European Parliament Subcommittee on Security and Defence (SEDE) held an exchange of views on cybersecurity and defence with ENISA, EEAS and EDA representatives on 16 March 2015. Peter Round, EDA Director Capability, Armament & Technology was invited to brief member of the subcommittee on EDA activities in the area of cyber defence.

Udo Helmbrecht, Executive Director of the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA), emphasised in his presentation on cyber security the increasing number of security incidents. Rudolf Roy, Head of Security Policy Division, Conflict Prevention and Security Policy Directorate (EEAS) highlighted among other topics the importance of secure cyberspace for CSDP missions and operations equally important to other domains of warfare (land, sea, air and space).

In his presentation, Peter Round concentrated first on successful EDA projects in the area of cyber defence, on the EU cyber defence policy framework, EDA support to operations and preparations for the European Council discussion on defence in June. 

In the last three years, the Agency has completed ten cyber defence related projects with a financial volume of about 2 million euros. This equals to approximately 10% of EDA’s operational budget. Among these ten projects are a stocktaking study of cyber defence capabilities among all EDA Member States and EU institutions, the establishment of a cyber defence research agenda and cyber defence training courses for senior military decision makers as well as the assessment of the feasibility of a EU Cyber Defence Centre for CSDP. 

“The Agency continues to give high priority to providing cyber domain support to ongoing operations and missions”, Peter Round highlighted. So far, the Agency has delivered three cyber awareness seminars for the staff in charge of the EUFOR RCA operation. The finalisation of the feasibility assessment for an EU Cyber Defence Centre provides several options on the set-up for such a centre for CSDP operations and missions. EDA’s project team cyber defence with experts from 24 EDA Member States and EU institutions is currently evaluating these proposals. A consolidated report will be introduced to the political decision-making process by the end of the semester. 

Finally, Peter Round emphasised the limited resources dedicated to cyber defence within the EU institutions. He underlined the need for increased civil-military cooperation in the field to maximise synergies. 

Members of the European Parliament congratulated the speakers on the progress made in the domain of cybersecurity and defence following the taskings of the European Council in December 2013. Questions related mostly to cyber defence capabilities available to Member States, critical infrastructures for cyber defence and EU-NATO cooperation in the field. 

More information:

• You can watch the video of the SEDE meeting on the European Parliament website. 
• EDA factsheet on cyber defence