“In the absence of an army, Europe will have to cooperate”

Recent events in Ukraine have brought the issue of defence to the fore­front in Europe. Full auto­no­my in this area pre­sup­poses an army with full-spec­trum capa­bi­li­ties. Meanw­hile, the USA and Chi­na have the means to finance this, whil­st at the same time deve­lo­ping the full range of defence tech­no­lo­gies, the issue is dif­ferent for smal­ler states, inclu­ding medium-sized powers such as the UK and France, which have retai­ned their ambi­tions in this area.

The debate, tra­di­tio­nal­ly held at a par­lia­men­ta­ry level, is ham­pe­red by the severe bud­ge­ta­ry constraints that lie ahead. In France, a recent report by the Court of Audi­tors high­lights the need to make trade-offs in order to avoid across-the-board bud­get cuts that would impair ove­rall per­for­mance. Ins­tead, invest­ments should be made in those capa­bi­li­ties dee­med cru­cial (such as cer­tain major pro­grammes for the Air Force and the Navy, intel­li­gence, cyber defence, or space), and Euro­pean and NATO coope­ra­tion should be encou­ra­ged for the rest.

Within the fra­me­work of NATO, one option favou­red by many Euro­pean coun­tries is the off-the-shelf pur­chase of Ame­ri­can equip­ment. Howe­ver, such pur­chases are not without stra­te­gic conse­quences, since the use of such equip­ment is part­ly regu­la­ted by the Uni­ted States, which has spe­ci­fic regu­la­tions (Inter­na­tio­nal Traf­fic in Arms Regu­la­tions, ITAR) to control the manu­fac­ture, sale and dis­tri­bu­tion of defence and space-rela­ted objects and ser­vices. For ins­tance, the urgent acqui­si­tion of Rea­per UAVs by the French armed forces to make up for a short­fall in MALE UAVs, which is par­ti­cu­lar­ly neces­sa­ry in the Sahel theatres of ope­ra­tion, was only pos­sible by accep­ting one of the condi­tions impo­sed by the Ame­ri­can side : the Uni­ted States’ right of veto on the use of UAVs in operations.

This is why a num­ber of Euro­pean coun­tries, led by France, are pushing the idea of “stra­te­gic auto­no­my”, which includes coope­ra­tive wea­pons programmes.

But on what scale should this be imple­men­ted : for the EU as a whole, or sim­ply bet­ween a few coun­tries ? The crea­tion of the Euro­pean Defence Fund in 2020 repre­sen­ted a signi­fi­cant step for­ward in Euro­pean coope­ra­tion on secu­ri­ty and defence issues. But it also high­lights the dif­fi­cul­ties : its crea­tion was hea­vi­ly deba­ted, both on the size of the enve­lope and on its very exis­tence. During the nego­tia­tions, at the ins­ti­ga­tion of the Fin­nish Pre­si­den­cy, its appro­pria­tions were redu­ced from €13bn to €7bn. Never­the­less, this fund confirms the will of Euro­peans to sup­port the construc­tion of a coherent capa­bi­li­ty, which is essen­tial to meet the “ITAR-free” objec­tive¹ of Euro­pean stra­te­gic autonomy.

The desi­gn of mili­ta­ry equip­ment is a com­plex mat­ter and, even bet­ween close allies used to wor­king toge­ther, coope­ra­tion is not at all straight­for­ward : armies’ doc­trines of use may dif­fer, and indus­trial players are caught up in the logic of “coope­ti­tion”. The deve­lop­ment of new capa­bi­li­ties via a pro­ject mana­ge­ment sys­tem sha­red bet­ween seve­ral Euro­pean coun­tries also comes up against ten­sions bet­ween the short term and the long term, bea­ring in mind that arma­ments pro­grammes often run over one or more decades. A recent example is the Future Air Com­bat Sys­tem (SCAF), a coope­ra­tion bet­ween France, Ger­ma­ny, and Spain. This pro­gramme came under pres­sure when, wor­ried about the cri­sis in Ukraine, Ger­ma­ny deci­ded to increase its defence bud­get signi­fi­cant­ly but opted to acquire the F‑35 ; at the same time the French, as is often the case, put for­ward their ambi­tions in terms of their stra­te­gic capa­bi­li­ties, as can be seen from Das­sault Avia­tion’s sta­te­ments high­ligh­ting its « capa­ci­ty to take on the pro­gramme alone ».

Aside from these poli­ti­cal dif­fi­cul­ties, there are others that are more subtle but no less impor­tant. The main one concerns desi­gn, which is some­times made more rigid and less inno­va­tive by coope­ra­tion. Indeed, the dis­tri­bu­tion of pro­ject mana­ge­ment bet­ween part­ners who know lit­tle about each other rein­forces the pres­crip­tive aspect, which often goes against the inte­gra­tion of tech­no­lo­gi­cal innovations.

It is within this context that the notion of an eco­sys­tem, which has been pushed for­ward in par­ti­cu­lar with the crea­tion of the Euro­pean Defence Fund, is inter­es­ting to explore. Coope­ra­tion no lon­ger takes place on a poli­ti­cal basis impo­sed by states, but based on ali­gned busi­ness stra­te­gies and com­ple­men­ta­ry skills. Among the suc­cess fac­tors of these eco­sys­tems, which are more flexible than the defence indus­trial and tech­no­lo­gi­cal bases (DITB), is the inter­ac­tion bet­ween tra­di­tio­nal defence players and new civi­lian players who have inves­ted hea­vi­ly in gene­ric tech­no­lo­gies such as AI, cyber, etc. such as those which can be obser­ved in “New Space”, they hold the pro­mise of a fas­ter adop­tion of new tech­no­lo­gies, but also of an easier return of the divi­dends of the defence invest­ment in the civi­lian fields.

Never­the­less, the ques­tion arises as to whe­ther the stra­te­gy and the resources allo­ca­ted will enable the emer­gence of cham­pions capable of impo­sing them­selves beyond the bor­ders of the Union, and not just of crea­ting short-term indus­trial coope­ra­tion. To achieve this, the mecha­nisms for lin­king research to deve­lop­ment and a strong poli­ti­cal will to encou­rage the most pro­mi­sing players, based on a DARPA (Defense Advan­ced Research Pro­jects Agen­cy) model, are needed.

Beyond fun­ding, the Ame­ri­can example high­lights the pro­blem of struc­tu­ring an inno­va­tion eco­sys­tem and the abi­li­ty of players, par­ti­cu­lar­ly the state, to lift bureau­cra­tic bar­riers to bring about innovation.

There are many ini­tia­tives to ratio­na­lise and encou­rage Euro­pean coope­ra­tion : joint equip­ment pro­cu­re­ment pro­ce­dures, such as the Fran­co-Bel­gian CaMo part­ner­ship ; joint ope­ra­tio­nal expe­ri­ments to ali­gn NATO/EU requi­re­ments, such as the Taku­ba task force ; or coope­ra­tion throu­ghout the life cycle of equip­ment, such as the BeNe­Sam agree­ment bet­ween Bel­gium and the Nether­lands on the main­te­nance of fri­gates and marine fighters.

Howe­ver, an essen­tial ele­ment still seems to be mis­sing within these Euro­pean inno­va­tion eco­sys­tems : that of a lea­der, capable not of direc­ting the eco­sys­tem like a “plat­form lea­der” but rather of doing what Elie Cohen calls in his latest book on Indus­trial Sove­rei­gn­ty “accom­pa­nying from the bot­tom up”.

Given the absence, for the time being, of a lea­der within the EU, the ques­tion arises as to whe­ther cer­tain more agile natio­nal players capable of playing a faci­li­ta­ting role might not be able to ful­fil this func­tion. In France, this could be the Defence Inno­va­tion Agen­cy : it contri­butes to the orches­tra­tion of defence inno­va­tion by posi­tio­ning itself as an inter­me­dia­ry bet­ween the explo­ra­tion and deve­lop­ment phases, by brin­ging inves­tors clo­ser to pro­ject lea­ders, by sup­por­ting the sim­pli­fi­ca­tion of acqui­si­tion pro­ce­dures, and by detec­ting and cap­tu­ring inno­va­tions from the civi­lian world for mili­ta­ry use.

A large part of the chal­lenge for Euro­pean stra­te­gic auto­no­my the­re­fore lies in the deve­lop­ment of new col­la­bo­ra­tions bet­ween states and indus­trial start-ups : this requires Euro­pean states to pro­vide indus­trial start-ups with the means, both finan­cial and in terms of sim­pli­fied access to mili­ta­ry acqui­si­tions, to deve­lop inno­va­tive and dis­rup­tive solu­tions for defence.