Author Description

At the European Union's Helsinki summit of December 1999, European leaders took a decisive step toward the development of a new Common European Security and Defense Policy (CESDP) aimed at giving the European Union (EU) a stronger role in international affairs backed by a credible military force. At Helsinki, EU Member States committed themselves to a number of military "headline goals": by the year 2003, the EU should be able to deploy up to 60,000 troops for so-called "Petersberg" (i.e., humanitarian, rescue, and peacekeeping) missions. This new EU-led rapid reaction force should be deployable within 60 days and be able to sustain deployment for at least one year. This Marshall Center Paper analyzes the processes leading to Helsinki by examining why and how this new European consensus on defense issues came about. It takes the pulse of the EU's emerging defense policy and touches upon the main controversies and challenges that still lie ahead. What are the national interests and driving forces behind it, and what steps still need to be taken to realize Europe's ambitions to achieve a workable European crisis management capability? Particular attention is paid to the implications of an emerging European defense capability for the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the transatlantic relationship, and the role of Russia in Europe. The paper looks at three policy issues that remain unresolved and that are bound to cause transatlantic problems over the next few years. The first is how closely should the EU's CESDP duplicate NATO's existing capabilities and institutional structures? The second concerns how to "sequence" the decision making processes in case of wars or crises and in the real military challenges the EU is likely to face in the decade ahead. The third involves the impact of a new strategic balance within the Atlantic Alliance on Europe's defense industrial base, and vice versa.