by Issue
This analysis examines how to leverage the relationship between NATO and the EU to advance two major strategic objectives: deterring Russia from further aggression in Europe and helping Ukraine defend itself.
Summary
The return of great power competition has rendered obsolete the conceptual framework around which most debates on relations between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU) revolve. The need to help Ukraine and the goal of preventing further Russian aggression in Europe have become the most immediate strategic priorities of most NATO and EU member states. Against this backdrop, this report delves into how to leverage the relationship between NATO and the EU to achieve these goals. Luckily, the strengths of NATO and the EU complement each other. Regarding deterrence – or in other words, helping Ukraine – the Alliance has an advantage for the final phases of the process, that is, for the direct implementation and operational aspects of deterrence. For its part, the advantage that the EU presents is seen in the initial phases, since it can help obtain resources and make deterrence a reality by generating the necessary technologies, capabilities and skills. This report calls for full harmonization between EU defense instruments and NATO’s deterrence agenda and defense planning processes.
Analysis
Over the past 20 years, discussions on NATO-EU cooperation have revolved around extraterritorial crisis management operations and the need to address threats of a primarily transnational nature.[1] However, that is no longer the world today. NATO-EU relations cannot remain anchored in the strategic needs of the 90s.
The reappearance of wars between states in Europe has led to a radical change in priorities for European and transatlantic security, moving from focusing on transnational challenges and the management of external crises to revolving around deterrence and defense in a context of great powers. And a more immediate dedication to helping Ukraine. This has been recognized by both NATO and the EU. Although neither the Alliance nor the Union have left aside other tasks such as extraterritorial crisis management operations and cooperative security – at least in words – both institutions have directed their attention to deterrence and defense in a European context. , and aid to Ukraine.
The resurgence of war has once again placed NATO at the center of debates about European security and has led to a realignment of the Alliance’s own emphasis on its first central task: collective defense.[2] This realignment began to take place after Crimea, but has taken on a completely new dimension – and a corresponding pace – since February 2022. Debates at the United Nations (UN) have also since revolved around how to help to Ukraine.[3]
What is interesting is that a similar active dynamic can be seen in the EU context. The last two years have seen a major transition in EU defense policy debates, from external crisis management and operations to obtain munitions and capabilities needed for self-defence to the mobilization of military instruments. financial resources from the EU to help Ukraine and replenish European arms reserves.[4]
What does this reorientation towards deterrence and defense mean for EU-NATO relations?
The topic of NATO-EU relations is very broad, but this report focuses on the defense-related aspects, specifically on the question of how to leverage the EU-NATO relationship to repel the Russian assault on the security architecture European. Both NATO and the EU have recognized that this is a high-level, if not the highest possible, political and strategic priority. However, this recognition has not been reflected in an appropriate way in the NATO-EU agenda.
The third EU-NATO declaration deals with emerging and disruptive technologies (EDT), mobility, partner training, resilience, space, hybrid use and disinformation, and there is no doubt that all these aspects add value from the point of view of countering Russia’s threat to European security.[5] However, even in these areas, cooperation between NATO and the EU remains lackluster.[6] And most importantly, the declaration could be said to group all of these concepts together with the fight against terrorism, the climate-security nexus, and other transnational issues. In that sense, the joint statements of NATO and the EU continue to have a certain aftertaste of the 1990s, without establishing clear priorities or giving deterrence the central place it deserves.
As the Washington summit approaches and the new institutional configuration of the EU is defined, and in view of Washington’s growing calls for greater European involvement, I believe that the NATO-EU relationship should focus on highest possible priority in helping Ukraine and deterring an attack on NATO/EU Europe. They are two very intertwined problems. If Kyiv were to fall and return to Russia’s strategic orbit, either in whole or in part, Russian forces would come into direct or almost direct contact with NATO territory. This possibility would mean that the provision of resources to deter an attack along the entire eastern flank of Europe would be more costly and complicated than at present, if only because the entire continental space from the Baltic Sea to the sea would be activated. Black and resources would have to be allocated to that entire area. The fact that the bulk of Russian troops are tied up in eastern Ukraine reduces conventional military pressure on NATO’s eastern flank, making de facto Ukraine in the first line of European defense.
Now, what specifically does it mean to reorient the NATO-EU relationship towards aid to Ukraine and deterrence of a Russian attack on NATO/EU Europe?
Basically, it involves creating a direct connection between the EU defense instruments and NATO’s deterrence agenda and defense planning system. When thinking about deterrence and collective defense in a context of attrition and delay, Europeans should learn from what Russia is doing today in Ukraine with its strategy of exhausting both resources and political will. It also means devising operational concepts that can generate deterrence by denial, as well as finding a force structure, capabilities and command and control formulas that can sustain this deterrence by denial. However, this requires deep financial and industrial solidity and commitment to technological innovation.
Europeans must think of deterrence as a society-wide effort. In this context, NATO and the EU must be conceived as instruments at the service of the objectives set by the agents, that is, by the Member States.
NATO as an instrument presents competitive advantages in the final phases of the process, that is, in everything related to operational aspects or the direct execution of deterrence. This advantage is due to its advanced command and control infrastructure, its integrated defense planning process and excellence in standards, especially through exercises and training. NATO is best able to determine the kind of operational concepts, force structures and skill sets that would be needed to achieve deterrence and put it all into practice.
For its part, the EU as an instrument has an advantage in the initial phases of the process, that is, in obtaining the resources to implement deterrence. Its management of a significant multiannual budget, its extensive powers in areas such as research, technology and industry, and its ability to mobilize instruments such as the European Defense Fund, the European Investment Bank, permanent structured cooperation, The European Peace Assistance Fund and the future European Defense Industry Program highlight the potential of the EU to help finance and generate the technologies, capabilities and skills necessary for deterrence.[7] Even if these technologies, capabilities and skills end up being channeled operationally through NATO, the EU could fulfill the essential role of generating them.
A similar logic could be applied to aid to Ukraine, although it is the Member States who are taking on most of the work. In this case, NATO once again presents an advantage in the final stages. Beyond providing operational assistance to Ukraine through, for example, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms or target acquisition systems that the Alliance could provide but has chosen not to, what it can do is maintain a military dialogue directly with Ukraine to organize joint courses and exercises, as well as help the country generate relevant operational concepts, put capabilities into practice and produce the skills needed for defense. For its part, the EU can help finance the acquisition of these capabilities and skills by including Ukraine in its various defense instruments as part of its gradual accession process.
Conclusions
In summary, NATO-EU relations should above all focus on the fundamental priority of defending Europe’s security architecture (which is currently under attack). This requires reorienting the EU’s financial, technological and training instruments towards the objective of deterrence and, specifically, allocating them to supporting the capabilities and operational concepts indicated by NATO. In turn, greater EU participation in the NATO defense policy planning process would be necessary. A step in this direction would highlight the importance of the EU’s defense agenda, strengthen the EU’s political and strategic assets, strengthen NATO and advance the broader goal of transatlantic burden-sharing, which is currently has become a strategic and political imperative.
NATO’s strategy is deterrence through reinforcement. And the EU’s financial and industrial instruments can provide the deep strength that the Alliance needs to sustain a prolonged campaign over time, a circumstance that is key to deterrence.
[1] See, for example, Stephanie Hofmann (2013), European Security in NATO’s Shadow, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge; and Antonio Missiroli (2002), “EU-NATO cooperation in crisis management: no Turkish delight for ESDP”, Security Dialogue, vol. 33, no. 1, pp. 9-26.
[2] Luis Simón (2022), “The Madrid Strategic Concept and the future of NATO”, NATO Review6/2/2022.
[3] For a more comprehensive analysis of NATO’s transformation after Crimea, see, for example, James Sperling and Mark Webber (2017), “NATO and the Ukraine Crisis: Collective Securitisation”, European Journal of International Security, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 19-46.
[4] For an overview of this process, see Daniel Fiott and Luis Simón (2023), “EU defense after Versailles: An agenda for the Future”, Comprehensive analysis, Directorate-General for Foreign Policies, European Parliament, Brussels; and Pierre Haroche, “Arsenal Europe: Financing Military Capabilities for Ukraine and EU Member States”, Policy Brief, Institut Jacques Delors, November 2023.
[5] Joint declaration on EU-NATO cooperation, 10 January 2023: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/es/press/press-releases/2023/01/10/eu-nato-joint-declaration-10 -january-2023/
[6] Sean Monaghan et al. (2023)“Does the new EU-NATO Joint Declaration Matter?”, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1/13/2023.
[7] See Fiott and Simón (2023), op. quote., and Haroche (2023), op. quote.
