May 14, 2018
The US Should Embrace the EU’s New Defense-Cooperation Plan
In late December, all but three European Union nations agreed to activate the continent’s latest, and perhaps most promising, effort to coordinate their defense investments. This initiative, dubbed PESCO for Permanent Structured Cooperation, has largely been met with bewilderment and concern on this side of the Atlantic. But U.S. officials should welcome it — and press the EU’s leading nations to use its framework to move from project-based collaboration to properly resourced militaries with credible capability.
Thus far, deeper EU defense cooperation has remained more of a dream on paper than reality. These efforts began in earnest at the 1998 St. Malo Summit where French President Jacque Chirac and British Prime Minister Tony Blair signed a declaration recognizingthe EU’s need to “have the capacity for autonomous action, backed up by credible military forces, the means to decide to use them, and a readiness to do so.” The announcement caused alarm in the Clinton administration. During NATO’s 50th anniversary summit, then-Secretary of State Madeline Albright proclaimed that there should be no delinking European defense from NATO, no duplication of existing efforts, and no discrimination against non-EU members.
Read the Full Article at Defense One
More from CNAS
-
Reflecting on Four Years of War in Ukraine
Podcast
This week marks the four-year anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Brussels Sprouts wanted to mark this somber milestone with a look at the conflict and the...
By Andrea Kendall-Taylor & Jim Townsend
-
Can China Capitalize on Changing Transatlantic Currents?
Podcast
This week’s episode of Brussels Sprouts picks up in the aftermath of the Munich Security Conference. The U.S. tone at Munich was notably more conciliatory than last year, as U...
By Andrea Kendall-Taylor & Jim Townsend
-
The Sound of Munich: Autonomy, Anxiety, and the Twilight of Transatlantic Order
Commentary
This article was originally published in War on the Rocks. Munich was warmer than Washington this weekend, both in weather and in sentiment. Neither development was widely fo...
By Richard Fontaine
-
Commentary
Transatlantic Security / Middle East Security
Migration Can Provide the Manpower for European DefenseThis article was originally published in Foreign Policy. Europe faces parallel challenges that policymakers have yet to connect: a pressing military recruitment shortage and a...
By Adham Sahloul
