SIt is the violence of the shocks it undergoes today, Europe is committed to a massive defense effort. Because the practice is to display figures, the European Union (EU) plans to devote 800 billion euros to its reset. The 27 heads of state and government recognize that most of this effort will come from the budgets of the States-to which the responsibility of defense belongs-and that the EU must help them to make the necessary financial effort: that is to say, to drain private investments and lift regulatory coaches, while strengthening incentives for cooperation. Language has never been so clear about sovereignty, autonomy and the need to develop a solid European industrial and technological basis.
What are the pitfalls to avoid so that, in response to American disengagement, these resolutions make Europe a military power capable of detering attacks of multiple nature to which it is exposed? The first would simply be not to find the national cohesion necessary to give priority to the defense and not to maintain the political will displayed today in the blow of emotion. The second pitfall would be to take advantage of the windfall of increased budgets to make “rider alone”, at the national level, at the cost of a fragmentation which would compromise operational and industrial efficiency. And it would be to choose executives and methods of cooperation that would deprive us of precious European partners-like the United Kingdom, Norway, or Turkey-or non-European partners.
To succeed in this massive defense effort, two elements are essential. First of all, do not limit defense to armaments. Defense also covers military action. This implies a chain of command. Europeans rested on NATO for their collective territorial defense, therefore on the large headquarters of the Allied Powers in Europe [Shape] and his supreme commander [Saceur] American. The question of the availability of Shape in the event of refusal of engagement of the Americans deserves an unambiguous response. In this configuration, a real staff should be climbed as quickly as possible which allows you to order a complex and magnitude European action, without having to improvise the combination of national means of command.
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Source: Lemonde