In Geopolitics Today - Tuesday, September 7th
Germany Pushes for an EU Intervention Force and The Unlikelihood of a Military Victory From ‘Over the Horizon’
Germany Pushes for an EU Intervention Force
Fourteen EU member states have so far committed to the joint proposal aimed at creating a rapid deployment force of roughly 5,000 soldiers. The new force is expected to initially be comprised of an army and a naval component, with the future integration of air force and support units also a part of the discussions. The force is aimed as the first European "entry force," available for an "immediate, short-term mission scenario," and is said to be largely shaped similarly to NATO's "Spearhead." While the project is ambitious, it faces opposition from Eastern and South-eastern EU members which enjoy strategic partnerships with Washington.
Berlin is looking to mobilise political will within the EU following NATO’s disastrous defeat in Afghanistan. Germany’s Minister of Defence, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, has stated that the lack of military capabilities among EU member states has directly led to an inability to act in the face of the sudden withdrawal of the US military from Afghanistan. Currently, the German initiative aims to raise a unit of 5,000 soldiers, possibly rising to a size of up to 20,000, with a final decision expected to be made in November. During a recent meeting of the EU's Defence Minister, Kramp-Karrenbauer said the "sober truth" about Afghanistan is that Europe was incapable of influencing the US decision to withdraw.
Germany is taking a more active role in fostering something of an EU-wide “strategic compass” which attempts to incorporate the varying interests of EU member states into a more comprehensive strategic outlook. The main question going forward for the EU, at least according to the German Minister of Defence, concerns the Union's foreign and military policies, and the way in which capabilities can be employed collectively in an effective manner. Berlin is now working to gain support for the upcoming round of discussions, and the proposed intervention force may yet see fundamental changes.
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The Unlikelihood of a Military Victory From ‘Over the Horizon’
In a military conflict, it is often assumed that the most likely winner is the one which is capable of continually amassing superior strength at the place and time of a battle, thereby overcoming the capabilities or the will of its foe. But even with that being the case, the combatant that resides in close geographic proximity to the place of battle commands an advantage over a foe which must return its soldiers and materiel vast distances and can only boast of a presence sporadically.
These over-the-horizon operations — military operations which involve long-range weapons systems used to project power into a distant land — have difficulty accomplishing political goals where enemy combatants have a permanent military presence. Such was the case with the United States in Afghanistan for reasons of politics and geography.
Geography imposed severe logistical stresses on the US' over-the-horizon air campaign in Afghanistan. The vast distances limited any aircraft’s operational time over mission areas, meaning airborne operations had a ‘come-and-go’ character. US reliance on naval assets to deliver hard power meant that operations in Afghanistan, much of which is more than 700 miles from the nearest coastline in Pakistan, were well beyond the combat range of most carrier-based F/A-18E/F Super Hornet aircraft. This logistical burder could hardly apply to the Taliban, who were able to come and go across rugged terrain at little cost.
Politically too the costs of conducting a military campaign in Afghanistan kept growing as the years went by. With little ability to control the flow of fighters pouring into Afghanistan across the border with Pakistan, the US had to pay an increasingly high political price to domestic and international partners in order to gain access to conduct air operations. The diplomatic challenges of securing access to Pakistani airspace proved difficult throughout the course of the war, and have over time contributed to a geopolitical realignment in the form of deepening ties between Islamabad and Beijing. Following the withdrawal from Afghanistan, it is difficult to see the US conducting operations as freely as the country once did in the region, demonstrating the costs endured by Washington as it increasingly relied on over-the-horizon operations.
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