Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Union
s ability to intervene usefully now. The EP report found that the large
number of EU documents that have given operational content to con
'
ict manage-
ment
including the EU Concept for Military Planning at the Political and Strategic
level, the EU Concept for Military Command and Control, the EU Concept for
Force Generation and the EU Military Rapid Response Concept
-
are bereft of
climate-related considerations. Additionally, EU delegations around the world lack
expertise on climate security.
17
European armies are still geared towards territorial defence against an attack, not
mobilising for con
-
ict operations and complex crisis-disasters in places like Africa or
the Middle East. The EU defence spend is heavy on personnel and low on high-end
capabilities.
18
European Union member states have nearly 2 million personnel under
arms but only 100,000 of these are deployable to con
ict zones. A full half of EU
deployable capacity comes from the UK, re
ecting the limited investments made by
other states. The EU
s Battlegroups became operational in 2007; by 2013 they had
still not been used. They will be useful only for basic crisis-moment protection
'
-
controlling airports, evacuating European citizens
er the prospect of
being integrated into longer-term rebuilding and development e
-
and do not o
orts.
19
Experts
lament that rather than being used as a de facto strategic reserve to help sustain long-
term peace-building strategies, the Battlegroups have been conceived as vehicles only
for the one-o
crisis response.
20
The EU
'
s understanding of a
'
rapid
'
reaction force
is, at the very least, elastic: the 2008
09 Chad mission was delayed eight months
partly due to a shortage of transport and logistical equipment.
The twenty-eight CSDP missions carried out to date have not been ambitious and
have been mostly tangential to core EU interests. Most of the missions have con-
stituted little more than symbolic gestures. Only six CSDP missions have had a mili-
tary component: those in Macedonia, DRC (in 2003 and 2006), Bosnia and Chad, in
addition to the 2009 anti-piracy mission o
-
the coast of Somalia. Only seven have
involved over 200 personnel. The EU has limited itself to supporting
'
multilateral
subsidiarity
, through support for the interventions of other organisations, particularly
the African Union in the cases of Somalia and Sudan.
21
The focus has been on very
short crisis interventions. It is doubtful that CSDP can be seen to have meaningfully
enhanced the EU
'
commitments.
22
A number of CSDP missions have been deployed to climate-stressed areas where
environmental factors are seen as contributing to instability. These include the
maritime mission Atalanta o
'
'
'
s implementation of
Responsibility to Protect
the Horn of Africa, and security training initiatives in
the Sahel (especially through missions in Niger and Mali in 2012 and 2013,
respectively). Many policy-makers see such deployments as a harbinger of future
defence requirements. The EU has invested heavily in a Global Monitoring for
Environment and Security (GMES) system that is now being rolled out, with a
range of
satellites
and other capacities. This has given some back-up to
