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European Security and Defense Identity: Slovakia under the Conditions of a New Dimension of Security

Ivo Samson

In 2004, the valid Slovak security strategy was still directed by the same basic starting points[1] as the basis for the new security strategy in 2005, which also became the basis for the strategy of responsibility of the Slovak Republic for national, regional and international security for several years to come.[2] In the new strategy, the USA is called the “crucial strategic ally of the Slovak Republic”. Other parts of the strategy include successful perspective of continuing European integration; acceptance of a common European defense under the conditions that it will remain a part of Trans-Atlantic defense; continuing prospects of Trans-Atlantic defense including further enlargement by the countries of Central and East Europe; Slovakia as a part of both integration units, will pursue enlargement of the peace and stability zone in Europe as a matter of course; treatment of the nearest neighbors (mainly Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic), but also other key foreign policy partners from the position of an active member of both integration groupings; the courage to take up standpoints on Trans-Atlantic discussions and discussion about the Trans-Atlantic and Euro autonomous defense.

This last point represents a major challenge for Slovakia because in 2005 it remained an unequivocal pillar of the Trans-Atlantic dimension of defense, not only in the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) but in the European Union, as well.[3] Because of the fact that Slovakia, like the majority of other new NATO member countries, sees the Alliance as a key guarantor of security, it also considers its relations with the U.S. as a foreign policy “strategic partnership”[4] with the leading power of NATO in its mid-term strategy of foreign policy for the next decade. This means that Slovakia now stands before the demanding task of balancing the influences of two allied dimensions, because the EU is in no way united regarding the issue of the character of the Trans-Atlantic direction.

The European Union and Common European Defense

In 2005, the project of the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) came into a phase where on one hand it had failed in the planned finalization of building defense abilities in the form of European Rapid Reaction Forces[5] (by the end of 2003); on the other hand its continuity was confirmed. At the same time, by declaring its failure in building the Rapid Reaction Force in December 2003, the EU Council, in parallel with the European Security Strategy (ESS), adopted a new strategy for building its own armed forces by 2010 (entitled Framework Goals 2010).[6]

As a result, Slovak foreign and defense policy must take into consideration the EU goals in the field either as “alternative” or “complementary” defense and security (in the sense of an alternative or complement to NATO). Slovakia thus has to adapt to a new European strategy of building its own armed forces and endeavor to play an active role in this strategy. Only in this fashion can it implement its own strategy, i.e. acceptance of common European defense, under the condition that it remains a part of Trans-Atlantic defense.

Along with the fulfillment of obligations to NATO, it is also the duty of Slovak foreign, security and defense policy to follow the fulfillment of Program 2010 concerning the following aspects of relations with the EU: by 2007 to build up assignable fighting units with the disposal of strategic lift[7] or strategic bridge, disembarking capacities and to come under the condition of sustainability; disposal of an aircraft carrier with aircraft capacity; creation of a civilian-military cell in the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Forces in Europe with the capacity of the rapid creation of an operational center; improvement of EU operations at all levels via the development of specific abilities and networking of all communication devices; establishment of a European Defense Agency[8] ;creation or finalization of the European Airlift Command[9], which is connected with the transformation and involvement of the European Airlift Co-ordination Center[10] to the European Airlift Command; realization of Strategic Lift Joint Coordination[11] in 2005 with the prospect of reaching the needed capability and full strategic lift effectiveness by 2010; creation of criteria promised by the national armed forces of individual EU member countries for fulfilling the criteria of Framework Goals 2010 in the field of assignments and multinational training.

For Slovakia, the ESDP thus creates some duplication for the specification of abilities. It mainly concerns the project of assignable combat units that are to be available in the event of crisis situations in those centers of bias that are marked by the EU as areas of its priority security interest.

In 2005, that is in the second year after adopting the European Security Strategy and the second year of the implementation of Headline Goals 2010, it was evident that the EU, despite its failure in building rapid reaction units, would further seek unification in the sphere of common defense and institution building.

Though today the results of all of the parliamentary ratifications or referenda on Constitutional Treaty proposal are not yet known, the successes of the EU (introduction of a common currency, eastward enlargement) hold out only limited optimism for the successful realization of ESDP. Without a Constitutin, the dynamics of the EU was badly damaged. Furthermore, after the EU enlargement by ten countries and, in October 2005 the final decision to start association negotiations with Turkey, the Union might still believe that it will manage to build the needed capabilities, including appropriate structures for conflict prevention and crisis management and implement the Petersburg tasks: humanitarian and rescue operations, peacekeeping operations and tasks connected with the use of combat powers during peace enforcement.[12]

In 2004, the EU already could present the successful results of its own crisis management operations from the previous year, in its police mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Operation Concordia, in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, demonstrated the use of the Berlin Plus agreements between NATO and the EU signed in 2003. The operation was completed in 2003, but it was given a police continuity in the form of a follow-up operation at the end of 2003. The EU finally crossed the imagined Rubicon of becoming involved in military operations outside the European continent when it attempted to prevent the emergence of a huge humanitarian crisis in the northeast area of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Operation Artemis was the first operation undertaken by the EU in response to a request from the United Nations (UN) Secretary General. The specifics of the operation not only included a small number of assigned members of armed forces (around 1800) while the great majority was provided by the former colonial power in the region (France), but also the fact that this first military operation of EU armed forces outside the continent did not use the mechanism of the Berlin Plus agreement.

Finally in 2004, the Proxima police mission was launched (starting in 2003) which followed up on operation Concordia in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.[13] In 2004 the EU started to overtake the mission of multinational powers in Bosnia and Herzegovina,[14] which were until then under NATO command. The military operation Althea was in response to UN Security Council Resolution No. 1551.[15] The costs of the operation are covered by the common mechanism of Athena[16] to which the EU member countries contribute proportionate to the level of their Gross National Product. Despite the fact that NATO still maintains limited responsibility in command structures (in Sarajevo) it is another example of assuming responsibility for peace and stability in Europe through European armed forces - this time through the application of Berlin Plus mechanisms. Althea’s goals fully correspond with the strategic goals of the Slovak Republic, meaning that Slovakia, as a part of both integration units, will pursue the goal of spreading the zone of peace and stability in Europe. It is a much more massive assignment of the armed forces of EU member countries than operation Artemis. Althea also replaces NATO quantitatively; there is an obligation to keep an armed force of 7000 in Bosnia and Herzegovina and thus assist in the implementation of the Dayton Agreements regarding the guarantee of a secure and stable environment.

Europe (EU) in 2005 at a Crossroads

Along with the successes in realizing some independent military and police operations in crisis regions in Europe and outside the continent, it is not possible to ignore the fact that the Union is not united in its response to the questions of how, under what conditions and when to get involved in issues of global security. Its disunited steps regarding support or refusal of participation in the coalition of the willing in Iraq are the most visible examples of the problems the EU is going through. Nor were these differences solved by the 2004 NATO Istanbul Summit, which showed some split of European allies of the U.S. on the issue of a common approach in the suppression of the major security threat of today - international terrorism. The EU - or the European allies of the U.S. in NATO from among the EU countries - were not able to agree on unequivocal support after the power transfer to the hands of the temporary Iraqi government at the time of the Istanbul Summit, nor even after the simultaneous issuing of UN Security Council (UN SC) Resolution (No. 1546)[17], nor even after the unexpectedly successful parliamentary elections in Iraq at the beginning of 2005. Resolution No. 1546, despite the fact that it was supported in the UN SC (similar to earlier similar Resolutions No’s. 1483 and 1511) by France, did not resonate in the EU, so that it did not achieve consensus about the legitimacy of the coalition’s military presence in Iraq and about the Union's support of the operation.

A lesson to be learned from Iraq, regardless of whether the country will manage to become stabilized sometime in the future: it will not rest on the failure of military tools. They reached their goals, contrary to the policies which failed before the Iraqi crisis and afterwards. Nevertheless, the EU’s unwillingness to accept reality in international relations, i.e. the priority of power politics when non-military tools are exhausted, is understandable. But this resistance is more instinctive than rational.

First, it is based on experience with the destructiveness of wars and the awareness of the weakness of the EU, which continues to build its ESDP. The second reason for this unwillingness to submit to a pragmatic military solution of security threats is the awareness of the existence of weapons of mass destruction. The third argument against the EU’s direct involvement in 2004 in power politics, based on the balance between politics, economy, diplomacy and military means, is a justified fear of the fact that maintaining an effective defense requires a continuing accumulation of military expenses without added security provided by armed forces. On the contrary, the other side makes the same effort and it shows that still fewer and fewer political goals can be achieved by military means. This notion does not take into consideration (because it is afraid to take it as a normative postulate) the effectiveness of deterrence and its (anyhow) restricted validity in possible new conflicts. Despite the threats of weapons of mass destruction, it is not possible to avoid the fact that the countries feeling vulnerable, for instance Japan, react not only to threats but also to “vulnerability” by menacing a pre-emptive attack.

The last but most often used argument of the “autonomists” in the EU is the claim that armaments, arms transfers, involvement in regional crises and military interventions not only globalize security itself but security threats. It is this argument that stands on the weakest basis, because seen from the point of view of values, it leads to unethical and immoral outcomes, that is passivity to humanitarian crises.

The ESDP Issue from the Perspective of 2005

Surely, after the failed referenda on the EU Constitution in France and the Netherlands, the perspectives for a successful implementation of the ESDP project seem to be even dimmer than before. From the point of view of the Slovak Republic, the failed Constitution efforts play into the hands of “Atlanticists” and seem to confirm the previous cautious attitude to the autonomous European Defense.

The EU with its ESDP (i.e. the problems of its completion) is working on solving the issue of the dichotomy of collective defense as it was most effectively embodied and still is embodied by NATO and collective security, which was often used against NATO. It became a favorite term and was used against collective defense and the military-political elements of security. Emphasis on collective security was also a too transparent way out of the necessity for those who lost the Cold War. In the current stress on multilaterality in international relations and the unacceptability of “unilateralism” one can see a similar pragmatic philosophy.

The image of cooperative security, as many authors attempted to formulate it before September 11^th and before the military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, is only an effort to create a hybrid concept from older elements. This hybrid contains not only collective defense and collective security but also tries to offer dimensions which exceed these two security schemes. Contrary to collective security, collective defense projects its effort outward and protects its members from external aggression. Institutions based on the principal of collective defense explicitly bind its members, in the event of an attack on one of them, to contribute to the defense of the attacked ally including a military contribution. The mode of an institution with a collective defense dimension is represented not only by NATO, but historically also by CENTO, SEATO, the Warsaw Treaty and the Western European Union. The EU today, as it has repeatedly decided to give its ESDP a chance, has set the Framework Goals 2010 and has started to build assignable combat units and hopes for the adoption of the Constitutional Treaty, is moving more in the direction of collective defense. Despite relatively modest space reserved by the Constitutional Treaty[18] for a common security and defense policy, relevant passages in articles III-309 to III-312 contain promising conditions for the development and strengthening of the collective defense principle if the Treaty is adopted in the Union by June, i.e.:

the EU may as a whole use civilian and military means; the EU may undertake joint operations of disarmament, humanitarian and rescue missions and missions of a military character (“military help”) and missions of combat forces within crisis directions, including missions for “peace re-installation”; moreover this entire mission may also contribute to the fight against terrorism through the support of third countries in the “fight against terrorism on their territories”.[19]

Of course the Treaty does not introduce to the second pillar a duty to participate in such a mission, because it says that “the Council may charge a group of member countries, which expresses the will and has the needed abilities, to conduct a certain mission”.[20] The need for a “qualified majority” and the possibility for every nation state to resign from a permanently structured cooperation, by which the Council will take notice of at the end of the participation of a respective member state, are nevertheless not contradictory to the principle of collective defense within the EU. It is only an imperfect collective defense or a defense allowing unwilling member states to participate in the common ESDP in a form of collective security. ESDP thus is in no way identical with the collective defense of NATO, but goes along its analogical way.

The current Alliance differs from other collective defense organizations in the size in which it is able (and must be able) to project stability outwards. It’s most distinct contribution is a conclusion with quasi dogmatic validity: without a projection of stability (in preventive and pre-emptive form) no institution can proclaim itself an organization of cooperative security. In fact this attribute is still applicable only in NATO.

To compare: the UN and OSCE declaim individual security, collective security and the projection of stability, but they do realize them partially or with restrictions. Collective defense is neither declaimed nor guaranteed whatsoever. The EU guarantees individual and collective security and prospectively endeavors for collective defense guarantees. Stability projection from the EU side however remains without respect to successfully limited military and police missions. Security projections from the rise of a cooperative model, such as it is still presented by NATO is flexible in time, space, strategy and the ability to create auxiliary institutions affiliated to NATO. Today it is the overreach of cooperative security towards Russia, Ukraine and the Mediterranean in the form of initiatives such as the PfP, EAPC or WMD Initiative, in strategies of crisis management, reaction to crises and Alliance enlargement.

In search for a functioning model of a security system after September 11^th, it is also possible to observe basic changes from which at least two new phenomena are profiled:

a) globalization and the new trans national internetting prove that power and wealth are not determined by territorial authorities;

b) human rights, minority protection and the “rule of law” are not called into question to be shared values of the current projection of security from the side of both NATO and the EU and at least declaratively from the side of other world institutions.

The notion of some authors that these new phenomena should be an undoubted fact in addition to the individual responsibility of world political leaders for international criminal law[21] would not pass reasonably. The image obviously connected to the universal obligation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is shown as illusionary.

The fact that the “Roman statute” was only ratified by the required “qualified majority” of the world in 2004/2005 reflects the limitation of universality. But still a larger problem remains; along with the great powers, Russia and China, countries like the U.S. and Israel representing pillars of the projection of stability and democracy in the most risky crisis centers, refused to ratify the statute.[22] The EU itself failed to enforce “unanimity” on the issue when the Czech Republic refused in 2005 to ratify the ICC and it seems unlikely that Prague will submit to the wishes of Brussels.[23] The U.S. Reaction to its new allies in NATO (military assistance suspension)[24] who submitted to the joint EU decision on the issue of the International Criminal Court signifies the hindrance of the future common projection of security to unstable regions. So also in the ratification process and adopting the Constitutional Treaty, the “EU member states nonetheless remain lords of foreign policy”.[25]

European Security Strategy in the Second Year of Existence

2004 was a year in which the EU already had its own security strategy at its disposal. If we consider that the European Security Strategy as was adopted in December 2003 in Brussels, then all three major security threats for Europe (terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and unsuccessful states)[26] are directly connected to changing the character of war and the need to retreat from a rigorous definition of international law including the need to apply “double standards”: different at home and different under conditions where strict compliance may turn out to be absurd considering the fact that the other side acts according to different rules. But the EU encounters these problems only if it also attempts to project security into unstable regions of the world. The EU generally considers unsuccessful states a threat to its security due to the number of risks they produce. Risks of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction are only one form of them. The major manifestation of an unsuccessful state inside is the massive abuse of human rights by a regime allowing the spread of organized crime (including terrorism and WMD) to democratic states. A large issue is the concern of so-called democratic intervention, leading to the fall of a dictatorship and the installation of conditions for the establishment of democracy. This is being tried by the U.S. and its allies in Iraq. The EU has accepted and implemented humanitarian intervention, but not “democratic intervention” which is an armed military action to overthrow dictatorial regimes. This is why it is an institution that cannot be called an organization of cooperative security. The EU still only talks about the need for intervention, even a “robust” one, but it should serve only for the elimination of the external projection of a threat coming from an unsuccessful state. Human rights abuse in itself and genocide are not yet grounds for EU military involvement in the form of “democratic intervention”.[27] From the European Security Strategy text it is not clear how the EU will react in the event of analogies to Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, East Timor and Sierra Leone.[28] None of the operations undertaken by the EU in 2004 had to solve issues of peace enforcement, where the EU could test its abilities on a large scale or in direct and wide combat actions.

The security of the “zone of peace and stability”, i.e. also of Europe, depends on the ability to export security and that, which was until today an extreme mean of defense policy - armed forces assignation - becomes a standard (because it is the only effective one) means of politics. In an unusually short time the character of wars imposed on the stable world by the unstable world has changed.

The issue of the use of force thus returns to strategic thinking unexpectedly fast. No one (not even the so-called hawks on general staffs of western countries) ever unilaterally prefers power over democracy. But they often prefer power over democracy when democracy fails. They are not much different from politicians who know the best situation for unstable and “exotic” regions. The prospects of ESDP (and the possibility for Slovakia to become better oriented in the current dichotomy of the defense policies of its allies in the EU and in NATO) are a given - ESDP must evolve in a way that enables the EU to further develop its “security strategy” and gain the tools with which it wants to face threats that it managed to at least name in its strategy.

Specific Slovak Contributions to Military Missions

Participation of Slovak Armed Forces (AF SR) in military missions abroad should consistently become a part of a Armed Forces member’ carrier. The risk of participation in military missions and operations could be derived from the character of the action and the responsible organization. In general, NATO missions and ad hoc operations (operations of coalition powers) are more risky. Compared with missions under the name of the UN, NATO or coalition powers, the participation of the Slovak Armed Forces in foreign missions under the EU leadership is only symbolic. Currently under the EU cover, members of the AF SR take part in the Althea mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (4 members) and in the EU Monitoring Mission on the territory of former Yugoslavia[29] (2 members).[30]

The participation of AF SR members in foreign missions nevertheless is one of the priorities that result from Model 2015. The assignment ability and cooperation with partners in operations of international crisis management figures as one of three priorities, along with the defense of the SR's territory and assistance in extraordinary situations on the territory of Slovakia.[31]

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