capability development plan - European Defence Agency - Europa

THREATS AND CHALLENGES DERIVING FROM
POTENTIAL ADVERSARIES
Evolution of threats
Conflicts during the Cold War can be characterized by smaller-scale conventional wars, insurgency
campaigns and counter-insurgency operations - a representation of armed conflict in a modern world.
They can also be characterized by the relative restraint shown by the superpowers in the sort of wars
they fought - avoiding escalation into total war which had been experienced between 1914 and 1945.
They even pressurised allies to end fighting because of concern that it may intensify and draw them
into the conflict on opposing sides (1973 Arab-Israeli War). Indeed, the outcomes in Korea, Vietnam
and Afghanistan (Soviet intervention) demonstrated how countries were willing to limit their effort in
terms of available weaponry, geographic scope and objectives pursued.
The end of the Cold War was followed by a number of wars in Europe and Africa employing relatively
low-tech weaponry but which were brutal in nature with heavy death tolls. It seemed that this savage,
novel form of conflict would typify the post-Cold War, postmodern period but reality was to be far more
complex. The globalised architecture of world order changed and with it, the associated custom of
armed conflict. Adversaries in the modern era were fought by formally organised, hierarchically
structured forces of the state. In post-modern era armed conflict there has been a dispersal of control
of this organised violence to many forms of non-state actors. A disparate array of informal, stateless
forces including guerrilla armies, kin/clan/tribal-based irregular forces and paramilitary groups nurtured
by criminally funded warlords, national armies and de-territorialised terrorists’ networks. Although
irregular in their form, their objectives are usually as political as those of states themselves.
Given the tragedy of 9/11 and the consequent operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the multitude of
conflicts that have and are occurring globally, it is imperative that the EU considers a generic threat
assessment for its strategic future military planning. This would enable Member States to structure and
train their future forces accordingly, utilising comprehensive, end-to-end capability-based processes.
Indeed, a lack of attention to detail on threat often leads to a misinterpretation of what the objectives
are in a capabilities-based approach. For instance, improving what we have and hope that it will suffice
to defeat the future threats is likely to support current plans but does not necessarily support the
development of new capabilities to tackle new threats. The CDP aims to address this possible
shortcoming.
There are many potential regularly-structured adversaries that maintain large conventional forces and
can be potentially associated with a regional conflict. Currently, the capability gap between them and a
European coalition is significant but Workshop B illustrated how this may close towards 2020-2025. By
2025 these potential adversaries may well have access to cruise missiles, vast number of tube and
guided rocket artillery pieces, small long-range missile boats, submarines and 4th generation aircraft.
Additionally, some may be able to mobilise massed manpower if the operation is within or adjacent to
their borders - quantity can be a quality of its own. But, perhaps more importantly, many rising powers
are demonstrating a willingness to employ a new generational concept of armed conflict rather than
just to try and overcome their oppositions lead in a past era of military strategy.
This latter quality can also be associated with current insurgency approaches. Hard to detect, based
upon a broad ideology, with a novel structure and robust capacity to regenerate, they cut across ethnic,
class and national boundaries and adhere to no specific rule book. Comprised of a network of groups
they are extremely difficult to target or decapitate, learning quickly to withdraw, adapt and be patient for
a prolonged struggle where they will confront the enemy on their terms. Not only networked in
leadership, they will be able to make extensive use of networked organisations - political, social, and
financial, whether legitimate or not. They will be unpredictable and determined, and capable of causing
great destruction and death - without scruple, requiring enormous resources to be spent on protection
by countries that are notably risk and casualty adverse.
However, the reality is more likely to be a combination of the shades of black and white portrayed
above. Potential adversaries will have considered the implications of directly challenging EU Member
States’ conventional forces. They are very unlikely to seek conventional superiority but rather will look
for ways to use networks, alliances and human ingenuity to overcome a perceived EU technological
lead. They will seek to be as asymmetric as they can. Emphasis may be on urban guerrilla fighting as
much as cyber warfare, information attacks, financial terrorism or the unrestricted use of military and
non-military means. By using conventional forces but in ways that are ethically unacceptable to
western standards, they could attempt to achieve a profitable combination to achieve their objectives,
avoiding a needless definition of their centres of gravity but focussing on the EU’s, limiting our access
and ability to concentrate forces and effects. The use of proxy forces and disruption techniques would
further exacerbate the EU’s problems of dislocation.
So this could be the sort of adversaries that EU Member States’ forces could face; firstly regularstructured
forces relying upon conventional concepts or adapting in light of lessons from current
operations, modern defence-thinking and their brand of comprehensive planning. Next, there could be
sophisticated irregular adversaries, insurgents or non-state actors that grasp a clearer and, perhaps,
deeper understanding of 4th generation warfighting. And finally, EU Member States forces may face a
civil war or conflict associated with the collapse of a failed state where brutality and attrition is the
adversary’s only tactic to rule a given territory. Despite the passage of time, such analysis tends to
confirm that the character of warfighting may change but not the nature of armed conflict.
51
FUTURE TRENDS FROM THE CAPABILITY DEVELOPMENT PLAN