Britannia Radio

I came across this (in attachment) while I was trying to check if the information re EU wanting our Naval Bases was not an April Fool Joke before I sent it out to you. 

 

Having read the debates in Parliament on Protection of Critical Infrastructure, some MP's were concerned at certain knowledge being available to "strangers", and quite right too because who knows when friends suddenly change to become the enemy?  Some people become 'friends' to find out more about things anyway to their advantage. I find it difficult to accept that our Government and all those in that present Parliament would agree to anything like this.  If they didn't agree, why didn't they tell the people? 

 

We have heard and lost so much because of terrorism, yet people my age have lived through real terrorism, being bombed to Hell night after night and at times daytime too.  Our forces fought for the freedom today's politicians have let slip.  May God forgive them.  May God forgive them because I never will. What else have they done?

ESDP)

SECURITY AND DEFENCE

EN

BRIEFING PAPER

February 2009

THE STATUS AND LOCATION OF THE MILITARY

INSTALLATIONS OF THE MEMBER STATES

OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

AND THEIR POTENTIAL ROLE FOR THE EUROPEAN

SECURITY AND DEFENCE POLICY (ESDP)

This briefing paper was requested by the European Parliament's Subcommittee on Security and Defence.

It is published in the following language: English

Authors: James Rogers and Luis Simón James Rogers is D.R.S. Scholar at Pembroke College, University of Cambridge and Luis Simón is

Thomas Holloway Scholar and Fellow of the E.F.S.P.S Programme at Royal Holloway, University

of London. Mr. Rogers was a Visiting Fellow at the European Union Institute for Security Studies

during Autumn 2008, while Mr. Simón was a Visiting Fellow at the European Policy Centre during

Spring 2008. Both are completing their Ph.D.s with a focus on European Security and Defence Policy.

Responsible Official: Dr Gerrard Quille Directorate‐General for External Policies of the Union Policy Department WIB 06M081 rue Wiertz B‐1047 Brussels E‐mail: gerrard.quille@europarl.europa.eu Publisher European Parliament

Manuscript completed on 19 February 2009.

The briefing paper is available on the Internet at http://www.europarl.europa.eu/activities/committees/studies.do?language=EN

If you are unable to download the information you require, please request a paper copy by e‐mail : xp‐poldep@europarl.europa.eu

Brussels: European Parliament, 2009.

Any opinions expressed in this document are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessar‐ ily represent the official position of the European Parliament.

© European Communities, 2009. Reproduction and translation, except for commercial purposes, are authorised, provided the source is acknowledged and provided the publisher is given

Contents

Executive summary......................................................................................................... 3

Map of the military installations of the Member States of the European Union ...... 4

Introduction.................................................................................................................... 5

The role and utility of overseas military installations.................................................. 6

U.S. and Chinese overseas military installations......................................................... 7

European overseas military installations..................................................................... 8

The overseas military installations of the Member States......................................... 11

Overseas military installations of France.................................................................. 11

Overseas military installations of the United Kingdom............................................. 13

Basing as a tool of strategy: the French and British cases........................................ 14

Future geostrategic and asymmetric security considerations................................... 17

Conclusions and recommendations ............................................................................. 21

Appendix....................................................................................................................... 24

Executive summary

The recently launched European Union (E.U.) mission EUNAVFOR SOMALIA (‘Operation Atalanta’) to

fight piracy off the Somali coast and ensure the protection of a key E.U. Sea Line of Communication

(S.L.o.C.) is a vivid example of the coming of age of European Security and Defence Policy (E.S.D.P.).1

While such a development should be applauded, the present Briefing Paper argues that the E.U. and its

Member States need speed up their efforts to reform, amalgamate and put in place the necessary functional

and geographic structures for the protection of European S.L.o.C.s. and to expand the E.U.’s geographical

and geostrategic reach.

Key to these structures are the overseas military installations of the E.U. Member States. These facilities,

spread out across the world—and concentrated in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans—form part of a far broader

set of geographic, political, economic and strategic dynamics, namely the delivery of a credible E.U. ‘forward

presence’ (i.e. regional presence, overseas basing, expeditionary military capabilities, and logistical

supply systems, etc.) in regions surrounding the E.U., or along critical S.L.o.C.s linking the E.U. homeland

to the multiple different nodes and points of the global economy. In an increasingly multipolar world, placing

a renewed focus on these military facilities is a pressing European priority, particularly in an age of increasing

geopolitical competition along the coastal littoral of Eurasia.

1 This expression is from French Defence Minister, Hervé Morin. For a detailed description of EU NAVFOR Somalia see:

http://consilium.europa.eu/cms3_fo/showPage.asp?id=1518&lang=en. See also the Report by the Policy Department and the Secretariat

of the Sub-Committee on Security and Defence of the European Parliament on the visit by SEDE to the Operational Headquarters

of E.U. NAVFOR Somalia at Northwood (Brussels: European Parliament, 9th January 2009).

Conclusions and recommendations

This Briefing Paper has argued that the E.U. Member States’ military installations—mainly French and British—

would provide a formidable asset for the geographical and functional expansion of E.U. Grand Strategy.

While modest by U.S. standards, the French and British bases stretch out across the geopolitical zones

most likely to affect European interests in the twenty-first century. Of course, the level of the challenge presented

to the E.U. and its Member States in the coming years will have some influence in shaping the evolution

of the British and French ‘forward presence’. France has long placed far greater emphasis on its access

to operational military installations since the end of the Second World War, whereas Britain has tended to

concentrate its resources into large Permanent Joint Operating Bases, while investing in Strategic Projection

Vessels that are mobile and can operate almost anywhere in the world. Both approaches are a consequence of

differing historical experiences and slightly different geostrategic perspectives, but they are beginning to

converge—especially geographically.

As the world moves towards a dynamic multipolar system and U.S. relative maritime power declines as

powers like China and India rise, there is a growing and compelling need for Europeans to take responsibility

for the S.L.o.C.s that link them to the farthest corners of the world, particularly those most vital to European

trade and security. Europeans will therefore need to take much greater interest in their own defence, not only

in the Mediterranean Sea and its littoral approaches, but also further afield. Keeping track of the naval ambitions

of Eurasian countries, whose foreign policies could potentially run against the grain of the E.U.’s, is no

longer an option. This does not mean that great power confrontation is inevitable, but rather that increasing

geopolitical competition could exacerbate or create new asymmetric security threats to European interests.

The growing cost of sustaining a comprehensive maritime infrastructure therefore calls for further E.U. cooperation

to ‘Europeanise’ the Anglo-French ‘forward presence’ and undergird E.U. maritime security more

effectively, while simultaneously protecting European S.L.o.C.s and maintaining an extended E.U. ‘forward

presence’ overseas.

If or as the E.U. develops into a global power, it will be confronted by five overlapping geographical objectives,

which means it will have to merge its existing continental agenda into a maritime one, while simultaneously

integrating this with reformed instruments and institutions:

(1) The Member States will have to utilise their existing Homeland Installations in order to protect and

defend E.U. coastlines, airspace, territory, and even the space above the European continent. We propose

that a ‘Special Representative for Geostrategy’ be appointed by the High Representative to provide geostrategic

guidance in the formulation of European foreign and security policy. Among the tasks of this

Special Representative would be the production of a detailed overview of the existing assets operated by

Europeans and how they might be integrated into a comprehensive E.U. ‘forward presence’. This could

flow from a pan-European strategic defence review, or form a component of permanent structured cooperation

once the Treaty of Lisbon is ratified. A significant part of this review should concentrate on ‘maritime

strategy’, which should bring together strategists, experts, and personnel from the central E.U. institutions

and Member States, in order to analyse the best way to take advantage of the existing capability

and institutional assets in favour of a European maritime approach. Moreover, as the E.U. assumes a

wider role in the security and defence of the entire bloc, institutional reforms will be required so that it

can handle the new and demanding tasks. One of these may be for Britain and France to transfer the

maintenance and upkeep of their military installations to a central institution, funded by all of the Member

States. Alternatively, linking the E.U. ‘forward presence’ system with the nascent but growing planning

and command institutions in Brussels, and also the Satellite Centre in Torrejon, could produce

greater synergies.

(2) In order to realise the objective as specified in the European Security Strategy (both the 2003 and

2008 versions), it is elemental that the Member States eliminate all threats to the E.U. and its interests

from within the eastern and southern neighbourhoods. With this region secured, European influence can

then be projected further afield, not least into the Indian Ocean. Inevitably, this will require the deepening

of security partnerships with coastal countries like Georgia, Ukraine, Lebanon, Israel and some of the

North African states, which sit on geopolitical gateways into Central Asia and Africa and their considerable

mineral wealth. It might also require a significant boosting of the E.U.’s ‘forward presence’ (especially civilian services and police forces), and the granting of E.U. security guarantees to unstable or volatile

countries, not least to discourage potential competitors from taking hostile actions or stirring-up regional

disorder.

(3) The Member States will have to use their Homeland Installations on the periphery of the European

continent to maintain complete dominance over the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea, the

North Sea and the North Atlantic. The ‘Northern Dimension’ of E.U. Grand Strategy will also necessitate

greater attention towards the Arctic Ocean, particularly if the region’s rich mineral wealth is contested as

the seas become more navigable due to the impact of climate change.50 Command over the maritime approaches

to the E.U. will effectively stall and prevent many of the future geopolitical and asymmetric

threats to E.U. social, political and economic cohesion. This will require a high degree of aerial surveillance

and the deployment of patrol boats, which could operate readily out of many of the already-existing

Homeland Installations along the European coast. As it is already extensive, it is unlikely that Europeans

would have to improve their ‘forward presence’ in this part of the world, although an integrated E.U.

Coast Guard, modelled on the U.S. or Japanese Coast Guards, could provide a useful endpoint to which

Europeans could work. Freeing up European naval vessels from everyday policing duties would enable

their better deployment elsewhere, not least in regions further from home, where their decidedly threatening

presence could be brought more effectively to bear.

(4) With the European homeland and neighbourhoods secure, the Member States will then have the task

of pressing E.U. maritime power further out and along the Red Sea and deep into the Indian Ocean—all

the way to the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Malacca. This is the only way we will be able to guarantee

the safety of our foremost S.L.o.C. and protect our increasingly precious energy shipments of oil and liquid

natural gas from the Middle East. In this sense, the E.U. must ask itself whether the security of Europeans

is really being served by E.S.D.P. operations in the Congo, or whether E.U. military instruments,

political resolve and civilian and financial assistance could be better deployed elsewhere (such as Somalia).

As we have seen—and as the Map shows clearly—Britain and France already have under their belts

a range of Military Stations and Forward Presence Bases, which link the E.U. to the Indian Ocean. In fact,

when taken together, the French and British holdings complement one another decisively, with the former’s

giving access to North and East Africa and the Middle East, and the latter’s opening up the South

Atlantic and the Indian Ocean, where Asian naval competition is most likely. While Europeans must pay

careful attention to the naval build-ups in Asia, they should only do so as part of a wider set of maritime

objectives. Whether or not we are currently prepared for a conflict between two third parties in Asia is

supplemental to our wider need to project power and sustain a constant and sizeable presence in a region

of absolutely critical importance to the flow of European energy and trade. Instead, the E.U. should work

to bolster its political visibility in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. The E.U.’s anti-piracy mission, Operation

Atalanta, is certainly a start, but the Member States should work on conducting regular naval exercises

in the region, and agree to open their military installations up for common E.U. use. Similarly to

the ‘Erasmus’ Military Programme, the British and French could open their overseas infrastructure to

‘familiarise’ other Member States’ armed forces with existing facilities, by sending E.U. military personnel

to garrison bases like Diego Garcia, Reunion and Djibouti. This would help contribute to the development

of the maritime dimension of the emerging European strategic culture.

(5) Working with the U.S. and potentially other major actors with interests in maintaining the stability

and cohesion of the world trading system, the E.U. must prevent any budding aggressor from usurping the

democratic world’s leading geopolitical position. We—Europeans—must therefore sustain our naval preeminence

with new shipbuilding programmes coordinated at the E.U. level. Britain, in particular, has under

construction two new 65,000 tonne ‘pocket supercarriers’. The sheer size and capability of these vessels

will provide the Royal Navy—and potentially, the E.U.—with a greatly enhanced expeditionary and

50 For example, other than Russia’s recent claims on parts of the Arctic, Canada has also re-asserted its sovereignty by opening a naval

station at Nanisivik on the North Western Passage and a garrison in Resolute Bay. See: ‘Harper announces northern deep-sea

port, training site’, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 11th August 2007. Available at:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2007/08/10/port-north.html (accessed 26th January 2009).

Table 1—Key overseas military installations and their functions

Legend

1 = Principal role 2 = Secondary role 3 = Tertiary role

Blue = French Red = British Yellow = Spanish

Location Homeland Installation Military Station Forward Presence Base

Ascension Island * 1 2

Antilles *^ 2 1

Brunei 1

Canary Isles *^ 2 1

Cyprus Areas *^ 3 1 2

Diego Garcia *^ 1 2

Djibouti^ 1 2

Falkland Islands *^ 1

French Guiana *^ 1

French Polynesia *^ 1

Gabon 1

Gibraltar *^ 2 1 3

French Indian Ocean *^ 1

New Caledonia *^ 2 1

Reunion (S.I.O.) *^ 1

Senegal 1

* Located on sovereign territory

^ Can support all forces—naval, air and ground