Security

Strategic autonomy. Two familiar words that are yet again in vogue in Europe but which cause confusion and, in some quarters, even alarm. The last time strategic autonomy stirred controversy was in 2003 during the run-up to the Iraq War, but perhaps the most well-known instance followed the Balkan crisis of the 1990s.
The objective of this Brief is to better comprehend how the EU conceives of strategic autonomy, rather than dwell on a broader focus on ‘Europe’ or ‘NATO Europe’. To this end, the Brief compares the range of defence initiatives that have been developed by the EU since 2016 against three different conceptual visions of strategic autonomy: autonomy as responsibility, autonomy as hedging and autonomy as emancipation. Each of these forms of autonomy have implications for transatlantic burden sharing and the EU’s level of ambition on security and defence.

The concept of granting digital access to users based on proper identification has been the very core of how people access online services since the emergence of the public internet in the 1980s. The power of confirming an identity and being granted access to services of value has attracted billions of users to the internet, and as society moved to this parallel universe, so have other parts of it, namely fraudsters, con men and organized crime. In the past six years, USD 112 billion has been stolen through identity fraud, equating to USD 35,600 lost every minute. The more services are offered to the general public—with additional features for convenience and usability that rely on the internet—the wider the window of opportunity for attackers. Javelin Strategy Research expects fraud related to the creation of new online accounts to rise as much as 44 percent by 2018, increasing losses from USD 5 billion to USD 8 billion in a matter of four years. While consumer personal information has been compromised on an ongoing basis for years, the massive data breaches of 2017 removed all doubt: Criminals clearly have access to the very information that many banks, companies and other businesses use to grant their users remote access to services. Even social security numbers, which are considered highly private and sensitive personal information, were exposed for hundreds of millions of consumers in 2017. Recent data breaches have been a resounding wake-up call to the fact that new methods are needed to validate our identities online. In an era where personal information is no longer private, and passwords are commonly reused, stolen or cracked with various tools, the traditional scheme of accessing data and services by username and password has repeatedly shown to be inadequate.

The size and scope of the global forced migration crisis are unprecedented. Almost 66 million people worldwide have been forced from home by conflict. If recent trends continue, this figure could increase to between 180 and 320 million people by 2030. This global crisis already poses serious challenges to economic growth and risks to stability and national security, as well as an enormous human toll affecting tens of millions of people. These issues are on track to get worse; without significant course correction soon, the forced migration issues confronted today will seem simple decades from now. Yet, efforts to confront the crisis continue to be reactive in addressing these and other core issues. The United States should broaden the scope of its efforts beyond the tactical and reactive to see the world through a more strategic lens colored by the challenges posed—and opportunities created—by the forced migration crisis at home and abroad. CSIS convened a diverse task force in 2017 to study the global forced migration crisis. This report is a result of those findings.

Europe’s security environment has deteriorated in the last few years. New threats include a more aggressive Russia, instability in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, and cyberthreats from hostile governments and nonstate actors.
The United States is sending mixed signals about continuing the high level of military support it has provided for Europe in the past decades.
Adding to the challenge, Europe’s defense capabilities have declined. Equipment inventories have been reduced to critical levels across most weapons categories, and many systems are outdated. Austerity and an increase in missions abroad have reduced the readiness of Europe’s forces; in many countries, up to half of military equipment, from infantry vehicles to helicopters, is not available at any one time.
Europe’s fragmented approach to defense exacerbates the situation: Europe has six times more types of major weapon systems than the US. In many European defense projects, countries put the interests of their national industries ahead of European capability building, military cooperation, and interoperability.

Enthusiasts of strategic studies will be familiar with the tripartite, quasi-mathematical equation of ends, ways and means. Over a period of 18 months or so – beginning in June 2016 with the publication of the EU Global Strategy (EUGS) and culminating with Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) in December 2017 – the European Union has made strides on both ends and ways for greater cooperation in the area of defence. On ends, the EUGS has made clear that while Europeans ‘live in times of existential crisis’ the EU aims to improve security, democracy and prosperity and to invest in the resilience of states and societies in its wider neighbourhood in an integrated manner, while also supporting cooperative regional orders and a rules-based global order. On ways, the EUGS indicates that the Union must develop full spectrum capabilities as part of its overall approach to foreign and security policy and it must ‘systematically encourage defence cooperation and strive to create a solid European defence industry’. On means, however, there is still some way to go before the EU has the defence capabilities required to meet its strategic objectives. Despite the publication of an Implementation Plan on Security and Defence (IPSD), the development of a Coordinated Annual Review on Defence (CARD), a European Defence Fund (EDF) and PESCO, there are challenges related to defence capability development in a Union of 28 – soon to be 27 – member states.

The partnership between the United States and Europe has been an anchor of the world’s economic, political and security order for more than seven decades, but we should not take it for granted. The transatlantic relationship faces many dangers. However, the issues that bring the two sides together ultimately carry much greater weight than those that might divide them.The US and the EU have notably different perceptions and interests, the navigation of which requires nuanced diplomacy. Although each side brings different ideas and experiences to the table, numerous areas of actual and potential collaboration can be identified. The rules-based international order benefits both the US and the EU, and it urgently needs their collaborative support.

Seventeen years after the start of the first major U.S. war on terrorism – and tens of thousands of casualties and more than two trillion dollars later – the U.S. still lacks a credible database on international terrorism. There is no common official database at the interagency level, there are deep disagreements over the size and success of given threats, and there are major gaps in coverage. Each “war” on terrorism has its own approach (and usually approaches) to estimating the threat and to judging what parameters are important. There are a wide range of databases outside the U.S. government, ranging from commercial efforts to academic and NGO assessments. They often sharply disagree, and many are clearly political or ideological in character. The closest thing to an official database is the one used by the U.S. State Department in its Country Reports on Terrorism and its Annex of Statistical Information. The report and annex provide an overview of the global trends in terrorism.

The past few decades have seen the acceptance of a new calculus in the role that air power can - and will - play in the future security environment. This is the result of fundamental shifts in the character and conduct of war and the technology-aided ability of air power to rapidly adapt to emerging situations. Wars or conflicts that have been fought over the past half century have all been irregular in character even if the intensity, tempo and spread have been as much as, and at times more than, what could be termed high-intensity war.