CDR Salamander - EU’s Military Say-Do Gap Goes to Sea

If you are an old NATO hand, you are very familiar with the struggle to fill the Combined Joint Statement of Requirements (CJSOR), which is where you try to find the actual military units to fill the requirements of your Operational Plans (troops-to-task).

Once you finally get some troop-contributing nation (and yes, this is a bunch of land-centric verbiage, but welcome to NATO) to pony up for a specific line, you then have to review the National Caveats that will come with the offer. More often than not, we would be better off not having them arrive at all.

A few real world reasons:

• They can come with so many restrictions (our company of security personnel cannot conduct kinetic operations outside the perimeter of the airport. “Sorry, if you are ambushed 50 yards from the gate, they can’t help you”) that they become more of a burden than a help.

• They arrive, but they don’t have enough equipment to do their job…and ask other nations to supply everything from ammunition to kevlar and food.

• They arrive, but their systems do not work in combat environments. They worked fine on PPT and in a controlled range with bespoke systems, but standard-issue real-world performance? Nope.

This is all well known for NATO staff officers. However, even NATO staff officers would roll their eyes when they had to work with the European Union’s nascent military arm and its staff.

Its bureaucratic process was so Continental, cumbersome, and often just silly, that it made us NATO staff-weenies feel like snake eaters.

Take whatever frustration level you have working inside NATO and multiply it by three. That’s the EU military staff…which is not a shock, as it lacks the Anglo-Saxon military umph that the U.S., UK, and Canada bring to NATO operations.

Well, as we briefly discussed on the last Midrats Podcast, the EU escort mission in the Red Sea, Operation Aspides, seems to be getting a little wobbly.

When the Italians, of all people, are getting tired of your ineffective bureaucracy, you know you have a problem.

Italy is considering using its naval assets already deployed under the EU’s Aspides mission to independently escort Italian merchant ships through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, with Defence Minister Guido Crosetto warning that Rome cannot wait for EU bureaucracy to respond to a renewed Houthi threat.

The move comes as fighting and tensions involving Yemen’s Houthi rebels have escalated again, with the group threatening shipping through the Red Sea and contributing to a sharp rise in gas prices.

“We cannot allow bureaucratic delays in decision-making to aggravate an already complex situation,” Crosetto said on Thursday, announcing “we have decided, with the Chief of Staff, not to wait for Aspides to decide whether our ships can pass or not”.

Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani praised Crosetto’s initiative and called on other EU countries to provide more ships for Aspides, saying some are not making the necessary contribution to the mission.

Apparently, this is not just Italians complaining about everyone else.

The European Union’s naval mission to protect shipping in the Red Sea would need to boost its numbers to more ​than 10 warships, its foreign policy chief said on Monday, adding that for ‌now there were not that many in the area.

The EU’s Aspides mission was launched in 2024 to protect shipping from attacks by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis, and diplomats have said there are currently six warships operating.

…

"When Aspides was ​put in place, then the indication was that it needs at least 10 ships. ​The situation, I think, is even more grave right now," Kaja Kallas told ⁠reporters on the sidelines of the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations.

The EU military staff is notorious for underestimating military requirements. They lowball the lowball in an attempt to force-mode their means to their end. 10 ships? I would bet the number the core planning team wanted was closer to 15, but got downgraded by the senior leadership.

Kallas sent a letter to the EU’s ​27 member states on ​September 19 asking them ⁠to up their contributions. The issue would be discussed at upcoming defence and foreign ministers meetings, she said in the letter.

“This situation, which ​is still evolving as we speak, is already affecting European interests with ​repercussions on ⁠our supply chains and could have implications for our ability to support our economies which were already hit by rising fuel prices,” she said in the letter.

The Europeans, whether wearing their NATO or EU hat, have two problems; capacity and capability.

1. Capacity: they have underspent on their military and their navies for so long that they simply do not have enough ships on paper to sustain a naval operation for any extended period of time. Note I said, “on paper”. When you actually pull the readiness numbers, the number of ships they actually have that are fully mission capable is even smaller. Their Sailors are great—and in some cases better than your average US Navy Sailor (O or E)—but they simply do not have the right warships to go in harm’s way.

2. Capability: As we covered earlier this month, they have a significant shortfall in missiles to meet the threats they will face, even against 3rd and 4th-rate threats like the Houthis. They just aren’t. Even when they do, they run into problems like we saw in 2024 with the Danish frigate Iver Huitfeldt.

Roll both of those issues together along with an instinct to bluff for a bit and head home, like the FS Charles de Gaulle (R91) Carrier Strike Group did this summer, and…there you go.

Keep this in mind when the “1,000 Ship Navy” mindset tries to work its way back into our naval considerations and planning. Do not let them use that discredited excuse for not building the navy we need.

• “We don’t need frigates. Our allies have them.”

• “We don’t need robust mine clearing capabilities. Our allies have them.”

• “We don’t need that many escorts. Our allies will contribute some ships.”

We’ve seen where that mindset gets us.

Allies are great and wonderful and are great contributors when they arrive…but we cannot expect for them to be there whenever and wherever we need them. That is a recipe for retreat and defeat.

Until then, may the Italians spend more on their wonderful navy. They really do make good stuff, and are great Sailors.

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