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How do Europeans engage in military strategy? Through detailed comparisons of operational planning and exploring the framework of the EU, NATO and the UN, this book sheds light on the instrumental nature of military force, the health of civil-military relations in Europe and the difficulty of making effective strategy in a multinational environment

The evolution of NATO’s deterrence and defence posture, analyses the Belgian contribution to the Article 5 mission, and dissects the key issues pertaining to the future evolution thereof. These include: (1) coming to terms with the return of nuclear deterrence,(2) enabling NATO’s conventional posture as a transitnation, (3) growing Belgian airpower, (4) focussingthe forward engagement of Belgian land forces ineastern Europe, and (5) tailoring all supporting effortsaccordingly. Additional government decisions areurgently needed, because in collective defence, it is theadversary that sets the timeline.

Given the Ukraine crisis, Russia’s resurgence and the burning crises in the South there has never been a better time to discuss European defence. From November 2014 to March 2015, the online magazine European Geostrategy published a number of excellent essays on the European Union’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), all from a national perspective. You can now read all of the essays in this one neat publication. Indeed, in this essay collection jointly published by European Geostrategy, the Egmont Institute and the Institute for European Studies, a host of leading experts give their national perspectives on the present state and future of the EU’s CSDP. Each of the thirty-four essays focuses on the continued relevance of the CSDP when compared to the security challenges facing Europe today. Some essays give a bleak picture of the future, whereas others see grounds for optimism. Either way the essays are bound to provoke reactions of all kinds.

NATO’s nuclear-sharing arrangements often get bad press. This is remarkable given the fact that they have demonstrably contributed to (a) countering the proliferation of nuclear arsenals in Europe, (b) fostering alliance cohesion by giving non-nuclear weapon states a voice on the nuclear posture of the alliance, and (c) making nuclear deterrence more effective militarily by offering a wider array of force options. When the relative merits of extended nuclear deterrence are unknown, public support thereof is likely to suffer. In order to enrich the debate about NATO’s nuclear policy, this Security Policy Brief articulates the threefold logic of nuclear-sharing.

Readiness reflects the ability of the armed forces to accomplish their assigned tasks in time. Like many European counterparts, Belgian Defence disposes of some high readiness assets, but is lacking in readiness overall. This impacts its contribution to collective defence and its wider ability to support societal resilience. This Egmont Security Brief explains the concept of readiness as a question of resource management and applies this to the ongoing defence review. Treating readiness as a meta-mission implies not only balancing the budgetary input parameters - investing in personnel, training, equipment and maintenance simultaneously - but also taking a selective approach towards operational engagement. Doing so will enable the force to regenerate as rapidly as possible, and boost Belgium's ability to act both at home and abroad.