Thread by @morcos_pierre

[Thread] Now that the #StrategicCompass has been adopted by EU leaders, let’s have a deep dive into some of the concrete actions agreed in this 🇪🇺 document.

Today, the EU Rapid Deployment Capacity.

First, if you’re wondering what the #StrategicCompass is, here is a quick presentation:

https://twitter.com/morcos_pierre/status/1506047117055434754?s=20&t=xL8CGBO_-LpPwAO7uhOsIg

So, the EU Rapid Deployment Capacity is easily the measure of the #StrategicCompass which triggered the most comments/questions. It has been wrongly presented either as a new Europe "force"/"army", or as a simple rebranding of the EU battlegroups.
reuters.com/world/europe/g…

The goal of the EU Rapid Deployment Capacity is to help European countries to deploy, by 2025, "a modular force of up to 5,000 troops."

Is it a new force ? No, since it will build on the existing EU battlegroups *and* identified national forces and capabilities. Is it therefore just a new name for the EU battlegroups ? No, the objective is precisely to "substantially" revamp the battlegroups.

Just as a quick reminder, the EU battlegroups are multinational units, usually composed of 1,500 personnel. Two battlegroups are (almost) always on standby for a period of 6 months (see graph bellow by @EU_ISS).

The problem is that these battlegroups have never been used since their creation in 2007. Sven Biscop laid out some explanations: battlegroups are too small; often temporary with no accumulation of experience; only available on short stand-by periods.
egmontinstitute.be/kill-the-battl…

The goal of the EU Rapid Deployment Capacity is to turn these never-used battlegroups into battle-ready forces. How ?

- By raising the level of ambition: the goal is to deploy in demanding operations ("non-permissive environment") such as initial entry.

- By doing advance planning: EU countries will work on "operational scenarios" in 2022.
- By organizing live exercise from 2023 to increase the readiness and interoperability of the forces.

- By having a joint approach: the capability will include land, air and maritime components.
- By investing in strategic enablers. Are mentioned: strategic transport, force protection, medical assets, cyber defense, satellite communication, ISR capabilities.

- By having "longer stand-by periods" and pre-identified command and control solutions (EU or national).
- By better using more flexible decision-making arrangements (art 44).

In short, the basic idea of the EU Rapid Deployment Capacity is to move from the theory (a stated but never fulfilled level of ambition) to actual actions to increase the readiness of European forces for demanding scenarios.

The link to the #StrategicCompass bellow. I will do other thematic threads on this document in the coming days. [End]
eeas.europa.eu/sites/default/…