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Joint vision 2010 and the allies: When conventional wisdom meets strategic issues

What is the relevance of Joint Vision 2010 (JV2010) as a conceptual basis for coalition warfare in the future? The question seems as incongruous as the answer obvious. There are many good reasons for its adoption as the conceptual basis for coalition warfare to which West Europeans are intending to be part under the leadership of the US. Some of these reasons are of a political nature. JV 2010 could perhaps be the glue the Allies need in seeking a rationale to maintain military integration, despite the absence of a common threat of the magnitude of the Soviet empire. Rallying behind JV 2010 might be a way of perpetuating the American military presence in Europe for the foreseeable future, a strategic goal pursued by all West European countries. As Prime Minister Tony Blair stated, 'the imperatives that drove defence spending in America during the superpower stand-off are gone. If Europe wants the US to maintain its commitments to Europe, Europe must share more of the burden of defending the West's security interests'. West European leaders might also rally behind JV 2010 as a means' of avoiding the slippery slope of reducing military spending. In that sense JV 2010 might have a useful role in providing a legitimate justification of stabilising, if not slightly increasing, military budgets in order to meet the goals JV 2010 embodies. Instrumentalising JV 2010 for political motives might also meet the expectation of key European defence companies eager to stabilise a declining market and maintain open access to US research and development. British Members of Parliament have expressed concerns about whether UK firms merged into a European defence industrial entity would continue to have access to US high technology research and defence programmes. They understood that the US is supposed to be reluctant to share advanced technological research with French companies. In response Lord Gilbert, Minister for Defence Procurement, declared that the UK was 'anxious to see that access to sensitive technologies is in no way imperiled'. In that sense participating in the huge research effort that may derive from JV 2010 would provide a rationale for West European defence firms and bureaucracies to look at it positively. These political imperatives might be enough in themselves to justify the adoption of JV 2010 even without regard to. its nature and intrinsic strategic value for Western Europe. However, the attitudes of West European governments are not without contradictions. One the one hand, the West European leaders might be committed to stabilising their defence spending and, by developing a common defence identity to finding good arguments for allocating new funds to, for example, force projection and C^ISR. On the other hand, they might continue to hide the maintenance of very low defence spending behind the cloak of transatlantic military cooperation, while the US more than ever contributes the bulk of resources.