The idea that Mali signaled the rise of Europe as a military power is laughable. France, ostensibly the standard bearer for the Mali-based interpretation, has already indicated that it will not be a military power:
The current white paper also suggests a reduction in rapid deployment forces from 30,000 to between 15,000 and 20,000. But the paper emphasizes the ability to field up to 7,000 troops in three separate areas concurrently, though plans for a second aircraft carrier will be scrapped.
France now has about 228,000 military personnel; 10,000 are expected to be cut soon. An additional 66,700 civilians work in the armed forces.
Britain continues its slide, as the article also notes:
While spending about 1.5 percent of its gross domestic product on defense, France will remain Europe’s No. 2 in military spending behind Britain. Britain is shrinking its armed forces to 82,000, the lowest number since the Battle of Waterloo, while trying to keep its own nuclear deterrent.
When the British and French decided to rely on the other's military for their own national defense, did both assume that the other side would maintain their military?
The British will be able to deploy about the same number of troops as the French plan. The difference is that the British assume a single tough campaign--perhaps as part of an alliance effort--while the French seem to assume three cake walks against marginally capable foes.
But both are a joke. And they represent the bright spots of non-American NATO militaries.
They also finally reflect the reality of European military power since World War II. It only seems like Europe's military decline is recent, but in reality they've been down for more than four decades. It's just that the Cold War disguised Europe's decline because Europe's major role was to fight where they started out:
As others have noted, the Cold War largely disguised the fact that European nations no longer were powers with real global power (other than the British, that is). The continent’s role during the Cold War was to be a huge tough immovable block of concrete that the Soviets could not shove into the English Channel. The fact that this very local responsibility had global consequences hid the lack of real global power. The inability of the Europeans to mount an invasion of modest proportions in the Balkans in 1999 and their equally embarrassing lack of air power, finally laid bare this truth.
Believing that either Libya or Mali argues against that truth is foolish.
Not that Europe's limited power projection capabilities can't be useful. Sometimes there will be weak opponents to stomp on with a small, well trained punitive expedition.
And although our Marine Corps will always be the most significant military contribution to any war our Army fights, I won't turn up my nose at a good, large brigade fighting with us.
But Europe's main role will not be in leading a tiny military expedition but in providing supplements to American military power sent abroad. And we can't expect more of Europe.
Of course, if the Europe Union continues its drive to become a soft authoritarian Soviet Union Lite, we may be grateful that they lack military power:
Still, one has to wonder whether the EU is considering the trade-off between democracy and administrative (and economic) efficiency. As I quipped at the end of the day, there has been one successful European superstate - the Roman Empire - and it wasn't a democracy.
If you want war, prepare for peace, I suppose.
And I doubt that they'll even be efficient.
UPDATE: The elites thought the EU could keep those violent peasants that the elites are unfortunate enought to rule from plunging the continent into war. Instead, the Euro elites may provoke conflict by trying to maintain the EU project which makes even another country's internal policies a matter of international concern:
Thus the overweening ambition of the European political class has resuscitated conflict between old enemies where none need have existed.
We'll see if there is a European Union Brezhnev Doctrine.
