New approaches to the Armed Forces

This week, we were engaged in a discussion about the future shape and configuration of the armed forces in contexts such as those we find in Europe. The starting point was that tomorrow’s defence will be very different in terms of means and personnel from what we have seen in the past. We should not be preparing for future conflicts the same way we have been doing during the last twenty years or so. Tensions and hostilities will be much more complex than they have been in the past.

I will not go into the details of the discussion this time. I just want to mention that one of the issues was about the participation of the armed forces in domestic security patrolling. Something we saw in recent years in France, above all, but also in Belgium and elsewhere, soldiers walking side by side with the Police – or on their one, no Police personnel being around – in the streets and shopping malls of our cities.

This remains a major point of disputation. I am not in favour. I do not think military personnel should be doing routine patrols that are very much within Police’s territory, unless there is a special emergency. But several senior military officers are for it. And some politicians as well, for reasons that have more to do with political gain than with increased levels of security.

The debate is not closed.

Security as a big issue

Terrorist threats will be a key security issue in the years ahead of us. 

In the case of the EU, some extrapolations indicate that in five-to-seven years we will have to keep a close watch on some 40 to 50,000 European residents that might be classified as S. This code letter means that one with an S in front of his or her name is a potential security risk, from a terrorist perspective. 

That’s a lot of people to keep monitoring. It will be very difficult to find enough resources to do it thoroughly. That means that cooperation and coordination between all the security agencies will be a fundamental requirement. It also means that the citizens must be prepared to ensure a greater level of security of their own collective initiatives.