Concepts Branch

Within the CONCAP Directorate, Concepts Branch is responsible for the development of strategic level concepts and doctrine across a wide range of topics such as Grand Strategy, EU partnerships, Climate, Emerging Disruptive Technologies (EDTs), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Maritime, Air and Rapid Response. It is also the home of the PESCO Team within the EUMS. It is divided into four cells – Strategy & Principles, Hybrid & Digitalisation, Integrated Approach & Partnerships and PESCO.

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The focus of the branch at the start of the year was the military input into the Strategic Compass, which heavily involved all members of the branch. Concepts branch was designated as the single point of contact with the EEAS Strategic Compass drafting team, as such collated all EUMS inputs to this group, and attended numerous drafting sessions. Additionally, the branch was solely responsible for the preparation of the military inputs for the EUMC to the PSC, in the form of Strategic Reflection papers on each of the four baskets of the compass and the Military Advice on the draft Strategic Compass.

The Strategic Compass has very much driven the work within the Branch for 2022. Numerous workstrands such as the Military Workstrands Management Plan, the EU Military Strategic Framework for Security and Defence, EU (Military) Command and Control options, to highlight a few, have been driven by the adoption of the Compass.

In the Land Domain, the European Union Rapid Deployment Capacity (EU RDC) is one of the key military deliverables of the Strategic Compass. It will allow to swiftly deploy a modular force of up to 5,000 troops, including land, air and maritime components, as well as strategic enablers. The branch began with the conceptual development of the EU RDC immediately after the Strategic Compass was agreed. A finalised draft was presented to the Chiefs of Defence Staff at their meeting in October.

In the Air Domain, the Strategic Compass tasked the taking forward of a strategic reflection to ensure a free, safe and secure European access to airspace. This work strand derives from the assessment that the air domain is critical for securing our territories and populations, for international trade and travel as well as in support of CSDP missions and operations. In the same line, the Compass stresses the need to enhance our ability to anticipate threats, guarantee secure access to strategic domains and protect our citizens, for which the air domain is crucial. CONCAP has taken the lead for this endeavour in coordination with other EEAS and EC relevant services as well as EDA, with the active involvement of Member States.

In the Hybrid domain, the Strategic Compass includes the ambition to create an EU Hybrid Toolbox as a decision-making and coordination framework that brings together different instruments to detect and respond swiftly of every individual case to a broad range of Hybrid campaigns against the EU and its Member States. It foresees that it must include military actions and means in the EU CSDP missions and operations and in response to the needs of third countries in countering hybrid threats.

Based on that, CONCEPTS Branch in close coordination and cooperation with the EEAS SecDefPol 1 - Hybrid sector is preparing an analysis and proposals of the military role and tasks in the context of the EU Hybrid toolbox. Additionally, we are preparing the military contribution to the EU Hybrid Rapid Response Teams concept and to the EU Foreign Information and Manipulation Interference Toolbox.

Moving away from the Strategic Compass other areas of work carried out by the Branch continued.

On 05 May and 26 October 2022, EUMS and NATO organized the 20th and 21st  EUMS/CONCAP-NATO IMS/P&C Roundtable conference, both meetings were co-chaired by the EUMS Concepts and Capabilities Director and the NATO IMS Policy and Capabilities Division Deputy Director. These events maintain the established network between the two staffs and facilitate the exchange of views on topics related to concept and capability development, as well as fostering the military linkage between the EUMS and the IMS at political strategic level. This event is conducted twice per year. In these informal meetings several points of common interest, and also of potential common action were identified and discussed. Namely, topics related to the EU Headline Goal Process (HLGP) and NATO Defence Planning Process (NDPP) cycle that are being coordinated through the Informal Defence Capabilities & Conceptual Cooperation Plan (IDC3P).

On a more strategic note, Emerging Disruptive Technologies and Innovation in both organizations, as well as policy development on Climate Change and Security were also discussed as a challenge and opportunity for defence related cooperation between NATO and EU. As usual, these events allowed substantial discussion on military topics of mutual interest and investigation of ways for enhancing the existing cooperation.

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On 20 September 2022 delegates from European Union Member States and NATO gathered to discuss two key conceptual projects supporting the implementation of the Strategic Compass; the Military Framework for Security and Defence and the EU Rapid Deployment Capacity in the annual European Union Military Staff Conceptual Development and Experimentation Seminar. The primary target audience are the European Union Member States' centres and entities for concept development & experimentation. However, delegates from partner organisations, such as NATO or the United Nations, are also invited and attend regularly. Concepts Branch is also home to the EUMS PESCO cell, which is a part of the PESCO Secretariat, supporting the development of the PESCO Framework. Its main role is to coordinate and deliver the EUMS contribution through the PESCO Secretariat and to the EUMC. Its contribution includes, but is not limited to, the assessment of the participating Member States (pMS) National Implementation Plans and the PESCO project proposals. Moreover, it delivers administrative support to the overall PESCO Secretariat and associated working groups and provides subject matter expertise for relevant military-operational aspects of PESCO through the frequent participation in the PESCO projects meetings.

In 2022, the EUMS PESCO cell, including in its capacity within the PESCO Secretariat, performed the National Implementation Plan assessment of the operational commitments area C, notably in the areas of availability, interoperability, flexibility and deployability of forces. Subsequently, it contributed to the drafting of the High Representative (HR) annual report on PESCO implementation and drafted the respective military advice that Political & Security Committee tasked to the EUMC on the HR annual report on PESCO. In addition, the EUMS PESCO cell supported the drafting of the Council Recommendation assessing the progress made by the MS in the framework of PESCO. Moreover, the EUMS PESCO cell substantially supported the workshop dedicated to identifying ways to better address the fulfilment of the most challenging PESCO commitments organized by the PESCO secretariat and hosted in Prague by the Czech Presidency.

The EUMS PESCO cell actively provided inputs to drafting the paper on the definition and calculation of the “fair share” and constantly participates in the ongoing discussions. Following the call for new PESCO project proposals, which was sent to MS on 1^st July 2022, eleven project proposals were submitted. The process of assessing and evaluating the new proposals  from the operational view has already started and will be concluded by the adoption from the council the 5^th wave of PESCO projects in May 2023.

Force and Capability (FORCAP) Branch

Inside the Concepts and Capabilities (CONCAP) Directorate, the FORCAP Branch is responsible for EUMS capability planning process, namely the EU Headline Goal Process (HLGP) and for the close cooperation with the European Defence Agency with regards to the Capability Development Plan (CDP) and the Coordinated Annual Review on Defence (CARD). In this framework, the year 2022 was rather a challenging one taking into account the work stemming from both the Strategic Compass and the Detailed Orientations for the next Headline Goal Process cycle (2023-2026), the upcoming CDP revision encompassing the EUMC Strand A and D inputs. Additionally, FORCAP involvement in the 2021-2022 CARD Cycle increased the complexity and rhythm inside the branch.

Already started in December 2021, the Clarification Dialogue with the Member States on their contribution with potentially available forces and capabilities for CSDP missions and operations continued until April 2022, and it was concluded with the approval of the Force Catalogue 2022 (FC22) in June. Immediately, FORCAP Branch started the Revision of Requirements using the expertise of the EU OHQs Larissa (EL) and Ulm (DE) and that one provided by the augmentees offered by the Member States. Four Illustrative Scenarios were revised by the end of the year (the fifth one being planned in 2023, with a Generic Capability Package (GCP) provided for each of them. A Requirements Catalogue would be elaborated later, providing a generic list of quantitative and qualitative requirements to fulfill the tasks defined in the political and capability objectives.

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Similar to the HLGP, CARD kicked-off at the end of 2021 with the preparation of the initial CARD information that was discussed with Member States during the bilateral meetings held jointly with the EDA in all capitals. As from April and May of 2022, the rhythm increased with the aggregation of all CARD data related to contributions to Operations and Missions as well as High Impact Capability Goals implementation, leading to the CARD Analysis. During summer 2022, this large amount of information served as the backbone for the drafting of the 2022 CARD Report that after discussion in different fora will led to the successful presentation of the CARD Report to the ministers in November last year.

In parallel, the upcoming CDP revision in 2023 already triggered preparatory work strand for EUMC inputs to the CDP for Strand A, focussing on the capability shortfalls and Strand D, with a focus on the lessons from missions and operations. For sure the recent crisis in Afghanistan and Ukraine will constitute an important contribution to the latter.

Exercises, Training and Analysis Branch

The main task of ETA within the EUMS is the planning, implementation and analysis of training and exercises on a strategic level. Trainings planned on various levels for the EUMS staff and externals like NATO and Partners. After an exercise, ETA analyses the outcomes for lessons identified and lessons learned and makes the results available to the EUMS in preparation for future exercises. The EUMS conducts two main exercises, the annual Military Exercise (MILEX) series, and the European Integrated Resolve series, which is a multilayer exercise series conducted every two years.

MILEX

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The annual Crisis Management Military Exercise (MILEX) is an opportunity to test the military aspects of Crisis Management at the strategic and operational military levels. Particularly, MILEX’s focus is on the interaction between the EU Operations Headquarters (OHQ), the EU Force Headquarters (FHQ) and the EU Military Staff (EUMS). MILEX consists of two parts. The planning part, where the OHQ and the FHQ carry out a parallel planning of a Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) military operation after receiving the Initial Military Directive (IMD). This part finalizes with the development of the Concept of Operations (CONOPS) / Operation Plan (OPLAN). The execution part is an event driven phase based on the same complex and realistic scenarios played in the planning part. MILEX22 focused on a rescue and evacuation scenario. In 2022, the training audience was Military Planning and Conduct Capability (MPCC) as EU OHQ and the ES EU FHQ in HUESCA. It was the first time the Deployable Package (DP), an EU communication module providing landline and satellite connectivity and secure IT, was deployed to provide a communication link the MPCC/EU OHQ with the ES EU FHQ. Finally yet importantly, the planning for MILEX 23 has already commenced with the milestone for the EU to conduct the first EU Live Exercise (LIVEX) started from 2023 according to the provision of the Strategic Compass. The general idea is to conduct a LIVEX at EU BG size with the progressive MPCC involvement in order to contribute to the readiness and interoperability of the future EU Rapid Deployment Capacity (RDC).

EU Integrated Resolve (EU IR)

EU IR is a complex Crisis Management exercise to enhance the EU’s ability to coordinate and respond to external conflicts and crises, with a focus on Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) planning processes and operational behaviour in a hybrid threat environment. In particular, it focuses on managing a crisis affecting EU assets abroad, such as a military operation and a civilian mission deployed in a fictitious country and its EU delegation on the ground. This ranged from planning a CSDP mission and operation to respond to a request from a fictitious partner country to countering a hybrid threat affecting EU assets on the ground. In EU IR 2022, the training audience was the EU Council, the EU Commission and the EEAS at different levels, including Member States’ (MS) and partners’ (UN, IRC) participation. EU IR is also part of the Parallel and Coordinated Exercise (PACE) concept in cooperation with NATO. PACE allows the EU and NATO to work together while each conducting their own exercises at different levels. For the military part, Greece has supported this exercise with an EL-EU OHQ in Larissa and an EL-EU FHQ in Nea Santa Kilkis including land forces concentrated at the military training area under a frame of a national LIVEX. This exercise consisted of two parts a planning part that focuses on planning of the CSDP missions/operations development process, and an execution part that focuses on event-driven scenarios with more than 400 injections at different levels. During those two parts, there was the so-called time jump. This period corresponds to the time required to establish the full operational capability (FOC). The time was used to develop injects and events that were directly related to the created OPLANS. Furthermore, cyber and hybrid attacks were continuously developed and discussed with NATO and other partners. The next EU IR will be conducted in 2024.