Evaluating the European Defense Force

Following World War II Americans and Europeans have cooperated on varying levels in the area of security. Although NATO became the most important security organization in the region, Europeans pursued other venues as well. By the 1990s, the European Union (EU) emerged as a major economic organization that pursued greater involvement in European security. Thus the EU is developing a force to conduct military operations other than war (MOOTW). To accomplish MOOTW the EU defined "Headline Goals" for the European Defense Force (EDF); the force must deploy 60,000 soldiers within sixty days for up to a year. This thesis provides an overview of European security organizations focusing on the EU‘s European Defense Force. Studies of US Army deployments to Haiti and Bosnia are evaluated against US Army doctrine for strategically responsive forces. Similarly a scenario is developed to deploy the EDF to Algeria in order to evaluate the strategic responsiveness of the EDF. The EU faces great challenges in developing the EDF and is hard pressed to meet their declared deadline of readying this force by 2003. The essential question is to understand similar MOOTW deployments and what capabilities the EU possesses or is developing to meet these requirements.