Tom Clonan outlines the likely military make-up of EU units designed for rapid deployment.
The EU battlegroup concept will represent the creation of approximately 12 small customised forces across Europe for urgent and rapid deployment to crisis points within the EU and up to 2,500 miles beyond its borders.
These military units - combined joint forces - will number approximately 1,500 troops and will be deployable to their intended location not later than 10 days after an EU decision to launch such an operation is taken.
These forces are expected to be self-sustainable in short stand-alone operations of between 30 and 120 days in the field.
Each unit will consist of a mounted infantry component with organic artillery support and light reconnaissance and armoured elements.
It is also intended that each battlegroup will be provided with support from a naval aircraft-carrier group along with heavy air-lift capability and a combat air support component capable of up to 200 air assaults daily.
The proposed battlegroups differ dramatically from the current European Rapid Reaction Force (ERRF) concept in terms of scale and deployment lead-in times.
To put the EU battlegroups into context, the ERRF is a force projection model based on 60,000 ground troops being deployed for at least one year's duration with a lead-in time to deployment of 60 days or two months from a political decision to act.
The battlegroups, consisting of a mere 1,500 troops, resemble an enhanced battalion-sized unit as opposed to the ERRF's corps formations based on at least four divisions of between 60,000 and 100,000 troops.
The "battalion plus" model for the new EU battlegroups is loosely based on NATO's rapid response doctrine evolved during the 1990's. Under NATO's response force (NRF) strategy, the aim was to create highly mobile, self contained combat units for instant deployment to emerging crises on European soil and beyond.
The land component of NATO's NRF consists of brigade-sized teams of up to five battlegroups. Each of these battlegroups consists of what NATO terms "the smallest self-sufficient military operational formation that can be deployed and sustained in a theatre of operations".
NATO's battlegroups form the blueprint upon which the EU's battlegroup concept is based.
The reasoning behind the EU's desire for such slimmed-down units lies in their ability to rapidly deploy and intervene in crises as they develop, thus preventing situations from spiralling out of control.
Due to the logistics, assembly, co-ordination, and command and control issues affecting larger conventional military forces, reaction times to crises may extend to weeks and even months beyond a political decision to act.
Many in the EU's defence and security community look to the successful precedent in recent times of operations involving small battlegroup-sized units.
For example, Operation Artemis, launched by the French to Bunia in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2003 along with Operation Concordia, launched by the EU to Macedonia in 2003, are believed to have averted genocide and ethnic cleansing on a massive scale.
A further security dividend provided by such prompt military actions is that when successful, battlegroup operations tend to obviate the need for further, much larger and costlier conventional deployments - not to mention the loss of civilian life and human misery caused by inaction or hopelessly delayed conventional responses.
The EU's aspiration to configure its battlegroups, deployable in-theatre within 10 days of a political resolution to take military action, will depend to a great extent on co-operation from Europe's larger and more sophisticated armies.
Under the EU's defence "Headline Goal 2010" agreement reached in May of this year, Europe expects to have constituted at least seven battlegroups by 2007.
Realistically speaking, given the air and naval support components along with the heavy airlift capability identified as essential for the successful operation of these battlegroups, it is likely that only Britain, France and perhaps Italy and Spain will be capable of realising the EU's ambitions in this area.
Nevertheless, smaller countries such as Ireland could make a valuable contribution to the success of battlegroups by supplying specialist troops as mission requirements arise.
Ireland's unique experience in peacekeeping, peace enforcement and anti-terrorist operations along with her world-class ordnance disposal and Special Forces personnel may well present the Irish Government with an opportunity to make an invaluable contribution to Europe's response to the natural and man-made humanitarian disasters that lie ahead.
Dr Tom Clonan is a retired army officer. He lectures in the School of Media, DIT and is a Fellow of the Inter University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society based at Loyola University, Chicago.