Thomas Sohst from DBwV: Lessons from Afghanistan require a careful assessment for a successful future CSDP

In a conversation with CESI Secretary General Klaus Heeger as part of ‘CESI Insides’ interview series, Thomas Sohst, representative of the German Armed Forces Association (DBwV) and nominated President of CESI’s sectoral Expert Commission ‘Defence’, called for a careful assessment of developments in Afghanistan and a subsequent clear formulation of future objectives and corresponding framework conditions for a successful CSDP (Common Security and Defence Policy) including its lacking social dimension.

According to Thomas Sohst, it is still too early to answer the many open questions that have arisen now that the intervention of the international community in Afghanistan comes to a hasty close. “We should not draw lessons today but make a careful assessment of the intervention in Afghanistan during the last 20 years and map what has been achieved against what should have been achieved.” He added: “We must then establish how the EU should handle potential military interventions in the future: Next to military aspects, what are the cultural, religious, social and economic considerations that condition a successful intervention? What are the concrete objectives to achieve this and what are the framework conditions that the EU’s CSDP needs to put in place for this? In any case, the purposes of missions and the given mandates will have to be more carefully assessed and more precisely determined.”

Thomas Sohst put an emphasis on PESCO and the EU’s Strategic Compass as tools to establish where the CSDP should be heading and what the conditions of this will be. “If the EU wants more geostrategic influence, it needs to further develop PESCO and the Strategic Compass to have a clear vision about the potential and conditions of the CSDP in the world – including financial ones. ”

He stressed that the involvement of military staff and their unions will be of vital importance in this deliberation process. According to Thomas Sohst, the existing PESCO and currently debated Strategic Compass still lack a social dimension and constructive voice of unions which could play a vital role in reconciling the objectives of EU military interventions with the needs and interests that soldiers should be able to enjoy. To this end, he noted, “CESI’s new regular EU Defence Round tables represent a very useful initiative to make policy makers aware of lacking social aspects in EU defence policy.”

The full interview (in German) with Thomas Sohst is available here.