[12] A lecturer thought that "Russia has unleashed the strongest push to strengthen Europe’s defence since the end of the Cold War", and that this document provided the necessary impetus.
[13] In June 1992 the Western European Union issued the Petersberg Declaration, which set a number of tasks to be fulfilled by the collective of a humanitarian, disarming, peacekeeping and peacemaking nature in foreign lands, such as the Baltic states but the statement left to a future point decisions on funding and personnel.
[15] The Helsinki Headline Goal was published in December 1999 and was supposed to establish a European Rapid Reaction Force,[16] which was based on Tony Blair's observation that Europe had not performed well in the Bosnian War where only after NATO intervened in 1995 did the conflict simmer down.
It included 'battle groups', non-permanent combat units which were set up for six months each and consisted of around 1,500 soldiers, and the improvement of air capabilities.
Another controversy, prompted by a request for a 17,000-man deployment to the Democratic Republic of Congo by Ban Ki-Moon, developed around the "battle group" concept.