The National Interest , America's ambassador to NATO, Nicholas Burns, told other NATO members this week that the United States was increasingly alarmed about the European Union's plans to set up a defence organization separate from NATO. He was given a series of reassurances that the United States was simply being alarmist. If Washington is sensible, however, it will treat these with some skepticism.
Like most EU projects, the ESDP (or European Defence and Security Policy, to give its full official title) has advanced by stealth. When it was first launched, it was presented as a minor matter — largely a question of getting the Europeans to pay more for their own defence. Then, when it emerged that the Europeans were in fact paying less for their own defence, which meant that the ESDP would compete with NATO for the same scarce military funds, it was defended on the grounds that it would be clearly subordinate to NATO. And now that it is well advanced as a project, its supporters declare that it must have a separate strategic headquarters and operational planning capability. Nor is this record of strategic deception the sole reason for the United States to be alarmed.
At a time when European governments are spending a miserly average of 1.5% of GDP on joint defence and when there is a growing need for missile defence against rogue states, France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg (or “chocolate soldiers”) now propose diverting scarce funds to establish a rival military organization to NATO. Even if the sums are small, the priorities are eloquent. They make plain that the mere fact of EU co-operation is more important than actually defending the European continent.
For the ESDP has no military rationale. Entire military staffs spend their time desperately seeking to invent “crises” for which a permanent separate European defence organization is uniquely needed. They have never yet succeeded. All the examples they cite, such as the current EU operation in Macedonia, could be performed equally well, better actually, either by the full NATO or by a NATO “coalition of the willing” formed for the occasion. Either the ESDP is itself a chocolate soldier — namely, a largely ceremonial force designed to symbolize European military co-operation — or it is intended to replace NATO in the long term. That second intention looks the more likely. The French, in particular, have invested a great deal of prestige in the ESDP project and it fits all too neatly into their larger foreign policy of constructing a European superpower that would act as a counterweight-cum-rival to the United States.
Why, however, have others gone along with this Made-in-Paris policy? Some Europeans have done so on the grounds that it cannot possibly work. One former Polish diplomat told me candidly that Poland was on board in order to wreck it if it looked like succeeding at the expense of NATO. But this is a dangerous game. If the ESDP looks like succeeding, then it will gather support and become difficult, maybe impossible, to derail.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair became a leading backer of ESDP for short-term tactical reasons. He wanted to demonstrate his “commitment” to European unity at a time when he was unwilling to risk the politically unpopular step of taking Britain into the euro. He justified ESDP as clearly subordinate to NATO. He even persuaded a skeptical George Bush that it was no big deal at their first Camp David meeting in 2001.
That now looks like a colossal misjudgment. Blair has begun rowing back from his earlier enthusiasm. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw this week announced Britain opposes any separate NATO headquarters and believes that only NATO can provide Europe with a “territorial defence.” The ESDP would be confined to roles that NATO had turned down. But how will Blair react the next time he comes under strong pressure from Paris or Berlin to demonstrate his European credentials? He blathers on about not being forced to choose between Europe and America even as he chooses first one and then the other depending on which way the hurricane is blowing.
Not that the United States emerges without blame from this dangerous fiasco. Successive American leaders have accurately diagnosed the problem — i.e., that ESDP would either duplicate or divert NATO resources and was objectionable on both grounds — and then decided to overlook it rather than have a row with the Europeans. At every stage, of course, both the problem and the potential row have got bigger. Hence, Burns today is raising a late objection to an advanced project.
Late or not, however, the United States should mount a strong campaign in defence of the principle that NATO must remain the only European defence organization. Any ESDP must therefore be constructed inside the NATO umbrella subject to NATO spending priorities with no separate headquarters, no separate strategic planning staff and no separate operational capability.
In other words the United States should make clear that ESDP has gone about as far as it can go. Ideally it should be wound up altogether — which is unlikely but conceivable since the former communist satellites entering the EU are anxious to retain the supremacy of NATO.
Failing that, there may be no harm in keeping a battalion or so of chocolate soldiers to serve as honour guards at the Elys
