Analysis, Context n°43 (Jan.-Feb. 2001) - Is NATO a ''Relic of History''?

On 5 December 2000, at the meeting of NATO Defense Ministers, US Secretary of Defense William Cohen voiced strong concerns over the direction which the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) was taking, concerns which did not go unnoticed. Two weeks earlier, EU Ministers had finalized the principal instrument of that policy, the European Rapid Reaction Force (ERRF) composed of 60,000 deployable troops, entailing a general pool (including reservists) subject to mobilization of over 100,000 men. Three days after the NATO meeting, on 8 December, at the EU Summit in Nice, the EU by treaty endorsed the ESDP and the ERRF. Cohen’s fear is that too independent a development of the ESDP may transform NATO into a “relic of history”. Are such fears, which reflect those of the new Bush administration, groundless?

The ESDP constitutes one of the most unexpected developments in post-Cold War history. In the beginning of 1998, when the British assumed the presidency of the EU, any hope of developing a European defense was nigh inexistent. Launched in 1995, an effort to establish a European Security and Defence Identity (ESDI) calling for a certain regrouping of the Europeans within NATO ended in failure in the spring of 1997, with the American refusal to turn over command of AFSOUTH to a European general officer. The Americans have completely dominated the European security scene since their engagement in Bosnia in the summer of 1995.

The British EU presidency of January-July 1998 was a catastrophe. The majority of the European countries considered and treated the British as incorrigibly “anti?European”, and the rest of Europe boycotted the British presidency. The situation upset Prime Minister Tony Blair, who considered changing things. Only one field lent itself to doing so: defense, an area in which participation by the UK -- in addition to that of France -- was essential to providing for Europe’s defense. European defense cannot be achieved without the defense capabilities of both France and the UK, and in the past, the UK had steadfastly refused to join in the effort. It was Britain’s isolation stemming from that refusal which provided the impetus for Britain to launch its European defense initiative in the summer of 1998. To the British factor must be added a structural motive for building a European defense capability, a motive which is much more controversial and which is potentially much more significant. This commentary by Ivo H. Daalder of the Brookings Institution provides an insight into what we are referring to: “There is an increasing weariness in some European circles -- notably in London ?- about the direction of US policy, a sense that the US political climate (as in the debate over burden-sharing) is making Washington a less reliable partner, especially when US interests are only marginally involved.” (The Brookings Review, Fall 2000, Vol. 18, No. 14)

The predominant role of London in the process reached its culmination at the December 1998 Franco?British Summit in St. Malo. The French approached the new British policy position, which claimed to break with half a century of opposition to any European machinery in the defense field, with an attitude that can only be characterized as suspicious. French mistrust of the Atlanticist and putative pro?American propensities of the British is just about as strong as the Atlanticist mistrust of the Eurocentrist and putative anti-American propensities of the French. The St. Malo meeting did not entirely dissipate that mistrust, but it did bring the French to understand that, for the first time, there was a new attitude that had taken root in British thinking. An intergovernmental process was launched within the EU, with as its first objective putting in place the structures and the forces necessary for a major European force projection unit for 2003. The EU Summit of June 1998 in Cologne and that of December 1998 in Helsinki contributed to giving these proposals formal trappings.

Kosovo, a Dramatic Turning Point for the ESDP

According to a European official: “It is a strange coincidence that the Kosovo crisis arose at a time when the ESDP was beginning to gather speed and had not yet encountered its first political difficulties, as an irrefutable demonstration of the concrete necessity for the ESDP.” The official version of the Kosovo crisis is that the European allies were totally dominated in the operational sphere by the Americans (a version of the facts that is contested by some: It was the type of planning imposed by the Americans which took the Europeans out of the front line operationally.) The effect might have been to divide the Europeans still further and to drive them, individually, to move even closer to Washington. That eventuality would probably have come to fruition had the ESDP not been in the process of getting underway. On the contrary, the developing ESDP process supplies the converse argument: Kosovo demonstrated the need to support and to strengthen the process. That became increasingly clear as a significant psychological element came into its own with Kosovo. Many Europeans felt humiliated by America’s behavior vis-à-vis them during the operations against Serbia, thereby reinforcing still further their support of the ESDP.

The Kosovo effect on the ESDP process was such that it even obscured the background of the process. There are, in fact, those who date the real start-up of the process to the Kosovo crisis. As we have seen, that is not the case, even if the explanation may remain a tempting one for a more media-appealing, a more spectacular view of the initiative. The ESDP actually got off the ground with the historic British decision of the summer of 1998. But Kosovo added a dramatic dimension whose effect is indisputable. The memory of operations in Kosovo and of the role which was assigned to the Europeans has, since June 1999, served as a powerful inducement for the pursuit of the ESDP. “The Kosovo Effect” has unquestionably prevented certain European countries from slowing down the process or even from opposing it, as they would probably have done were it not for Kosovo. The Kosovo Effect came into play at exactly the point in time when it constituted the most potent of factors: the moment when the ESDP was entering into a more political terrain where political problems were beginning to come into view, the moment when the Kosovo Effect was to serve as a powerful argument for going forward despite such political problems.

Kosovo had another effect, also important for the ESDP. It blinded the Americans to the attitude of the Europeans. The Americans were undoubtedly guilty of yielding to overweening pride in this affair. Forgetting that it had been their planning which had relegated the Europeans to performing the secondary role which was theirs in Kosovo, the Americans saw only the demonstration of their own superiority. They persuaded themselves that the Europeans would come to the conclusion that they would have to align themselves more closely than ever with the United States, whatever the price. The Americans were thus blind to the progress the ESDP had made in the course of 1999 and even up to the start of 2000, and they failed therefore to intervene to halt the process in those areas where the process could run counter to their interests. The Americans thus have borne, paradoxically, no small share of the responsibility for the evolution of the ESDP.

The Danger of a Serious Crisis in Trans-Atlantic Relations

Today, it is fair to say that the Americans have come to realize what ESDP means. The proof of just how well they realize it is to be found in NATO’s lukewarm reaction to the ESDP. The Europeans proposed that NATO establish links with the ESDP, links which de facto would constitute (depending upon the use made of those links) a means of control -- albeit a dissimulated one -- by NATO of the European process. NATO dragged its feet, out of pique and out of a certain contempt for European capabilities, as well as because of its sluggish bureaucratic planning. The result is that NATO, today, is no longer in a position to find a way to dissimulate the exercise of a degree of control in ESDP matters. This in turn has led the US to demand that NATO exercise undisguised control of the ESDP. And that development could well lead to a very serious crisis in trans-Atlantic relations.

Of course, NATO’s position and that of the Americans are cut from the same bolt of cloth. Having started out too late and too slowly in trying to come to grips with ESDP developments and having failed to grasp significance of ESDP from the outset, the Americans have since found themselves consistently behind the curve. They have failed to realize the importance which the ESDP represents for Europe. Confronted with a Europe which is traversing a series of crises in certain fundamental areas (EU institutions, enlargement, etc.), the ESDP has become, alongside the Euro and much more than the Euro, a focus of stability for European integration. This has led to certain European countries, very Atlanticist and very pro-NATO ones, not taking the hostile stance against the ESDP, which they might have been expected to, when the discussion turns to the confrontation between NATO and the ESDP. Those countries realize that the ESDP has over time become a safeguard of European integration. Whence the awesome question: Must European integration be put in jeopardy to avoid some troublesome times in NATO, even if that means seeing a significant reduction in NATO’s presence in Europe?

The fact is that the ESDP could, if the analysis is pushed to its logical conclusion, constitute a much greater danger for NATO. In this respect, Secretary of Defense Cohen is not wrong. The main measure taken by the Americans (with the help of certain hyper-Atlanticist Europeans, like the Thatcher faction in London) was the classic maneuver of demonizing the French, accused of having a hidden agenda (nothing less than the end of NATO). Aside from the fact that the history of the ESDP demonstrates the falsity of that proposition (after all, it is the British who really started the ESDP ball rolling), it is equally false that the French harbor such aims. Here too, over-dramatization can produce results contrary to those anticipated, since the EU nations know full well that the ESDP is no longer (if it ever was) a French scheme, but rather that it could become a lifesaver for an EU besieged by institutional problems.

The Americans would be wrong to play their customary game, by dramatizing the discussion with their Hobson’s choice: France or NATO (understood, France or us). For that could lead to a real choice: the EU or NATO. And the response, in that case, is by no means a foregone conclusion. The French, perhaps not unhappy with these unhoped-for developments, are against too great control by NATO over the ESDP and have a simple argument that is difficult to counter: if the purpose is to place the ESDP under NATO control, why waste time and money establishing the ESDP? Let’s stay in NATO and do nothing. The French thus turn to their advantage the new concern felt by many European countries: let’s keep the ESDP to strengthen the EU; and let’s build a more European, a more EU ESDP -- and incidentally, more in conformity with the wishes of the French. Cohen is right: with the ESDP, the stakes are nothing more nor less than the fate of NATO.