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1089@SURTITRE = Europe in the Making?
Europe is accustomed to being profoundly shaken by the violent shifts in Western policy, most often wrought by the United States. In the spring of 1999, the attack against Kosovo launched by NATO – primarily under pressure from then US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright – produced strong reactions in Europe. The campaign in Kosovo had revealed the lack of military effectiveness of many European countries, including paradoxically some integrated into NATO. In general, media praise was reserved for the performance of the UK forces, on the flanks of the US forces, whereas true military prowess was demonstrated by France’s particularly impressive autonomous intervention capability.
The conflict in Afghanistan further drove home the lesson of Kosovo. All the European countries integrated in NATO reported on board “ready for action”, when the fact is that they were merely present and did not acquit themselves with particular distinction. The UK was present with ground forces, but revealed shortcomings in its naval air operations, despite the efforts by the media to make the world believe the contrary. Once again, France acquitted itself with distinction and honor, especially through the role played by the aircraft carrier Charles-de-Gaulle, the only unit in the world to rival the US Navy’s CVA attack carriers. The Super Etendard’s carried out 10% of all offensive missions, and the Hawkeye’s embarked on the Charles-de-Gaulle provided 20% of all electronic cover missions for the allied offensive. We have already pointed out the noteworthy article that appeared in the August issue of The Journal of Electronic Defense (JED), the journal of the American Association of Electronic Engineers, the “Old Crows Association”, which reported: “Among the 17 nations that joined the US for Operation Enduring Freedom, France contributed over a third of the coalition troops in what it calls Operation Hèraclés. France also sent one fourth of its total force, according to the US Department of Defense. French aircraft had flown 10% of the flight hours logged with the coalition effort through the end of June. French fighters provided close air support for US Special Forces, the only nation to earn this prestigious assignment.”
Once again, the French demonstrated that they were the only country capable of operating autonomously and, paradoxically, here again, the country most capable of operating interoperably with the US because, quoting a French general officer: “the essential attribute of an autonomous and independent nation is its ability to adapt to all situations and thus an ability to cooperate with anyone.” JED did not fail to note this insight: “Watching the French military go into action must be fascinating and revealing for Americans.” Today, paradoxically, these operational lessons from Afghanistan are beginning to bring all their weight to bear on the ongoing political debate in Europe. The debate is also paradoxical, since it is the consequence of the war against Iraq: Europe is undergoing in advance the repercussions of a war that has been proclaimed but one that no one knows whether or not it will ever be waged, despite the almost weekly leaks by the Pentagon of its battle plans.
The main effect of Afghanistan, which is weighing so heavily in the European reaction to the Iraq crisis, is effectively France’s role as strategic bastion in Europe, obviously strengthened by France’s decision to substantially increase its military budget by nearly 15% and its crucial role in the United Nations Security Council, standing up to the US throughout the discussions on Iraq leading to the formulation and adoption of UN Resolution 1441.
Generally, the strategic reaction in Europe in response to 9/11, was as follows (although politically, specific signs of discord with the US are a matter of record):
• Braking, if not blockage, of the European military process, the so called “European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP).
• An attempt to fall back onto NATO.
In that context, France’s central strategic position, acquired since the Spring of 2002, came to the fore vis-à-vis the other Europeans on the basis of two factors:
• A diplomatic and political position independent of the United States, a position critical of American policy when necessary.
• A military capability totally independent of NATO (and of the US), in both planning as well as operational aspects.
The Iraq crisis has heightened, even before the onset of war, the feeling of crisis in Europe – crisis that could culminate in rupture. This phenomenon has been evidenced by the position taken against US policy by German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in August. The anti-American position in the German case (deep malaise over US policy in the case of other European countries) finds itself in ever more flagrant divergence with the general policy (more accurately, lack of policy) that has prevailed in Europe since 9/11 (blockage of the ESDP, picking up the pace by NATO). The German position is totally in accord with France’s strategic position, however.
We have endeavored to trace here an assessment of the strategic scene in Europe. The picture is incomplete if it fails to take into account the institutional landscape in Brussels, where several challenges of no mean significance have now been laid down. One of the most visible and one of the most significant is that of the “European Convention”. This unofficial structure, placed under the chairmanship of France’s former President Valery Giscard d’Estaing (VGE) (with Belgium’s former Prime Minister Luc Dehaene as vice-chairman) has been given the task of conducting a sort of audit of the current state of Europe; of formulating reforms – especially political reforms – to enable Europe to rise to the challenge of enlargement; and of reporting its proposals to the European summit to be held in the Spring of 2003.
Rumors surrounding the Convention indicate that after having considered various fields and having formulated draft reform proposals, the Convention is now focusing especially on issues of security and defense. It is doing so in the strategic context that we have endeavored to outline. Already, two observations can be made relative to the thinking of those who are engaged in this work:
• The perception that the strategic situation (as we have described it) and the choices which must be made can be articulated by the Convention but that the fundamental decisions remain totally with the EU Member States, however. In private talks, Giscard does not hide the fact that the issues of security remain more than ever “national”, a matter of national sovereignty, nor the fact that a shift in European security policy can take place only through a shift in national policies and through concerted national decisions.
• On the other hand, one area of interest seems much more open than others to Community action as the engine of European change – an area that enjoys the support of certain nations – and that area is armaments, a field that involves European investments in R&D and military programs to be formulated and implemented jointly, as well as the protection and maintenance of the technological and industrial base of the European armaments industry.
On the latter point, over the past few weeks, there have been many discussions held by European circles in Brussels. Rather curiously, in contrast to the apathy which prevailed at the time of the American initiative in the Spring of 2002, the situation created by the JSF program in the European aviation industry has become a prime subject of concern. According to a source close to European Convention circles: “The reality is devastating; the fact that, with rare exception, the European countries are not prepared to part with a single euro for a European military program, while five European countries are prepared to shell out more than $4 billion for the JSF program – this is a situation that can only be characterized as incomprehensible, intolerable and inadmissible.”
We shall be discussing the JSF further on. It is mentioned here to portray the mood that is beginning to form in European circles on military industrial investment issues at a time of strategic uncertainty and at a time when the prevailing climate of crisis is exerting increasing pressures on Europe.
In European affairs, it is difficult to place a timeline on specific events. Aside from the normal procession of official events – from summit to summit – which is more a matter of public relations than a matter of actual policy, the reality is gleaned from general impressions, vague observations and identification of tendencies, which are themselves often dissimulated. Alongside the official European agenda, there is a hidden agenda which is not the result of a conspiracy, but which is rather the result of a “method” which developed over time, since Europe is an entity that embodies extreme diversity and which needs to come together through a lengthy and delicate unofficial process before even considering formalizing whatever progress may be achieved.
Two events, which are contemporaneous and which were instituted on that basis, are already producing and are expected to continue to produce significant effects. We report them here, not in the way they are normally officially reported, but in the way that we feel corresponds to the unofficial reality:
• Enlargement, which is officially applauded, is unofficially viewed with growing apprehension. The countries slated to join the EU are at a very low (often dissimulated) socio-economic level; their societies are still beset with the deceptive accounting practices and the corruption of Communist times; philosophically and, therefore, strategically, the countries are closer to the US than to Europe. As a general matter, the entry of these countries into the EU, far from being a guarantee for strengthening that body, is viewed by many as constituting a serious liability.
• The Convention appears increasingly as the instrument which is being looked to as the best way to counterbalance the uncontrolled flow of destabilizing factors inherent in enlargement, in a Europe already confronted with a myriad of problems. That is why it seems to us that the role of the Convention will gain increasing importance in the coming months, especially in the defense and security field, where the stakes are constantly being raised in relation to the war on terrorism, the Iraq crisis, etc.
This situation leads us to believe that the elements are effectively being put in place for a debate which has often been mentioned here, a debate which was in fact initially launched with the attempts made between 1998 and 2001 to get the ESDP off the ground, but a debate which remains to be fully developed and pursued to fruition. We are talking about the political aspect of the debate on security and defense in Europe. For that, and in order to go beyond the theoretical stage which generally leads to an absence of decision that renders the debate sterile, concrete cases are required against which to test the arguments advanced. That is the process by which we arrive at the issue of armaments, which is clearly such a concrete case. Within the broader armaments issue, we examine the case of the European commitment to the JSF program.
@SURTITRE = Legitimacy in Shreds
We return, as we must, to the JSF. The triumph of this American program, in the Spring of 2002 – with four European countries (in addition to the UK) each announcing in turn that they were participating in the program – had a devastating effect. As a French source observed with more than a trace of bitterness: “They are falling in line”, employing the expression often used to describe the behavior of the European allies who, after showing some hesitation and expressing some criticism of American policy, always end up by “falling in line”, once Washington makes it known that the time for hesitation is past. Accordingly, shortly before the Prague Summit, it was felt that the Europeans would act predictably: it was felt that Schröder would abandon his opposition to the war against Iraq and that Chirac would abandon his campaign begun at the UN to tone down America’s bellicose intentions. The fact is that in Prague, nothing of the sort transpired, and that the climate was exactly the converse. This can fairly be inferred from Canada’s attitude, in a report by Robert Fife of the Ottawa Citizen, describing the position mapped out by the Canadian Delegation in Prague on 21 November: “Defense Minister John McCallum bluntly told George W. Bush yesterday to stop lecturing Canada about increased defense spending after the US president urged the federal government and the NATO allies to boost their military budgets to confront new international threats from terrorism and rogue states. Mr. McCallum said yesterday he is fed up with the Americans hectoring Canada. (…) Earlier in the day, a senior Canadian official, who asked not to be identified, called Mr. Bush ‘a moron’ because of his efforts to push the war against Iraq to the top of NATO’s agenda.”
What, it is fair to ask, is the relationship between the 20-21 November NATO Summit in Prague and the successful JSF offensive of last Spring? More than one might think at first blush. The Prague Summit, as we have seen, was not at all the customary High Mass, with the European Allies chanting Amen to America’s exhortations; similarly, it can be said, in the same psychological vein, that the success of the JSF of last Spring was not followed by approval in European political circles of the choice confirming the customary pro-American commitment. Rather, that success has met with the expression of extremely strong concerns.
The JSF’s European success was commented upon and placed in perspective by Vance Coffman’s 4 October speech to the AECMA, as reported in our Analysis section. The Lockheed Martin CEO made the JSF success the model for trans-Atlantic cooperation, a brand of cooperation which some European circles openly fear is bound to be one-way. According to Coffman: “The JSF industrial model has the potential to change the way we do trans Atlantic defense business and to set the tone for the next 50 years. We intend to make it a shining example of cooperation.” The reaction by a European industrial source to Coffman’s premature optimism was not long in coming: “Perhaps he was too hasty in coming to Europe and declaring that the affair was wrapped up, i.e. that it was a done deal, with Europe integrated into American industry and absorbed by the American giant.” There is this metaphor which helps us understand the juxtaposition with Prague: «Coffman is a little like Bush. He wants to force the Europeans to allow themselves to be absorbed by American industry through the JSF, just as Bush wants to obtain unqualified alignment by the Europeans to his Iraq policy. It is by no means certain that such pressure tactics are the best approach.»
When analyzing the triumph of the JSF and evaluating the outlook, it is necessary to bear in mind the general climate and especially the historic perspective. From that standpoint, the image of triumph needs to be seriously toned down.
The history of the relations between the US and Europe, in the field of military aviation, goes back to 1945 and has been marked throughout that period by absolute American domination – if one disregards the French exception. Powerful and significant (today more important than ever), the French exception ran counter to the European trend. In 1956-57, the French nearly changed the course of history (to whose advantage? The discussion on this point could prove lengthy) – having been on the verge of concluding an agreement with the Germans to equip the Luftwaffe with the Dassault Mirage III fighter (more than 700 units). Under conditions that were never really clarified, the agreement never saw the light of day. The Germans felt that a Mirage purchase could and should take place as part of Franco-German nuclear cooperation, but de Gaulle, on his succession to office in 1958, broke off any possibility of such cooperation going forward. Germany dropped the Mirage in favor of the F-104 Starfighter in a decision that had the unanimous support of the military (all the senior officers of the renascent Luftwaffe had been trained by the USAF in 1955-56). The American F-104 was also selected by Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and Turkey. Among the European NATO countries, only Portugal and Greece (because of lack of funds) – and the United Kingdom – did not select the F-104.
This absolute triumph of the US in Europe gave rise to no special comment, and even less, to any protest. American hegemony in Europe was not really domination: there was a sort of legitimacy that recognized America both as the leader of the Free World, which all the NATO Europeans formed part of, and as “a European power” (to use the term employed by Richard Holbrooke). America could claim to be “a European power”, despite the geographic absurdity of the idea, only because its power and its domination were perceived as legitimate by the Europeans. Buying the F-104 under these conditions was not buying “non-European”, since the F-104 Starfighter was American, and America “a European power”; and since, after all, this weapon system of US origin had been manufactured under the auspices of a European consortium, the NATO Starfighter Production Organization.
The Americans began to lose this precious legitimacy decisively in conjunction with one of their most brilliant marketing victories: the so called “procurement of the century” in which the General Dynamics F 16, which did not exist as such at the end of 1973 and was in no way considered as a feasible development in the Pentagon, nevertheless carried it off with a consolidated order for 348 units by four European countries – Belgium, Holland, Denmark and Norway. This victory could be considered as a marketing version, involving the export of military aviation systems, of the von Schlieffen plan which drove the August-September 1914 German offensive, modernized as depicted by Dr. Werther (see Context No. 55, Analysis), and which we detailed as follows: “As British historian Liddell Hart pointed out, the Schlieffen plan achieved remarkable tactical success but ended in a strategic defeat of historic proportions (the first Battle of the Marne [2-8 September 1914]) inflicted by the French Army (Marshal Joffre and especially Marshal Gallieni) on the German Army.”
What happened? The award was the subject of competitive procurement for over a year; it was down to the American YF-16 and YF-17 (the future F-18) and France’s Dassault Mirage F1-E. The competition was so intense, so violent and so public that it became a subject of national debate in all the countries concerned. Beyond the customary milieu of defense specialists, where allegiance to America was well known, the decision required a different justification. The argument rapidly became: “we have to buy the US aircraft because there is no European alternative”. Dassault was not very happy with the argument used by the partisans of the American aircraft, an argument which in the event was quite unfair and which made it possible to eliminate the F1-E somewhat peremptorily, but which rebounded in a way that had not been foreseen. It was in reaction to the “procurement of the century” that the search for a “European defense” was placed on the European agenda and that the purchase of American equipment began to be considered by a growing portion of the public as a betrayal of the European ideal. America had lost its “European legitimacy”.
This attitude did not exist at the time of the purchase of the F-104. Today, it exists so strongly that the choice of joining the JSF program is often presented as a technical decision, thereby enabling it to avoid getting bogged down in political debate. The attitude exists so strongly today that Belgium, one of the countries that participated in the “procurement of the century”, has refused to join the JSF program and announced, through a 10 February statement by Minister of Defense Flahaut, its preference for “a European solution”.
The CIA uses the term “blowback” to designate the negative – the counterproductive – consequences of certain of America’s actions abroad, and in particular the consequences of certain actions which the CIA itself conducts abroad. It is possible that history may view this extraordinary adventure in Euro American relations in the field of export of military aviation weapon systems, in the light of the “blowback” hypothesis, as the explanation for possible repercussions of the JSF besiegement of Europe; that chapter in Euro-American relations would then become a tale of how the US, thirty years later, was called to account to pay for the power and the muscle that the US deployed in 1975 to impose its will on European industry and on the European body politic – in utter disdain for the European ideal.
As we have reported supra, it is true that, for several weeks, discussions on the commitment of the five countries in the JSF program have been in progress in senior European political circles. For example, a source close to the European Convention reported that “a very high European leader was dumbfounded upon reading a memorandum on this affair, and was taken aback in particular by the report of the $4 billion in R&D invested by the Europeans in the US program, without a single euro being invested in a corresponding European program. His reaction had been that ‘this affair is a ticking time bomb’”. In this rather frigid climate, the news of Vance Coffman’s speech to the AECMA has only thrown oil on the fire.
No one can say what attitude or what proposals or measures such a reaction might evolve toward. But it cannot be separated from the context, which is that of very great tension between Europeans and Americans, as the Prague Summit has just shown. This climate is obviously sufficiently high-pitched to make it likely that the JSF affair will assume polemic proportions and will become a political quarrel between Europe and the US.
But first, is there still time for a reaction to set in that could make a difference? Or is it already too late? The Dutch, or in any event some major players on the Dutch political scene, have already answered the question. In the Netherlands, which is going through an unprecedented political crisis, the fall of the government after three chaotic months in office has led to early elections being scheduled for January 2003. And lo and behold, the JSF affair has emerged as an electoral issue: at least two parties, the Ecologists and Democratie 66 (a Christian-Democrat party of the left) have made the withdrawal by the Netherlands from the JSF program a plank in their party platform. The Socialist Party itself, the major party of the left in the Netherlands, which aspires to avenge its May 2002 defeat, is not far from sharing this view and in no way believes that such a withdrawal would constitute an obstacle to the formation to a government of the left. If that were to come to pass, what would become of the Netherlands commitment to participate in the JSF program? How would the climate evolve if the two possible events – an intervention at the European level and a stand taken by a new Netherlands government – came to pass and put the JSF back on the agenda in Europe, this time raising the issue of its true value, which is the substantial political question which it poses?
Beyond any doubt, all these suppositions are possible and conceivable only because of the general climate prevailing in trans-Atlantic relations. The JSF affair in itself harbors the worst and the best; it can be completely snuffed out, it can continue along its way and pass totally unobserved except in the circles concerned, if the external elements – the political climate – effectively conspire to allow the politicians to adopt such a permissive policy; on the other hand, if the external elements (the political climate) conspire in the other direction, then, it becomes highly likely that the affair will become explosive, vindicating the judgment that it is a “ticking time bomb”.
The political climate in the relations between Europe and the US has never been worse than it is today. For European politicians, the European commitment has never constituted to such an extent the only possible course to follow, to the point of forming the only road to political salvation for a number of those politicians confronted with growing unpopularity. All the elements for a whopper of a European crisis, in conjunction with an existing full blown trans-Atlantic crisis, are now in place; and this European crisis can lead only to one outcome – a reaffirmation of the European identity, the alternative being the descent into an uncontrollable process of disintegration of that identity too appalling to contemplate. Under these circumstances, it is difficult not to anticipate that the sale of the JSF to Europe will evolve into the “JSF Affair”, an “Affair” that is destined to become a battle horse for a European reaffirmation. In such a confrontational climate, scenarios that would have been considered unthinkable suddenly become possible, if not probable.
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