"The Europeans have been talking about coordinating a defense structure that's not dependent on NATO since the early '90s, as they moved to strengthen the European Union and give it more of the characteristics of a state. And when Bosnia blew up, and then Kosovo last year, the Europeans were faced with the undeniable fact that they didn't have the muscle to intervene, and had to turn to the U.S. on a purely European matter. It was at a summit held last summer, in the immediate wake of Kosovo, that they set their requirements as a force of 60,000 that can be sustained for a year in the field. And this week they announced that the different European countries had committed some 100,000 troops, from which that 60,000 could be selected."
The Europeans have been notoriously divided on matters of military intervention. Are there political differences over the principle of establishing this force?
"It was originally viewed with suspicion in some quarters as a French project to oppose the hegemony of the U.S. in NATO. But since then it got the British on board. Tony Blair is a big advocate of this force, and the British are obviously very close to the U.S. Germany is the biggest force provider, followed by France and Britain. There's some opposition in Britain from Conservative party 'Euroskeptics' who see this as another erosion of British sovereignty, but there are very few grounds for this argument since the force is, like NATO, comprised of entirely separate national contingents which retain their own command structures.
"It's generally accepted in Europe that if the E.U. is to be an actor on the global political stage, it has to have some military might to back its positions with forces on the ground. Everybody thinks it's a great idea, but the proof will lie in the implementation. Still, what we've seen this week is a lot more meat than many people expected."
What about its relationship with NATO — how will the U.S. respond to a new European military structure in which it has no formal role?
"The Americans have blessed this idea because they see it as a means of addressing the issue of burden-sharing. Washington has long complained about Europe's limited defense spending and the state of its military preparedness, and they see this as a separate force, but under the aegis of NATO, that will spur Europeans to raise their spending and increase their capability in areas like transport and intelligence. Not just fighting ability, but also peacekeeping. European defense ministers have to fight battles in their own cabinets for greater defense spending, and the fact that they've signed up for concrete commitments makes it more difficult for European governments to short-shrift defense, which they've done in the past in the knowledge that the Americans would step in in a crisis situation.
"Of course, not all E.U. members are in NATO, and not all NATO members are in the E.U. Denmark and Austria have opted out of the new defense initiative. But even the French, who are outside of the NATO command structure, have emphasized that this force would not take any action opposed by NATO. Does NATO have right of first refusal to get involved in specific crises? That's the way it seemed to come out when the new initiative was presented this week. The participating countries are committed to NATO, and are going to use NATO planners to do their logistical planning. A lot of their capability right now is NATO capability. They're unlikely to do anything NATO wouldn't like. It's being presented as a means of addressing military crises that fail to meet the test of U.S. national interests. One example is the anarchy in Albania that followed the collapse of a pyramid scheme in 1997. The Italian army eventually moved in to stabilize the situation. That was an example E.U. members used to illustrate the function of a European military force. Also, once it is in place by 2003, it would be an efficient way to channel European forces into any peacekeeping missions ordered by the United Nations. So if it works as planned, both the Europeans and Washington are seeing it as a win-win proposition."