GMF - The German Marshall Fund of the United States - Strengthening Transatlantic Cooperation

---

Hello? Hello?? Europe calling! We know you’re very busy inside the Beltway these days, what with the need for purging re-locating all the Euro-huggers at the State Department and the CIA. But you’re going to have to focus on this issue sooner rather than later, so you might as well pay attention now: Just what kind of relationship does the U.S. wish to have with the EU?

Not that that’s a new or original question. As a matter of fact, it’s been around for a while, and the U.S. foreign policy establishment was always of two minds (or more) on this one. But it does seem more urgent now than it did for a while. Iraq on the brink of civil war, Arafat gone, the latest accusations of Iranian mullahs working on nuclear missiles – surely here are challenges, opportunities and dangers even a lone superpower would not want to tackle on its own unless it had to.

Why would we be wondering, you ask? Well, take an article in a special section headed "Reconstituting Europe" of the November edition of Foreign Affairs, a publication held in deepest respect by the foreign policy community Over Here. The article is titled "Saving NATO from Europe" and written by one Jeffrey L. Cimbalo. The author suggests nothing less than that Washington should ditch its traditional attitude of encouraging or at least not obstructing European integration; should see a stronger EU as a threat to NATO and to U.S. interests; and should work to undermine ratification of the new European Constitution in as many as possible of the 25 Member States. Just which Europe is this "reconstituting" – the Westphalian Alliance?

The concern this harsh message is bound to to produce in even the most hardnosed Euro-Gaullists will be somewhat mitigated by the absurd misunderstandings, old stories taken out of context and just plain factual errors contained in the piece. Frankly, it reads like somebody throwing a hissy fit over a stack of yellowed newspaper clippings from 2002 and 2003. For instance: "Austria, Finland, Ireland and Sweden, all EU members that were neutral during the Cold War, do not belong to NATO, and France is not a member of NATO’s military organization. None of these countries has a history of cooperation, let alone of coordination, with Washington on pressing security matters such as counterterrorism, Afghanistan, and Iraq."

Interesting. Last time I was in Afghanistan (in August), the French had just taken over the command of Isaf, NATO’s stabilization force based in Kabul, at the head of – yes – the Eurocorps, the Franco-German nucleus of European defence. The Germans have around 2000 soldiers in Afghanistan, and are about to undertake a NATO training mission for Iraqi police.There were Finns and Austrians at Isaf headquarters; and two dozen tree-sized and scarily taciturn Swedish rangers were assigned to the British-run NATO unit in the northern Afghan town of Mazar-i-Sharif.

Transatlantic counterterrorism cooperation? Working nicely, thank you: German Interior Minister Otto Schily got on better with John Ashcroft than with some of his cabinet colleagues in Berlin. The Franco-German-Belgian-Luxemburg "mini-alliance"? It lasted for a a month or two in 2003, went out in a wet fizzle, and hasn’t been heard of since. And so on. Even the Germans have been at pains recently to emphasize that they don’t clear all their policy decisions in Paris.

But maybe we over here are the ones who are getting it wrong: maybe this isn’t so much an academic exercise than an extended application letter, written in light of the above-mentioned relocation efforts and the new job openings arising out of them. One could see how this kind of stuff might appeal to those members of the Neocon camp who have reportedly been telling Washington journalists that they are in the business of making reality rather than managing or interpreting it. That said, the suspicion that a magazine published by as august an organization as the Council on Foreign Relations might not be employing fact-checkers cannot but be distressing for its loyal European readers.

Cimbalo does get one thing right, though: He recognizes the new and increased momentum behind European integration. Not because of the Constitution, whose chances of success he wildly overestimates; ratification referenda might be called in close to a dozen member states. In fact, the least likely outcome of all is that Über-Bogey of the Europhobes, the "United States of Europe." Yet the aggregation of European policies, processes and institutions in the last 18 months is far more rapid than many would have dared predict – and it’s happening without a Constitution.

Why? One, because the division of Europe (between New and Old, elites and publics, Atlanticists and Gaullists) during the Iraq war and the diplomatic conflict that preceded it sent shockwaves through the continent; there is by now a sober realization that Europe’s much vaunted "soft power" – its credibility – was diminished by it. Two, because our much-derided institution-building and rulemaking processes do shape the attitudes of new members; why else would so many have resisted U.S. pressure to stay out of the International Criminal Court and other arrangements the Bush Administration intensely dislikes? Three, because NATO membership has been rather less of a safe haven for the New Europeans than they had hoped; rather than saving them from the Russians, it has been the means of roping them in and gearing them up for post-war war in Iraq.

Finally and most importantly, European leaders have come to a threat assessment that is remarkably similar to America’s. Almost all of the threats we must fend off are transnational, from terrorism to catastrophic diseases or organized crime. As Europeans, we can only be weak if divided, and strong only if united.

Which is also why the recommendation made by John Hulsman, an otherwise thoughtful and knowledgeable analyst of European affairs, in a recent Heritage Foundation policy backgrounder is so off-target. Hulsman advocates that the U.S. "strenuously oppose efforts to increase the level of EU foreign policy integration" and deal with Europe’s "sovereign states" in bilateral channels whenever possible.

But where has that tactic got the U.S. in Iraq? According to Hulsman, 12 EU countries have sent troops alongside the U.S to stabilize the country. Valorous as their soldiers may be, their absolute numbers are tiny compared to the numbers America has deployed – and to those it desperately needs but isn’t getting. Some of these allies are even drawing down their troops. Which leaves Washington with very little of practical use besides the political symbolism provided by a coalition that on closer examination consists of one increasingly exhausted giant and a throng of dwarves.

This is the new European reality U.S. foreign policy must come to grips with now: Disaggregate us, and you weaken not only us, but yourselves. The unique spectrum of capabilities and powers which Europe can bring to the table, it brings only when it is united. A strong (not necessarily federal) European Union (not a counterweight!) is therefore in America’s best interests.

That will have consequences for the institutional arrangements through which we are accustomed to dealing with one another, such as NATO – but of that, another time.