The transatlantic relationship
will never again be what it was during the Cold War and indeed it would
be pointless to try and recreate the closeness of the transatlantic
relationship as it was at the time. This is the most striking finding to
emerge from the commission’s work.
Despite this, the necessity for
a strong link between Europe and the United States is no less pressing,
against a background of ever-increasing and unpredictable threats. This
is the second main finding emerging from the analysis of the
relationship between Europe and the United States: it is in the
interests of both partners to preserve a strong transatlantic link, or
risk becoming ineffectual, or even impotent, when solutions to major
international problems are being sought.
I – THE
TRANSATLANTIC RELATIONSHIP is
AT A TURNING POINT IN ITS HISTORY
If Franco-American relations
have always been chiefly characterised by a long history of friendship,
they have also been marked by frequent tensions of varying severity. The
same holds true for the majority of our European neighbours, to such an
extent that one might say that transatlantic tensions are an integral
part of relations between the majority of European countries and the
United States. We should not need to be reminded that from the very
dawn of its history, the United States has consistently seen itself, and
sought to construct itself, as an alternative to Europe and not as an
extension of that continent. Until their involvement in World War II in
1941, the United States lived as if it were a non-European nation, which
was not inappropriate considering how its original population consisted
of people who no longer wished to live in Europe, or had had to leave
it.
The Soviet threat did not put an
end to the tensions, but it did succeed in forging unprecedented levels
of unity and solidarity between Western Europe and the United States.
The countries of Western Europe needed the US to protect them, while
America needed Europe as a buffer against communism.
The fall of the Berlin Wall
marked the end of this unique period in the history of the relationship
between Europe and the United States. Today we ask: what is the new
definition of the transatlantic relationship in the absence of the
Soviet threat, given that international terrorism does not have the same
power to unify as the USSR nuclear arsenal? Are we to return to the
pre-1941 pattern of an America which held itself aloof from foreign
affairs unless they directly impinged on its national interests?
a. – how
europe lost its strategic importance for the united states : a unanimous
finding
In 2003 the Franco-American
relationship experienced one of the most acute crises of its history.
Even if the exchanges were more muted, Germany and the United States
also went through a period of tension, while, in the great majority of
other European countries, it was only within one section of public
opinion that voices were raised against the transatlantic relationship.
Thrown into sharp relief by America’s military intervention in Iraq,
this crisis, which manifested itself in different ways depending on the
country concerned, was in reality inevitable once the soviet threat no
longer existed, for this threat shaped and defined the form and content
of relations between Europe and the United States during the Cold War.
The Balkan wars of the 1990’s
may have given the false impression that American security interests
were still first and foremost anchored in Europe, that Europe still held
the front line in the question of security and international stability.
The September 11, 2001 attacks had killed off the illusion of a
transatlantic relationship surviving unchanged since the Cold War. The
status quo, which had endured in transatlantic relations since the fall
of the Berlin Wall, was shattered; the existence of a direct threat to
the United States reawakened unilateralist tendencies already at work
there and which had in fact dominated American foreign policy before
1941. The September 11, 2001 attacks also buried the concept of the
strategic primacy of the continent of Europe – in the new America that
has declared war on international terrorism in central Asia and in the
Middle East today, and may do the same somewhere else tomorrow, Europe
is now just another front line.
The Iraq crisis provides the
most convincing illustration of this finding. It has in fact shown that
some of the staunchest Cold War allies could hold radically different
views on ways of solving contemporary international problems, and not be
afraid to show them. The Iraq crisis thus exposed the rupture of the
close connection between American national interests and those of some
Europeans, the first group considering that the Iraq intervention fell
within the scope of legitimate defence and the protection of their vital
interests, the second having for the most part reasoned that their
interests were best served by seeking a diplomatic solution to the
crisis and that in any case, they had no obligation to fall into line
with the American position.
All in all, we are witnessing a
double “disconnection” since the end of the Cold War:
– In
the first place, there is no longer an automatic connection between
European security and US intervention: during the Cold War, a crisis
within Europe had consequences internationally and directly affected
American interests. These days however, crises within Europe, such as
the conflicts which shook the Balkans during the last decade, are part
of a regional problem, and do not automatically affect the United
States. Certainly the US did intervene, somewhat late in the day, in
Bosnia, and at the beginning of the Kosovo crisis : realistically
however, it has to be said that it is more a question of the inability
of Europeans to deal with these situations on their own, rather than the
interests of the United States, that prompts US intervention.
– In
the second place, crises affecting American national interests no longer
automatically entail the support and participation of the European
states through NATO. When on September 11, 2001 the NATO European
states unanimously proposed activating the mutual assistance clause in
the Foundation Treaty of the Atlantic Alliance, the United States
refused this offer. That the United States, although cut to the heart,
and considering itself moreover to be on a war footing, should refuse
the activation of article V of the Foundation Treaty of the Atlantic
Alliance
the principle of collective defence which is the historic raison
d’être of the creation of the Alliance, and which had not yet been
invoked, is deeply symbolic of how transatlantic relations have changed
since the end of the Cold War.
The truth is that NATO no longer
occupies a central place in the organisation of American forces: now it
is a case of: “the mission makes the coalition”, to borrow
Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld’s elegant phrase, neatly indicating
to the European allies that calling on NATO, a key element of the
European security apparatus, is now just one option among many for the
Americans. Through this redefinition of the role of the Atlantic
Alliance on the American strategic scene, the entire transatlantic
contract is called into question.
During the Cold War, the
contract at the heart of the transatlantic relationship was clear: faced
with the Soviet menace, the states of Europe united to place themselves
under the protection of America. Hence the dual process of establishing
a military alliance, intended to guarantee the collective security of
what was then the “free world”, and an economic and commercial union of
Europe, with the military dimension stemming exclusively from the
transatlantic connection. In brief, to combat the Soviet menace, an
alliance of survival was established, founded on the principle of
solidarity at any price. This is not to say that there were no
transatlantic crises – who can forget the tension between France and the
US after General de Gaulle’s decision to take France out of the
integrated military structure? – but they never went so far as to
question the necessity for the closest possible alliance. What is more,
NATO remained, for the US as for the majority of our European partners,
the central point of reference on security matters, as well as the only
significant cultural and operational template in the military field.
Now the alliance between Europe,
the United States and Canada is one of choice – a change symbolised by
America’s “à la carte” use of NATO. They see this approach as justified
by the new threats facing them: instead of the single threat presented
by the former Soviet Union – which concentrated the mind - they are now
facing multiple threats, not all of them emanating from states, which do
not lend themselves to the classic approach of geographically limited
permanent alliances. Thus, just as there is no longer one particular
threat, nor one strategic issue endangering American dominance and
security, so there is no longer a single framework for action. To put it
another way, faced by security challenges which are mainly outside
Europe – international terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction, conflict in the Middle East, energy security, the emergence
of China –, the unity of the Atlantic Alliance and of Europe no longer
holds a permanent strategic interest for the United States. On the
contrary, the nature and content of transatlantic relationships will be
increasingly determined by these largely extra-European problems.
The two major strategic events
of the post-Cold War period, the Gulf Wars and the September 11, 2001
attacks, were instrumental in bringing about a change of direction in
American strategy. Today, America’s organisational and strategic choices
are determined on the one hand by the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction and their delivery systems, and on the other by
international Islamic terrorism. In this new perspective, Europe is no
longer a priority – the Middle East and Central and Southern Asia are
now much more strategically significant.
As pointed out by Mr. Bruno
Tertrais, senior fellow at the Foundation for Strategic Research, the
Middle East contains the vast majority of strategic problems considered
pre-eminent in terms of American security interests. In addition, it is
the home of three of the four states identified as unstable by the US:
Iraq, Iran, and Syria. The fourth is North Korea.
In a wider context, from an
American perspective, international stability now hinges on Asia. The
Asian continent brings together a number of US security priorities:
– First, the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction.
Indeed, the Asian continent
offers an unprecedented scenario with the co-existence of China, an
official nuclear state, recognised by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT), currently engaged in upgrading its arsenal, two
de facto nuclear States, India and Pakistan, who have not signed the
NPT, North Korea, an openly nuclear State which claims to have withdrawn
from the NPT, and Iran, where there are a number of indications that
they are seeking to obtain atomic weapons. A real nuclear arc is taking
shape in the region, complicated by the fact that India and Pakistan and
India and China are involved in border conflicts.
– Next, international terrorism
Let us not forget that the Al
Qaida network originated in Asia. If the Afghanistan operations of
October 2001 ended the protection afforded to this terrorist network by
the Taliban regime, the Asian continent still gives shelter to many
terrorist groups linked to Al Qaida, including its founder. The
Philippines, Indonesia and Pakistan are particularly implicated.
– The Taiwan question.
Taiwan remains a crucial issue
for the United States, especially in the American Congress where
Taiwanese interests are very well represented. The recent transatlantic
debate on the plan to lift the European Union embargo on arms sales to
China was a reminder, if one were necessary, of the importance of the
Taiwanese question in the United States.
Crucially, US interest in Asia
hinges on the presence there of the one country capable of setting
itself up as a rival to the United States in the long term – will it
become a strategic rival, possibly even anti-American, or an economic
power transformed into a giant version of Hong Kong by international
investment? – this is a compelling question.
The China threat, which faded
away at the end of the 1950’s, re-emerged in the mid-1990’s and was then
relegated to the background following the events of September 11, 2001.
We are currently witnessing a diversification of the links between the
United States and China:
– strategically, China stands
out as the key Asian partner in issues that the United States considers
urgent, particularly in the negotiations on ending North Korea’s nuclear
programme. Moreover, the September 11, 2001 attacks have brought about a
rapprochement in Sino-American relations as the two seek ways to combat
terrorism: a dialogue on counter-terrorism has been entered into, and
China has spared no efforts to help with the reconstruction of
Afghanistan;
– in the field of economics, if
Sino-American trade is still well below transatlantic levels,
it is nevertheless increasing and becoming more complex, particularly
since China joined the World Trade Organisation in 2001. China is today
the United States’ main partner for trading in manufactured goods and is
responsible for 25% of the US commercial deficit (2003 figures). It was
this finding that triggered American requests to revalue the yen,
leading, in July 2005, to a modest rise of 2% in the Chinese currency.
During the Cold War, the United
States, acting within the framework of the Atlantic Pact, actively
supported the construction of Europe. To an extent it could even be said
that the establishment of the European Economic Community was born of
the Atlantic Alliance; in the fields of commerce and finance, American
support was linked to the emergence of a strong and united Europe to
help fend off the Soviet menace. Thus economic and strategic
considerations worked together to forge a benevolent attitude in the
United States towards the construction of Europe, especially as the
Europeans, by handing over responsibility for their defence to NATO,
accepted this unbalanced relationship.
The 1990’s marked a turning
point in the American stance – with the disappearance of their common
enemy, America became more ambivalent in its attitude to the process of
European unification. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification
of Germany gave renewed momentum to the construction of Europe,
investing it with a deeper meaning as well as extending it. Chancellor
Kohl lent his support to France’s proposal for an Intergovernmental
Conference (IGC) on the Economic and Monetary Union, which led in time
to the creation of a single currency, to which he succeeded in adding a
political union to create a true European Union. This opened the way to
extending European construction to areas that had long been off limits:
foreign policy and defence, areas tainted by the failure of the European
Defence Community in 1954 and then of the Fouchet plan in 1963.
It was against this background
that the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) was born in 1992,
under the terms of the Maastricht treaty. It was severely tested by the
Balkan crisis in the 1990’s and was instrumental in alerting Europeans
to the futility of having a common foreign policy in the absence of any
common defence initiative. This realisation led to the Franco-British
summit in Saint-Malo in 1998, which saw the launch of a European
security and defence policy backed by proper operational resources.
The planned European
Constitutional Treaty was the most recent stage in the increasing power
of a politically united Europe; the refusal of France and of the
Netherlands will certainly hold back European construction for a time.
Moreover, the speed of the enlargement process throws into doubt the
prospect of the emergence of a political Europe. Be that as it may, this
remains the objective of a number of European countries, including
France.
While it is undeniable that the
United States never deliberately set out to divide Europe, it is equally
true that the American position on European construction has changed due
to the developments that have just been described. Just as, during the
Cold War, it was in America’s interests to encourage European
integration, today those interests seem less clear. The truth is that
the United States cannot decide on its position on Europe : should it
foster European disunity and disagreements (1) or lend its support to a
stronger, and therefore more structured Europe? (2)
(1) America needs a united
Europe to act as a stabilising influence, but will not accept a Europe
that presents a realistic challenge to its power. This is the
traditional view of transatlantic relations, a view currently held by
most of the American political establishment. There is here a surprising
paradox: the same people who are currently urging that traditional Cold
War structures be replaced by new ideas – preventive war, ad hoc
coalitions -, are those who, today in Washington, cling to a pattern of
transatlantic relations directly derived from the era of East-West
confrontation, that is, an alliance with a Europe that is economically
strong but politically weak and divided, dependent in military terms.
Within this perspective, European economic power could never lead to the
emergence of a political entity which might realistically compete with
the United States, while the acquisition of autonomous military capacity
would allow it to become strategically independent.
In this mindset the idea of a
European focus is unacceptable, as it is essentially incompatible with
the American quest for leadership – an aim not to be confused with
empire-building or domination.
There is implacable opposition
to the concept of a European focus, for the idea of a partner who would
decide its own strategic priorities and act accordingly is not
acceptable in this traditional perspective.
Consequently, any European
defence developments are regarded, if not with outright hostility, at
least with suspicion: the only acceptable advances are those which take
place in the context of strengthening the Atlantic Alliance, with
anything that exclusively serves the interests of European security and
defence policies being considered as tainted with ingratitude or
futility. The Atlantic Alliance is in fact considered to be the
“natural” forum for transatlantic political dialogue. It follows from
this that the United States are much more inclined to bring up
international security issues within the context of NATO than within
European institutions. The American attitude to the Atlantic Alliance is
indeed pervaded by this notion of leadership: if the United States feels
so much at home within this context, it is because NATO is the very
embodiment of this idea. Within a perspective of preserving American
superiority and prioritising American interests, NATO functions as a
centre in which American policy can be legitimised and its influence
increased: America the all-powerful carries out its NATO negotiations
from a position of strength, dealing with each European country on a
one-to-one, therefore unbalanced, basis.
(2) There is in the United
States another view of transatlantic relations apart from this
traditional one – a more pragmatic approach to relations between Europe
and the United States, which takes the view that within the strategic
context of the 21st century, if the US genuinely wants Europe
to be a strong ally, then Europe should be more than an economic giant,
but also a structured political entity. The supporters of this argument
– who are, it must be confessed, in the minority, understand that, given
the level of economic integration achieved by the countries of Europe,
any future progress in European construction will be of a political
nature. They are realistic enough to reflect that it is somewhat
outmoded for 298 million Americans to guarantee the security of 483
million Europeans
. They know that, within the logic of
increased European integration, the European Union will become the
preferred centre for transatlantic dialogue, to the detriment of NATO:
this means a new dialogue between two equally large and powerful
entities – at least in terms of population and the economy. This is a
far cry from the unbalanced exchanges within NATO, where the United
States is the de facto first among equals.
In a way, the neo-conservatives,
so roundly denounced in Europe, come into this category: what criticisms
can they level at Venus-like Europe, if not to say that it is
insufficiently powerful to help the United States fulfil their foreign
policy objectives? They maintain that it was American protection of
Europe during the Cold War that allowed European construction to
progress, by prioritising economic development and the establishment of
a highly protective social model; today they accuse Europe of clinging
to this blueprint, of prioritising the social model but neglecting to
take over where the US left off in terms of their own security, and of
failing to support the United States in its efforts to confront unrest
throughout the world.
The US administration is today
marked by these two approaches, as shown by each visit of the American
President to Europe. He automatically visits both NATO and the
institutions of the European Union. Against this background however,
NATO will probably remain the focus of transatlantic debate. This
reluctance on the part of the United States to engage with the European
Union can doubtless be explained by the complex structures of dialogue
between the two parties. There are in fact three levels of dialogue :
– an annual summit bringing
together the President of the United States, the President of the
European Union and the President of the Commission (joined by leading
figures from US trade, the Presidential office and the Commission);
– biannual consultations between
the Commission and the American administration, backed up by numerous
informal contacts, particularly on the periphery of major international
meetings (G7, WTO, IMF, World Bank);
– various working groups which
have evolved within the context of the new transatlantic agenda
established in 1995.
The deliberate choice, on the
part of the United States, to favour bilateral relations with member
States of the European Union is not consistent with the objectives of
American foreign policy. The United States cannot demand a coordinated
response to the challenges of our time while simultaneously favouring a
blueprint for a relationship with Europe as outmoded as it is unwieldy,
and moreover potentially ineffective. If the United States still seeks
co-ordination with its allies, rather than European fragmentation in the
name of a philosophy of an “à la carte” coalition, one strong Europe is
worth more than 25 separate States. Obviously the question of building
a political dialogue between the European Union and the United States is
a crucial one today.
Should Europe be an effective
ally, that is to say, better organised but conceivably in disagreement
with the United States, or an unconditional ally, automatically putting
support of the US above all other considerations, including its own
interests? We have already seen that the United States is not quite
ready to answer that question. The same goes for the Europeans, which
explains in part the current crisis within Europe: the European debate
on transatlantic relations is closely linked to the debate on the
identity of the Europe we are in the process of building. Indeed the
transatlantic partnership was the glue that held together the
construction of Europe during the Cold War. Now that we have an alliance
of choice rather than of necessity, what is the link between European
construction and the transatlantic bond? Should this bond remain one of
the pillars of the construction of Europe, which would imply a
particular European structure, with a pre-eminent role for NATO and
therefore a limited autonomy in political decision-making for Europe ?
Is it already a divisive force, as we have seen in Iraq, where certain
members of the Union put the transatlantic partnership above European
solidarity? Is it possible to build an effective Union that lacks
political or strategic autonomy? Asking this question leads us to
speculate about the relationship we wish to establish with this ally
who, during the Cold War, had replied in the affirmative to this
question, in full agreement with the Europeans.
The Iraq crisis has effectively
illuminated this question of identity: should we give primacy to
solidarity between European states or to the bilateral relationship each
one of them has with the United States? It exposed the fragilities that
certain people have not hesitated to over-simplify – consider, for
example, Mr Rumsfeld’s momentous slogan on “old Europe” and “new
Europe”. When one analyses these fragilities, however, they are more
complex than they appear.
Commentators in France routinely
denounce, openly or in veiled terms, the pro-Alliance stance of new
member States from the former Soviet bloc. It is undeniable that these
states have prioritised their relationship with the United States,
whether in speeches, through diplomatic channels, or in their choice of
military equipment. It would nevertheless be both inaccurate and
unhelpful to explain their preference for the Alliance as the result of
a partisan and non-negotiable ideological stance: to imply that after
enduring the rigours of the Soviet regime, they would gladly embrace
capitalism and ultra-liberalism, would be a caricature of the truth.
To be content with such a
simplistic analysis is to deny that these countries were politically
rational enough to make their foreign policy choices in pursuance of
their own interests. The high value that they place on their relations
with the United States, which can be measured for example by their
attachment to NATO, is the result of a dual analysis:
– Firstly, historic : no-one
would dispute that their experiences throughout the 20th
century have made them mistrustful of exclusively European alliances and
exchanges. Along with their Eastern neighbours, and indeed their
Western ones, these relationships cost them their independence, their
identity and their right to free expression.
– Their choice also rests
crucially on a contemporary geo-strategic analysis: the European Union,
and in particular the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) is in
no position to offer them the guarantees on security that they have a
right to request.
Their attachment to the United
States, that is to say to American protection, is legitimate when one
considers their history; however, this is not necessarily a permanent
fixture of their political future. The commission noted during its visit
to NATO in Brussels that the Iraqi experience of these countries, like
their first steps in the European Union, led them to question certain
hopes and preconceived ideas that they may have held about both
entities. They are beginning to discover the price of loyalty, as well
as to gauge to what extent membership of the European Union can reduce
their influence. Poland in particular, which was involved in Iraq as
well as being highly active during the crisis in the Ukraine in December
2004, has experienced at first hand both NATO and European solidarities.
The Polish NATO representative spoke candidly to the commission about
how his country was discovering the limits of the first and the
advantages of the second.
Even though there is still work
to be done, the clash of the “old” and of the “new” Europe should not be
overstated: as new members become accustomed to the European
institutions, the old divisions and prejudices should become blurred, on
condition, of course, that we long-standing Member States, but also we
French, abandon our own prejudices.
Moreover, the contradictions
within Europe on what position to adopt with regard to the United
States, for from being merely a two-sided rift within the Union, are
common in most European countries:
– Great Britain, a faithful ally of the United
States, saw the largest demonstrations against American intervention in
Iraq, underpinned by public opinion largely hostile to American foreign
policy. Let us remember too that Great Britain is one of the
instigators and pillars of the European Security and Defence Policy.
An even more acute symptom of these contradictions is
the position of Germany, who for several years has been working on a
large-scale, though low-key project to redefine its transatlantic
policy. In February 2005, Chancellor Schroeder spoke at an annual
meeting of European and American leaders and experts, convened in Munich
to discuss strategic issues, and his speech revealed both the extent and
the radicalism of German self-questioning. It was the first time that a
German leader had publicly declared that NATO is no longer the preferred
venue for transatlantic debate: the German authorities, however,
subsequently beat a retreat and failed to translate their words into
actions, as many leading German players, particularly in the foreign
affairs and defence ministries, still feel a powerful attraction to the
Atlantic Alliance.
In reality, Germany remains what it has always been
in the scheme of transatlantic relations: a pillar of NATO, highly
visible in logistic and material terms, but with a history of discretion
in political debates. The fact remains that, even if the Chancellor’s
speech of February 2005 was just testing the water and produced no
concrete results, Germany’s doubts go very deep: Chancellor Schroeder’s
“discreetly anti-American” conviction, as reported by Der Spiegel
on the occasion of President Bush’s visit of February 2005, reflects the
fact that the German public feels a growing sense of disquiet towards
the United States - a fundamental trend that is not easily reversible.
Whatever political developments may ensue in Germany, they will not
avert this slow re-positioning of the country, a consequence of the fall
of the Berlin Wall and of reunification, which has taken it from the
most traditional pro-Atlantic Alliance position to a growing affirmation
of its commitment to Europe.
– The examples of Spain and Italy are equally
interesting, because they are a clear illustration that the attitude to
America in these countries is closely linked to internal political
developments. Under José María Aznar, Spain placed its relationship with
the United States at the top of the scale of foreign policy priorities;
after the attacks of 11 March 2004 and the election of a new government,
there was a seismic shift in policy. The same can be said of Italy,
which is currently pursuing a highly pro-Atlantic Alliance policy.
In all, while there is undoubtedly a European
consensus in many areas – the fight against terrorism, the International
Criminal Tribunal, non-proliferation, the emergence of China, the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, not to mention the existence of the “Kyoto
people”, which brings together Europeans and Russians -, it is equally
true that the relationship each European Union Member State has with the
United States is anything but neutral. There is nothing automatic about
European solidarity: on the issues which might lead to differences of
opinion with the United States, it is virtually impossible that
Europeans might rally around a common position. The recent controversy
on the lifting of the embargo on arms sales to China by the European
Union, on which France and Great Britain spontaneously agreed, acted as
a reminder of the fear still engendered by a threat of reprisals from
the United States. The British Presidency therefore abandoned the
project.
For the moment, the contradictions of Europe are
stronger than the desire for co-ordination, which is a problem for the
transatlantic relationship itself. All the prominent people heard by the
commission emphasised this: there can be no improvement in relations
between the European Union and the United States until there is some
unity of European perspectives. Just as, when the only watchword was an
unwavering solidarity, the Cold War model was effective, now when we
discuss defence, the economy, commercial relations, monetary or
environmental issues, etc, a policy, that is to say, a set of objectives
within a structured and coherent discourse, should be established.
The necessity for such a structure is all the more
pressing given that the United States, in pursuit of their vision of
international politics, are today asking some burning questions. For
example, when the United States launch a debate on the democratisation
of the Arab-Islamist world, such questions cannot be dismissed as
adventurism. Certainly, its undoubted power makes them less likely to
accept established situations and more inclined to act as the Pygmalion
of international relations, especially as this power rests on a
messianic tradition that is an integral part of the American psyche.
However this finding does not excuse European passivity nor failure to
respond, especially as several European countries, notably France which
has the highest number of French citizens and residents of the Islamic
faith in Europe, have launched a national debate on the subject, asking
questions on the link between Islam and its own democratic model, which
happens to be the republican model. It is plain that for a subject so
sensitive, and so crucial to the future of many countries, some of them
among our closest allies, the European Union must engage fully with the
issue, and not let the Atlantic Alliance, a military instrument, have
exclusive rights to the debate.
Many subjects of interest to both Europe and the
United States go far beyond the context of the Atlantic Alliance and are
so important that they require, on the European side, a unity of views,
that is to say the involvement of the European Union. This is the core
of the debate launched by the German Chancellor in February 2005 on what
would be the most suitable forum for transatlantic discussions. The
current attempts by the NATO Secretary General, responding to the German
statement, to reform the process of dialogue within NATO, only serves to
strengthen the German position.
Transatlantic security relationships have three
outstanding features:
– the disconnection between defence of America’s
vital interests and NATO intervention;
– the rise of extra-European dangers and threats;
– the European demonstration of their ability to make
the ESDP work in European and non-European theatres, in some cases using
NATO resources.
Symbol and pillar of the Cold War transatlantic
agreement, the Atlantic Alliance is primarily concerned with this new
state of affairs and obviously bears the brunt of these tectonic
movements – tectonic because slow and inevitable, though marked by
crises and accelerations – at work as the agreement is redefined. In it
are concentrated all the various American and European ambiguities and
contradictions, to the extent that it is very difficult today to define
the precise nature and role of this Alliance. This is hardly news: if
the history of the Alliance is mainly the history of its crises,
it is also a history of contradictions and ambiguities. These are in
fact an integral part of its identity, for it has always been defined by
asymmetry and imbalance.
In fulfilling the agreement set for it, the Atlantic
Alliance found itself, at the end of the Cold War, faced with the
question of its raison d’être. The adoption of a new strategic
concept in 1999, at the Washington summit, and the current reform of its
structure and its intervention methods are supposed to have supplied an
answer to the question of the Alliance’s role.
THE NATO STRATEGIC
CONCEPT
The NATO Strategic
Concept is the official statement of the Alliance’s aims and
supplies, at the highest level, advice on the political and military
means of achieving them. Four concepts have been adopted since the
Alliance was founded: in 1949-1950, in 1967, in 1991 and in 1999.
At the Washington
summit, in 1999, the NATO countries effectively approved a new
Strategic Concept destined to allow the Alliance to respond to
problems of security and to eventualities which might arise in the
21st century, as well as to guide its future political
and military development.
The updated Strategic
Concept offers general directives for drawing up policies and
detailed military plans. It describes the purpose and the duties of
the Alliance and examines its strategic perspectives in the light of
the evolving strategic environment, as well as risks and challenges
in the area of security. Presenting the Alliance’s approach to
security in the 21st century, the Concept reaffirms the
importance of the transatlantic link and of the maintenance of the
Alliance’s military capabilities, and examines the role of other
essential elements in its overall approach to security and
stability, namely the European security and defence identity,
conflict prevention and management of crises, the Partnership,
co-operation and dialogue, enlargement, arms control, disarmament
and non-proliferation. Finally, the concept provides indications of
future directions for the forces of the Alliance, founded on the
principles of Alliance strategy and its military apparatus. The last
section deals with missions of the Alliance’s military forces and
with future directions for these, as well as features of
conventional and nuclear forces.
However, the commission does not
share this view and after hearing the main French leaders speak on the
subject, as well as visiting NATO headquarters in Brussels, has been
struck by the complete confusion reigning in this regard.
It has not received a
satisfactory response to the one question that really counts: what is
the nature of NATO today? Is it destined to do, in Afghanistan, Kosovo,
and Bosnia, what the UN did in Namibia, Cambodia or Mozambique, that is,
to act as military back-up after the conflict? Is it a pool of men and
equipment for the use of ad hoc coalitions established by the United
States ? An instrument of support and political legitimacy for the
benefit of the United States ? A vehicle for the modernisation of
European defence forces ? How can NATO remain effective if it has to
intervene in the theatres of the “South”, while preserving its treaty
role as defender of Europe?
In short, since the end of the
Cold War, the fundamental debate on NATO’s raison d’être has been
replaced by multiple debates on the reform of its structures or its
geographical limits. The question remains, however, in a context in
which two diametrically opposed visions of NATO’s role are pitted
against each other:
– a traditional vision, which
makes the Alliance a military instrument for the defence of Europe
against external threats or against the danger of internal
destabilisation within the continent of Europe;
– an innovative vision, which
sees in NATO a security apparatus in the service of the democratic
Western world, with military, political and diplomatic capabilities, and
intervening throughout the world, according to the foreign policy
priorities of its members.
It is
difficult today to determine which of these concepts will prevail, given
that the various NATO members have such widely divergent visions of the
Alliance. Without exaggeration, NATO in 2005 is an unidentified
strategic instrument.
Let us
admit that the American position on NATO does nothing to dispel the
current confusion. The expression “American position” is in any case
largely inaccurate, since there are today in the United States not one
but three separate policies on NATO: the State Department is focused on
the political dimension of the Atlantic Alliance, with NATO acting as an
authority for the legitimisation of actions outside the United States;
then there is the view of the American integrated military structure,
which seeks to preserve the operational link between American and
European forces, and concentrates on reforms intended to make NATO into
a functional military instrument, whatever its missions might be;
finally, the Pentagon regards NATO as just another tool in the service
of American policy.
In one
way, the Pentagon’s position is the clearest, summed up in the American
Defence Secretary’s already quoted phrase, according to which “the
mission makes the coalition”.
According to this notion, NATO’s collective defence mission is obsolete:
when it was considering its response to the September 11, 2001 attacks,
which had been prepared in Afghanistan, the Pentagon never once
seriously considered the option of a NATO intervention based on the
activation of article 5 as proposed by the European allies. NATO is now
used mainly in peacekeeping missions when the Pentagon wants to avoid
mobilising too many American troops. Moreover this was the ministerial
department which pressed for a disengagement of American troops in
Europe and a reduction in the number of troops in the Balkans.
In
this perspective, the objective is no longer even interoperability but
at best complementarity of American and European forces, the latter
being seen in any case as insufficient in number. This is why only 8% of
American forces can be assigned to NATO missions, a figure which after
the current restructuring process, could fall to 3%. In this
perspective, the Alliance is just a kind of military “Windows”, that is,
it functions like a computer program to facilitate the functioning of
the American and European armies on the limited occasions when they
would be called upon to act together.
Be
that as it may, NATO is in the eyes of the US a useful but peripheral
instrument. Today NATO is less important in military terms for the
United States than for France – while in political terms the reverse is
true: the first uses this channel in a very limited way militarily, to
the extent that even in Afghanistan where there is a NATO presence, they
maintain the ad hoc operation Enduring Freedom – which they would
like to merge with the NATO operation; France for her part has many
troops under NATO command, whether in Kosovo or in Afghanistan.
The NATO military authorities who spoke to the commission in Brussels
admitted that the interoperability
of Alliance American forces with European forces was in decline and that
their complementarity, a term more appropriate to the current situation,
was also reduced. This is an astonishing statement, which speaks volumes
on the depth of the difference of opinion between Europeans, whose most
pressing question is how to maintain the United States’ commitment to
Europe, and Americans, who are concentrating their efforts largely on
extra-European matters…
As
with the United States, it is difficult to pin down the unity of German
policy on NATO. As pointed out earlier, two tendencies co-exist in
Germany, even if the only official policy remains the traditional
pro-Alliance line. Represented, for example by the transatlantic
relations coordinator and the NATO permanent representation, this
policy, a legacy of the Cold War, sees the imbalance between Europeans
and Americans in NATO as permanent and intrinsic to the very nature of
the Alliance. So, lacking a serious alternative capable of fulfilling
the function of collective defence of the Alliance, the traditional
transatlantic link should be preserved whatever the cost, even if that
cost is European subordination.
The
United Kingdom, together with the new member States, is undoubtedly the
partner with the clearest vision on NATO. Its vision is
characteristically pragmatic : as the Atlantic Alliance is the most
dependable method of maintaining the link between Europe and the United
States, it should be maintained and even strengthened, whatever its
mission. The British consider moreover that the issue of NATO missions
is secondary, focusing instead on the political role of the Alliance:
they emphasise the permanent nature of the centre for dialogue and for
transatlantic political consultations, unlike the dialogue between the
European Union and the United States, which only happens when the two
entities hold a summit. By this reasoning, the indisputable British
support for the ESDP should not be interpreted as an ambiguous element
of the British position, even if, to persuade their American allies to
accept the ESDP, the British used very subtle arguments, carefully
judged according to whether they were dealing with the French or the
Americans. According to the British perspective, the ESDP has one
purpose: to strengthen NATO, so as to satisfy the American desire for a
functioning and effective military instrument.
As for
the new member States, far from reflecting on the interest of military
operations outside the Alliance’s sphere of influence
, which is known as the “out-zone”, and
on the politicisation of the Alliance, they want to see in it the
traditional instrument of Alliance collective defence. If they take part
in other Alliance missions and even support the United States in ad hoc
coalitions which marginalise the Alliance, it is only to prove that they
are model allies, in the hope that should their security, even their
very existence, be threatened, the lessons of the past will not be
repeated.
What,
finally, can be said about France’s position on the Alliance? It must be
acknowledged that France is not necessarily keen to dispel the
uncertainties that plague the Alliance. In her defence, however, we can
say that this ambiguity is voluntary and that France takes full
responsibility for it. In fact there is an extraordinary discrepancy
between the French stated position on the Alliance and the reality of
its action:
– The
French position remains as it was in 1966, when General de Gaulle
decided that France would leave the integrated military structure.
Fervent defender and activist of the ESDP, France cultivates its special
place within the Alliance, making sure that all topics raised there are
carefully examined so that priority is given to our foreign policy in
general, and our European policy in particular: suspicion of the
“out-zone”, refusal to establish the Alliance, whether in the long or
medium term, as a favoured centre of transatlantic dialogue on major
security matters, refusal of any decision which might a priori
restrict the ESDP’s room for manoeuvre, now and in the future.
– In
practice however, France is both highly active and highly visible within
the Alliance, in all fields: political, operational, military and
administrative.
With
more than 4000 men in the service of NATO, whether in Bosnia, where the
European Union has virtually taken over from NATO since December 2004,
in Kosovo, in Afghanistan, or within the Rapid Reaction Force, France is
the second largest contributor to NATO forces.
In
financial terms, France provides 14.78% of the civil budget and 13.85%
of the military budget, which makes it the fourth largest contributor in
the Alliance. Moreover, through its high level of involvement in the
Rapid Response Force (NRF), France now participates in the operating
budget of certain Chiefs of Staff and entities of the integrated
military structure.
In
addition, France has a presence in the Alliance command structure, and
it is actively participating in its current reform. The former NATO
command structure was based on a geographic distribution of
responsibilities: one command for allied forces in Europe (SACEUR, in
Mons, Belgium) and an Atlantic command (SACLANT, in Norfolk, United
States). The new structure, approved at the Prague summit of 21 and 22
November 2002, is based on a functional distribution: an operational
command (SACO, in Mons), responsible for all Alliance operations: and a
functional command (SACT, in Norfolk) responsible for the transformation
of NATO.
Strictly speaking, France is not involved in the command structure.
Until 2004, however, it had about 50 soldiers “embedded” in this
structure because of its participation in Alliance operations.
Immediately afterwards and in accordance with the Prague summit, to
enhance its participation in the transformation of NATO, France decided
to strengthen its position by assigning another fifty soldiers to the
new structure :
–
firstly, to the Allied Command Operations (ACO), for posts linked to the
NRF
;
– for
posts linked to the reform of doctrines and the training of Alliance
forces, to the Allied Command Transformation (ACT).
In
addition, in May 2004, France assigned a general officer to each of
these two commands.
There
will therefore be a total of roughly one hundred French soldiers
“embedded” in the command structure. For purposes of comparison, the
command structure comprises almost 12,000 soldiers, of whom the United
States supplies 2,800, Germany 2,500 and Italy 1,200.
So
while it is a fact that France has not changed its specific position, in
the sense that it retains control of its forces’ engagement, including
the Response Force, and that its participation in what was, before the
reform of the command, an integrated military structure, is not
complete, it must be stated that it is highly visible in NATO’s military
structure, and in positions of importance - command positions linked to
the NRF. The creation, in October 2005, of the Rapid Reaction
Force-France Headquarters (QG CRR-FR) speaks of France’s involvement in
the NRF, and thus in a broader sense, of her role in the Alliance, as
the NRF is destined to become the allies’ principal instrument of
intervention. Today, France’s only notable absence is in the planning
entities – the Defence Planning Committee and the Nuclear Planning
Group.
While the history of
transatlantic relations has been subject to frequent crises, it is
however the first time that tension between a part of Europe and the
United States, over the debate on intervention in Iraq, has led to a
questioning of the validity of the community of values between the two
partners. On both sides of the Atlantic, the idea has taken root of a
deep division between peoples, going far beyond personal differences
between the American President and some of his European partners.
It is appropriate here to leave
clichés and polemics behind and to concentrate on realities. These lead
us to much more nuanced conclusions, certainly revealing major
differences in sensibility between Europeans and Americans, but equally,
in day-to-day relations, illuminating a partnership which has never been
as strong in the history of transatlantic relations, made up of a
complex web of connections. A partnership which, whatever happens, has
no equivalent elsewhere in the world and remains, even in a context of
diverse and multiple threats, necessary for international security and
stability.
Do the United States and Europe
now belong to two different worlds ? The debate on the transatlantic
link sometimes comes adrift on a debate relating to the survival of the
community of values between the two continents: history, geography,
culture and economy are used to evoke a pessimistic vision of two
societies with radically different concerns and perspectives.
If these rather excessive
comments conceal either profound mutual ignorance or an ideological bias
useful for internal politics, their success is nevertheless easily
explained. They are based on a truth that the sacred union against a
common enemy during the Cold War, under the unifying banner of “Western
world” has made us forget: the United States is not an American
extension of Europe, but a nation with a clear identity of its own.
There is nothing new here: both the history and the geography of the
United States have forged a body of values which belong only to them.
The primacy of the individual, suspicion of any intervention by the
federal State but visceral attachment to the Nation, the acceptance of
the use of force, the messianic ethos of a nation which sees itself as a
new promised land, the high level of religious practice, etc.: no need
to emphasise how, in a Europe which values social cohesion and the role
of the State, which is terrified of nationalism, and allergic to the use
of armed force, American values are perceived as radically alien. Once
again we realise that the geo-strategic position of the United States,
more insular and distant, tends to favour a culture of long-distance
intervention and a more unilateral style – let us note however that this
geographical factor is not in itself sufficient to explain the American
attitude, as the contrasting example of Canada shows; by contrast too,
European Union countries have developed a culture of engagement, linked
to the proximity of the problems they have to deal with, and a
multilateral style. This explains why we are again faced with
stereotypes of the order of “European appeasement versus American
force”.
These differences are obviously
not new, indeed, they are fundamental to the American identity. However,
what is new is how keenly these differences, masked to some extent
during the Cold War, are felt. The undeniable fact is that whatever the
differences of identity between Europeans and Americans, they have been
exacerbated by recent developments on both sides of the Atlantic.
At the risk of stating the
obvious, the United States has changed. There is a structural phenomenon
at work here: the United States is less interested in Europe because
Europe is increasingly absent from the mental landscape of Americans.
The demographic factor
Demographic changes in the
United States have a key role to play in this respect. The section of
the American population that originates from Europe is constantly
falling. A profound change is taking place in American society, one that
has prompted much soul-searching in the United States itself. In a
recent work, Professor Samuel Huntington asks Who are we?,
a sometimes provocative analysis of the end of the domination of
traditional Anglo-Saxon protestant values in the United States.
Logically, the fact that Europe is no longer the focus of special
attention there stems from the continuing growth of the non-European
section of the population.
The United States today
continues its long tradition of welcoming immigrants, taking in more
than any other country; since the 1970’s, the United States has
experienced an unprecedented wave of immigration, exceeding even that at
the start of the twentieth century. In 2005, 32.5 million American
residents were born abroad, that is 11.5 % of the total population. Only
a small proportion of these immigrants are European – the population of
the United States is more strikingly racially diverse than ever. In
recent years, Latin Americans and racial minority groups (that is,
racial and ethnic groups which make up less than 50% of the population,
including non-Hispanic coloureds, Asians and Native Americans) have
shown a demographic growth above that of the total population. In 1970,
these groups together represented a mere 16% of the population. In 1998,
their share had reached 27%. Working on the hypothesis that these
tendencies are set to continue, the Federal Census Bureau predicts that
by 2050 they will account for almost half of the population of the
United States: the Hispanic population should reach 103 million – one
quarter of the population - in 2050, the African-American population 61
million, and the Asian population 33 million.
Although they are by definition
imprecise, these projections indicate that the United States will
experience a significant increase in racial and ethnic diversity during
this century.
In 2004, the ten countries with
the highest number of legal immigrants (946,142 in total) were: Mexico
with 175,364, India (70,116), the Philippines (57,827), China (51,156),
Vietnam (31,514), Dominican Republic (30,492), El Salvador (29,795),
Cuba (20,488), Korea (19,766), and Colombia (18,678). Compared with the
127,669 European immigrants to American soil in that same year, these
figures are highly significant.
The growth in the number of
Asian and Latin American immigrants noted during recent decades is in
essence due to a change in immigration policy. In particular, the law of
1965 ended the system of quotas based on national origin, which
restricted immigration from non-European countries. Similarly, the law
of 1986 relating to the reform and control of immigration contributed to
the increase in the number of Asian and Latin American immigrants,
because many illegals took advantage of the new measures to have their
papers put in order. It should be mentioned here that numbers of illegal
immigrants, estimated at 3.5 million in 1990, are today thought to be
9.3 million, two thirds of whom are of Mexican origin. The rise of these
ethnic groups is further strengthened by falling fertility levels in all
non-Latin American sectors of the population. Consequently, the number
of white people not of Latin American origin has been falling since
1970, while the number of African-Americans has risen only slightly.
If the demographic variable will
probably strongly influence the development of transatlantic relations –
in this case as a factor contributing to alienation – this also stems
from the fact that the American centre of gravity has moved towards the
West and the South. It is these States that stand to gain the most from
demographic growth: in 2030 they will make up 65% of the population of
America, compared with 59% today. The personal journey of President
George W. Bush himself, a Texan by adoption from a New England family,
is indicative of this change.
Post September 11, 2001 – changes in America
This change did not become
apparent in the post-Cold War period, due to continuing security
problems in Europe. The reality of these findings hits home today. They
were revealed by the attacks of September 11, 2001, which reinvigorated
traditional American values, especially as the Republican Party had been
in power since its victory in the legislative elections of 1994.
We must be clear about the
timing of this: the changes were already taking place before September
11, as already, since the Clinton era, multilateral treaties were being
challenged, (rejection of the ban on nuclear testing treaty, constant
attacks on the ABM Treaty….), and American national interests were being
prioritised, sometimes to the extent of challenging basic principles of
international law. It was also before the September 11 attacks that the
ideas promoted by neo-conservatives, whose origins can be traced to a
reaction against the egalitarian and anti-establishment culture of
1960’s America, became seriously influential in the world of American
politics. Moreover, in 1996, the neo-conservative movement had published
its manifesto, which includes some major preoccupations since the year
2000 – refusal to accept a decline in American power, upgrading of the
military instrument, promotion of a benevolent American hegemony.
It would therefore seem that the
tragic events of September 11 acted as a catalyst, not awakening these
values but mobilising them.
September 11 did not invent
American patriotism: there has always been a significant reserve of
patriotism and nationalism in the United States, and September 11 and
the preparation for intervention in Iraq acted to focus and intensify
these sentiments. This was a process that gave rise to some strange
alliances in the American political landscape, as a second result of
September 11 had been to unite diverse political movements around these
traditional values. To take the most revealing example, the alliance
between neo-conservatives – who were mostly far-left intellectuals – and
Christian fundamentalists – to the right of the Republican party, with
occasional hints of anti-Semitism – was very far from being natural.
This rallying around traditional
American values can in reality be analysed not as a change, but a return
to the source. Unilateralism is a long-established tradition in America,
and the period of history stretching from Roosevelt to the end of the
Cold War can be seen, in the long term, as a mere parenthesis in
American history. To an extent, what is happening at the moment is that
Europe is re-discovering the real America. It is important to
understand this, so that we can avoid any vague desire to pursue the
completely unattainable objective of a return to the atmosphere of the
1950’s. “You are dealing with the last generation of Americans who
have a sentimental approach to Europe”
Kissinger told the Europeans in the
1970’s. Recent years have underlined how prescient his little joke was.
The specific nature of American
identity stands out even more, given that Europe was also changing at
the same time. So, while the 1990’s was marked by a great ideological
renaissance in the United States, in Europe it will be remembered as
marking a major withdrawal from ideological debates and the progressive,
even laborious acquisition of a fully European political consciousness.
Similarly, at the very moment when the United States, having suffered an
attack on their own soil, re-affirmed their sovereignty, even at the
risk of clashing with the rules of international law, Europe since the
Maastricht treaty entered a “post-Sovereign” era. There is no doubt that
these contrasting developments will tend to favour, on the European
side, a more acute perception of the changes at work in the United
States.
Although differences between
American and European sensibilities remain significant and unchanging,
they do not call into question the fellowship of ideas unequalled
elsewhere in the world, a fellowship uniting them on fundamental issues.
We should point this out more often: North America – the United States
and Canada – and Europe are the only places in the world that have the
same approach to the universal values of respect for fundamental human
rights and the principle of a social structure based on democracy,
rather than on a theocracy or a dictatorship. Certainly the United
States has its own specific legal system, but no one could dispute the
fact that Europeans and Americans share the conviction that the only
legitimate source of power lies in the people or their representatives –
a conviction and a practice not exactly widespread in the world. The
data gleaned from the most recent survey carried out by the German
Marshall Fund are encouraging : 74% of Europeans feel that the
European Union should help to establish democracy in other countries;
51% of Americans are of the same opinion about their own country, a
figure which rises to 76% among Republican supporters. Similarly,
regarding basic human rights, there is a profound consensus.
Recent debates on the fellowship
of transatlantic values have also focused on the subject of religion,
echoing the biblical rhetoric often used by the President of the United
States. Here again, we should not give much credence to the frequently
prejudiced analyses on the place of religion in the United States. There
is absolutely no doubt that Americans are deeply religious and that
religion looms large in the United States, including in public life. We
French should however be careful to remember that our own views on the
place of religion in society, informed by the principle of secularism,
are quite unique to us. In this matter it is we who are the exceptions,
even within Europe. Moreover, the relationship between Americans and
religion is more complex than some commentators allow. Also, how many
people are aware that, in the context of the French legal ban on
religious symbols in schools, tolerated unless they are worn with an
intention to proselytise, a judgment of the American Supreme Court
strictly forbids all external religious symbols in the army?
Similarly, despite the purely
French debates on “ultra-liberalism”, France along with its European
partners shares with the United States the same economic model – the
market economy, based on freedom of trade and commerce. On the world
stage, the constant attacks on the UN in a section of the American
political establishment will not make us forget that in Europe as in the
United States, we consider it necessary to structure international life
around principles and institutions which guarantee world stability and
security.
Far removed from apocalyptic
comments on the chasm separating European and American values, we cannot
but be struck by the conclusion that we share a profound fellowship of
ideas, borne out in many surveys. Is it necessary to point out that
Europe and the United States are perceived as one entity in the rest of
the world: in fact it is the shared values of democracy and the market
economy that differentiate Europe and the United States from the rest of
the world, for out of the 6.5 billion people on the planet, fewer than
two billion benefit from these. Even if people in Cairo or Buenos Aires
know that American policy on the Middle East conflict or on development
aid is different from European Union policy, the European-American
fellowship of ideas on fundamental values is perceived as issuing from a
common civilisation. It is these very values that the Al-Quaida network
is attacking when its terrorists strike at New York, Madrid or London –
for them, it is all the same enemy.
United by shared fundamental
values, Europeans and Americans also have in common many interests, as
diverse as they are enduring, which together forge a real shared
transatlantic destiny.
Security threats – international
terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the
disintegration of the State in certain regions, organised crime –
threats to health and the environment – climate change, pandemics -, new
challenges – reforming the UN, democratisation, the emergence of China:
there is a long list of topics featuring on today’s international
agenda.
Europeans and Americans
obviously need each other’s help to resolve the great international
issues of the day. Some may object that the “super-superpower” of
America, to borrow the phrase used by a former American ambassador to
London, would be quite capable of buckling down to this task on its own.
In this respect, the Iraq intervention, in which the United States,
while not alone, did not have many of its long-term allies on board,
shows the flaw in this view. The Iraq experience also showed that,
however immense its power, the United States is unable to act
effectively in the long term without the support of her European allies.
Short-term success is not enough to deal with problems which require a
certain legitimacy as well as a long-term commitment.
In this respect the widespread
distaste for America is a real problem for them, in the sense that it
diminishes their influence. This aversion remains significant: even in
Turkey, a long-established ally of the United States, 50% of people
questioned in a survey in June 2005 claimed to have a negative image of
the United States, and for President George W. Bush, the figure rose to
71%.
Even if this figure is closely
linked to the war in Iraq and to the personal style of the American
President, this result confirms that the US image has deteriorated in a
country that has been their ally for decades.
The economic sphere has not
escaped the apocalyptic conclusions on the absence of shared values on
either side of the Atlantic. One study published in October 2004
presented a depressing picture of
Franco-American divisions in this area: it revealed that 39% of French
people had a positive opinion of the concept of profit, as against 86%
of Americans; in France, 40% of people wanted the State to guarantee an
equitable distribution of wealth, against only 15% of Americans.
Here again, there is a gulf
between what is said and thought on the one hand, and what is actually
done on the other.
Europe and the United States
as competitors
Economic relations between
Europe and the United States are regularly marred by tensions, in three
main areas :
– First of all, bitter
disagreements persist on both sides of the Atlantic regarding the
conduct of economic policies, with the Americans criticising the Central
European Bank for its timidity and for the constraints that the
Stability Pact would impose, while the Europeans in concert with the IMF
are warning their partner about the dangers of budgetary slides and the
extremely low level of domestic savings in the United States (0.4 % in
2004 !).
– Secondly, transatlantic trade
negotiations remain fertile territory for confrontation, even if in
Seattle, Doha, and again in Cancun, the combined efforts of the American
and European commercial representatives have managed to avert a major
crisis in current international trade negotiations. Genetically Modified
Organisms, repayable advances for Airbus, American fiscal measures
condemned by the World Trade Organisation as subsidies in disguise, one
crisis follows another, revealing above all that in this field, Europe
and America are two giants meeting on equal terms.
– The third difficulty is the
deficit in America’s current balance sheet, and its potential
consequences for the euro. Americans may roundly criticise the low rate
of European growth, but the reality is that their own is financed by the
reserves of poor countries. Today, the Chinese peasant finances the
American deficit – that is, domestic American consumption or military
expenditure – due to the frighteningly low level of American domestic
reserves. The markets feel that this deficit is not sustainable and may
cause a sharp rise in the euro, which, say the experts, could lead to a
euro-dollar parity of 1.5 or 1.6.
The transatlantic economic
relationship is clearly susceptible to numerous declared or potential
conflicts. In the months and years ahead, the litigation diary will
remain full:
– A number of affairs are now at
a pre-litigation stage or in the very early stages of the litigation
process, and there should be developments in the coming months. One of
these is the dossier relating to Foreign Sales Corporations
(FSC): the American tax law which allows enterprises exporting goods
produced in the United States to exclude part of their revenues from
their taxable income, by passing their goods through foreign sales
companies (Foreign Sales Corporations,) was deemed by the WTO to
be similar to an export subsidy, and therefore censured, in January
2002. Although Congress approved a text repealing the censured measure,
the European Union is not convinced that this new text is in compliance
with WTO regulations.
– In the longer term, it is in
the area of anti-dumping and anti-subsidy regulations for industrial
goods that there is the highest probability of transatlantic litigation.
The United States might decide, for example, to challenge the community
ruling on the European ban on cosmetics tested on animals, or the ruling
on marketing authorisations for chemical products.
– The agricultural question
remains a fertile source of litigation, especially as in this area
transatlantic issues can be exploited to benefit other foreign policy
objectives (notably links with developing countries). Despite their
structural differences, the European Union and the United States have in
the past managed to arrive at a compromise after negotiations, ending
with an agreement which was later adopted by the remaining WTO members.
However the failure at Cancun demonstrated the limits of this practice,
to which less developed countries are opposed. From now on, European and
American interests are best served by seeking to forge alliances with
the developing countries (G20) or the less developed countries (G90).
This exercise is however easier for the United States than for Europe,
who is seen as the guilty party in these negotiations. Indeed, if as the
OECD estimates, an American farmer receives more subsidies than a
European one (20,000 dollars compared to 16,000 in 2001), European
pricing structure leaves it vulnerable to attack, as it has more
protected sectors.
Europe and the United States
– an indispensable partnership
Whatever the problems that beset
their relationship, Europe and the United States must not allow
their economic rivalry to degenerate into direct confrontation, for the
two partners desperately need this transatlantic economic relationship.
The European market probably
amounts to a mere 500 to 600 million consumers and producers, very
modest figures when compared with the enormous populations of Asia.
However, while political discourse in America and Europe talks
constantly of the awakening of Asia or the increased power of emerging
markets, the day-to-day reality is that the European Union and America
are moving towards ever greater economic integration, which is
developing independently of diplomatic and political relations.
Therefore, “Europe
and the United States are each other’s largest and most profitable
markets”:
the transatlantic economic partnership, backbone of international
economic relations since World War II, remains a pre-eminent force of
the international economy. Recent tensions on Iraq have not altered this
established fact. Moreover, the years following the end of the Cold War
during which the fading of the common threat was supposed to have
weakened transatlantic links have, in reality, been one of the most
active periods of integration for the two entities. The relationship
deepened even further in 2003, at the height of the Alliance crisis: for
example, American investors invested 3.9 billion dollars in French
stocks in the first eight months of 2003, as compared with barely one
billion for the same period in 2002. In terms of jobs, these
transatlantic commercial exchanges represent twelve million jobs on both
sides of the Atlantic.
Those trade disputes which make
the headlines are therefore not in the least representative of
transatlantic economic links. The fact is that commercial trade makes
up only a modest share of transatlantic activity. We should point out
here that they are however well in excess of the trade flow between the
United States and Japan and China: in 2004, commercial exchanges were
151 billion dollars for American exports to the European Union, and 220
billion in the other direction; for Japan, the figures were respectively
52 and 118 billion dollars, while for China, they were 28 and 152
billion dollars – in other words, half of the transatlantic total.
Beyond trade, direct
international investments are a vital element in transatlantic economic
relations, and serve as a gauge of its precise dimensions. Belying the
widespread belief that economies invest mainly in countries with low
pay, European economies invest principally in America, and the same is
true of their American counterparts : 65% of direct American investment
abroad in 2003 was in Europe. To take a revealing example, between 1995
and 2003, American investment in the Netherlands alone was double its
investment in Mexico and ten times that in China. American companies
earn half their annual foreign profits in Europe. The total amount of
direct American investment in Europe is 650 billion dollars, while
European investment in the United States is 890 billion dollars, or 62 %
of total direct foreign investment in the United States. With such
potent links, the product of a growth rate of 3 % in Europe – which
looks weak beside the American performance – nevertheless represents for
the United States a market the size of Argentina.
France and the United States,
two major economic partners
This finding for Europe is
equally true for Franco-American economic relations: France and the
United States are major economic partners. Each working day, about one
billion dollars’ worth of commercial transactions take place between our
two countries. What is more, French investment in the United States
accounts for 515,000 jobs, while American investment in France is
responsible for 583,000.
Going beyond these key figures,
all the statistics confirm this interdependence :
– France is the US’s ninth most
important trading partner for trading of goods, and the sixth for
trading of services (2004 figures).
Over the period 1992-2004,
bilateral trade in goods and services virtually doubled: in 2004, France
exported 32 billion dollars’ worth of goods to the United States and
imported 20 billion. The main focus of bilateral trade is the field of
aeronautics, while contrary to popular belief, processed foods account
for only 6% of France’s sales to the United States.
– France is the fifth largest
foreign investor in the United States (143 billion dollars in stocks),
forming with Japan, Germany and the Netherlands the four countries that
are just a whisker behind the United Kingdom.
France holds 10% of the total
stock of direct foreign investment in the United States, concentrated in
the financial, computer technology and chemical sectors.
– Nearly 2,400 subsidiaries of
French companies, representing 450,000 jobs, are located in the United
States, mainly in the chemical and information (media and software)
sectors. Although the portion of US activity varies for each of these
large concerns, we can guess that at least 20% of their activity comes
from the United States.
In sum, we are looking at two
very closely intertwined economies, with France contributing to American
growth through its many subsidiary companies. The reverse is also true.
Maintaining a strong and
effective transatlantic relationship has implications far beyond narrow
European and American interests. It is also essential for international
stability and security: even in a world changed beyond recognition from
the world of the period 1945-1990, the transatlantic relationship, a
legacy of the Cold War, continues to exert a stabilising influence.
It is quite a simple equation in
which the facts speak for themselves: either Americans and Europeans
move further apart, in the process becoming weaker and being forced to
make enormous efforts to avoid the deterioration of existing world
problems, or they act, if not in tandem, at least in co-operation, and
in this case they will be equipped to solve any problem.
Transatlantic differences
increase European weak points and diminish, even neutralise, American
power.
The consequences of
inadequate transatlantic co-ordination in economic and financial matters
This conclusion also holds good
in the financial and economic sphere. To take the Bretton Woods
institutions as an example, recent economic and financial history shows
that co-ordination between European Union member States and the United
States is an essential element in the proper functioning and reform of
these institutions. There are currently gaps in this co-ordination :
first, because the United States is currently not very keen on
multilateral action and does not want to seek a compromise with the
Europeans; secondly, there is no common European position on certain
subjects, even if progress has finally been made, because of the United
States’ unique ability to oppose any major decision in the IMF or the
World Bank. The first two causes of this inadequate co-ordination are
closely linked: only a common European position can convince the United
States that their interests are best served by co-ordinating with us:
the current situation only encourages them to exploit European
differences of opinion.
Turning next to G7, it is still
a necessary forum, even if its intervention is no longer capable of
responding to the challenges of the international financial and monetary
system. Its restricted nature encourages compromise and gives an impetus
to co-operation. Therefore it is in our interests to seek to strengthen
transatlantic co-ordination within its framework, especially now when it
is increasingly asserting itself as a useful instrument of consultation
with developing countries, now that peripheral meetings are routinely
held at summits (with the countries of North Africa and the Middle East
in 2004, with China, India, South Africa and Brazil in 2005).
The consequences of transatlantic disagreements in the political and
strategic field
Similarly, the same lesson must be drawn from the Iraq crisis, without
wasting time on a sterile debate on the rights and wrongs of the
protagonists.
The
military phase of the Iraq intervention provided incontestable proof of
America’s overwhelming military superiority and immeasurable power:
there is currently no other country which, in such a brief period of
time and with relatively few human losses, could take control of an area
of operations the size of Iraq.
While America’s record in Iraq is less disastrous than some French
commentators would maintain, it must be said that American intervention
in Iraq may have serious consequences.
Speaking of the American policy record in this region, it should be
noted that the Iraqis have rid themselves of a tyrant and have been able
to express themselves democratically on the future of their country.
Similarly, since 2003, we should not gloss over the fact that several
Middle Eastern states have experienced significant internal changes: in
Saudi Arabia, partially democratic elections were held on February 10,
2005, with 50% of municipal councillors for Riyadh and the surrounding
area nominated by a section of the population, while the authorities
retained the right to nominate the rest. It has to be said that women
were excluded from the electoral body and in this area there is still
much work to be done. For the first time, however, other democratic
principles were respected, with an electoral campaign lasting 12 days
using the print media, and with a truly pluralistic candidature of more
than 1,800 people. Likewise, in Egypt, tentative but real progress has
been made towards democracy, leading to the first ever pluralist
presidential election in the country, on September 8, 2005. In the same
period, important changes took place in Libya – with the abandonment of
their clandestine nuclear programme – and in Syria, which withdrew from
the Lebanon. Can these developments be laid at the door of the American
policy of a Greater Middle East? That is for each individual to judge,
just as it is still too soon to express an opinion on the risk of
destabilisation that might result, in several countries, from granting
freedom of expression to Islamic movements disseminating anti-democratic
ideologies.
However, the balance sheet of American policy in Iraq and the region in
2003 contains many negative points. The endemic violence sweeping
through Iraq is dangerous both in the medium and long term, because it
makes the establishment of a democratic regime difficult; it also
carries a risk of destabilisation beyond Iraq’s borders. Again, in
ridding Iraq of Saddam Hussein, the United States may have strengthened
Iran’s influence in the region. The United States is currently
denouncing Iran’s nuclear ambitions. For this has indeed been the
outcome of the current unrest in Iraq: Iran now enjoys considerable
influence in the country and to a large extent holds Iraq’s future in
its hands. In this context, the efforts deployed by the European troika
of Germany, France and the United Kingdom, to curb Iran’s nuclear
ambitions, efforts that the United States supports, seem pointless when
one considers that the main result of the unrest in Iraq is to
strengthen Iranian influence in the region.
Also, America’s activities in Iraq have largely destroyed what
credibility it still had in the Arab world, which was already, against a
background of open confrontation between Palestinians and Israelis,
suspicious of America’s close links with the latter. Public opinion in
Muslim countries remains largely hostile to the United States, although
recent surveys have shown some improvement. According to a Pew
Research Centre survey carried out in April and May of last year,
involving 17,000 people in fourteen countries,
with the exception of Morocco (49% favourable opinions) and the Lebanon
(42%), opinions in the Muslim countries in the sample were in the main
unfavourable to the United States, which received only 38% positive
opinions in Indonesia, 23% in Turkey and 21% in Jordan. Although in
decline, there is still a high level of support for suicide operations
against Americans in Iraq: 56% of those questioned in Morocco considered
them to be justified, 49% in Jordan and the Lebanon, 29% in Pakistan,
26% in Indonesia and 24% in Turkey.
In these conditions, what can be
the impact of the debate, launched by the United States, on
democratisation in the Middle East – an urgent and necessary debate
against a context of young Arabs who despair of the future? How can the
countries of Europe lend effective support to this highly commendable
American preoccupation, when the merest hint of support for such
preoccupations is enough to discredit even the most appropriate
initiative. It would indeed be a tragedy if the democratisation debate
were to be cut short because it was launched by a country that is
currently disliked in the Arab world, for democratisation is a key
factor in curbing the development of Islamic international terrorism.
If,
as the Iraq situation illustrates, a lack of co-ordination between the
two powers leads to American incoherence and weakness, as well as to
European paralysis, the converse is also true: the partnership between
Europe and the United States is a pledge of success in dealing with
international problems. The treatment of the Iranian nuclear crisis is a
prime example. In spite of the United States’ initial scepticism – now
much diminished – about the methods used by France, Germany and the
United Kingdom to dissuade Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon,
American did not call into question the principle of negotiation with
Iran.
Beyond this timely issue, co-operation between France and the United
States suggests that there is a close connection between co-ordination
and efficiency. The two countries provide an interesting example of
this, especially as they clashed so bitterly during the Iraqi crisis.
The high level of tension between France and the United States did not
prevent Franco-American co-operation from continuing in many diverse
areas:
–
thus, in spite of the very awkward period for relations between the two
countries, co-operation in the fight against terrorism never wavered,
and the French are still considered America’s best ally in this field.
Anti-terrorist judges from both countries meet regularly within the
framework of this co-operation;
– in
Afghanistan, France is at the top of the list of countries who have lent
the Americans their support, sending 5000 men to join the Multinational
Force (MNF) on Afghan soil, under the command of a French general until
last February 13; France is also supporting the US – the only other
country to do so – in training the Afghan army and in sending special
forces to the Afghan-Pakistan border to apprehend those responsible for
the September 11, 2001 attacks;
–
this co-operation also works in exemplary fashion in the Balkans, where
once again a French general was in command of NATO forces in Kosovo.
Finally, in Haiti or in Africa, French and Americans again collaborated
with excellent results;
–
the close consultation between France and the United States on the
Lebanese question made it possible to move forward with a dossier that
had been frozen for a long time; now that Syria has withdrawn, the
Lebanon can once again take control of its own destiny;
– in
the field of nuclear energy, France and America have an excellent level
of co-operation. The American desire to relaunch their nuclear energy
programme has opened a new channel of communication between the two
countries, while President Bush and Vice-President Cheney cite France’s
energy policy as an example to follow;
– to
look at a different area entirely, the strength and efficacy of
transatlantic co-operation was once more brought to the fore during the
Asian crisis of 1998. Financial co-operation between G7 members was
particularly effective in the case of South Korea, where the joint
intervention of Ministers from the G7 countries allowed Korea to keep
its credit limits and avoid sinking into a chaotic situation that might
have had disastrous consequences internationally.
Economic, monetary, military, diplomatic and environmental issues : the
transatlantic partnership is a force for increased power in the United
States, and enhanced influence for the European Union. On one condition
however : that the Americans control their power, and the Europeans
accept theirs. The commission proposes that both parties seek to go
further along this path.
The transatlantic alliance
forged in a context of cold war cannot be expected to survive without
in-depth changes. Clearly, in order to do this, it is not enough to
reform the Atlantic Alliance, the symbol beyond compare of transatlantic
relations during the Cold War period: it is of course essential to
redefine the strategic concept of NATO and change its structures but
that cannot take the place of building transatlantic relations suited to
today’s world.
Taking that observation as
starting point, some people are tempted to relegate the Alliance to the
rank of a relic of the past and argue, in the United States, in favour
of exclusively pushing on with the national American interest, whether
this coincides or not with that of their allies; and in Europe, of
building a Europe that would define itself as in opposition to the
United States and would seek on principle to show its difference.
Let us not be mistaken : the
illusion of a European Bloc against the United States or of an America
going it alone is just as futile as a return to the alliance of
yesterday. The conclusion that emerges from the mission’s work is quite
clear: Europe and the United States are so different that it would be
useless to pretend that they share exactly the same vision of the world;
they nevertheless share fundamental values and numerous interests, which
set them apart from the vast majority of other countries. Severance or
even slackening of the transatlantic link is not therefore a conceivable
option either for the United States or the European Union. For the
latter, besides the serious damage to its economic interests that a
weakening of this link would represent, it would also mean the end of
political Europe which is under construction. Indeed, while all
Europeans are in favour of a united Europe, very few of them are
prepared to achieve this to the detriment of the transatlantic
relationship.
So it is not a question of the
survival of the transatlantic link but about its restructuring and
adaptation: how should the European Union and the United States organise
their relations to deal with their differences without dramatizing them
and effectively develop their common approaches? The war in Iraq showed
the pernicious effects of confusion between political, economic and
strategic spheres, of the all too simple "for or against us", and of an
upsurge of anti-Americanism, a kind of not too serious transatlantic
relationship ailment, which many Europeans rushed into.
There are some who will perhaps
judge it too inappropriate to proceed today with redefining the
transatlantic link when the European Union is still in a state of shock
over the French and Dutch rejections of the draft constitutional treaty.
Conversely, people may consider that, at a time when debate about the
future of European construction is open, the question of any relations
that Europe should maintain with the United States is more than ever on
the agenda. And France, whose rejection of the constitutional treaty
should not be seen as a lack of interest in the European project, must
make proposals now to revive the process. It must do so not only because
it is a pioneer State in European construction but also, as regards the
specific transatlantic relationship issue, because it maintains a
special relationship with the United States, probably the most
passionate one of all. It must also do so to prove its ability to set
out its ambitions for Europe while considering the Atlanticist
sensitivity of some of its European partners, who may feel that France
welcomed them into the European Union unenthusiastically. Lastly, it
must also do so because, as an influential member of NATO, despite its
particular status, and the second biggest contributor to defence in
Europe, it is in its interest to have an effective transatlantic
relationship.
This is the spirit in which the
commission’s eight proposals lie; these proposals outline a new
transatlantic agreement between two partners of similar size, an
agreement suited to current international realities. The first two
concern Franco-American bilateral relations (I) whilst the six following
ones detail the components of a new agreement between the European Union
and the United States (II).
So
that French proposals for improving relations between Europe and the
United States are given all the more attention, France must first reform
its bilateral relationship with the United States. After the 2003
crisis, it is plain that restoring Franco-American relations will be a
long-term job and will be achieved through multifaceted initiatives. Let
us make no mistake, however, other crises are bound to come. So the
question is not so much one of avoiding but of containing future
disagreements so that the diplomatic apparatus in Washington does not
set off the machine to brand France as being anti-American or to
"hystericalize" the situation. With this aim in view, the commission is
making two proposals designed to :
– promote mutual awareness
between France and the United States by setting up a French foundation
for transatlantic relations (proposal 1);
– increase symbolic actions by
organising Franco-American initiatives attracting strong media attention
and also an annual summit meeting between French and American officials
(proposal 2).
Proposal 1: a French
foundation for transatlantic relations
Over and above the basic things
at stake, the bilateral crisis of 2003 highlighted, glaringly, the role
of strategies for communication and influence in foreign policy. There
is nothing really new in that but the strength of the anti-French
campaign in the United States – the French-bashing –, which was
relayed and even stirred up by influential sections of the media,
willingly assuming a role of disseminating propaganda rather than
information, underlined the decisive nature of communication in the age
of globalisation and the Internet. It is clear that classic means are no
longer enough when the matter at hand is convincing world opinion.
On that occasion, our country
felt the complete weakness that comes from a lack of French means to
relay opinion and influence in the United States, capable of bearing
messages and of setting up a real communication strategy. This
observation is just as valid, for that matter, outside crisis situations
and can be established for disseminating French initiatives or ideas in
any field on a day-to-day basis.
Unlike many of its European
partners, France does not have a large French community in the United
States that could act as a relay to communicate about its political
stances – on foreign or domestic policy, for example concerning its
system to fight against terrorism or the French notion of secularism –
and to develop a strategy for influence.
And yet, in a country where a
huge amount of information circulates, originating from many players,
where French ideas and viewpoints are, whether we like it or not, in
competition with many others, France must have suitable means to make
its voice heard. This particularly concerns bearing upon opinion relays
that have access to political decision-makers, as well as the American
media which are avid for French views on major international topics,
particularly since the Iraq crisis. French diplomatic services in the
United States are no doubt already carrying out this role, which they
have developed significantly since the Iraq crisis, in circumstances of
severe deterioration of France’s image in the United States. We must,
for that matter, salute their action, which led them to show great
initiative, for example recruiting an American specialist, tasked, at
the French embassy in Washington, with promoting and publicising French
positions amid the United States Congress.
Defending France’s image and
promoting our country’s initiatives and stances would be greatly
strengthened, however, if State departments were backed up by an
independent organisation, particularly in a country where civil society
plays an eminent part, where the political decision-making process
sanctions the role of lobbies and where the quality of communication
matches up to the quality of the ideas people are seeking to promote.
It is with this aim in view that
the commission proposes setting up a foundation for transatlantic
relations, which would be established in both France and the United
States.
This proposal is a direct
consequence of the observation made above, regarding the complex nature
of Franco-American relations, which are based on many links.
Consequently, the actions carried out to improve these relations should
be of varied nature and, above all, carried through by players from
civil society. Furthermore, it is easier to fit into the American
institutional environment by using the status of a foundation rather
than that of a state-approved association. It is worth remembering that
there are some 12,000 foundations in the United States compared with
2,000 in France, where this status has been improved with the aim of
increasing its attractiveness.
This foundation would have three
missions:
– To bring American opinion
leaders and officials to France (along the lines of the US State
Department’s International Visitors Leadership Program). There is
admittedly a programme of this type in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’
analysis and forecasting centre (programme for potential key figures),
but it is not specifically for the United States. Consequently, this
would involve stepping up the existing endeavour, thanks to the
synergism between public and private funds made possible by the
foundation’s status. This programme would be structured around specific
theme-based sessions depending on the people welcomed: France’s foreign
policy, the legal system, life in the media and the press, etc., the
topics are numerous and should be tailored as best as possible to the
expectations of the young Americans selected for the programme. We might
add that, within this framework, training in European matters could also
be introduced in order to respond to recurring criticisms from our
American partners about the European Union’s lack of clarity. In point
of fact, the European Union suffers from a serious lack of visibility in
the United States, where its image is extremely hazy, when not actually
negative, and linked to abstract views and an incomprehensible
institutional jargon. To conduct a real policy of influence, Europe must
be more intelligible to the American decision-making system: the
foundation would contribute to this.
– To defend and promote France’s
image in the United States, including via communication campaigns. It is
illusory, today, to try to carry out effective diplomatic action without
adapting to the surrounding cultural mould; now in the United States,
that not only means developing communication campaigns throughout the
national and regional press but also on television and Internet. Under
the pressure of events in particular, French diplomatic services have
already made headway on the subject. There is still a long way to go, as
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs recognised when it devoted part of the
Ambassadors’ Conference in August 2005 to the issue of strategies for
influence.
The foundation suggested by the
commission would play an added helpful part. It would be tasked with
explaining things to the American Congress and, beforehand, to opinion
relays – think tanks, various associations, the national but especially
local media, special interest groups – that play a part in the political
decision-making process. In addition, it would be responsible for giving
greater visibility to Franco-American initiatives and cooperation
mentioned in proposal 2.
This organisation would be
funded mainly by private players, in particular companies, in accordance
with the current law. Local authorities could also make a contribution
if they so wished. Without being the official voice of France, the
organisation would work with the diplomatic service, which, for the
record, already works on disseminating arguments, information and
explanations to non-official relays such as honorary consuls, foreign
trade advisers, French teachers in schools or universities, researchers
and students, scholarship holders, etc.
– Finally, to promote the
setting up of French study centres in American universities. Their
action would be complementary to the initiatives run by the Alliance
Française networks, funding for which should be increased. The image
France has in the United States is one of a "cultural superpower". We
must use that asset and not neglect "intellectual diplomacy", even
though the importance of this needs to be brought down to its true
value. Promoting French study centres in the extremely dense fabric of
American universities could help combat the francophobia of a fringe
group of American intellectuals and elites. Granted, there are already
such centres in most of the big American universities but, that is just
the point, our action is too focused on the East coast of the United
States and on the most prestigious establishments and would gain by
being expanded to others. Spreading out to other areas has begun thanks
to the initiative of the cultural services of the French Embassy in the
United States, which helped to set up a centre at the University of
Wisconsin, in Madison. The movement must be expanded.
Proposal 2: modernising the
symbols of the Franco-American relationship
France and the United States
share a wealth of history and sites we both hold in our memory, such as
the landing beaches, are evidence of this. However, it is necessary to
add to and modernize this symbolic heritage in order to foster a less
nostalgic and sentimental, more modern and effective image of
Franco-American relations.
• An annual Franco-American
meeting at summit level
In the political field, when the
2003 crisis exacerbated Franco-American relations, we should underscore
the practical working relations between France and the United States, in
order to avert a potential return to quarrels that sometimes take a
heated turn.
To this effect, the commission
suggests holding an annual bilateral meeting at summit level that would
bring together both Presidents and the French Prime Minister, in France
and in the United States in turn. Its aim would be to take stock of
bilateral cooperative actions and their achievements, thus enabling a
review of the points of agreement; it would also focus on possible
causes for divergence so that each is clearly aware of the positions and
arguments of the other and so that there is prior agreement as to how
these differences are communicated. Consequently, the rough edges to
Franco-American relations would be smoothed over and a list of the
points of agreement and disagreement could be drawn up and the amount of
publicity to be given to each of them decided.
Should we fear that our European
partners take offence at such an initiative, especially as it might
appear to reinforce the United States in their resolve to foster
bilateral relations with European countries to the detriment of dialogue
with the European Union? The commission does not believe this
apprehension is founded: firstly because significant stepping-up of
EU-US political dialogue is also proposed, and secondly because in the
absence of Communitisation of foreign policy, there is already
substantial bilateral dialogue, the extent of which we mentioned above.
We could furthermore accept that, prior to these summit meetings, France
informs its EU partners of the issues to be addressed.
• Franco-American cooperation
in high visibility areas
The top-level political summit
would help launch and promote concrete co-operative actions between
France and the United States in high visibility areas.
It is of course difficult to
give media coverage of our co-operation as regards the fight against
terrorism, an area that, by definition, is covered by the Official
Secrets Act. However, the commission is keen to stress the essential
nature of this co-operation and asks for it to be stepped up.
On the other hand, at a time
when the explosion in oil prices leads us to ponder about fossil fuel
replacement, our co-operation in the field of civil nuclear energy
and new energy forms could be emphasized, especially since it
demolishes the image France has in the United States, one of a country
where life is good but which is little known for its technological
feats. It is in France’s interest to put emphasis on its achievements in
an area where it is ranked world leader and in which the United States
co-operates actively. The latest example dated 28 February 2005 is the
signature of an agreement on operational co-operation in the field of
fourth generation nuclear reactors.
In other respects, at the very
time when the United States has been hit by Hurricane Katrina, a joint
initiative regarding civil protection assistance and prevention of
natural disasters could be taken on France’s proposal. Likewise, the
recurrence of this type of phenomena could lead our two countries to
work together on climate change: stalemate on the part of the United
States concerning the Kyoto protocol should not mean we give up
discussing environmental matters with the US, especially since debate
about the issue is both productive and diverse, and not at all like the
caricatures we are presented with.
Lastly, in the admittedly very
competitive field of medical research, co-operation is already
plentiful and fruitful but would gain by being highlighted and extended,
at a time when we are witnessing the accelerated spread of epidemics due
to the effect of globalisation and the increase in trade it gives rise
to.
• A secretariat for
transatlantic relations
Finally, some members of the
commission suggest that these co-operative actions be tracked by a
permanent secretariat for Franco-American relations, which would be set
up along the lines of what is in place in Germany, where a co-ordinator
of German-American co-operation comes under the authority of the Federal
Foreign Office. Such a structure, reporting to the head of political
affairs in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, would provide the means to
set up systematic working relations dissociated from the heated topical
events that pop up again and again in Franco-American relations. It
would help forge common working habits that could not fail to have an
influence on personal relations. More broadly speaking, this secretariat
would act as the driving force behind Franco-American relations,
especially in economic matters.
Faced with sizable challenges,
Europeans and Americans have to reform their alliance in order to adapt
its objectives and ways of working to current demands.
We propose replacing the
transatlantic agreement of the Cold War period, which was based on
trading "security for unwavering solidarity", with a new agreement,
formalized by five proposals. Their objective is twofold: enhanced
dialogue and more effective co-operation.
The first two proposals are
designed to give an institutional expression to the new transatlantic
agreement and consist of:
– appointing a European
co-ordinator for transatlantic relations (proposal 3);
– setting up a joint, permanent,
bilateral EU-US secretariat for transatlantic relations (proposal 4).
The last three proposals
specifically concern transatlantic security relations, the nerve centre
of the link between Europe and the United States. They involve:
– implementing a long-term plan
to co-ordinate and improve EU defence spending (proposal 5);
– forming a European "quad"
enlarged to six members in NATO (proposal 6);
– and working out a new
strategic concept for NATO (proposal 7).
Since political dialogue between
the European Union and the United States suffers from two major
shortcomings – the difficulty for EU Member states to co-ordinate and
the complexity of the dialogue structure between the EU and the US -,
the commission makes two proposals:
– to improve internal EU
co-ordination concerning transatlantic relations by appointing a
European co-ordinator for transatlantic relations (proposal 3);
– to simplify channels of
dialogue between the European Union and the United States by setting up
a permanent bilateral secretariat (proposal 4).
Proposal 3 : appointing a
European co-ordinator for transatlantic relations
·
The need for a common European
approach
There is no question of turning
this report into a discussion about European construction and its
purposes as a result of disappointing current events in Europe. The
commission took up the transatlantic issue several months before the
result of the referendums held in France and the Netherlands and does
not intend to take advantage of this report to produce any kind of "plan
B".
However, the preceding
observations show that the priority is to combat intra-European
divisions and, gradually, to draw forth a valid American policy from the
European Union, which would take the place of the current notion of a
"natural" transatlantic link. This link is understandable in a situation
of massive threat but inappropriate to the European Union’s growing
importance and to the increase in the number of challenges in the
transatlantic relationship.
Real dialogue on transatlantic
relations needs to emerge within the European Union, with the long-term
objective being to hammer out a European position on relations with the
United States. We are well aware that such dialogue is not self-evident
since, for many of our partners, NATO is still the forum for
transatlantic debate about major international strategic issues, with
the G7 being devoted to economic and monetary matters. We are,
nevertheless, convinced that the inefficiencies and cumbersomeness of
the current transatlantic relationship come from the fact that this plan
is unsuited to the demands of the 21st century.
• Appointing a co-ordinator for transatlantic
relations
This dialogue would be monitored
and impelled by a co-ordinator for transatlantic relations. Although
appointed by the European Council, this co-ordinator would be
responsible for monitoring intra-European dialogue in all areas of the
transatlantic relationship, that also means as far as Community spheres
are concerned (trade relations, issues of competition, etc.). As for its
status, particularly in relation to the President of the Council, the
head of foreign policy and the President of the Commission, this should
be negotiated among Member states.
This proposal, made by the
commission and inspired by the model of the German co-ordinator of
transatlantic co-operation, aims in the first place to solemnise
relations between the European Union and the United States, which are
currently on the same level as most other foreign relations in the EU’s
institutional structure. It is furthermore a response to American
criticisms about the complexity of the EU and its abstract and
technocratic nature. This criticism, also levelled by Russia, the EU’s
other partner, may conceal spite but we are not fooled by this; however,
we must not underestimate the import of that argument : European
citizens find it hard to understand the Union and our foreign partners
even more so.
For the time being, given the
difficulty of such dialogue, we need to be realistic. Therefore, the
commission suggests that the co-ordinator for transatlantic relations
endeavours:
– In a first phase, to
see to it that this transatlantic dialogue inside the European Union
takes the shape of an informal agreement between EU members, a sort of
gentlemen’s agreement that would be designed, in the short and medium
term, to prevent a further crisis like the one that Europe went through
in 2003 with Iraq. The EU Member states would agree to meet on a regular
basis to exchange opinions on matters involving transatlantic relations
and, in the case of differences of opinion, would undertake not to
involve others when setting out their standpoints in public.
– In a second phase, to
focus this dialogue on two themes that the commission feels are a
priority in order to foster better European co-ordination:
. on the subject of the economy
and finance, the question of better harmonized representation in the
Bretton Woods institutions should be raised within the EU because
European and transatlantic co-ordination is insufficient today in an
area that nevertheless concerns the dynamism of European growth.
Currently, the European Union
does not carry weight equivalent to the accumulated voting rights of its
members as a result of the particularities of the representation system
in the Bretton Woods institutions.
Some people say that the
institution of a single European chair would be technically possible,
subject to the statutes being changed and co-ordination at European
level to define the mandate of the director for Europe. Uniting European
representation would, moreover, be the ultimate solution since with at
least 15 % of the voting rights, this would give Europe a right of veto.
Bearing in mind the reluctance
of some EU members to lose their own votes in these institutions, there
is no certainty, at least to begin with, that uniting EU representation
would bring any advantages, especially since prior co-ordination would
be difficult. Nevertheless the debate should be set in motion; it could
result either in an agreement as to a single chair, which is highly
unlikely, or in any other system of unifying European representation.
The following measures could
already be considered within the bounds of this European dialogue: at
the IMF, adoption by EU members of joint written declarations on
subjects that do not give rise to differences, similar to what is
starting to occur at the World Bank, where a European vision of
development is becoming apparent; the introduction of a rule holding
that permanent presidency should always include a European director in
order to increase visibility of the European Union and the euro zone. On
examining the rules governing the way the IMF and World Bank work, this
co-ordination would be a huge step forward .
. in the area of defence and
security, the matter of the EU Member states’ budget allocated for
defence needs to be tackled head-on as part of European dialogue
concerning the United States. The commission has drawn up proposal 5 on
that subject.
Proposal 4 : setting up a
permanent European Union/United States secretariat for transatlantic
relations
Setting up intra-European
dialogue on transatlantic relations naturally leads to establishing real
political dialogue between the European Union and the United States,
which does not exist today. The current structure of dialogue between
the European Union and the United States is too complex and has not
brought about a political dynamic.
It is time to put an end to this
paradox, when the European Union is the United States’ only global
partner and when the channels for relations between the two bodies are
numerous, but sporadic and technocratic. Likewise, the reciprocal
feeling of distance, even though there are many links (institutional,
human, economic or cultural) between the two entities, could be
dispelled if the European Union had its heart set on building real
political dialogue with the United States, and the United States a
coherent policy, devoid of ambiguity in relation to their European
allies.
Today, at a time when the United
States have shown renewed determination since the start of President
Bush’s second term to give substance to transatlantic dialogue, when the
new EU members also set great store by this dialogue and when the
breakthrough of emerging countries, China for a start, makes true
transatlantic solidarity a matter of urgency, it is time to get
transatlantic dialogue started again, embodying it in a single,
all-inclusive structure.
That is why the commission
suggests setting up a permanent bilateral secretariat in order to step
up transatlantic political dialogue. On the European side, it would come
under the authority of the President of the Council and would be run by
the European co-ordinator for transatlantic relations mentioned earlier.
The role of the secretariat for
transatlantic relations would be :
– To deal with Community and
intergovernmental matters alike, i.e. it would be responsible for
preparing EU-US summits, for preparing meetings of multilateral
financial institutions or for monitoring transatlantic negotiations
within the context of the World Trade Organization.
– To act also as a driving
force, firstly by working out proposals to increase economic
integration. More importantly, this new structure could deal full time
with the matter of convergence of regulations either side of the
Atlantic, since most obstacles to transatlantic trading are not related
to prices.
– As part of this role as
leader, it would also be tasked with promoting the organisation of
meetings between political and administrative officials, specialists and
researchers on strategic topics of common interest. On security matters,
this would involve avoiding a repeat scenario of the 2003 Iraq crisis
type. Several subjects emerge within this context which could, in the
medium and long term, lead to acute transatlantic tensions. Joint
transatlantic discussion could therefore be started up on the two issues
that stand out in this respect:
. In view of the situation in
Iran and North Korea, we need to reflect together on future crisis
scenarios: what would a world with ten or fifteen States equipped with
nuclear weapons be like and, more especially, what does a Near East with
a nuclear-endowed Iran imply? How to redefine an international system of
non-proliferation?
. Likewise, as we have already
underscored, the debate about democratisation of the Arab-Muslim world
deserves to be addressed more thoroughly : how does the
democratisation/Islamisation pair work in the Near East ? What scope
does transatlantic co-operation have to see this project through? All
these are subjects which transatlantic political dialogue needs to study
using a futures-oriented approach.
– Lastly, to act as an alarm
system so as to identify as far ahead as possible subjects that could
bear potential crises, whether in matters of trade disputes or
concerning security issues.
Proposal 5 : a long-term plan
to co-ordinate and increase EU defence spending
Many Europeans were upset when
they discovered in an article in Foreign Affairs written in
Spring 2002 by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, the statement
according to which in US eyes "coalitions must not determine the
mission". There is a great deal of blindness and a certain lack of
coherence in this emotion: the American preference for ad hoc
coalitions indisputably originates in part from the fact that Europeans
devote insufficient means to their defence.
A few figures show the extent of
this shortfall. The gap between American and European military spending
today is $200 billion, the United States alone spend over twice more
than European states belonging to NATO ($333 billion compared with $160
bn). This gap is not likely to diminish seeing the continual increase in
the United States’ defence budget, which, for fiscal 2005, amounts to
$447 billion.
This huge gap is further
accentuated by structural differences between European budgets on the
one hand and American on the other. Whereas the United States allots
35 % of their defence budget to personnel and 30 % to purchasing new
equipment, most European states (France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Greece,
Belgium) spend between 60 and 70 % on personnel and 10 % at the most on
purchasing new equipment. What is more, Europe spends five times less in
the field of military research and development than the United States.
So all in all, the military capabilities available to European States
account for only 20 % of the United States’ capabilities, while Europe
has 20 % more military personnel than America. Hence a great imbalance
as regards power projection: as the United States has a higher ratio of
equipment and better structuring between the number of combatants and
the number of support forces, they were able to deploy 115,000 to
140,000 men in Iraq, in 2003 et 2004, where the United Kingdom, Italy,
Poland, the Netherlands and Denmark deployed a maximum of 16,000 over
the period.
Under these circumstances, what
are the chances of success for the new NATO programme decided in Prague,
during the 2002 summit, which plans to reduce the capability gap between
the Europeans and Americans in NATO, – this programme was adopted three
years after the 1999 Defence Capabilities Initiative,
which, focusing on the same purpose swiftly ended in bitter failure?
Let there be no mistake, the
rebuff that Europeans in NATO met with in 2001, when they suggested to
their American partners the implementation of article V of the
Washington treaty, owes much to this difference in capabilities.
Already, after NATO’s Operation Allied Force in Kosovo, the American
army had vowed that this first of a kind would be the last, retaining
very bad memories of having to negotiate and then reduce the range of
targets to be hit. In the case of Operation Enduring Freedom in
Afghanistan, in autumn 2001, the absence of precision-guided bombs in
European arsenals, when the United States were counting on using them
massively in Afghanistan, gave an added argument to those in the
Pentagon who refused war "by committees".
There is certainly no question
of European countries following the United States’ lead by doubling
their defence funding. We should recognize, however, that this modern
version of the "US gap" is certainly not impartial in the current
transatlantic relationship. A real risk hangs over the interoperability
between the armed forces on either side of the Atlantic, even though,
spontaneously, the United States are not the most concerned by the issue
of interoperability. It is worth mentioning on that score the little
known fact that American forces themselves are, in part, inoperable
among each other: for instance, in 2001, during the Afghanistan
operations, the forces in the Mediterranean fleet were temporarily
unable to co-ordinate their actions with those of the Pacific fleet for
lack of identical telecommunications encryption.
Yet the fact is that our fellow
citizens are genuinely allergic to defence spending. For example, while
70 % of Europeans think that the European Union should become a
superpower similar to the United States, 44 % of them give up on that
idea if it involves an increase in military spending. What does the
annual survey conducted by the German Marshall Fund in September
2005 confirm other than that Europeans side in fact with the American
strategy of tailor-made alliances?
It is not very responsible to
call for reform of the transatlantic link by restricting ourselves, for
defence, to the Cold War principle by which the United States will in
any case defend Europe if need be. EU Member states have an obligation
to be coherent and to educate people on this point. We must stop looking
upon military spending as an optional or secondary expenditure, because
of some kind of fatalism that claims that terrorism is unforeseeable,
complex and impossible to overcome by classic military means and as a
result of vainly opposing civil spending (social in particular) and
military spending. An unspoken distribution of roles between the United
States that are established as a "hard power" and Europe reduced to a
"soft power" is not advisable because it obliges Europe to deal with the
effects of American policy without allowing it to control events. The
alternative is not between, on the one hand, opposing American
initiatives when we deem them adventurous by keeping low levels of
military equipment spending and, on the other, blindly following the
United States, which includes spending excessive amounts on defence. It
is between the responsible option which consists in giving credibility
to our diplomatic choices by backing them up with military budgets
worthy of our ambitions and the option of inconsistency which prevails
in Europe at present.
In this respect, it is not to
show self-satisfaction when we say that France, which has the second
biggest defence budget in Europe after the United Kingdom, chose
consistency and, as a result of this, is in a position to ask its
partners to do likewise. For instance, since 2002, only Great Britain,
France and Greece devote more than 2 % of their gross domestic product
(GDP) to their defence, with 2.2 %, 2 % and 3 % respectively in 2004.
Sweden spends 1.8 % of its GDP on defence. The other countries stand at
much lower levels: 1.1 % for Germany, 1.2 % for Italy and 0.9 % for
Spain.
In view of these observations,
European Union countries need to improve the effectiveness of their
defence spending by reducing the weight of personnel costs in favour of
equipment purchases and by co-ordinating their defence effort, notably
to improve their collective power-projection capability. This
co-ordination should particularly focus on resources for support and
training. Some members of the commission even go so far as to suggest
better integration of national spending within the framework of a
European defence project, which includes a potential distribution of
tasks among the various Member states: this, however, is not the
position of the rapporteur or of most of his colleagues in the
commission.
Europeans in the Alliance who
spend less than 2 % of their GDP on defence must also solemnly undertake
to increase their share of the "burden" that the price of security in
Europe equates with, so they are level with the French and British. The
terms of this increase could be reconciled with the sensitivity of
European public opinions on these matters. For instance, this
undertaking could be part of a long-term plan (2007-2013) to increase,
even modestly, EU countries’ global defence spending, determined
in proportion to gross domestic product. In order to give pledges for
the future and to maximise this extra budget outlay, a part of this
increase could focus on research spending, whether civil and
military or just military, and civil spin-offs could help ease the
public opinion’s acceptance of this expenditure. At the same time, an
undertaking would be made to increase the portion of military spending
allotted to purchasing new equipment. In this way, our fellow citizens
would probably accept this budget increase all the better since they
would be convinced that, thanks to better co-ordination, defence
spending in Europe meets requirements.
Proposal 6: forming a "quad"
increased to six members and readjusting NATO’s commands
• Better organized Europeans:
a six-member "quad"
Sharing the budget burden should
be negotiated with the United States in exchange for sharing
decision-making within NATO, and this, moreover, would ease the task of
educating people that we just mentioned. This involves redistributing
responsibilities within NATO between the United States on one hand and
European States on the other. The commission considers that we can no
longer continue to take refuge, like the United States, behind the legal
illusion according to which NATO works by consensus, based on the
classic principle of "one State, one vote". Things are quite different,
as Mr Evan Galbraith, special adviser to the American delegation to
NATO, recognised very blandly when he mentioned the Europeans’ "very
different interests" and underscored that "for the Americans, a
European Bloc would create difficulties in conducting their traditional
relations with each country". Europeans would definitely have a huge
job of organising consultation among themselves beforehand; carrying on
with the present unequal situation would scarcely be compatible with
giving European States more responsibility for the budget. The United
States must accept that if Europe increases its military funding, it
should also be able to decide more.
In return for the Europeans’
acceptance of sharing the burden, the commission therefore proposes
forming a new type of European "quad"(),
increased to six members. For instance, France would suggest to Germany
consultation on defining the confines best suited to strategic dialogue
with the United States, bringing the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy and
Poland in on this. Because of their defence outlay and their place in
the Alliance, all these States have authority to be part of the "quad";
however, as regards Germany in particular, it will definitely have to
increase its budget investment in the military field. The imbalance
between its role in Europe and its defence funding is too striking
today.
The formation of this "quad"
would put an end to the schizophrenia-like situation in which Europeans
are placed in NATO today: united in trade, economic and monetary areas,
accustomed to working together on a daily basis in ESDP authorities,
they are supposed to reason in strictly national terms and treat their
partners in the Union and Turkey, the United States or Canada on the
same level when they meet on NATO premises.
As for this new type of "quad"
being recognized by the United States and getting an institutional
expression, that is another matter. We can see here the debate about the
European pillar of NATO, which is not new; but that does not mean it is
outmoded and it will crop up one day if the European members of the
Alliance manage to draw their positions closer. The purpose of the
Atlantic Alliance is to have two pillars; but first, let us say it
again, the Union has to be capable of organising the one that depends on
it – that is the purpose of the "quad" – and, what is more, the United
States have to accept this. There is still a long way to go on the
subject.
• A more balanced Alliance :
reform of commands
Clearly, the first consequence
of forming a European, six-member "quad" will be to revive the debate
about the allocation of NATO commands, which should reflect the
existence of the European pillar.
In this respect, the commission
proposes that at least the post of Deputy Supreme Allied Commander
Europe (SACEUR), an American, comes back to one of the members of the
"quad". Traditionally, for that matter, this position was taken on
alternately by a German and a British person and it is only recently,
when NATO’s commands were reformed, that the Germans relinquished their
right for other advantages – probably an unfortunate choice. This
arrangement could perfectly well be reviewed as part of the new
agreement that would see the main European countries in matters of
defence trading increased capability and better co-ordination in return
for more responsibilities in NATO.
• Greater involvement for
France in the Alliance?
The second consequence of
forming the "quad" directly involves France. The question would be
raised ipso facto of whether France should not regain a full and
integral place in NATO. We have already underscored that France is a
major power in NATO today, including in its military structures. Our
country is gradually getting back into most of the Alliance’s
committees, commands and military organs, even if its participation is
limited in numbers (1 %) and to one purpose, the setting up of the rapid
response force. However, France retains its specific character by being
absent from the Alliance’s two organs responsible for planning: the
Defence Planning Committee (DPC) for conventional force matters and the
Nuclear Planning Group (NPG), as regards nuclear matters.
Would the setting up of the
"quad" involve taking things further?
It is important in this respect
to make a clear distinction between what comes under planning as regards
conventional forces and the nuclear field.
• In nuclear matters, let us
remember that it was to safeguard France’s autonomy to make strategic
decisions that General de Gaulle decided, in 1966, that France would no
longer take part in NATO’s defence planning. This autonomy in
decision-making does not prevent France from playing the operational
role it wishes to have in the Alliance. So there is no reason to
reconsider the autonomy of French nuclear forces.
• On conventional matters, a
clear distinction must be made between what comes under operational
planning, i.e. the participation of French soldiers in planning
operations related to specific operations – Afghanistan, Kosovo – and
what concerns defence planning, that is to say the planning to
coherently structure the defence systems of countries whose armies are
fully integrated into the NATO structure:
– In the first case, France is
obviously a stakeholder in the process, insofar as it is one of the main
contributors in the way of military forces: this involves isolated
planning, inherent to any outside operation involving several countries.
– So, the only question we are
really faced with concerns defence planning.
In fact, by taking part in the
NATO Response Force (NRF) and by setting up headquarters to NATO
standards, France partly comes into a defence planning process: the aim
here, within the framework of headquarters with a large proportion of
foreign generals and officers,
is to set up the procedures that will allow rapid deployment of this new
type of mobile force that the NRF embodies – and this is the exact
description of planning.
Must we, right now, go beyond
any developments taking place within the framework of the NRF, and
participate fully in all of NATO’s defence planning? To date, the
consequences would be as follows:
1. The first consequence of
taking part in defence planning, and therefore in Defence Planning
Committee (DPC) meetings, would be a considerable increase in the French
armed forces assigned to this huge machine that NATO planning represents
today, with its staff of 12,000. Taking part in the planning process
would in fact involve coming at least into line with Germany (2,500
people assigned to planning tasks), that is to say would suppose a
complete overhaul of the organisation of our officering. Would our armed
forces become more efficient? This is the only question which we should
use to evaluate the problem of France’s participation.
2. Politically speaking,
France’s participation in the DPC would make futile the argument about
certain Alliance members’ attempts to use the DPC to make decisions that
are normally the remit of NATO’s political decision-making organ, the
North Atlantic Council (NAC). These attempts to bypass the NAC have
nevertheless been thwarted up to now: France stays watchful and, until
now, has imposed its views, in such a way that the NAC has retained its
powers and France its say.
3. As part of the command reform
that we mentioned earlier, the forces planning process is currently
being studied and worked on with regard to changes to be made to remedy
present cumbersomeness. Before France gives a decision on why it would
be in its advantage to take extra steps to "normalise" its position in
NATO, would it not be wiser to wait for the outcome of these complex
negotiations?
4. To date, our special place in
NATO is not an obstacle to effective (we repeat) co-operation on
operational ground with our partners in the Alliance. In this respect,
it is worth mentioning the quality of our operational co-operation with
the American forces: French and Americans work very effectively on the
ground, and on good terms, and the soldiers from both countries
genuinely appreciate one another. The very close Franco-American
collaboration in setting up the NATO Response Force (NRF) is also
evidence of this. More importantly, the new French headquarters
dedicated to the NRF, based in Lille, will include a dozen American
officers. Here again, we must consider France’s interest: if, one day,
our status in the Alliance is harmful to our army’s co-operation with
the allied forces, then we will need to look into the possibility of
much greater rapprochement.
Ultimately, the gesture would no
doubt be symbolic but, to date, without any real advantage for our armed
forces, and what is more without any real point on account of reforms in
force at NATO. We must admit that France’s current position in NATO
affords considerable advantages in terms of negotiating flexibility.
French diplomats and officers are present in key positions where
decisions are made, without however being bound by the red tape of NATO
processes. France is both sufficiently on the outside to be able to
adopt a critical stance on the Alliance’s political options and
sufficiently on the inside for the men and money it provides to have
enough weight in the decision-making structures.
Is this policy tenable as the
ESDP’s importance grows? France made its commitment to NATO a means to
reinforce the ESDP at the same time. In short, where Great Britain sees
the ESDP as a means to strengthen the Alliance, France calculates
differently, it sees in the Alliance a means to reinforce the ESDP, in
particular thanks to the growth of interoperability between Europeans
and to the common military culture created in its midst. This policy of
constructive ambiguity consolidates the French position as much as the
ESDP. This is precisely its objective. If it turns out that it is no
longer fulfilling this objective and that it no longer allows us to work
efficiently with our allies, it will need to be changed. It is
pragmatism and not positions of principle that should guide our action
on the subject.
Proposal 7: a new strategic
concept clarifying NATO’s role
By a paradox that is only
superficial, the fact that the Atlantic Alliance is no longer central to
American strategy probably means it is an opportune moment to start the
debate about its role in the future. In a twofold context of playing
down the importance of the challenges linked to the Atlantic Alliance
and the extent of threat, there is a real opportunity to tackle the
question of the Alliance’s role, even if discussions about the future of
the Alliance have long been a taboo subject. If we consider that the
Alliance is still one of the bases for relations between Europe and the
United States, then the official silence is no longer acceptable. The
question has to be settled of whether NATO should remain an American and
European military defence tool or turn into a regional political
organisation of international calling. For lack of solving NATO’s
current inconsistencies, its members are increasing its fragility and
posing a threat to its sustainable nature.
To settle this debate, we need
to be able to clearly answer three questions that are tarnishing the
Alliance’s image today:
– Is the Alliance still solely a
military tool for collective defence or a regional security organisation
of military and civil calling?
– Who is authorized to decide on
the Alliance’s intervention in a military operation, its Council or the
UN?
– What should the Alliance’s
geographic field of intervention be?
1. What is the nature of the
Alliance?
The primary mission of the
Alliance, an instrument for collective defence, needs to be reaffirmed.
Need we remind you that the
Atlantic Alliance gets its long-standing legitimacy from its initial and
essential character of a military alliance for collective defence? It
must therefore remain a military tool, whose prime purpose – to protect
Europe and North America – must be reaffirmed. This reminder of NATO’s
collective defence mission is important, particularly for the new Member
states from the Soviet bloc: their determination to be part of NATO is
to a large extent motivated by this mission, embodied in article V of
the Washington treaty founding NATO. May we remind you that only one of
the operations currently implemented by NATO comes under the collective
security mission: this is Operation "Active Endeavour" where ships are
patrolling the Mediterranean and which is part of the fight against
terrorism and the transport of weapons of mass destruction.
Reaffirming the primary role of
the Alliance would not mean that it is unauthorized to intervene as a
force to restore and maintain peace: so long as it acts within the
context of international law, this new role, acquired in the 1990s,
cannot be questioned. It does not pose a problem that the Atlantic
Alliance has added to its static, defensive role by one of operational
intervention: all Western armies have made changes to this effect. NATO
has a role to play in both Kosovo and Bosnia.
2. Who decides on the Alliance’s
intervention ?
As a power-projection force,
NATO has authority to intervene in operations by decision of its
members, either within the framework of the mutual assistance clause or
by mandate of the UN Security Council.
We mentioned NATO’s
power-projection role, acquired during the previous decade at a time
when the end of the Soviet glacis was rousing nationalist passions in
Europe’s eastern regions. This new role assumed by the Alliance is not
disputable; but even then it needs to have a clear mandate in this
respect.
The Atlantic Alliance is not
authorized to take the place of the UN Security Council in cases where
it is not intervening to legitimately defend one of its members. From
this point of view, the intervention in Kosovo, during which NATO went
into action without the agreement of the Security Council, cannot be
seen as a precedent. Here we had a very specific case where the choice
was between doing nothing, which would inevitably have happened if put
to the Security Council because of the likely Russian veto, and
protecting and defending threatened populations. This specific case
cannot be expected to result in fleshing out a general doctrine which
requires that the Alliance only intervenes when its members so decide,
never mind the rules of international law.
The idea that the Atlantic
Alliance is entitled to decide itself on resorting to force, on the
grounds that it only brings together "liberal democracies that, since
its creation, have not shown any intention of growing and have spared no
efforts to secure peace and stability",
is totally unfounded. Whether some people like it or not, the
international system is still structured around the principle of State
sovereignty and the principle of "one State, one vote": this is why
serious decisions such as resorting to force against another State must,
except in the case of self-defence, be made by the UN Security Council,
which remains the only international authority authorized by law. The
fact that UN members work according to democratic principles internally
or not is not a criterion to challenge this principle in the eyes of
international law. Acknowledging that the Atlantic Alliance has a right
of legitimation to use force would amount to promoting retaliatory
measures and therefore to opening Pandora’s box.
Yet what would we do if there
were a crisis like the one in Kosovo in 1998? For instance, in the event
of a "Kosovo 2" in Europe, inaction would not be conceivable, unless we
were able to define right now a system that observes international law
whilst providing the means to stop a blatant violation of human rights
and the risk of destabilizing regional security. This mechanism would
avoid any temptations to intervene that might be based on a debatable
interpretation of the right of self-defence, which could lead to
unfortunate experiences such as in Iraq.
3. What is the Alliance’s
geographic area of intervention ?
Today, it is a fact: the
Alliance is present far beyond European or North American borders. And
yet, in the absence of an open debate on the subject, the Atlantic
Alliance’s legitimacy to intervene outside Europe is not established,
but still has to be built.
To date, acceptance of the facts
forces us to conclude that NATO’s interventions in what is
conventionally called the "out of area" pose many problems because they
correspond to a case-by-case logic, without any previously defined
framework. Even in a clear-cut, international framework, where NATO
intervenes as the UN’s military arm, the International Security
Assistance Force (ISAF) present in Afghanistan repeatedly comes up
against the European allies’ lack of enthusiasm to supply the equipment
needed for the mission, as was illustrated in 2003 by the "helicopter
controversy". This is the reason why the ISAF is scarcely seen outside
Kabul, which could pose serious problems in the future. Likewise, NATO’s
very limited involvement in Iraq gave rise to much debate in the
Alliance. One can wonder to what extent the material difficulties
pleaded are not also a sign of political doubts with regard to the
undefined enlargement of the Alliance’s scope.
It is worth querying if these
missions strengthen or weaken the Alliance. Back in 1990, when the
Americans were steering the debate towards politicisation and
globalisation of the Alliance, France denounced the creation of a new
"Holy Alliance". NATO’s mixed results outside Europe and the
considerable tensions that such missions create in the Alliance, in
particular regarding the fight against terrorism, are likely to weaken
the Alliance, contrary to the initial goal of strengthening it that such
missions are supposed to contribute to.
The commission therefore
proposes that a preliminary doctrine be debated and defined, within
NATO, which would avoid complex negotiations on a case-by-case basis.
This doctrine would make it possible to define clearly on what
conditions and under which circumstances the Alliance has grounds for
intervening outside its "natural" area.
The preceding developments
distinctly show that, today, no one is able to clearly explain what the
Alliance’s mission is nor what is the legal or moral justification for
its interventions – when these do not come within the collective defence
mission. Quite the reverse, all the members of the Alliance maintain
utmost ambiguity on these questions.
This is not a satisfactory
situation. The commission considers that, if there are grounds for
adopting measures to reorganise the Alliance in order to better
distribute responsibilities and assert Europe’s role within it, it is
not a good idea to give this revamped Alliance the role of a kind of "UN
for rich countries in the northern hemisphere" and to extend its
mission. In order to avoid this risk, a collective discussion is
essential to clearly define the role, conditions and scope of
intervention for NATO in the future.
