A year for hard choices
We need to end our dependence on the US
Leader
Thursday January 4, 2001
The Guardian

A hard strategic choice will face the new British government likely to be elected this spring. It would have come anyway, but the arrival in the White House of a hardline team with dangerous views about the world has accelerated it. Britain's relationship with the United States cannot be allowed to go on in the way that it has. The comforting illusion that Britain can act as a "bridge" between Europe and the United States is no longer viable. If re-elected, New Labour will have to work out a position that embeds Britain more firmly into European security arrangements than it has yet dared to do, but also provides a clear long-term perspective to explain it. Ambiguity will not do.

Ironically, it was a hasty decision two years ago that produced the platform that could launch the new process. At St Malo in Brittany, Tony Blair and the French president, Jacques Chirac, agreed that the two countries would create a joint force as the nucleus of a new European security and defence identity. At the time Mr Blair seemed mainly to be trying to counter the embarrassment of having the euro start a few weeks later without Britain on board. To prevent being isolated, Britain would go in hard on a different European project and one where, thanks to its experienced professional armed forces, it held good cards.

A few months afterwards Mr Blair's support for the new force grew when the Kosovo war highlighted Europe's dependence on the United States. Europe did not have the military assets to act without American participation. On the issue of ground troops versus air power, it also became clear that the US held a political veto. The latest chapter came last month when William Cohen, the lame duck US defence secretary, questioned the new European force's relationship with Nato. The EU's Nice summit last month produced a compromise, but the issue remains contested.

Along with most other European governments, Britain says the force's planning unit must be anchored in Nato. But this position cannot be held indefinitely. It is not just that there is no unanimity. It lacks logic. France wants the rapid reaction force to be able to work not only in crises where the US chooses not to take part, but also in cases where the US disagrees. That has to be right. There would seem to be little point in having a European force able to act independently of the US if it never does so. Otherwise, why not use Nato? The standard reply is that some members of the EU (such as Sweden, which at present holds the EU presidency) are not in Nato and they may wish to take part in operations that Nato itself does not want to undertake. To which the counter-reply is that the United States is not in the EU, so why should it be able to dictate Europe's foreign policy in cases where foreign policy has to be backed by military force?

In other words, the paradox of letting the United States continue to control Europe's key strategic decisions, even when the cold war has been over for more than a decade, cannot be ignored any longer. As the Bush presidency approaches, the issue has become acute. Bill Clinton's eight years showed how far the White House, in some cases forced by conservatives in Congress but often in agreement with them, has moved towards unilateralism. It regularly ignored or opposed the United Nations. It intervened militarily, as with its missile attacks on Sudan and Afghanistan, without consulting even its closest allies. When it did intervene alongside other nations, it took a military stance of force protection that allowed for no American casualties and therefore made the US role more of a hindrance than a help. Instead of Saving Private Ryan as a sidebar to a massive second world war operation in which the US was willing to take infantry casualties as heavily as its allies, Saving Private Ryan has become the leitmotif of the whole operation.

The new American president wants to go ahead with a "son of star wars" plan to deploy an expensive and technically futile system to try to shoot down missiles. Although called national defence, it will spark an international arms race. The scheme's favoured option will require use of radar stations in Britain. Under his "Britain as bridge"approach, Mr Blair will be tempted to win favour with Mr Bush by playing the issue down so that the new boy on the block can feel Britain is his best friend in Europe.

The temptation should be resisted. A clear no on the radar issue will be the best possible early signal to the new US administration that Europe too is re-evaluating its strategy. Europe's interests are not the same as those of the United States. Its defence arrangements must change with the times. In his comments last month, Mr Cohen said that Nato would "become a relic" if Europe developed its own forces. But the alliance is a relic already. Its rationale died with the end of the Soviet Union and the world has become multipolar.

That said, the new European force should not replace Nato by doing the job that Nato used to do. Nor should it try to compete with the United States on a global level. The EU must make clear that its rapid reaction force will only be used in Europe or be made available to the United Nations in police missions or as peacekeepers in other parts of the world. This too will be an important sign that in the dawning era of European independence Europe wants to give muscle to the UN, whatever the US feels.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001
Janet Bloomfield
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