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F O C U S
Lisbon Treaty remains unratified.
Nor is there an identity for Europeans
to assume. Nonetheless, the
CFSP reflects a longstanding desire
in European countries to have a
foreign policy and a military force
independent of — but not opposed
to — NATO.
European nations can boast an
impressive numerical tally: 27
armed forces, 10,000 tanks, around
2,500 combat aircraft, and almost
two million soldiers — but with
much overlap and redundancy. According to a July 2008
white paper published by the European Council on Foreign
Relations, “Re-Energizing Europe’s Security and
Defense Policy” by Nick Witney, some “70 percent of
Europe’s land forces are unable to operate outside national
territory.” According to that study, one reason that
the E.U.’s operational missions throughout the world remain
limited in scope is that “the 5 percent of Europe’s
nearly two million men and women in uniform currently
overseas is the maximum that obsolete military machines
can sustain.”
Until 2007, Witney headed the European Defense
Agency, which attempts to “improve Europe’s defense
performance, by promoting coherence and a more integrated
approach to capability development.” EDA’s goals
may appear modest, but its attempts at coordination and
efficiency among militaries that together consume onequarter
of the world’s defense budgets can be made to
bear fruit.
France: Back in the NATO Fold?
Several important European countries share membership
in NATO and the E.U., but among NATO’s top
powers, only France has formally separated its political
and military participation. France was key to NATO’s
foundation, and until 1967 was the host to the organization’s
political headquarters in central Paris and military
headquarters (SHAPE) in the Parisian suburbs. That all
changed when President Charles de Gaulle, proclaiming
France’s independence in matters strategic, pulled out of
the unified military command. Ever since, NATO has
been headquartered in Belgium.
NATO’s 60th-anniversary summit this month will be
held in Strasbourg, the most European of French cities.
European member-states
— which also tend to
belong to the E.U. —
no longer see NATO as
their primary institution
of reference.
Sitting on the Rhine, linked by
bridges to Kehl, Germany (summit
co-host), it houses such important
institutions as the European Parliament,
the Council of Europe and
the European Court of Human
Rights. It is also headquarters of
EUROCORPS, which grandly proclaims
itself “A Force for Europe
and NATO” — consisting of earmarked
troops from France, Germany,
Spain, Poland, Belgium and
Luxembourg.
Don’t expect a return to Paris — NATO will stay in
Brussels and SHAPE in Mons, Belgium — but the summit
in Strasbourg will mark a turning point. French President
Nicolas Sarkozy has promised to return his country
to NATO’s military command. In late January, NATO
Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer hinted at the
impending decision: “I hope that Strasbourg might be
the moment in which we can welcome France’s move to
take its full place again in NATO, particularly in the military
structure.”
Along the same lines, in early February Sarkozy and
German Chancellor Angela Merkel co-authored a
lengthy article that appeared in both Le Monde and the
Süddeutsche Zeitung, providing the context for what they
present as a net plus for both NATO and the European
Union. “NATO and the E.U., alliances founded on common
values,” wrote the French and German leaders,
“take on increased importance” in the current context of
global crises, the variety of which “requires a wider definition
of security policy.”
This joint declaration, coming as it did just prior to the
annual Munich Security Conference and coordinated
with leaks detailing France’s NATO negotiations, sets the
expected French reintegration squarely within the continuum
of both European Union and bilateral Franco-
German security cooperation. Observing that “the
overwhelming majority of European nations have preferred
joining NATO and the E.U.,” the leaders underlined
the near-universal appeal of both organizations.
Both NATO and the E.U. form parts of a whole, which
the French and German leaders call the “Euro-Atlantic
security partnership.”
Pres. Sarkozy’s desire to rejoin NATO’s unified military
command shows that the club still has its attractions.
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