| Introduction
After a decade of debate
and uncertainty since the dissolution
of this unifying
threat, a crisis of purpose became prevalent
within the Transatlantic Alliance. The
wars of Yugoslavia’s fragmentation
accentuated these differences, and the
events surrounding the US fait accompli
of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 have
created a schism in Europe and the transatlantic
relationship. The schism within the transatlantic
framework is taking place as American
power has reached a peak unmatched by
any in history. This preponderance of
power and US determination to use it
unilaterally has also enabled a unification
of a European society long desired by
supporters of a united Europe, and a
desire for many American policymakers
to delink the United States from its
traditional role of stabilizer and guarantor
of order and security in Europe.
The
crisis in transatlantic relations is
a reaction to changes in traditional
relations in view of the collapse of
the Soviet Union, German reunification
and the enlargement of the EU. However,
the fact remains that beyond the security
alliance Europe and the United States
have common interests. The members of
the transatlantic framework contain the
vast majority of the world’s economic
and military power. The global agenda
from trade to security initiatives is
set largely by the members of the United
States and the European Union. Consensus
on these issues enables the creation
of international norms.
It
must be accepted that transatlantic
relations have reached a nadir. The
destabilization of transatlantic relations
is real and
maybe beyond repair. However, the Iraq
war did not by itself create the situation
transatlantic relations find themselves
at the present time. The Iraq war simply
exacerbated the differences and was
also manipulated by elements on both
sides
of the Atlantic to further political
agendas. European vindictiveness has
been increasingly on display since
the Iraq war. This may be arguably
the result
of American indifference; However,
France in particular has increasingly
taken
a position as desiring to actively
impede US policies and has successfully
encouraged
other states such as Germany and Russia
to withhold and even impede aid for
Iraq reconstruction purposes.
Amid
much recrimination and bluster by both
sides, the basic underlying
truth
is that both the US and EU are major
centers of power. However, their
spheres of influence are so disparate
in respect
to their sources of power and credibility
that both sides need each other to
further each other’s goals. The EU provides
the legitimacy of 25 states. The US provides
credibility with unprecedented power.
The Iraq war has become the 21st century’s
1956 Suez Canal crisis, as both sides
have maneuvered to test the increasingly
fragile boundaries of the transatlantic
partnership. The schism between Europe
and the United States is not an isolated
instance of disagreement; it is symbolic
of a critical and serious cleavage
over how to address the common threats
to
both Europe and the United States:
International terrorism, rouge and
failed states and
proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction, and how to counter these
new, non-traditional
21st century threats.
The
Transatlantic relationship was established
on the assumption that
long forged traditional
ties were the focus of strategic,
political and economic interests
of the transatlantic
framework. Today, these aspects
of the transatlantic framework are
in
a process
of weakening. The United States’ center
of power is shifting more towards
Trans-Pacific Asia while Europe
has decided itself
to diverting its focus from the
Atlantic to focus its center of
power within itself
as it becomes more preoccupied
in its own internal debates. Both
sides of the
Atlantic have reduced their commitments
to the transatlantic framework
by their own decision and actions,
over a period
of time, not as the result of any
legacy of US unilateralism in Iraq.
The current
traditional model of a dominant
US power and European junior partners
must be
restructured. Burden sharing or
diversification of duties and power
must be instituted.
Capabilities and burdens must be
distributed.
Transatlantic
relations need to
be reformed from the legacy of
the Cold
War. The
lack of a universally perceived
threat to the members of the
NATO alliance
has enabled Europe to be vindictive
and the
US to become indifferent in regards
to Atlantic relations. New common
interests must be defined. Values
cannot be the
foundation of an encompassing
common interest; after all, Finland
and
New Zealand have many common
values. However,
no potential alliance between
these two
states will establish itself
on this foundation alone. One common
interest
for both the US and EU is the
desire
to establish European style zones
of peace and common prosperity
into regions
of close proximity such as North
Africa and Eurasia.
New
attempts to reform transatlantic relations
must take into consideration
methods of mediating differences
among its members. Since consensus
of views,
especially of threats and challenges
will be difficult to achieve
in the future, difficult reforms
must
be
made. Failure
to do so will create two alternatives,
either complete unanimity or
risking the destruction of
the transatlantic
framework. This would put the
existence of transatlantic
organizations such as NATO in peril,
subject
to reaction
to
events on both sides of the
framework.
I
argue that the US is the hub of global
power, with Europe
becoming a regional
power with spheres of influence
in
Eurasia and Asia. The idea
of
Europe itself must
also be addressed. France
and Germany, the economic powerhouses
of Europe
have claimed the mantle of
Europe and routinely
claim authority for its policies,
even intimidating other European
states
that oppose their views and
policies. Yet,
the newly democratized states
in Eastern Europe as well
as
Britain,
Italy and
initially Spain supported
and assisted US policies towards
Iraq.
The
bureaucrats in Brussels are committed
to forging
common defense
and foreign
policy. They have become
the vanguard of European
nationalism.
They are
embodied by France and
Germany, who desire to
impose their political
culture of commitment to diplomacy,
restrictions on the use
of force and trust in international
law, institutions and treaties.
They
expect
that over time, Britain
Eastern
Europe and other European
dissenting states
will be compelled to acquiesce
to their desires. They
anticipate European
unity
by imposing German and
French policy as a forerunner of
common EU policy.
However, French and German
domination within the EU
is not certain.
There are doubts among
many within Europe
as to
France’s intention
with the EU. France is
seen by many as desiring
to
seek its own aggrandizement
to become a superpower
using the EU as its vehicle.
Suspicions linger about
a resurgent Germany.
US
policymakers have indifferently dismissed
and thus ignored
these important questions
and have generalized
Europe as weak minded and appeasers,
especially
after the Madrid
terrorist attacks. Many
US policy makers have
failed
to see the
divisions within
Europe embodied by the
various
supporters
of US Iraq policy from
within it. In doing so
they have
failed to
recognize the opportunities
for diplomatic
maneuvering
that it affords US policymakers.
Indeed, some Neo-Conservative
policy makers
have agreed with the
US liberal foreign policy
establishment in promoting
further political integration
of Europe
on the premise
of inevitability. They
may be actually supplying
the
forces desiring an
Anti-American European
superpower. Conversely,
an
America emerging from
its European indifference
will defend its interests
and create more vindictiveness
from
a EU increasingly
dominated by the Brussels-Franco-German-bloc.
British
Prime Minister Lord Salisbury is quoted
as saying “The only bond
that endures is the absence of clashing
interests.” Perhaps Transatlantic
politics may have to evolve from an era
where transatlantic relations were the
result of the foundation of common interests
to a policy of toleration of each other
policies and beliefs. The most critical
issues that have arisen since the US
invasion of Iraq in transatlantic relations;
collective security, French ambitions
for the EU and the strategic implications
of a reduction of US diplomatic and security
commitment to Europe and how these issues
could determine the balance of power
and future of transatlantic relations
will be the subject of this analysis. Foreign Policy And Defense
The single common issue that has
enjoys the consent of both parties
is security
and defense. However, even this issue
is being questioned, the definition
of strategy, definition and implementation
is being questioned. The Europeans,
outside
the framework of NATO have increasingly
delinked and disassociated themselves
from US policies, such as those related
to Cuba, Iraq, Iran, the Taiwan Straits
and the new US Ballistic Missile Defense
initiative. The
NATO alliance has
been questioned
by the states of Western Europe themselves.
Following the creation of the EU
expeditionary force,
German Foreign
Minister Joschka
Fisher claimed “henceforth the
United Nations will play a larger role
in German Foreign Policy, and in some
cases larger than NATO” (1).
At the same time, the European states
have
reduced defense spending, indicating
that it still considers the US the
ultimate guarantor and even safety
net for European
national and regional foreign and
security policies. The national interests
that
had been subordinated for the purpose
of common security with NATO have
been superceded by the vying factions
of European
transnationalists and European sovereigntists.
One of the deficiencies of the new
strategic orientation of collective
security and
multilateral cooperation is the possibility
of strategic lethargy.
Whither
NATO?
NATO enabled
the United States
to exert its
influence on
post war Europe,
uniting
under the framework of an alliance.
Collective security has now become
the chief mission
of NATO, the opposite of its original
purpose as an alliance. An alliance
is the raison d entre for a group
of states
to decide to unite to defend territory
or a cause. In doing so, it defines
the limit or point that upon another
state
crossing it will entail a causus
belli. This had been the situation
of the
NATO alliance for almost 40 years.
After the
fall of the Soviet Union, NATO
has
entered a period of ambiguity and
uncertainty as to its purpose.
Now it has emerged
as a collective security framework.
The
collective security framework symbolizes
ambiguity, as collective security
does not define the territory to
be defended
or the means and processes to defend
it. As
a point of comparison
in the international
system, the UN
is
a collective security
system. The history of collective
security arrangements is not
encouraging. Against
principle threats, the UN has
been
impotent. When the states of
the Security Council
agree on an issue, the need for
collective security will be minimal.
If there
is no consensus, then collective
security is impossible to apply.
The failure
of
the League of Nations and the
Treaty
of Locarno are a testimony to
the failure of
collective security.
This
restructuring of
NATO’s mission
has created room for maneuver
in which member
countries to give
priority to
domestic politics over foreign
policy as well
as defense policy.
Domestic policies
such as unpopular economic
and political
reforms in domestic European
states have made
Europe reluctant
to identify themselves
with the United States. NATO
has become
insufficient as the sole institutional
framework for transatlantic
relations. It will
be incumbent on
the United States
to compel Europe to become
a more active
participant in global affairs.
The
creation of a EU
collective
security arrangement autonomous
from NATO
would undermine both the
EU and NATO collective
security frameworks. It would
create an impediment of the
NATO alliance
as the EU reduces its military
capabilities while a divided
EU reliant on US
security guarantees will
undermine
European
autonomy.
The
EU: Instrument
for French Hegemonic
Ambitions?
At
the NATO summit
in Istanbul earlier
this year, French
President Jacques
Chirac, in response to
President Bush’s
effort to encourage the acceptance of
Turkey into the EU, declared that "It
is not his purpose and his goal to give
any advice to the EU, and in this area
it was a bit as if I were to tell Americans
how they should handle their relationship
with Mexico.” further declaring
that Bush, and by extension, the United
States, “ went into territory that
isn't his"(2). In
doing so, Chirac has
embodied French ambitions
to use
the EU as a counterbalance
to US power
under French hegemony
by attempting to remove
any
US input on the internal
arrangement
of Europe. The legacy
of Charles de Gaulle
of reasserting
French influence is alive
and well. French
influence within
the EU framework had
been at
a steady
decline in the
1990’s
as the EU’s center
of gravity became located
away from the Mediterranean
region
(3). The reunification
of Germany also changed
the balance of power
between
France and Germany. The
French response to the
loss of influence has
been an
aggressive attempt to
renew French influence
in Europe. It has premised
its strategy of unifying
Europe under the mantle
of
anti-Americanism as the
new unifying cause, the
latest reincarnation
of Pan
Europa. By extending
its strategy of identifying
itself as being as non-American
as possible it believes
that these ideals
can be passed on to the
rest of Europe by sheer
force of will and power.
In
doing so, France continues
its historic fallacy
of claiming to act in
the name
of Europe without consulting
it. (4)
French
designs for EU
hegemony have been
joined by Germany.
Their Socialist
governments’ policies
of anti-American demagoguery to divert
attention from their domestic political
shortcomings demonstrate that their strategy
is to impose their political culture
of commitment to diplomacy, restrictions
on the use of force and trust in international
law, institutions and treaties as the
foreign policy framework of the EU. They
expect that over time, Britain, Eastern
Europe and other European dissenter states
will be compelled to acquiesce to their
desires. They anticipate European unity
by imposing German and French policy
as a forerunner of common EU policy.
However, French and German domination
within the EU is not comprehensive. There
are doubts among many within Europe as
to France’s intention
with the EU. France
is seen by many as
desiring
to seek its own aggrandizement
to become a superpower
using the EU as its
vehicle.
Suspicions linger about
a resurgent Germany.
The Eastern European
states reflect this
suspicion as they have
sought to balance pro-EU
policies with pro-US
policies;
the grand strategy
of these states is
to counter French and
German influence
within the EU with
US influence.
Chirac’s attempt to exclude the
United States from the process of the
EU has demonstrated that France’s
attempt to establish
a European identity
with its own policies
and interests as
the foundation of
the EU will be based
defining it as non-American
as possible.
It does this knowing
that American resentment
is the only common
aspect can unite
disparate European
states such as Romania
and Belgium
with French ambitions
to be the major influence
within the European
Union.
Yet
President Chirac
and much of Europe
fails to
recognize that
US presence
in Europe, whether
political, diplomatic
or military,
ensures stability
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