Plan for Europe Strike Force Worries U.S.

Western Europe, which shares everything these days from a currency to regulations on hunting migratory birds, is embarking this week toward the creation of a unified military force, a prospect that has given Washington the jitters.

At a summit of the 15 European Union member states Friday and Saturday in Helsinki, Finland, EU leaders are expected to vote for the development of a “rapid-reaction corps” of 50,000 to 60,000 troops under direct EU control.

The multinational force, roughly the size of three army divisions, would be on standby for deployment on humanitarian, rescue and peacekeeping missions. It is not expected to function before 2003, but it is already being hailed by some Europeans as the vanguard of an entirely unified military, in the same way the EU member states have uniform policies in fields ranging from farm subsidies to rail transport.

To many Europeans, humbled by their inability to deal by themselves with crises in the Balkans and by what some see as subservience to the whims of U.S. policy, the intervention-force plan is welcome and long overdue. Aboard this French nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the newest and largest addition to the navies of Western Europe, officers say it’s only right that Europeans have the tools to handle their own problems.

“It is obvious that, in my opinion, when there is a conflict that, practically speaking, concerns Europe alone, Europe must be able to react, to make its voice heard,” said Capt. Xavier Magne, 43, second in command of the 40,000-ton warship. “Now, that doesn’t exclude other things.”

Still, this vessel currently dry-docked in the Atlantic port of Brest, as 200 workers make last-minute modifications after eight months of sea trials, is itself proof that a more autonomous European defense is a work very much at its beginnings.

For, though it carries the name of an illustrious Frenchman famous for his ability to say non to the United States, the Charles de Gaulle’s steam catapults and arresting cables are American, since nothing else is available. Along with as many as 40 French-made Super Etendard attack and Rafale interceptor jets, the $3-billion flattop also will carry U.S.-manufactured Hawkeye surveillance and early-warning planes.

“We are dependent on the Americans for a certain number of things,” said Magne, a 24-year veteran of the French navy.

Political, Military Panels Likely to Emerge

At their Helsinki summit, European leaders also are expected to approve the establishment of standing political and military committees at the EU’s Brussels headquarters, as well as a military staff to provide assistance in planning and strategy.

Such mechanisms would mark a watershed for an organization that was launched in 1958 as a borderless market for commerce but is now trying to forge and implement common foreign and security policies.

“The conflicts in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo have shown in a dramatic way that Europe must be able to act in a crisis,” German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said last week.

The European Union, Schroeder said, “must get political and military decision-making structures, and the ability of crisis awareness and crisis management.”

The Clinton administration has been pressing its European allies to do more to modernize and improve their military capabilities, which last spring’s bombing campaign in Yugoslavia showed to be far inferior to America’s in such crucial areas as intelligence, all-weather operability, precision munitions, logistics, rapid deployment and sustainability of forces in the field.

But the United States has been watching these latest developments with a wary eye, first by making clear its disquiet over their potential to decouple Europe from America and undermine the transatlantic alliance that has functioned for half a century.

More recently, U.S. officials have been expressing support for the EU plan but also adding caveats.

“We welcome this as long as it is understood that this is done within the context of having a European capability that will strengthen NATO itself,” Defense Secretary William S. Cohen said after meeting his European counterparts in Brussels on Thursday. “We would not want to see the development of a separate capability which is not compatible with the NATO capability.”

Britain, France and Germany, the major powers among the European allies and backers of the EU rapid-reaction force, have reassured the Clinton administration that the steps scheduled to be taken in Helsinki will not downgrade the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or spawn a rival. The European Union, they say, should possess a big stick of its own to use for crisis management, while collective defense will remain NATO’s job.

“Let me make one thing quite clear: This is not about creating a single European army under single command,” British Prime Minister Tony Blair said. “It is not an attempt in any shape or form to supplant or compete with NATO.”

“A European force is a plus for the United States, because it means you won’t have to do the dirty work alone,” Dominique Moisi, deputy director of the French Institute of International Relations in Paris, told an American reporter.

But enough wild cards remain in the Europeans’ plan to give U.S. officials concerns.

EU officials acknowledge that their planned civilian and military bodies would duplicate those of NATO. In fact, they would constitute a carbon copy of how the Western alliance operates.

The interface between the European Union and NATO, both based in Brussels, also has to be worked out.

France Doesn’t Want EU to Take a Back Seat

France, for one, has refused any subordination of the EU, where Washington has no voice, to the 19-nation Atlantic alliance, where the United States dominates. A decision has not yet been made on whether the European force would be commanded by its own headquarters or by the European deputy to NATO’s supreme commander in Europe, who is a U.S. general.

“We know the Americans,” said an EU official in Brussels, summing up what is widely perceived in Europe as a schizophrenic U.S. reaction. “They want the Europeans to do more in matters of defense, but on the other hand, they’re worried about something being done behind their back.”

At NATO, officials voice concern that the European plan might divert attention and resources from modernizing Western Europe’s armed forces, which were structured during the Cold War to fight a tank war with the Soviets. For despite the ambitious talk of many leaders, most of Europe’s NATO members now spend less, not more, on defense. Moreover, funds are often used not for new weaponry or intensive training of professional soldiers but for short-term conscripts, pensions or base operating expenses.

“You can have all the fancy institutions in the world, the most wonderful flow charts and wiring diagrams,” George Robertson, NATO’s secretary-general, said last week. “But without proper capabilities, trained troops ready to go with the right equipment and the right backup, you can’t deal with a crisis. You can’t send a wiring diagram to a crisis.”

With about 2 million people in uniform, Robertson noted, the European allies had to struggle to make up the bulk of the 40,000-strong peacekeeping force in Kosovo after Yugoslav soldiers withdrew from the southern Serbian province in June.

U.S. Doubters Point to a Lack of Cohesion

Speaking privately, U.S. officials say they believe it will be years, if ever, before the European Union, which has struggled for years to achieve agreement on relatively minor issues such as preservation of duty-free shops at airports, can muster the cohesion to handle a crisis requiring the use of armed force. But the U.S. wants to safeguard NATO’s role as the Western defense organization of first resort and ensure the Europeans don’t get involved in a conflict Americans might have to step in and finish.

In the foreseeable future, Western Europe also will remain dependent on U.S. skills in airlifts, nighttime bombing raids and intelligence collecting for anything but the most modest of peacemaking or humanitarian tasks.

Citing the lopsided ratio of burden-sharing during the Kosovo campaign, a NATO official said: “If the Europeans double their projection capacities to put troops in the field and fly aircraft, they’d move from 15% to 30% [of the total]. Does that allow them to start World War III? No.”

French naval officer Magne, who is highly regarded by his U.S. counterparts, expressed bewilderment about America’s cautious reaction to the Europeans’ intentions.

“Quite simply, we have the perception that, viewed from the outside, the construction of Europe is viewed as a danger, as an aggression,” the captain said as he showed a visitor the high-tech operations center of France’s new carrier.

If Europeans take a more active role on their own continent, Magne maintained, that won’t stop them from acting in concert with the United States when a situation, in Europe or elsewhere, warrants it.

With its two reactors of the same type used on French ballistic missile submarines, the price tag for the Charles de Gaulle, planes included, is estimated at more than $6 billion, a huge outlay for a medium-sized power like France.

Since leaders in Paris decided in 1982 to build the 862-foot-long ship, roughly 300 feet smaller than the U.S. Nimitz-class carriers, debate has raged over whether France needs or can afford such a war machine.

In the meantime, there have been large cost overruns, construction delays totaling 42 months and serious talk at times of deep-sixing the whole project. In one embarrassing moment this year, it was discovered that the diagonal flight deck was too short to handle the Hawkeyes in bad weather, so another 15-foot-long section of sheet metal is being tacked on at Brest.

The trade-off is a warship that will carry aircraft with twice the operating range of the 36-year-old, oil-fueled Foch, which it should replace next year, and a nuclear-powered ability to operate anywhere in the world.

“It is certain that the Charles de Gaulle is something that boosts European capabilities overall,” said Magne. “But not only of Europe. Of the allied nations.”

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BACKGROUND

The European Union became the accepted designation on Nov. 1, 1993, for the grouping previously known as the European Communities. They included the European Coal and Steel Community, the European Economic Community (also known as the Common Market) and the European Atomic Energy Community. The first was created in 1952, and the latter two were launched in 1958. The six nations in the initial alliance were France, West Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Italy. They were subsequently joined by Austria, Britain, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden.