The War’s European Casualties

A recent spoof of a leading newspaper here took the state of transatlantic relations to absurd extremes by imagining a U.S. invasion of France.

Titled The Monde (not to be confused with the influential daily Le Monde), the satiric publication described troops from the United States, Britain and Monaco -- led by “Gen. Chuck Norris” -- charging onto the beaches of Normandy, chasing President Jacques Chirac into underground tunnels and capturing Euro Disney with the aid of Mickey Mouse and other characters secretly in the employ of the CIA.

Amusing silliness, of course. But in the aftermath of the war in Iraq, the troubled U.S.-European relationship is not generating a lot of laughs. The short decisive war that swept a dictatorship out of Baghdad has also clouded the diplomatic landscape in Europe.

Paris, Berlin and Moscow are on guard for anticipated U.S. retaliation for their leadership of the antiwar bloc in the U.N. Security Council. In contrast, visiting Spanish and Eastern European leaders got the red-carpet treatment in Washington last week -- a tangible display of their new clout with a grateful Bush administration.

Governments across Europe are maneuvering in an atmosphere of conciliation, resentment and calculation at a moment of uncertainty not only about the Continent’s relationship with the United States but about damaged institutions such as the United Nations and NATO, whose roles as anchors of international order are in doubt.

“In general, there is an attempt to mend fences,” said Manuel Coma, a security and defense analyst at the Real Instituto Elcano, a think tank in Madrid. “But I think that the damage done to transatlantic relations, especially U.S.-French relations, is very profound, and this is going to change things, some with a rather permanent character.”

The overall perception in Europe is that Washington will punish France, ignore Germany, forgive Russia and reward such pro-war countries as Spain and Poland, according to Coma and other European commentators.

The Chirac government has been surprised by vehement anti-French reaction attributed mainly to neoconservative hawks in the Defense Department, according to a French political analyst.

“The French are under the impression that the neocons are really in charge now,” said Francois Heisbourg, director of the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris. “Some of the talk has sounded as if they want to treat us like an enemy, like North Korea. I don’t think anybody imagined it could get this wacky. That’s why Chirac and [Foreign Minister Dominique de] Villepin are much less vocal. They are biding their time.”

After a determined campaign in the Security Council to block U.S. war plans, Chirac and Villepin’s quieter postwar policy mixes conciliatory signals with measured defiance. Speaking at the end of April, Villepin declared that France would be faithful to its “values and principles,” but he reminded journalists of the “very old friendship” between the U.S. and France.

Chirac recently met with the leaders of Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg to discuss embryonic plans for an independent European Union defense policy, a project seen mainly as a gesture of independence from the United States. But his government has also offered to assist the U.S. in easing U.N. sanctions on Iraq.

So far, the specter of threatened U.S. reprisals for France’s antiwar stance has remained largely that -- a specter. Because of self-interest, Washington seems unlikely to curtail cooperation with France on certain issues, primarily the fight against international terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Economic reprisals, meanwhile, would be difficult to pull off because of globalization and France’s central economic role in the 15-nation EU.

“I don’t think there will be any economic sanctions of France,” said one U.S. official who asked not to be further identified. Asked about potential punitive measures, this official said: “We are still considering what to do and see how France proceeds.... A lot of things are being discussed.”

One thing Washington is likely to reduce, Heisbourg said, is transfers to France of sensitive software and other defense-related materials that require federal approval. France also seems certain to suffer from the current U.S. suspicion of the U.N., its main vehicle for projecting power internationally. And experts expect the chill to extend to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the sharing of high-level intelligence data.

“The official spin is that nothing has changed,” Heisbourg said. “But cooperation in the field of intelligence requires the highest level of trust and confidence. It’s difficult to imagine that there will be zero impact.”

It should be remembered that the U.S.-French confrontation followed years of smaller dust-ups. The U.S.-German relationship, by contrast, had been closer and less problematic. Now Germany is attempting to nudge its way back into Washington’s good graces.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s government has serious domestic problems: unemployment, the continuing costs of reunification and the prospect of shrinking the most generous welfare state in Europe. Schroeder cannot afford the prolonged effect of “the worst crisis in transatlantic relations we’ve seen in 50 years,” according to Bernhard May, deputy director of the Research Institute for the German Council on Foreign Relations.

So Germany has begun edging away from France, suggesting that the partnership that emerged during the diplomatic “war against the war” has limits.

“We must work together, but that doesn’t mean we reflect identical views ... or histories, or instincts,” said Karsten Voigt, a German government analyst.

As far as the German-U.S. friendship goes, Voigt insisted, no lasting damage has been done. The Iraq debate was “a disagreement over one political issue. This does not represent any strategic shift.”

As for Russia, fundamental strategic realities will speed a rapprochement with Moscow sooner than with Paris, analysts say. Liliya Shevtsova of the Carnegie Moscow Center said President Bush urgently needs President Vladimir V. Putin as a partner against terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.

“In this respect, the cooperation between the United States and Russia might be more important than the cooperation between the United States and Europe,” Shevtsova said. “Because of Russia’s geostrategic, geopolitical position in the heart of Eurasia, Russian boundaries, frontiers with all these countries make Russia a most important, crucial partner for the United States.”

Although Putin needs the United States for similar reasons, the treacherous diplomatic landscape will test him, analysts say. Russia must make up with the United States while preserving close ties to Europe, a vital trading bloc.

For both the U.S. and Russia, the very idea of Europe has become more complicated with the divisions that were worsened by the war. France, Germany and a few smaller antiwar countries remain at odds with Britain, Spain, Italy and Central and Eastern European nations whose imminent entry into the European Union will cause a tilt toward Washington.

In a sign of the shift, Spain basked last week in the apparent benefits of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar’s high-profile support of Bush on the Iraq war despite widespread opposition among Spaniards. During a trip to Washington, Aznar was hailed by U.S. officials and got a political boost when the State Department announced a freeze on funds belonging to the Basque region’s Batasuna Party, which the Spanish government has outlawed because of its close ties to the ETA terrorist group.

Also, Bush has recently enlisted Aznar, with whom he has a warm friendship, as an intermediary on issues in the Middle East, an area where France might find itself losing influence.

According to the international relations chief for Aznar’s party, the outcome of the Iraq war confirmed the wisdom of Spain’s policy and the flaws of the philosophy -- promoted mainly by France -- that Europe should be a counterweight to U.S. hegemony.

“Europe cannot define its political identity based on opposition to the United States,” said Jorge Moragas of the Popular Party. “We think this is an error, that all it does is create problems as much for Europe as for the United States. It’s an error that is the product of a temptation to define your identity in opposition to another who theoretically you think is a threat. I don’t think the United States threatens Europeans, quite the contrary. Europe and the United States belong to the same world, the same civilization.”

*

Times staff writers Maria De Cristofaro in Rome, Jeffrey Fleishman in Berlin, David Holley and Sergei V. Loiko in Moscow, and Ela Kasprzycka in Warsaw contributed to this report, along with special correspondent Cristina Mateo-Yanguas in Madrid.