No. 184, August 2001 Strategic Forum 1

Strategic Forum

E

uropean Security and Defense Policy

(ESDP) is now the main item on Europe’s

security agenda because of a focus on

establishing a crisis management force capable of acting independently of the North

Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Although transatlantic policies will be

colored by issues such as the Kyoto treaty,

missile defenses, and relations with Russia,

ESDP is likely to dominate defense debates

as the European Union (EU) tries to meet the

Helsinki Headline Goal of developing a corpssized expeditionary force that can deploy

military forces capable of ensuring diverse

tasks and establish new political and military

structures that will enable the EU to guide

and direct such operations.

To meet the Helsinki Goal, the European

Union must surmount three problems: ensuring

sufficient forces, building confidence in the

quality of their performance, and finding

substitutes for critical NATO assets. The

approaches that EU members take to these

tasks may indicate how serious they are about

meeting the goal in fact as well as in name.

As the Bush administration develops

policies on transatlantic relations, it should

move away from efforts to restrict EU development. The United States will benefit if EU

states are more able and, even more importantly, willing to take responsibility for solving security problems without relying on U.S.

involvement. The extent of European dependence on the United States poses a greater

threat to U.S. interests than what might

develop if the European Union becomes a

more independent actor in defense policy.

Building a capacity for “the eventual

framing of a common defense policy which

might in time lead to common defense” has

been a major European Union (EU) preoccupation since the Maastricht Treaty in 1991.

The Amsterdam Treaty in 1997 defined the

area for defense coordination as “humanitarian and rescue tasks, peacekeeping tasks, and

tasks of combat forces in crisis management,

including peacemaking” (known as the Petersburg Tasks). The project gained momentum after Prime Minister Tony Blair of Great

Britain and President Jacques Chirac of France

agreed at St. Malo in 1998 that “the Union

must have the capacity for autonomous action, backed up by credible military forces, the

means to decide to use them and a readiness

to do so, in order to respond to international

crises.” The St. Malo summit agreement committed the two leading military powers in

Europe to building capabilities and institutional structures for a common defense.

Britain’s acceptance of an EU defense role

facilitated the consolidation of effort between

the European Union and Western European

Union. By gaining an agreement that European defense efforts will remain intergovernmental—that is, coordinated among members

in the Council of Ministers rather than the

supranational European Commission—Britain

was assured that it could prevent the European

Union from making decisions over British

objections. The United States also benefited

from the St. Malo approach because it kept

decisions (which require unanimous approval

by member states) at a level that allows considerable U.S. influence. That agreement preserves

America’s ability to work bilaterally as well as

multilaterally to ensure that EU choices are

consistent with U.S. national interests.

An enormous amount of the work needed

to translate the St. Malo agreement into practice has been done in the European Union and

in national planning staffs to advance the

prospects for EU defense policy and capabilities.

However, more work has been done to create an

organizational structure than to improve forces

to carry out the mandate.

New Structures

The European Union has agreed on a

decisionmaking process and created the necessary supporting staffs. It established the post

of High Representative for Common Foreign

and Security Policy to advise the council on

defense issues and gave the job to Javier

Solana, former Secretary General of the North

Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Solana

has two staffs reporting to him: a Policy Unit

and Military Staff. The Policy Unit consists of

diplomats assigned by their governments

(thus who are not EU civil servants) to advise

member states on potential crises and develop

initiatives to improve crisis management

capabilities. The Policy Unit has identified

areas in which the European Union can make

a contribution to security (for example, creating a civilian police force for crises such as

the Balkans to reduce the need for military

forces to carry out police tasks). The Military

Staff under German officer General Rainer

Schuwirth consists of about 80 planners who

advise the EU leaders on development of

military capabilities, coordinate intelligence

assessments, and plan options for use of force

in potential crises.

Do European Union Defense

Initiatives Threaten NATO?

by Kori N. Schake

No. 184

August 2001

Institute for National Strategic Studies

National Defense University

Key Points
The European Union envisions the process

to work as follows:

■ Before any decision is made about

whether NATO, the European Union, or any

nation would intervene in a crisis, the Policy

Unit and Military Staff would report to the High

Representative and propose options for political, economic, and military intervention to

affect its course.

■ EU and NATO members will consult and

make a policy decision on which institution

should take the lead in managing the crisis.

■ If it is decided that the European

Union will lead with NATO support, the

Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe

(DSACEUR) will direct military planning

efforts inside Supreme Headquarters Allied

Powers Europe and other NATO staffs.

■ DSACEUR will report through NATO and

EU channels to political leaders on detailed

military options and NATO or non-EU military

capabilities required and will receive guidance

throughout the operation.

■ To preserve unity of command,

DSACEUR will report both to NATO and EU

leaders but will take orders only from the latter

in the case of EU operations.

■ If it is decided that the European Union

will lead without NATO support, the EU Council

will designate a lead nation to develop plans

and provide the core for command and control

of the multinational operation.

Force Levels

At the Helsinki summit in 1999, the European Union committed itself to creating a force

of 60,000 troops (roughly a corps) that could

be deployed within 60 days of a decision by EU

members and that could be sustained for at

least 1 year. The aim is to achieve this objective

by 2003. The so-called Helsinki Headline Goal

does not specify where this force would be used,

although it is generally assumed to mean in

and around Europe, including the Balkans,

North Africa, or the Caucasus—but there is no

agreement in the European Union about where

the force might or could be deployed. 

Three important initial stages of work

have been completed in the 18 months since

this Headline Goal was established. The first

stage was inventorying EU forces. The next

stage was identifying the capabilities needed to

deploy and sustain the corps-sized force; this

inventory of capabilities is designated the “ideal

force.” The third was negotiating with member

states on the contributions to the force. Because

Representative Solana’s staff was not fully in

place, teams of national delegations worked on

cataloging existing forces, identifying requirements, and coordinating potential national

contributions. However, the Policy Unit and

Military Staff are now working with defense

staffs in national capitals. At the EU Capabilities

Commitment Conference held in November

2000, members pledged 100,000 troops to meet

the Helsinki Headline Goal.

Significant progress must still be achieved

before the 2003 deadline. EU and national

defense staffs are addressing two shortfalls:

first, a gap between what has been committed

by members and the requirements to deploy

and sustain military capabilities; and, second,

a gap between declared capabilities and performance that commanders can expect from

those forces in terms of training, deployability,

and equipment interoperability. Closing these

gaps will require greater candor and discipline

than Europeans (or Americans) have displayed

in NATO military planning where gaps have

been longstanding, tolerated, and provided

political cover by private consultations without

publicly embarrassing members that fail to

meet force levels.

Meeting the Goal

The political impetus of European governments and the commitment that they

already have made almost guarantee meeting

the Helsinki Headline Goal. Whether they

achieve it in a meaningful way, rather than

simply declaring that it has been met, remains

to be seen. The Headline Goal seems to be a

modest standard for nations which have a

combined gross domestic product (GDP)

roughly as large as that of the United States

and nearly two million troops. EU members

spend about $150 billion per year on defense,

about 40 percent of the U.S. defense budget.

Although most militaries in Europe are not

optimally structured for power projection, the

European Union contains armed forces of

outstanding quality. Establishing the capability

to deploy 60,000 troops on 60-day notice and

sustain them for at least 365 days should not

be demanding for wealthy and militarily

capable states.

2 Strategic Forum No. 184, August 2001

This Strategic Forum was prepared by Kori N. Schake, a senior research fellow in the Institute for National

Strategic Studies at the National Defense University. Please direct any questions or comments to Dr. Schake

at (202) 685–2227 or forward them via e-mail to schakek@ndu.edu.

the Headline Goal seems

to be a modest standard

for nations which have 

a combined GDP roughly

as large as that of the

United States and nearly

two million troops

Helsinki Headline Goal

At the December 1999 European Council meeting in Helsinki, participating European Union (EU)

member states agreed that:

■ cooperating voluntarily in EU-led operations, member states must be able, by 2003, to deploy

within 60 days and sustain for at least 1 year military forces of up to 50,000–60,000 persons

capable of ensuring humanitarian and rescue tasks, peacekeeping tasks, and tasks of combat

forces in crisis management, including peacemaking (known collectively as the Petersburg Tasks),

in accordance with article 17 of the EU treaty;

■ new political and military bodies and structures will be established within the council to enable

the EU to ensure the necessary political guidance and strategic direction to such operations,

while respecting the single institutional framework.
Defense spending varies widely: Britain and

France each spend about 3 percent of GDP,

similar to the level of the United States, while

Germany is closer to 1.5 percent. In addition to

the issue of burdensharing among EU members,

most are undergoing programs to make their

forces largely voluntary and more expeditionary,

and few have fully funded that transition. The

European initiative also has helped defense

ministries in preventing their governments from

continually reducing budgets—in fact, defense

spending by most member states except Germany appears to have stabilized. The International Institute for Strategic Studies calculates

that nearly all members have decreased spending if measured in constant dollars.

Some European defense experts want to

see a system that would increase public accountability for overall spending and allocating specific categories such as research and

development. However, EU member states do

not seem interested in a system that would bind

them more tightly than NATO planning. Substantially raising spending on defense is probably not feasible at the time when Europe is

safer and more secure than in the previous 50

years, especially for capabilities that appear

elitist to many of its citizens. European governments are unwilling to invest the political

capital in changing public opinion to buy a

way out of dependence on U.S. military capabilities. The relevant policy question is what the

European Union can do within the limits of

existing defense spending.

EU governments may be tempted to

downgrade requirements and declare victory as

2003 approaches. Most analysts are focusing

on levels of defense spending as the key indicator of EU seriousness. Although important,

spending might not be the critical index because member states are unlikely to raise

budgets substantially, and European capabilities could be improved greatly even without

increasing spending.

The indicator that might provide the best

measure of progress toward meeting the Headline Goal is whether the European Union finds

credible ways to deploy and sustain a force

within its resource constraints. Member states,

both individually and collectively, spend enormous amounts on such prestige projects as

satellite procurement and development of the

Future Large Aircraft, and they are considering

initiating a European space program. Although

these undertakings are worthy, what the European Union needs most are quick, practical,

and cost-effective ways of transforming capable

forces into effective expeditionary forces. Meeting requirements with existing resources would

indicate that military planners are succeeding

in improving capabilities to the level where EU

member states could conduct corps-sized

expeditionary operations independently of both

NATO and U.S. support.

Several EU members, particularly the

Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany, are

developing creative initiatives for cross-funding

procurement and mission requirements. The

Dutch air force has arranged to refuel Danish

fighters, and the Netherlands is retrofitting

German airlift in return for drawing rights on

that asset. These kinds of collaborative efforts

among Europeans are likely to be the best

prospect for wringing more expeditionary

capability out of their military forces.

After Helsinki

Three practical problems remain for the

European Union to meet the Helsinki Headline

Goal in a meaningful way: ensuring sufficient

forces, building confidence in the quality of

their performance, and finding substitutes for

critical NATO assets.

Sustaining a force of 60,000 troops for a

year or more will require substantially more

forces than the roughly 100,000 currently

committed by EU states. Military planners

generally consider the requirement for sustainment to be three times the deployed force,

which leaves a gap of about 80,000 additional

forces that must still be committed to meet

the goal by 2003. Given the difficulty of securing national commitments for the levels

declared at the Capabilities Commitment

Conference and the scarcity of troops trained

and equipped for expeditionary deployment in

EU militaries, meeting the numerical standard will pose a serious challenge for the

European Union.

Also, national and EU military planners

are privately concerned about the suitability

and training of some of the forces pledged for

the missions. The question is not about the

professionalism of soldiers in the European

Union—they are some of the world’s best—but

about whether troops are adequately trained for

the new missions and whether they have the

necessary equipment for the operational

No. 184, August 2001 Strategic Forum 3

New Structures

At the December 2000 European Council in Nice, the following new permanent political and military bodies were established within the council: 

■ Standing Political and Security Committee (PSC) is the linchpin of the European security and defense policy (ESDP) and of the common foreign and security policy (CFSP). The PSC has a central role to play in the definition of and follow-up to the EU response to a crisis.

■ European Union Military Committee (EUMC) is composed of the Chiefs of Defense (CHODs) represented by their military representatives (MILREPs). The

EUMC meets at the level of CHODs as necessary. This committee gives military advice and makes recommendations to the PSC, as well as providing

military direction to the European Union Military Staff.

■ European Union Military Staff (EUMS) is the source of EU military expertise. It assures the link between the EUMC and the military resources available to

the EU and provides military expertise to EU bodies as directed by the EUMC. It performs ”early warning, situation assessment, and strategic planning for

the Petersburg tasks including identification of European national and multinational forces“ and implementation of policies and decisions as directed by

the EUMC. The EUMS also contributes to the process of elaboration, assessment, and review of the capability goals; and it monitors, assesses, and

makes recommendations regarding the forces and capabilities made available to the EU by the member states on training, exercises, and interoperability.
4 Strategic Forum No. 184, August 2001

environment. To achieve greater confidence in

the quality of forces pledged by nations, the

European Union will need to establish a measure of merit and evaluate their performance

against the standard. NATO does this already in

the Integrated Military Structure. The European

Union will need either to rely on NATO evaluations and find a way to extend NATO standards

and inspections to nonintegrated EU members

(France, Sweden, Finland, Ireland, and Austria)

or to develop and carry out its own evaluations.

Confidence in the quality of troops is a basic

building block for coalition military operations,

but the high politics of EU–NATO relations are

likely to impede progress in ensuring that

commanders have the requisite knowledge

about forces under their command.

An EU force operating independently of

NATO and U.S. support also will be severely

impaired in some critical ways, most of which

are related to command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance,

and reconnaissance (C4

ISR), on which American and European militaries rely. Secure

communications links for passing orders and

information depend fundamentally on the U.S.

national command and control spine; the

European Union will need to figure out how to

transmit information reliably and secretly

among its headquarters and soldiers. EU states

have superb intelligence collection and assessment but share little among themselves and do

not develop common assessments. In NATO,

intelligence tends to be shared in national

spokes converging on a U.S. hub rather than

among EU states. That system will need to

change if the European Union is to operate

without U.S. support.

In command and control, as well as intelligence, the European Union will need to develop

ways of managing without the resources that the

U.S. Armed Forces bring to NATO. Replicating

American systems or approaches for such critical

functions would be very costly. Although member

states could advocate radically redistributing

spending to build U.S.-style C4

ISR systems, such

an effort is unlikely. The question for the European Union is whether they can find less expensive but militarily adequate and sustainable ways

of performing the same tasks.

U.S. Concerns

The central concern in Washington

about EU defense efforts is the potential for

damage to NATO. EU efforts that divert too

much attention from the common work of

NATO would diminish support for U.S. engagement in Europe and make military cooperation more difficult. Some Europeans,

especially those from the French Quay d’Orsay

and the European Commission, give the

impression that the European Union is being

emancipated from overbearing U.S. influence

in NATO and building a European army that

will supplant U.S. casualty-averse strategies

with a European way of war. Such talk not

only is unhelpful, but it also is untrue. The

European Union is decades away from being

able to supplant U.S. military power, and not

a single EU government is aiming to do so.

The overwhelming majority of EU states,

including France, are not looking to push the

United States out of Europe or undermine NATO.

But they are urgently seeking ways to work

together more effectively if the United States

chooses not to become involved in crises that

their governments feel a need to manage. The

painful lessons of how little the European states

achieved in Bosnia before Washington agreed to

intervene and how little they could have done

during the Kosovo crisis without U.S. engagement are the most important drivers of EU

defense initiatives. Americans may be uncomfortable with their European allies working on

defense issues outside NATO, but European allies

have recent experience with the United States

withholding NATO involvement because it did

not want to intervene. Washington must appreciate that its European allies are struggling to

take responsibility for managing security problems—an effort that deserves respect, but also

one that must be watched carefully to ensure

that EU practices do not impede continued

cooperation with the United States in NATO.

European Caucus? The idea of a caucus

of member states within NATO could be detrimental both to the Alliance and European

Security and Defense Policy (ESDP). It would

position the United States, Turkey, Norway,

Canada, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic,

and possibly Denmark on one side of the table to

review a position agreed upon by the European

Union. Such division is likely to embolden

objections and make non-EU members feel they

are being pulled into policies that they had little

influence in shaping. A caucus also is likely to

make the United States defend even more ardently the positions of non-EU NATO states to

ensure that they get serious consideration by the

European Union. A caucus could make consensus building more difficult if states were unwilling to compromise on elements that represent

hard-won EU internal consensus. Finally, it

could slow the pace of decisions if Alliance

consultations were prevented until EU states

agreed to a position to present in NATO counsels.

EU efforts that divert too

much attention from the

common work of NATO

would diminish support

for U.S. engagement in

Europe and make military

cooperation more difficult

* Source: Assembly of WEU, ”Implementation of the Nice Summit Decisions in the Operational Area of the European Security and Defense Policy,”

Document A/1734, Appendix I, available on www.asemblee-ueo.org/en/documents

Force Pledges

At the November 2000 EU Capabilities Commitment Conference, member states committed to 100,000 troops, 400 aircraft, and 100 ships, including the following numbers of

ground forces:*

Germany 13,500 Austria 2,000

United Kingdom 12,500 Finland 2,000

France 12,000 Sweden 1,500

Italy 6,000 Belgium 1,000

Spain 6,000 Ireland 1,000

Netherlands 5,000 Portugal 1,000

Greece 3,500 Luxembourg 100
The United States and other non-EU members

have experienced the challenge of dealing with

such an EU caucus since 1993 in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

These potential drawbacks represent legitimate concerns but give the impression that

Washington is trying to keep Europe unorganized and thus more easily corralled into supporting its position. Whatever the drawbacks of a

caucus for NATO, the resentment created against

the United States by this position is more detrimental to our national interests than a caucus

would be. America cannot prevent EU states

from meeting independently. The United States

can veto all NATO decisions (as could any other

member), which ensures that the European

Union could not initiate action that the United

States would be obligated to support. Moreover, a

caucus would place responsibility for building

NATO consensus with EU states rather than the

United States.

Diverging Military Policies. The most

pressing transatlantic defense issue is the looming divergence of U.S. and European militaries

resulting from technological advances and

organizational changes in the U.S. military.

Simply put, the American armed forces are

becoming irreconcilably different from those of

all other nations.

The United States spends 85 percent of

the total world investment in military research

and development and buys large numbers of

weapon systems that capitalize on the innovations. In the past 10 years, the U.S. ability to

see the battlefield more precisely from greater

distances, transmit information securely to

forces more widely dispersed, and acquire

targets more precisely has increased. Whether

this incorporation of advanced technologies

produces a revolution in military affairs of the

magnitude of the invention of the longbow or

the development of the blitzkrieg can be debated, but it is unquestionably changing

American forces. The transition has been

occurring so long that it is beginning to affect

how U.S. troops organize, train for, and think

about warfare. The Navy network centric

warfare, the Army experiment with breaking

up tank functions, and the rise of Joint Forces

Command are only three examples of how

change that was made possible by advanced

weapons is now affecting doctrine. The change

appears to be accelerating in U.S. thinking and

force structuring.

European allies of the United States are not

on the same path of military innovation. They

spend much less on research and development,

buy fewer weapons, and favor national companies (as the United States also does) when

purchasing their weaponry. As a result, they are

developing fewer innovations and experiencing

less change. The divergence in high-end capabilities was apparent in the Kosovo air campaign, in which U.S. forces had to conduct more

than 80 percent of the intelligence collection

and strike sorties.

This is not to say that Europeans are failing to do their fair share; Europeans have committed more than 80 percent of the ground

forces that have been deployed in Kosovo and

are also bearing more than 80 percent of the

reconstruction and assistance costs. However, the

divergence in capabilities highlights the different emphases in priorities for military forces.

The NATO Defense Capabilities Initiative (DCI),

designed to identify and fund European capabilities of the kind seen in U.S. forces in Kosovo,

has not succeeded particularly well: less than

half of the force levels identified in DCI have

been funded, and there is little prospect of improvement despite pressure from the NATO

Secretary General.

ESDP is not responsible for the divergence

among NATO militaries, but it could aggravate

existing problems among them. Although the

United States is concentrating on high-technology improvements to joint warfighting at the

top of the conflict spectrum and eschewing

peacekeeping, the Helsinki Headline Goal

grounds European efforts at the lower-tech,

lower-intensity end of the conflict spectrum.

Many U.S. policymakers are concerned that the

European Union is perfecting a peacekeeping

force that will reduce the warfighting capacity

of EU militaries. Europeans counter that they

have to begin somewhere in building better

forces, and it would be both militarily impractical and politically more offensive to the United

States for them to start with the most demanding military tasks.

No simple solution exists to the problem of

divergence of U.S. and European militaries.

Differences have always existed in the proficiency of NATO forces, as have divisions of labor

in assigning missions that optimize the contributions of national forces. Maintaining interoperability is a challenging job that will become

increasingly so as U.S. forces continue to adapt

at a much faster rate than others. The United

States wants and needs European militaries that

contribute to the leading edge of warfighting.

Interoperability is too important for U.S. national interests to be a problem left for Europeans to solve. If Washington wants allies for

demanding military coalitions, then it needs to

keep generating ideas and including Europeans

in its developments to ensure that they can

remain interoperable and make meaningful

contributions. Interoperability with U.S. forces is

not simply Europe’s problem. Perhaps the Alliance should be spending more time considering how to provide useful niche capabilities or

divisions of labor or ways to orchestrate military

forces that are less interoperable but still capable

of working in coalitions. However, even without

the Headline Goal, maintaining interoperability

would be challenging in coming years.

Duplicating NATO Assets. Damage to

Alliance military functioning is also a paramount concern. The integrated NATO military

command is the foundation on which the ability

to fight in close coalitions is built. It provides

five important functions:

■ Long-term planning to give visibility into

defense spending, procurement, and force structuring plans

■ Operational planning to piece together

national forces into coalitions for specific contingencies

■ Advising political leaders about using

force

■ Training to agreed standards to ensure

reliable knowledge on the availability and

performance of forces

■ Building common understanding about

using force and a degree of comfort in each

others’ judgments through routine interaction

among militaries.

The U.S. Government and most military

advisors from NATO members have concerns

about duplicating planning structures and

processes that exist in NATO. The concern most

frequently raised is that duplication of NATO

No. 184, August 2001 Strategic Forum 5

ESDP is not responsible

for the divergence among

NATO militaries, but it

could aggravate existing

problems among them
planning will divert resources from the Alliance; this already is occurring because of the

cost of building EU military staffs. However,

although this use of assets may not be optimal,

it should not prohibit support by Washington—if only because the United States has

long had a planning staff separate from NATO

in U.S. European Command.

More problematic in terms of coalitions

will be managing competing approaches to

military planning that are likely to emerge if

the European Union seriously attempts to

replicate defense and operational planning

done by NATO. If EU and NATO staffs plan in

different ways to utilize the same forces in

managing crises, political leaders are likely to

be faced with competition. Even in the unlikely

event that these staffs retain a common approach, processes probably will be confusing to

political leaders and delay decisions. Furthermore, the staffs are unlikely to maintain a

common approach over time because EU

military staffs will assume that they cannot rely

on the breadth of U.S. military assets.

The problem of separate planning is thus

a serious one, both politically and militarily.

But it is not insurmountable. It simply requires

careful and dedicated work to determine how to

manage the emerging EU decision structures in

ways that do not impede the ability of U.S. and

European forces to work together, which they

are likely to do in most cases. Military planners

manage these kinds of competing demands

routinely, whether the context is distributing

scarce assets across different contingencies or

deconflicting regional plans with drawing

rights on the same forces. For NATO, the risk of

duplication is probably worth running if it

produces a European Union more willing and

able to manage crises without relying so heavily on the United States.

Moreover, the status quo is not entirely

satisfactory, from either an American or a

European perspective. Many critics of developing EU defense policies overestimate the extent

to which existing NATO practices are either

sufficient or sustainable. For example, armaments directors have been unable in the past 8

years to agree on how to meet the top priority

of ground surveillance for allied strategic

commanders. The planning process is formulaic and not yet attuned to the new challenges.

Much could be changed to improve the present

value of Alliance planning, and U.S. policies

based on preserving the status quo merit careful and critical consideration.

The United States tends to underestimate

the attraction of NATO as the vehicle for delivering American attention and military strength

and how much that matters in crises. The

fundamental attraction of the Alliance for

Europeans is that it is the only way to ensure

U.S. involvement in solving their security

problems. The United States can afford to be

more relaxed about EU defense initiatives than

it has been in the past several years.

American policy has been to encourage

EU security and defense policy only within red

lines constraining its development of institutions or practices. The primary concern has

been that ESDP will impair the ability of the

United States and its European allies to work

together in NATO, a critically important concern for all parties. In fact, the demise of the

Alliance would be more damaging to Europe,

given the predominance of American power 

in the world.

However, improving EU capabilities and

fostering its willingness to take responsibility

for managing crises with less reliance on the

United States need not damage the Alliance.

The practical problems, even at the extreme of

EU duplication of NATO planning or the

formation of a caucus within NATO, are manageable. Europeans continue to want to handle crises in partnership with the United

States—which means through NATO—

whenever possible. Having to fight wars without the overwhelming political and military

advantages brought by American participation

is not the purpose of ESDP. But the United

States will not always be interested in European crises or may have higher priority demands made on its political attention and

military assets.

For the European Union to develop real

competence in security and defense matters will

require some changes in the comfortable

patterns of transatlantic relations. These

changes could make cooperation more difficult, but the status quo is equally problematic.

American policy on ESDP has focused on

preventing the emergence of a Europe that is

too strong and assertive in the security arena,

whereas the more likely—and damaging—

prospect for U.S. interests is a Europe unwilling

or unable to share the burden of common

security interests more equitably. The United

States should adopt policies that are based

more confidently on American strength and

that encourage more responsibility and leadership by our European allies.

6 Strategic Forum No. 184, August 2001

The Strategic Forum series presents original research by

members of the National Defense University as well as

other scholars and specialists in national security affairs

from this country and abroad. The opinions, conclusions,

and recommendations expressed or implied within are

those of the contributors and do not necessarily reflect

the views of the Department of Defense or any other

agency of the Federal Government.

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Robert A. Silano William R. Bode

Director of Publications General Editor

The Institute for National Strategic Studies publishes

books, monographs, and reports on national security

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http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/jfq_pubs/index.htm.

INSTITUTE FOR NATIONAL STRATEGIC STUDIES

Stephen J. Flanagan James A. Schear

Director Director of Research

improving EU capabilities

and fostering its willingness to take responsibility for managing crises

with less reliance on the

United States need not

damage the Alliance