Newsletter. n° 6, April 2003.
Date: 2011-10-18
Institutions: European Union Institute for Security Studies
Subjects: international relations, international security, nationalism, political culture

institute

European Union

for security
studies

institut

d’ é tudes
de  sécurité

Union Européenne

Newsletter
n°6

April 2003

Quarterly published by the EU Institute for Security Studies

43 avenue du Président Wilson - 75775 Paris cedex 16 - France

phone: + 33 (0) 1 56 89 19 30  (cid:127)  fax: + 33 (0) 1 56 89 19 31

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QH-X1-03-006-EN-N

editorial

Rebuilding

C ould it be that Europeans, like Americans, believe that

from now on ‘the mission determines the coalition, and
not the other way round’? That was the new American
strategic dogma established as transatlantic doctrine by Donald
Rumsfeld after the 11 September attacks. It is also the key to under-
standing the current breakdown in European solidarity: the oper-
ation in Iraq has shattered the collective Euro-American alliance
and led to the emergence of two coalitions, the one for and the other
against American strategy. To put it another way, because of Iraq
the Europeans, possibly more rapidly than America’s leaders had
wished, have suddenly left the Cold War system.
! Three elements lay behind the Atlantic solidarity that existed in
Europe up until last month: a threat that was so collective and unde-
niable that it unified; an almost automatic reflex of alignment with
American policy; and a project for European integration founded
on  Franco-German  reconciliation  that  developed  under  the
umbrella of NATO’s military monopoly. Having already been sha-
ken during the 1990s, these three pillars have now disappeared: the
urgency and priority of threats have become the subject of disa-
greement; the idea of rejecting American strategy is no longer taboo;
and the Union, following the consummate success of Copenhagen
on the reconciliation of the peoples of Europe, has now run out of
political projects. Hence the upsetting of traditional reflexes: the
most Atlanticist countries, like Germany and Turkey, are openly
dissociating themselves from Washington; the most European, for
instance Italy and Spain, are aligning themselves with America
regardless of their European instincts; the European public are
taking to the streets to demonstrate against the American strategy
of war on Iraq; both Britain and France are becoming illustrative
of this sudden transition from a reassuring but bygone Atlantic sys-
tem to a new Euro-American order that is worrying because it
has to be rebuilt from scratch.

éditoNicole Gnesotto 

Director

! Because rebuilding has to happen, and quickly. And with all
the more seriousness and imagination since Euro-American
and Euro-European solidarity are no longer instinctive and
automatic when crises and threats are perceived differently
on either side. There will surely be other crises after Iraq, as ter-
rorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction
will be our common lot in future. There will not necessarily
be a repetition of the divisions caused by Iraq in every future
crisis, but while Iraq is not a precedent, neither can it be consi-
dered an exception proving the rule of European political soli-
darity. If there is one certainty about the Iraq affair, it is that
Europeans are deeply divided over how the world is to be mana-
ged in future.
! For the Union, there are still a few possible ways forward.
First, political priorities have to be re-established. European
defence has of course been one of the major acquis of the last
four years, but the finest armed forces in the world serve little
purpose if there is no common view on the crises in which they
are to be used. In other words, what the EU has to look at
seriously is foreign policy more than military arrangements
or capabilities. Next is a readiness to look at the world as it is:
one lesson of the Iraq crisis is the urgent need to find a com-
mon mechanism for sharing information and analyses on
threats that could affect the interests and security of Europe as
a whole. Common analysis of the risks is of course no guaran-
tee that there will be consensus on the policies to be adopted, but
it is a prior condition for the adoption of any individual or col-
lective position taken by states. The third urgent requirement
is to set priorities: the Balkans, Iran, North Korea – and above
all the fight against proliferation in general – will clearly be
other crucial tests of European political cohesion. It would be
as well to get to grips with these issues now, if only to identify

... continued on back page

Institute Activities

External publications

Seminars

! The Institute is closely following the
Iraqi crisis and its implications for both
the transatlantic relationship and the
EU’s  Common  Foreign  and  Security
Policy. A number of reports and Occa-
sional Papers have bee produced (see our
webpage ‘Headline: the Iraqi crisis’) and
meetings held. ‘CFSP confronting Iraq’
(Antonio Missiroli and Martin Ortega)
was  the  title  of  a  seminar  held  on  3
March,  at  which  senior  analysts  and
officials discussed the reasons why Iraq
is  a  divisive  issue  and  looked  at  the
implications of the crisis for the EU’s
foreign, security and defence policies,
and for transatlantic relations.

Task forces

! Meetings of the Institute’s European
Defence Book Task Force (Jean-Yves
Haine), were held on 28 January and 31
March.
! The Institute’s Task Force on South-
Eastern  Europe  (Dimitrios  Trianta-
phyllou) met on 7 March to discuss ‘The
transition from a reduced US commit-
ment’.
! A European Space Agency study on
‘Space and Security Policy in Europe’
was discussed at a workshop (Burkard
Schmitt), in collaboration with the Isti-
tuto Affari Internazionale, 7 February.

On-line/http

All of the Institute’s publications and
reports on seminars can be accessed on
the Institute’s website:
www.iss-eu.org

Institute publications

Chaillot Papers
! No. 58: Terrorism, proliferation: a European
threat assessment, by Harald Müller  (March).
! No. 57: From Laeken to Copenhagen.
European defence: core documents, Vol. III,
compiled by Jean-Yves Haine (February).

Occasional Papers
! No. 43: La question du Cachemire. Après le 11
septembre et la nouvelle donne au Jammu et
Cachemire, by Christophe Jaffrelot and
Jasmine Zérinini-Brotel (March).
! No. 42: L’Union en action: la mission de police
en Bosnie, by Agnieszka Nowak, a former
visiting fellow (January).
! No. 41: La Bulgarie et la Roumanie dans le
Pacte de stabilité, by Ralitza Dimtcheva, a
former visiting fellow (January).

Forthcoming
! Chaillot Paper: European armaments
cooperation: core documents, compiled by
Burkard Schmitt.
! Chaillot Paper: The European Union and
CTR. EU cooperative threat reduction activities
in Russia, by Kathrin Höhl, Harald Müller and
Annette Schaper; edited by Burkard Schmitt.
! Chaillot Paper: Russia faces Europe, by Dov
Lynch.
! Occasional Paper: The Galileo satellite system
and its security implications, by Gustav
Lindström with Giovanni Gasparini, a former
visiting fellow.

Reprints
! Reprinted copies of Chaillot Papers 47 and
51 (European defence: core documents Vols. I
and II) are available on request.

Briefings

! Research  fellows  briefed  American  and
Parisian  university  students  on  21  and 
24 February respectively, in Paris.

Institute staff
! Judy Batt (British), currently Jean Monnet
Chair in the European Integration of South-
East Europe and Senior Lecturer in Central
and East European Politics, CREES, Univer-
sity of Birmingham, is to join the Institute as
a research fellow in May.

Nicole Gnesotto
— ‘New World, New ESDP: A Comment on
Deighton’, in J. H. H. Weiler, Iain Begg and
John Peterson (eds.), Integrating in an
expanding European Union: Reassessing the
Fundamentals (Oxford: Blackwell
Publishing, 2003).

Dov Lynch
— ‘Post-Imperial Peacekeeping: Russia in
the CIS’, Norwegian Institute for Defence
Studies, IFS Info, April 2003.

Antonio Missiroli 
— ‘L’Unione fa la Forza: l’evoluzione della
Pesd’, in Giuseppe Vacca (ed.), L’unità
dell’Europa - rapporto 2003 sull’integrazione
europea (Bologna: Edizioni Dedalo, March
2003).
— ‘Ploughshares into swords? Euros for
European Defence’, in European Foreign
Affairs Review, vol. VIII, no. 1, pp. 5-33.
— ‘EU enlargement and CFSP/ESDP’, in
European Integration, vol. XXV, no. 1, pp. 1-
16.
— ‘Giochi di guerra? Calcio, Europa,
integrazione’, in Italianieuropei, 1/2003.
— ‘Enlargement(s) and European Security’,
in Security Dialogue, vol. 33, no. 4, December
2002.

Martin Ortega
— ‘Uma posição comum da União’, O
Mundo em Português, February 2003.

Burkard Schmitt 
— ‘European Union’ (ed.), in Protecting
against the Spread of Nuclear, Biological and
Chemical Weapons (Washington, DC: CSIS,
January 2003).

Dimitrios Triantaphyllou
— ‘Prospects for South Eastern European
Security’, in Theodor Winkler, Predrag
Simic et al. (eds.), European Integration and
The Balkans (Belgrade: CSES and DCAF,
2002).

Research awards
Senior visiting fellows
-Paul Luif, a senior member of staff at the Austr
voting habits in UN bodies that will form the ba
Visiting fellows
During the period January to March the following studi
-Rosa Balfour (Italian), whose research topic wa
-Rafael Bueno (Spanish), ‘North Korea’s danger
-Thomas Gomart (French), ‘The dilemmas of Eu
Associate research fellow
The Institute has started a programme whose ai
with the Institute until the end of this year, is Kla

Analysis

The United Nations must be given a chance

TThhee   ddaayyss   bbeettwweeeenn   2244   FFeebbrruuaarryy (when
Spain, the United Kingdom and the United
States submitted to the UNSC a draft res-
olution to authorise a collective war on
Iraq) and 20 March (when the United King-
dom and the United States launched a mil-
itary intervention in Iraq, with logistical
and  political  support  from  some  other
states)  will  be  remembered  as  a  crucial
moment in history. Indeed, the very exis-
tence  of  the  Security  Council,  the  only
body entitled to maintain peace and sta-
bility globally, was put at stake. Had events
unfolded in a different manner, perhaps
today  the  days  of  this  body  would  be 
numbered. And yet, is that not the case
today?
For the United States, the war was chiefly
justified in self-defence against possible
future attacks. Many Europeans who sup-
port the war tend to minimise this aspect;
however, for the Americans it is the capi-
tal argument. US Congress joint resolution
of 10 October 2002 (adopted, therefore,
one month before Resolution 1441) autho-
rised President Bush to use force against
Iraq, first to ‘defend the national security
of the United States against the continuing
threat posed by Iraq’, and second to ensure
the respect of UNSC resolutions. Never-
theless, the UN Charter clearly indicates
that  self-defence  may  not  be  based  on
speculation. Indeed, although possible ter-
rorist attacks against the United States (or
other countries) with WMD are a matter of
serious concern, they might have diverse
origins, apart from Iraq.
On 17 March, President Bush said: ‘Sad-
dam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq
within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will
result  in  military  conflict.’  During  the
forty-eight hours ultimatum given by Pres-
ident Bush, a UNSC meeting showed that

the chief UN weapons inspector, as well as
a majority of the Security Council mem-
bers, favoured giving more time to inspec-
tions in order to verify Iraq’s disarmament.
Plausibly,  Iraqi  WMD  could  have  been
checked and destroyed (as Al-Samoud mis-
siles were when the war started) in some
months’ time. However, the United States
chose to wage a war because it was pursu-
ing  other  goals  in  addition  to  Iraqi 
disarmament.  A  whole  range  of  other
motives  have  been  offered  by  the  US
administration: not only self-defence but
also regime change, ‘unfinished business’,
democratisation, repression of an ‘axis of
evil’, etc.
From  24  February  to  20  March,  China,
France, Germany, Russia and Syria stated
publicly that they did not support the draft
resolution  aimed  at  transforming  the
inspections regime into an authorisation
to employ force. Two days after the out-
break of hostilities, Chile and Mexico, two
other Security Council members, declared
that they believed that inspections should
have continued. Therefore, it seems obvi-
ous that the draft resolution was not put
to a vote owing to a lack of the necessary
nine affirmative votes. Reliable reports and
some public declarations from the propo-
nents of the draft resolution suggest that,
had the draft rallied those nine votes, it
would have been put to a vote, even if one
or several vetoes would most probably have
prevented its adoption. At that moment,
the vetoes would have perhaps been dis-
missed  as  ‘unreasonable’  by  the  propo-
nents of the draft resolution, and the UN
Charter would have been declared obso-
lete.
The Security Council will have another
opportunity to fulfil its role once hostili-
ties  are  over.  It  could  then  discuss  an

agreed framework to coordinate the recon-
struction of Iraq. Those discussions would
be  a  good  opportunity  to  mend  fences
between allies. However, the organisation
of postwar Iraq might also prove a divisive
issue if the previous positions were main-
tained.
At the end of March, when this article was
written, there were two different visions of
the Security Council’s role in postwar Iraq.
Although  there  seemed  to  be  general
agreement that the military administration
should be undertaken by American and
British forces, there were opposing views as
far as the political and economic dimen-
sions were concerned. The United States
appeared  to  maintain  that,  taking  into
account that it had taken the initiative and
borne most of the war effort, it should also
take  the  lead  in  Iraq’s  ‘democratisation
process’ and economic reconstruction. For
their  part,  most  of  the  European  allies
favoured a multilateral approach to the
postwar phase. This would notably include
a decision by the Security Council to ensure
collective  action  to  support  the  estab-
lishment of a democratic government in
Iraq.
It is evident that the involvement of the
Security Council in Iraq’s reconstruction
would  have  clear  advantages.  It  would
allow the international community’s par-
ticipation in the postwar process. It would
offer a good opportunity to discuss the sit-
uation  in  the  Middle  East  as  a  whole.
Finally, the expertise of the United Nations
and some other institutions and individual
states in state-building would be utilised.
Despite these and other advantages, one
cannot know in advance whether postwar
Iraq will be organised in a multilateral way
or not. "

Martin Ortega

rian Institute for International Affairs, worked at the Institute during February and March on ‘The EU in the UN’, a study of member states’ past
sis of a Chaillot Paper. 

ed at the Institute as visiting fellows:
as ‘The political and security dialogue in the Euro-Mediterranean partnership’;
rous game: options for the EU’;
uro-Russian cooperation’.

m is to form a network of external experts on areas not covered by its own researchers. The first ‘associate research fellow’, who will collaborate
aus Becher, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. His area of expertise is security aspects of space.

Will North Korea follow Iraq?

In its National Security Strategy (NSS) pub-
lished in September 2002, the Bush admin-
istration maintains that the United States
reserves the right to act pre-emptively to
‘stop rogue states and their terrorist clients
before  they  are  able  to  threaten  or  use
weapons of mass destruction against the
United States and our allies and friends’.
With Iraq currently in the limelight, this
begs the question whether or not North
Korea will follow next.
From a literal interpretation of the Bush
doctrine, North Korea clearly fits the bill for
a pre-emptive strike. Pyongyang has recently
reactivated its nuclear programme, expelled
UN nuclear inspectors and withdrawn from
the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). It may
only be a question of time before it starts its
reprocessor  near  the  Yongbyon  nuclear 
reactor, opening the door for the extraction
of  weapons-grade  plutonium  from  the 
reactor’s spent fuel rods. Some analysts and
intelligence communities claim that North
Korea  already  has  at  least  one  nuclear 
device. 
In  the  last  few  weeks,  North  Korea  has
stepped up its actions, conducting several
missile launch tests, and intercepted a US
Air Force reconnaissance plane in interna-
tional airspace. The aim of these provoca-
tions is to force the United States to the
negotiating table for bilateral talks.
But, with the exception of the deployment
of bombers to the region, the US response
has been limited. Downplaying the crisis,
the United States is looking for a multilat-
eral  solution  that  involves  the  UN  and
North Korea’s neighbours in the region.
Above all, it does not want to ‘reward’ North
Korean behaviour and agree to direct talks
that  would  most  likely  centre  on  aid 

packages and a non-aggression treaty in
return  for  a  renewed  moratorium  on  its
nuclear  programme.  Such  a  move  could
open the door to future blackmail. 
The  multilateral  dimension  of  the  US
approach reached its high point when it
actively strove to push the matter to the
Security Council in late January 2002. Given
the recent decision not to pursue a second
resolution through the UN Security Coun-
cil in the case of Iraq, it remains to be seen
if this option remains on track — especially
given Chinese and Russian reticence regard-
ing this particular route. 
While puzzling, the stark contrast between
US strategies towards Iraq and North Korea
can be traced to five principal factors. First,
Saddam Hussein has shown that he is will-
ing to use his weapons of mass destruction
—  even  on  his  own  people.  Also,  unlike
North Korea, Iraq has attacked its neigh-
bours. Thus, Iraq is regarded as the more
troublesome of the two. 
Second, an attack on North Korea would
probably mean a war on the Korean penin-
sula. With over 8,000 artillery pieces and
almost one million North Korean troops
along the demilitarised zone, South Korea
represents an easy target. Likewise, these
weapons would pose great risk to the 37,000
American soldiers stationed along the DMZ
as well as to key regional allies such as Japan
(with  about  40,000  US  troops).  The 
unpredictable nature of Kim Jong Il and
potential  reactions  by  regional  players 
(particularly China) reinforce such preoc-
cupations. 
Third, there is a feeling among US decision-
makers that North Korea can be nudged to
take certain steps in the ‘right’ direction
through non-military means. For example,

it is believed that economic pressure could
be used as leverage to encourage Kim Jong Il
to freeze the country’s nuclear programme
before any negotiations can take place. 
Fourth, with a US-led war under way in Iraq,
unilateral  options  are  limited.  From  a 
military  perspective,  the  US  doctrinal
requirement of being able to conduct two
major operations simultaneously is ham-
pered by limited air- and sealift capabilities.
There are simply not enough capabilities
to pursue more than one major deployment
at a time.
Finally, the United States is working under
the  assumption  that  North  Korea  may
already have at least one nuclear device. It
is  therefore  handled  with  care  (but  this
sends a strong signal to other would-be pro-
liferators: once you attain nuclear weapons
you are ‘safe’). 
For these reasons, it is likely that North
Korea will be approached multilaterally for
the time being.
But the options available to the Security
Council  are  not  clear.  An  initial  option
might be to present a resolution calling for
North Korea to return to the NPT, refreeze
the Yongbyon reactor, and dismantle its
uranium enrichment programme. Should
this  prove  ineffective,  officials  have  the
option of imposing sanctions. This will be a
critical stage, since Russia and China have
voiced objections to UN sanctions. They
argue  such  a  move  would  be  confronta-
tional. North Korea itself has stated that it
would be treated as an act of war. Before
reaching that stage, it will be vital that allies
agree on how the international community
can force a country to comply."

Gustav Lindström

editorial ... continued from front page

...
possible divergences from US policy and therefore risks of fresh
European divisions, since a fourth condition is essential: discussion,
among  Europeans,  of  America.  Not  to  condemn  or,  on  the
contrary, to adopt a priori US positions, but because it would be
quite surrealist for the Europeans, who are so ready to talk about
anything and everything, to refrain from looking together at the
essential question – the profound changes that have taken place in
the most powerful country in the world.
! These various steps carry absolutely no guarantee that a Euro-
pean foreign policy will emerge, but at least they offer the possibi-
lity that certain issues will be resolved. At this time of acute crisis,
institutional arrangements are scarcely likely to produce solutions.

There is certainly no doubt that a Union of 25 will have to be based
on the principle of differentiation; but the way differences are
accommodated must remain an open question. Neither reactive
alliances that exclude this or that country, nor selective clubs of
democracies, in either the Union or NATO, can today bring about
reconciliation. For the moment it would be better to consider the
virtues of pragmatism, deciding priorities, working seriously and
progressing together where possible. Especially where bases for
Franco-British cooperation, essential in the light of future chal-
lenges, can still be found. There is of course no reason not to think
that the Rubicon of a definitive division of Europe will soon be cros-
sed, but neither is there any proof that the moment has arrived."

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