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Analysis: EU Flexes Its Military Muscles

File photo of NATO headquarters, Brussels, Belgium. Diehard Atlanticists in both London and Washington claim the EU's defense arm is nothing but a Trojan horse aimed at undermining NATO. But senior alliance officials do not appear to share this view.
Brussels (UPI) Nov 22, 2004
Rapid reaction forces are a bit like London buses - you wait eons for one to show up and then two or three turn up at the same time.

Last month, NATO's Response Force - a 17,000 strong elite corps capable of intervening anywhere in the world within five days - was declared operational. Then on Monday, EU defense ministers meeting in Brussels announced the decision to create 13 battle groups of 1,500 troops apiece ready to step in to conflict areas within 5-10 days.

As if this was not enough, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain agreed to establish a European Gendarmerie Force capable of policing trouble-spots earlier this year.

The armed forces of Germany, France, Belgium, Spain and Luxembourg are also pooled together in Eurocorps, the Strasbourg-based body that currently runs the international peacekeeping effort in Afghanistan.

With such a plethora of forces capable of stepping in to war zones - or potential war zones - at short notice, some critics believe there is a serious risk of rivalry, duplication and crossed communications.

We believe the EU defence contribution should be under the NATO umbrella. Nicholas Soames, the British Conservatives' defense spokesman, said. We will be studying the details but this sort of duplication is an expensive waste of time.

However, NATO spokesman James Appathurai told United Press International: There is enough work to go round for everyone. The trick is to have the capabilities to do all the things you want to do.

Tomas Valasek, director of the Brussels office of the Center for Defense Information, also believes there is a market for smaller, lighter units in the post cold-war era. Large standing forces are no good in today's world, he said. We need small numbers of troops quickly rather than large, fixed battalions doing nothing.

United Nations blue berets have been stepping into crisis zones such as East Timor, Eritrea and Liberia for decades. NATO has also been busy expanding its peacekeeping duties into Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan in recent years. But the EU, whish is primarily a political and economic bloc, has been slow and somewhat reluctant, to flex its military muscles.

The series of bloody wars in the Balkans helped change that. In 1991, Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jacques Poos said the hour of Europe had come: If one problem can be solved by the Europeans, it is the Yugoslav problem.

It is not up to the Americans or anyone else. What followed was almost a decade of carnage on the EU's door-step, which was only brought to end by U.S. firepower.

Britain and France, the EU countries with the largest armed forces, kick-started moves to boost the bloc's military clout at a summit in 1998. A year later, Europe set the ambitious goal of having a 60,000-strong rapid reaction force up and running by 2003. Like so many EU targets, this was missed because governments refused to match their lofty rhetoric with concrete action.

The advantage of the battle groups concept is that although the deployment deadline is shortened from 10 to 30 days - the total number of troops each member state has to commit is smaller. National capitals, rather than EU planners in Brussels, also have ownership and responsibility for each of the strike forces.

The aim is to have at least one battle group ready for deployment - for up to 120 days - by the end of next year and for at least two units to be available by the end of 2007. Defense analyst Valasek believes the EU is capable of meeting its target, but only if words are converted into deeds.

The Union has to make sure this is not a paper tiger and when the calls come through, troops are ready to act, he said.

Some are horrified at the idea of Brussels bureaucrats making life and death decisions. We are in the process of creating an autonomous EU military capacity separate from NATO and above any single nation-state, said an op-ed - entitled Save us from an EU army - in Britain's Daily Telegraph Monday.

For Tony Blair, it is a handy way to demonstrate his European credentials while remaining outside the single currency.

But, for the rest of us, it means that our true strategic interests - and, in particular, our alliances with other free, English-speaking nations - are being tossed aside for the sake of Euro-dogma.

Diehard Atlanticists in both London and Washington claim the EU's defense arm is nothing but a Trojan horse aimed at undermining NATO. But senior alliance officials do not appear to share this view.

If the European side of NATO is to be an effective partner for the American side, everyone understands that means Europe has to be stronger - otherwise it is an unbalanced relationship, says Appathurai.

So far, the EU's field record has been impressive. It has undertaken a successful policing mission in Macedonia and last year stepped in to prevent bloodletting between tribes in eastern Congo. But taking over NATO's peacekeeping operation in Bosnia, which the EU is set to do next week, will be the real litmus test for the club's fledgling defense policy.

If the Union's 7,000 troops succeed in keeping the peace and helping the war-torn country stand on its own feet, the hour of Europe may finally have arrived almost 15 years after Poos predicted. But if it fails, the 25-member bloc is likely to remain an economic giant, but a political and military dwarf for many years to come.

All rights reserved. Copyright 2004 by United Press International. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by United Press International. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of by United Press International.

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