NATO, R.I.P.
by Srdja Trifkovic
Tuesday, October 31, 2000
France will present plans for a new European military structure at next month’s European Union summit in Nice. While the proposed 15-member alliance is formally supposed to complement NATO rather than replace it, there is growing concern in Washington that the ultimate objective of French and German strategic planners is to sever the trans-Atlantic military cord altogether. While France makes no bones about its desire for the new EU alliance to be established by formal treaty, most key European countries are fully on board. The senior civilian figure is to be the High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy, currently Javier Solana, the former NATO secretary-general. The Director-General of Military Staff – effectively the EU supreme commander – will be French. He will supervise the creation of a 60,000-strong European rapid reaction force, agreed at the EU Helsinki summit last year.
Cries of anguish from Washington, where no European defense initiative is acceptable unless it is explicitly subordinate to an American-led NATO, come mainly from people who have never been able to explain why exactly should we strive to preserve a military alliance that has outlived its usefulness. And yet, a mere 18 months ago those same “NATO forever” enthusiasts seemed firmly in control, as the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland formally joined its ranks at a ceremony in Independence, Missouri. At that time the zeal of Washington’s neocon-liberal ruling establishment for its further enlargement seemed unbridled. Their sights were on the Balkans, on the three Baltic states, and on Ukraine. Their primary geopolitical objective was to encircle Russia, and they were driven by the insatiable hubris of “Benevolent Global Hegemony.”
But by last spring there were clear signs in Europe that further eastward expansion of NATO will be resisted on both practical and political grounds. The three former Soviet Pact armies turned out to be not only poorly equipped but also almost impossible to integrate into NATO’s command and control structure. “Inter-operability” -- the bedrock of the existing NATO military doctrine -- could not be applied to the three new members, partly because there developed increasing opposition in those countries to further massive spending on American weaponry in the absence of any credible threat.
In addition many Europeans were loath to antagonize Russia in the early months of Putin’s tenure. The Russians naturally saw NATO enlargement as a threat, and this impression was confirmed by the subsequent attack on Serbia. Further enlargement would be an open challenge that Putin could not afford to ignore or meekly accept like his bungling predecessor. While there are inveterate Russophobes in Washington smarting for a showdown, their enthusiasm was not shared by those most at risk if we return to a new cold war.
The most significant impetus to European doubts about NATO and the resulting drive for an independent defense structure came from Washington’s apparent success in imposing its will during the bombing of Serbia. During those 78 days in the spring of 1999 it became obvious that the decision-making within NATO was more centralized than it ever was during the Cold War.
NATO should have been abolished after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Its preservation and subsequent enlargement had a deeply destabilizing effect on Europe and on the nature of America’s long-term relationship with Russia. George Kennan rightly called it “the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era.” Its quest for new missions has turned into an aggressive tool of interventionist hegemony, as witnessed in the Balkans last year. It is an organization tainted by criminality. It existence is devoid of any strategic logic, military necessity, or ideological merit.
Let us hope that in Nice we see more than rhetorical grandstanding and posturing: if Europe is seriously preparing a military structure that will replace NATO, it will have to invest countless additional billions into defense. It is in America’s national interest to have a strong, friendly, self-reliant Europe, no longer in need of American nuclear umbrellas and conventional hardware; but whether wishy-washy Third Wave socialists who rule the Old Continent have the political will to put their budgets where their words are remains to be seen.
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