THE PLANK JUNE 11, 2008
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As President Bush embarks upon his mutual “good riddance” tour around Europe this week, here’s an underreported tidbit from France that has real implications for America’s military future:
Five years after France became one of Washington's most vociferous opponents of the war in Iraq, [president Nicolas] Sarkozy is the only European leader who answered recent pleas from the United States and NATO to send more troops to Afghanistan.In July, France takes over the rotating presidency of the European Union, giving Sarkozy a powerful platform from which to promote his military plans Europe-wide at a time when the United States is eager for Europe to exert more military muscle."He wants to reduce the number of military bases in Africa, he wants to send fewer troops abroad, and his goal is to integrate French troops more efficiently to the European forces," said Fabio Liberti, a European Union specialist at the Paris Institute of International Research and Strategies. "This attitude of acknowledging that we need our European partners and that France is deciding to stop acting on its own is seen positively by Washington."
While this move may be an attempt at misdirection from the unloved "Sarko l'Americain”—and no one's crazy aboout NATO—it is firm and legitimate good news for America. For years now, US blundering into and in Iraq had been an excuse for European inaction in Afghanistan or even Darfur. (Contrast this announcement with France’s spiteful, systematic weakening of NATO as recently as 2006.) Now, as promised in Sarkozy’s 2007 run, France will attempt to engage—as Tony Blair did during his run at the head of the EU in 2005—more widely (albeit with streamlined, integrated teams), and with a credible threat of force. It helps that millions of regular Europeans are showing an outpouring of interest in American politics—right up to the highest levels of government. (Sarkozy’s prime minister is rumored to favor McCain, while Germany’s SPD party leader Kurt Beck has unambiguously backed Obama.)
This is all rendered more interesting given Bush’s confessional interview in Slovenia (coalition alert!) yesterday, wherein he basically, and for the first time I can recall, expressed contrition about his clumsy tenure as commander in chief:
In an exclusive interview, he expressed regret at the bitter divisions over the war and said that he was troubled about how his country had been misunderstood. “I think that in retrospect I could have used a different tone, a different rhetoric.”Phrases such as “bring them on” or “dead or alive”, he said, “indicated to people that I was, you know, not a man of peace”. He said that he found it very painful “to put youngsters in harm’s way”. He added: “I try to meet with as many of the families as I can. And I have an obligation to comfort and console as best as I possibly can. I also have an obligation to make sure that those lives were not lost in vain.”
Heavens--that’s change you can believe in.
Anyway, I feel the initial war standoff between the US and EU powerhouses has led to a discursive neglect of the many theaters in which American (and European) interests are in sync, in stasis or being actively eroded. I understand that, for both politicians running for Bush’s job, Iraq is a good hobbyhorse, but the next administration will evidently have the chance to enlist and engage Europe and NATO in less clear-cutting fashion. The US ought to seize it, and it looks like Bush has enough crocodile tears in him to try. Politically, however, I suspect our middle eastern obsessions will make it tough for either candidate to make a pivot before 2009. --Dayo Olopade
(Photo courtesy Getty Images)
10 comments
Make a pivot? The good news that Europe is in the hands of more competent leadership these days does not mean Europe suddenly has a real military. Whatever good intentions and the sort of national policy decisions that can be seriously effected by things like "tone", what we all need is a reasonably credible threat of force behind the crumbling post-war world security architecture.
No one is any more likely to help in Iraq and Afghanistan now than they were when John Kerry was ridiculing allies ("Poland?") in the debates while promising, with astonishing dishonesty, that he'd round up a Euro-posse quickly if elected with a better "tone".
- Robert Powell
June 11, 2008 at 9:36am
The German, Italian, Spanish etc refusal to put their troops in harm's way in Afghanistan predated teh Iraq invasion and has nothing to do with Iraq. There's not a single German politician, for example, who will tell the German public that German troops must engage in offensive operations anywhere-- even when, as happened recently, a leading Taliban terrorist is squarely within the gunsights of German troops (they let him get away. Nice).
There is a deep and structural disconnect here that will not go away when Obama's president, and it has to do with the demise of NATO. As Thatcher used to say, NATO must go out of area or go out of business. Pretty obvious which path has been chosen by our "allies."
- teplukhin2you
June 11, 2008 at 9:41am
Also, why is a blog entry about our European alliance accompanied by a photo that features the biggest thief and gangster since Mobutu left the scene? What's Putin-Mobutu doing here?
Or is this an unintended, ironic commentary on the real state of German foreign policy? Too bad a picture of Gerhard Schroeder with his fellow Gazprom bandits wasn't available. Putin-Mobutu has a 50% stake in one of the prime vehicles for siphoning billions each month out of Gazprom's cash flow. Wonder what Gerhard's stake is?
- teplukhin2you
June 11, 2008 at 9:45am
“I think that in retrospect I could have used a different tone, a different rhetoric.”
Wait, wait, you mean...words matter!?!?!? Better tell McCain. Going off message...
- dbhuff
June 11, 2008 at 9:50am
Alternate title for this blog entry: "Blowing Kisses Up Putin's Arse"
- teplukhin2you
June 11, 2008 at 10:05am
Good point, tep, but a better lesson that international relations are always pulled back toward certain norms by geography and economics. The relationship between Russia and Germany goes back a long way. The brief moment, in the 90s, when we could enjoy the illusion that we had "won" the final victory of the 20th century and that the Great Game was therefore over has passed. The US had better start figuring out how it is going to advance its interests in a bona fide multi-polar world in which we cannot count on the Cold War to assure the cooperation of our friends and wariness of our enemies. We are still primus inter pares, but only that and had better adapt our thinking.
- roidubouloi
June 11, 2008 at 11:28am
Of course Germany is a major trade partner with Russia, and of course German intellectuals have always had a soft spot for those "soulful", "mystical" Russians-- kind of an idealized, rougher, purer version of soulful Teutonic types, and the women are better looking.
But that's not the point. Germany's drang nach eastern ie Russian energy supply has blinded it to any sense of long-term Western interest. You know the abasement of the German political class before a gangster-led Russian shambolic state is complete when the former Chancellor of Germany takes a board seat with the most corrupt energy company on the planet, that private piggyback for Russia's criminalized state operatives that makes Enron look like a Junior Achievement project.
This is very bad news for The West. If that concept still has any meaning, that is.
It's also bad for Russia and Russians long term, but that's another discussion.
- teplukhin2you
June 11, 2008 at 2:13pm
Would EU troops be placed in the US bases in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, as well as Afghanistan? Bases that ring Russia at the moment.
I think people forget that Bush has extended US power, quite radically, duing his term. Not an insignificant achievement with Pakistan dependent on US aid and most of the middle east now depedent on US forces. Not to mention the bases in Sao Tome and Principe, which can reach West Africa, where up to 25% of US oil needs will come from in this century.
- The Ignorant Populist
June 11, 2008 at 2:26pm
"EU troops"? I've heard of an EU rapid deployment force based in western Europe that's theoretically available for dispatch to places of little or no consequence outside Eurasian theatres, but I wasn't aware of any forward-deployed EU force. What are you talking about?
- teplukhin2you
June 11, 2008 at 5:53pm
EU troops? They couldn't stop the war in Bosnia 1992-1995. Three years, 200,000 dead, Srebrenica. Ended only when the US finally bombed the Serbs.
Kosovo 1999? Until NATO came in, Milosevic did exactly what he wanted. Tens of thousands of ethic Albanians dead. Relying on EU troops is suicidal.
- sleepyavl
June 12, 2008 at 3:21am