Iran sanctions. Foreign Policy about the efforts at the UN level:
The discussions over Iran sanctions at the U.N. Security Council are taking shape, as member countries converge around a plan to put forth a resolution that may not have the teeth some advocates want, but could be used as a vehicle for other entities to pursue more biting sanctions. The idea is to the keep the actual penalties in the U.N. resolution, currently being negotiated in New York, vague enough to bring the Russians on board while allowing the United States and the European Union to move forward with tougher measures on their own, according to two European diplomats familiar with the discussions. (…)
The Russian side is working relatively well with the other Security Council members, these diplomats report, although resisting the harder-line items that are likely not to be included in the new resolution. China’s current position is that now is not the time for new sanctions, but the other actors are hoping that the Chinese will eventually be forced to choose between siding with the international community or siding with Iran, and will feel enough pressure to at least abstain from the final vote.
There is still a lot of concern about other U.N. Security Council members, especially Turkey and Brazil, who are poised to resist a new sanctions resolution. “It’s not as good a Security Council as we’ve had in previous rounds,” one diplomat lamented.
The end of February is still technically the deadline for the negotiations, but that is likely to slip a couple of weeks, the diplomats said.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, the EU is working on a separate sanctions package, Spiegel has the story.
European defence/NATO. In response to Robert Gates’ condemnation of Europe’s “demilitarization”, the ECFR’s Daniel Korski is calling for new initiatives for a common European defence, among them “the establishment of a European Intelligence Council, not to undertake intelligence gathering, but like the US Intelligence Council, draw together a range of analysts, academics, officials and officers” who would ” draft an annual, publicly-available Threats Assessment and a forward-looking Future Assessment for discussion annually by the European leaders”.
In Foreign Policy, Andrew Bacevich argues that the problem is systemic: Europe is not willing to fight anymore. He is calling for the US to leave NATO: “Let Europe be Europe. Why the United States must withdraw from Nato“.
Fred Kaplan at Slate argues that NATO should not go out of area:
The real question, though, is whether NATO is, or ever was, a suitable vehicle for this new, offensive mission (Afghanistan). The evidence to date suggests it isn’t. (…)
NATO was created at the dawn of the Cold War as a regional alliance—a multinational military power to defend Western Europe from a Soviet invasion and a political institution to bind the trans-Atlantic ties between the European continent and the new American superpower. It served both purposes extremely well, but maybe it’s just not meant to be a global counterinsurgency force. The very premise of a NATO command in Afghanistan—that the alliance now needs to stretch its domain beyond its traditional “area of operation”—may be mistaken.
The Cold War’s demise hardly means that NATO needs to go trotting off to distant continents in order to find a purpose. Even Gates, in his Feb. 23 speech, noted that, in the two decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the alliance has performed well in missions that are very different from defending against an invasion—for instance, stabilizing Bosnia, halting ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, and mounting counterterrorist operations in the Mediterranean.
But those missions differ in one crucial way from fighting the war in Afghanistan: They all took place in—and directly affected the security of—Europe. That is what NATO is meant to protect; it’s called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the name means something
In Foreign Policy, RAND analyst Christopher S. Chivvis says that Europe is not only weak on the military side, but also not effective on the side of civilian capabilities:
Frustration with Europe’s aversion to the use of force, combined with European leaders’ arguments for civilian solutions to today’s security challenges, has generated hope that these allies might compensate for military weakness by contributing civilian experts to the war effort. In previous remarks, Gates called for precisely this, noting that an increase in specialists focused on issues of governance, police training, and counternarcotics, “may be easier for our allies … than significant troop increases.”
Encouraging allied civilian contributions to nation-building in Afghanistan and elsewhere is a good idea. But, if the past is precedent, Gates shouldn’t hold his breath waiting for those civilians to arrive. (…) Europe seems particularly well-suited for this kind of work. Not only is the European Union the gravitational center of Europe’s foreign economic power, Europe is home to some of the most skilled legal, administrative, and law enforcement experts in the world.
Unfortunately, the European Union is failing to live up to its potential. Unless it expands its efforts by taking on more ambitious projects, with larger staff and bigger budgets, the age-old dream of transforming the EU into a civilian power will falter, just as its military prowess continues to decline. NATO — and the mission in Afghanistan — will suffer along with it.
Ashton’s troubles. An unsigned article in the European Voice says that Catherine Ashton’s problems are partly rooted in the lack of support from the bureaucracies:
One of Ashton’s problems seems to be that she is getting very little support from any of the structures that are supposed to be helping her get her new office up and running. The Commission, of which she is a part, is suspicious of her intentions and is intent on protecting its own interests. The Council regards her as part of the Commission. The first day she went to the Council’s Justus Lipsius building, she was confronted with an empty office with no phones. She needs to make allies. But to do that, she needs to command respect and goodwill, which is lacking in some quarters. (…)
The contrast with Herman Van Rompuy, the new president of the European Council, is instructive. He has a stronger, more experienced team around him. He is using his allies, both in and outside Brussels.
There is too much at stake for Ashton to be allowed to fail. The creation of the EEAS involves an extensive shake-up of the EU institutions. The dual role of the EU foreign policy chief who is also a member of the European Commission is still evolving. Ashton risks discrediting the concepts. Europe’s security and role in the world will suffer as a consequence.
Ashton should be given thinking-time at a moment of major upheaval, transition and change. But she still needs to move quickly to take charge of her portfolio and strengthen her team.
European External Action Service. The European Voice takes a look at Ashton’s “vision paper”:
Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief, has laid out her vision for the EEAS in a paper that is soon to be presented to the member states, most probably next week.
The drafting of the paper has been complicated by disagreements between member states and the European Commission. Those disagreements might account for the caution of the draft, which restates generalities about an “effective and responsive service” that is to be set up. (…)
What is interesting about Ashton’s vision is that it follows the member states’ line in defending the integrity of the service against Commission encroachment. “The EEAS will play an important role in bringing together the many levers of influence that the EU has,” the paper says, listing them as “economic and political instruments, development and humanitarian aid, plus civil and military crisis management tools”. These should be used “in support of a single political strategy”, the paper says.
What makes these apparently innocuous lines controversial is that the Commission has been chipping away at the service’s future remit. In November, José Manuel Barroso, the Commission president, announced that he would hand responsibility for the European neighbourhood policy – the main vehicle for aid to countries on the EU’s fringes that are not in line for eventual membership – to Štefan Füle, the new commissioner for enlargement. This apparently insulated a large chunk of Commission funding from the EEAS’s grasp, where it might more logically belong.
The Commission is now insisting on retaining outside the EEAS country desks that deal with developing nations in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific. While the member states support the Commission’s continued management of development aid to these countries, they want the country desks to form part of the EEAS, in line with the principle that the service should include all geographic units. Ashton has now taken sides in that battle. Perhaps surprisingly, she has come down on the side of the member states.
Defining moment. Timothty Garton Ash comments on the Euro-crisis:
We need to recognise that this is not just the first great test of the eurozone but also a defining moment for the whole project of a European Union. Since this is Europe, not Apollo 13, failure is definitely an option. More likely, however, is an agonised muddling through, leaving our old and demographically ageing continent even more preoccupied with its own internal problems. And the world will not wait while we spend another decade navel-gazing.
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