Global Europe

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates each delivered forceful speeches on Euro-Atlantic security in Washington last week. The mainstream media focused on the critical elements, particularly when Gates castigated European allies for not spending more on defense. Yet Europeans may have become so accustomed to turning a deaf ear to such American entreaties that they may not have heard other messages, particularly one expressed clearly and succinctly by Clinton: 

"Now, I know that in the past, the United States has been ambivalent about whether NATO should engage in security cooperation with the EU. Well, that time is over. We do not see the EU as a competitor of NATO, but we see a strong Europe as an essential partner with NATO and with the United States. We hope that the passage of the Lisbon treaty will help us advance this relationship. And we look forward to working together with the EU as it applies its Common Security and Defense Policy to determine how we can best support one another and the United Nations in addressing security challenges."

Clinton's words represent both an offer and a challenge to Europe. The Obama Administration is telling its partners that it is ready to move past the petty NATO-EU squabbles that have plagued Western security cooperation for so long -- but in return it expects Europe to deliver when it comes to key challenges.  

The Administration is not suggesting that any type of U.S.-EU security cooperation should or could ever replace NATO. But it recognizes that there are areas in which such cooperation can complement Alliance efforts. For example, operations in the Balkans, Africa, Iraq and Afghanistan have made it clear that the U.S. and Europe need to be better at lengthy, demanding stabilization and reconstruction missions. NATO alone is ill-equipped for such missions, because NATO alone doesn’t have a full toolbox. NATO doesn’t do good governance. It doesn’t do rule of law or economic development. NATO does not connect military engagement to economic or judicial development, even though its own success is likely to depend on local progress in those areas – as we experienced in the Balkans and see in Afghanistan today. This will require the U.S. and its European partners to field significant civilian assets. Yet despite some positive examples of on-the-ground cooperation, U.S. and EU capacities for stabilization and reconstruction operations have developed largely independently. As a result, in many of the world’s hotspots, U.S.-EU cooperation remains at best perfunctory.

There are a number of areas in which direct U.S.-EU security cooperation can enhance transatlantic potential and complement, rather than compete, with NATO. Since NATO does not provide civilian assets, for example, U.S.-EU efforts in civilian crisis prevention and management are not competitive with the Alliance. Moreover, there are some real advantages to be gained by deepening U.S. security cooperation with the EU.

First, the EU can deploy a range of civilian assets that can complement NATO military assets, and bolster its own role in what is called a more “comprehensive approach” to conflict management. The EU has 10,000 people on call and a €250 million budget. Europe has a particular capacity in deploying police, having sent six police missions into crisis zones in the last five years. EU police missions are staffed by a reserve force of up to 5,000 civilian police officers, including a 1,400-member rapid reaction force that can leave on 30-days notice. Unlike the U.S., which lacks a national police force and therefore relies on contractors, this EU Police Force draws its officers from a variety of European police forces, including the European Gendarmerie Force (EGF) and the Italian carabinieri. Ongoing police missions include EUPM in Bosnia-Herzegovina, EUPOL COPPS in the Palestinian territories, EUPOL Afghanistan, and EUPOL RD Congo. Uneven progress of these missions underscores the difficulties, but not the need.  

The EU brings another capability that the U.S. lacks entirely: experience running interior ministries. While courageous and committed Americans are mentoring the interior ministries in Iraq and Afghanistan, none of them has had a career in an Interior Ministry, since the U.S. does not use them at any level of government. The EU by contrast has prepared 21 interior ministries to meet EU standards since its founding. Germany has 17 interior ministries (one federal and 16 provincial). There is substantial expertise and experience in Europe that the U.S. lacks.

In addition, the EU is the only real organization besides NATO and the UN that can effectively engage in conflict management operations on its own. Should security challenges arise but the U.S. decline to participate on its own, or participate through NATO, or where NATO engagement might be less acceptable to local actors, the EU could play a useful role. Such cases have already occurred; for instance in Congo and Chad the EU cooperated with the UN; NATO was not needed. The EU has led several UN mandated crisis management missions, and together EU member states are the most important financial contributor to UN peacekeeping.

Such security cooperation also reinforces the growing level of U.S.-EU interaction on foreign policy generally. On key foreign policy challenges such as approaching Russia, the Balkans, Georgia, Ukraine, Iran, and the Middle East peace process, most U.S. engagement with Europe is with national capitals and with the EU, rather than through NATO. European partners use the EU, rather than NATO, when it comes to common foreign policy efforts, deploying civilian assets such as police or judges, or delivering humanitarian or development assistance. The EU’s enlargement process has been a significant foreign policy success, and EU outreach to its eastern neighbors will continue to be influential.  

In 2007 EU and U.S. officials signed a joint crisis management work plan. It is a fine piece of paper, pledging both sides to common analysis; coordinating actions on the ground; enhancing capabilities of others; and enhancing a common institutional framework. But these ambitions have largely remained on paper, and no regular mechanisms have been set up to implement the agreed arrangements. Nor will U.S. security cooperation with the EU necessarily be easier under the Lisbon Treaty. The EU's institutional complexity will remain, and is likely to contribute to U.S. perceptions that the EU is simply too complex and wrapped up in internal procedural battles to be a strategic partner.  

Continued U.S. skepticism can only be overcome by improving EU capacity and effectiveness. In the end, the new Common Security and Defense Policy’s value and seriousness will be assessed in Washington on the basis of the missions and capabilities that EU member governments actually realize. Unless the EU can offer support in the areas that the U.S. cares about or spends money and sends experts in greater numbers to the world’s hotspots, working with the EU is unlikely to be a priority for the new U.S. administration in its own right, and Hillary's offer will be forgotten. The ball is in Europe's court.