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Terry Terriff
Fear and Loathing in NATO:
The Atlantic Alliance After the Crisis over Iraq

ABSTRACT

Transatlantic relations have been badly strained by the dispute

over the US policy on Iraq.The divisions within NATO in February
2003 and subsequent relations between members, however, are
a reflection of the alliance not having been able to define an
agreed role for itself. Underlying this problem are three deep-
seated issues that hark back into the cold war era that have yet
to be resolved: the role of the US in Europe; Europe’s role in the
common defence; and NATO’s role ‘out of area’. The success or
failure of NATO’s current efforts to transform itself will impact
directly on these three issues and on the future role of the alliance,
particularly in the eyes of the US.

The acrimonious political dispute within NATO that

erupted into the public domain in early February
2003 exposed serious divisions in the transatlantic
alliance over the issue of Iraq. The immediate issue
was a push to obtain formal authorisation of advance
NATO military planning to help Turkey defend itself
in the event of war in Iraq.1 The question of fur-
nishing support to Turkey had been the subject of
considerable backroom debate in NATO start-
ing around mid-January. Secretary-general, Lord
Robertson, in an effort to break the deadlock in these
internal discussions, forced the issue by putting

Perspectives on European Politics and Society, 5.3

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands, 2004
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it before the North Atlantic Council (NAC) before consensus had been reached.
On the morning of 11 February the three main dissenting member states -
France, Germany, and Belgium - broke silence in the NAC and voiced their
objections to the plan, thereby vetoing agreement. The immediate crisis spun
along for the rest of the week, but Robertson eventually moved the vote into
the Defence Planning Committee, which eliminated France from the equa-
tion as it is not a member of the alliance’s military structure, and in that
forum Belgium ultimately succumbed to pressure to concede to a re-worded
agreement.

Although NATO was ultimately able to finesse the issue so that Turkey was
provided with the military support deemed necessary, the debacle was an
occasion of ‘fear and loathing’ in NATO.2 There was fear that the very pub-
lic and acrimonious nature of the dispute was a serious blow to the Atlantic
alliance. François Heisbourg at the time of the dispute was moved to state,
‘(w)elcome to the end of the Atlantic alliance’,3 while Elizabeth Pond in
her initial examination of the crisis published soon afterwards referred to it
as ‘the Greek Tragedy of NATO’, a reference to the role of suicide in classi-
cal Greek drama.4 Even NATO’s Secretary General, Lord Robertson, a keen
and untiring vocal supporter of the alliance, admitted publicly that the dis-
pute had been ‘damaging’, while an unnamed diplomat in alliance head-
quarters is reported subsequently to have said that it ‘was a near death
experience’.5

There was also a degree of loathing within alliance councils that contributed
to the political fiasco. Pond has cogently argued that there were three key
reasons for the debacle in NATO.6 First, is what she termed ‘the arrogance
of American power’, by which she means the proclivity of the US, and in
particular the current Bush administration, to dictate to its allies rather than
convince them, based on the assumption that they not only would but should
follow. Second, is what she identified as ‘the arrogance of weakness’ of cer-
tain European states. This, she argued, was manifest in the tendency of France
to assert its exceptionalist sense of gloire and grandeur by standing up to the
Americans, and by a desire by all of the three dissenting states to demon-
strate to their publics that they could say ‘no’ to the hegemon. And finally,
she identified the personal hostility between George W. Bush and Gerhard
Schröder and the growing animosity between the US and France as con-

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tributing significantly to the hardening of positions and the degree of acri-

mony that was involved.7

The proximate reasons for this disarray within NATO are well understood
to be a spill over from the wider international debate over the wisdom, and
indeed legality, of the US efforts to enforce Iraqi compliance with United
Nations resolutions regarding weapons of mass destruction, a debate that
was largely centred around the UN Security Council. The harm that was
caused to NATO, like that to the UN, was ‘collateral damage’ to the US drive
to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq, and indeed to the US deter-
mination to do whatever it takes to protect itself in the wake of 11 September
2001.8 Nonetheless, this article argues that the dispute within the alliance over
Iraq in February 2003 and its political aftermath exposed a number of under-
lying issues which have been present to a lesser or greater extent for much
of NATO’s history. I start by identifying and examining these issues. I next
look at what steps NATO agreed to take at its Prague Summit in November
2002 to rectify some of them, and then examine the question of how well
these reforms are likely to address the underlying issues and what this may
mean for NATO.

Unresolved Fundamental Issues

The imbroglio over Iraq reflects a core crisis in the alliance: NATO since the
end of the cold war has not been able to define a clear purpose for itself.
Underlying this general failure to carve out a collectively agreed role are three
deep-seated issues that hark back into the cold war era and are yet to be sat-
isfactorily resolved. These issues can be broadly identified as, first, the American
role in Europe, second, Europe’s role in the common defence, and third,
NATO’s role ‘out of area’. For analytical purposes these are examined indi-
vidually, but in reality they are not entirely separable, for they are entwined
and interact in positive and negative ways. Hence, the analysis of these issues
starts with the NATO’s role ‘out of area’ and finishes with the role of the US
in Europe.

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NATO’s role ‘out of area’

The question of whether NATO should conduct military operations ‘out of

area’ has long been an issue in the alliance. NATO learned very early in its
life that ‘out of area’ issues were fraught with divergent interests and per-
ceptions of threat and ideology. This was a point driven home in no uncer-
tain terms in the 1950s when the United States refused to back Britain and
France over Suez and France in Algeria. To avoid the problems caused by
the divergence between the US as a global power with global interests, France
and Britain, among others, as colonial powers (albeit increasingly as former
colonial powers) with regional interests, and the small European members
with only local or national interests, NATO’s policy on ‘out of area’ issues
was studiously not to have one. The emergent position of most European
members of the alliance was that NATO’s area of strategic responsibility was
confined to the European continent, and they were unwilling to have the
alliance used to support US actions outside of Europe. The US, for its part,
never strenuously challenged the Europeans’ view, largely out of concern that
doing so could fracture the alliance that was central to containing Soviet
power in Europe.9

NATO’s policy on ‘out of area’ issues began to change in the 1990s as the
Soviet enemy receded and a series of brutal wars erupted in the former
Yugoslavia. The alliance’s eventual military intervention in Bosnia in 1995
unequivocally signified that the it was willing and able to operate ‘out of
area’ to address a crisis in an adjacent area that posed a significant danger
of spilling over to threaten peace and stability in Europe.10 The alliance agreed
at the Berlin Summit in 1996 that it should and would be willing to act ‘out
of area’ when necessary to forestall or manage crises that carried risks and
dangers for Europe. This shift in attitude resulted in distinctions, to use inter-
nal NATO terms, between ‘internal’ (the defence of NATO’s borders); ‘adja-
cent’ (the management of crises contiguous to NATO); and ‘over the horizon’
(or outside of Europe and thus beyond NATO’s purview). The US sought to
convince the alliance to accept a much broader, ‘over the horizon’ geographical
writ in the autumn of 1998 during the internal debates on the revised Strate-
gic Concept document which was to be agreed at the Washington Summit.
But the European allies rejected the American initiative. Thus at the begin-
ning of the 21st century there still remained clear transatlantic divisions within

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NATO on the question of ‘out of area’, or more particularly, ‘out of region’,

operations.

The question of whether NATO should operate ‘over the horizon’ was brought
to a head by 9/11. NATO, in invoking Article 5 of he treaty in support of the
US, was not only honouring the central security guarantee at the heart of the
alliance, but in doing so it also was, at least tacitly, signaling that it was pre-
pared to operate outside of the European region in fulfilling that guarantee.
That NATO would be willing to operate ‘over the horizon’ was first officially
articulated at the ministers’ meeting in Reykjavik in May 2002,11 and confirmed
at the Prague Summit in November of that year. The alliance is therefore
now, in principle, a European institution with a trans-regional, even a global
mandate.

The crisis over Iraq, particularly coming so soon after the Prague Summit,
has underscored the reality that, while its member states have agreed that
the alliance needs to be able to undertake ‘out of region’ operations, the divi-
sions that long underpinned NATO’s hesitancy over such issues still remained.
It is well understood that these divisions stem from differences in trans-
atlantic perceptions of what constitutes a threat, and differences in how threats
should be addressed.12 One reason why France, Germany and other NATO
members were unwilling to back Washington’s Iraq policy was that their esti-
mation of the degree of threat posed by Saddam Hussein and his supposed
possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) differed significantly from
that of the Bush administration. Moreover, they also differed considerably on
how that threat should be addressed. France and Germany, among others,
argued that the renewed inspections should be given time to work as these
would likely constrain and limit the threat posed by Iraq’s possession of
WMD. The Bush administration, along with Britain, believed that the threat,
especially over the long term, could only be addressed by forcible regime
change. Another reason for European concern about Washington’s Iraq pol-
icy is that they have different interests at stake in the Middle East and Persian
Gulf to those of the United States. They believed (and still do) that those
interests could be affected adversely by a war with Iraq.13

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Europe’s role in the common defence

The second issue is the question of the Europeans’ contribution to the com-
mon defence. In the days of the cold war this question was present in the
perennial transatlantic debates about burden-sharing, with the US repeatedly
pushing its European allies to contribute more to NATO’s conventional defence
capabilities.14 Through the post-cold war period this issue has been manifest
in the growing concern about the very limited military capabilities of the
European NATO members. The inadequacies of the Europeans’ capacities
was highlighted during NATO’s prosecution of conflict with Serbia over
Kosovo in 1999, which was an air campaign conducted largely with American
capabilities.15 Bluntly put, the European contribution was on the margins.

The supposed deficiencies of the European (and also the Canadian) militaries
is a serious issue for the United States, as it has raised hard questions about
the relevance of NATO as a military organisation. NATO at American urg-
ing sought to address directly this lack on the part of the Europeans with the
agreement on the Defence Capabilities Initiative at the Washington Summit
in April 1999. The seriousness with which NATO took this issue is reflected
in secretary-general Lord Robertson’s subsequent public mantra of ‘capabil-
ities, capabilities, capabilities’. The military forces of NATO’s European mem-
bers lack ‘stealth’ technologies, advanced real-time reconnaissance/surveillance
systems, precision guided munitions and power projection capabilities, among
a significant range of other assets.16 With the partial exception of British forces,
NATO’s militaries do not possess the capabilities needed to fight on the same
battlefields as American troops. Equally problematic is that the capabilities
gap has fostered a doctrinal gap, as the US adopts new ways of employing
force and of waging war that are different from the ways of the Europeans.

Washington took away two critical political-military lessons from the Kosovo
experience. First, from the US perspective, the need to sustain consensus dur-
ing the conflict meant subjecting the conduct of military operations to polit-
ical oversight from nineteen states, which it believed to be too constraining.17
And second, Washington believed that the requirement to incorporate the
Europeans into operations and mission plans had the effect of degrading mis-
sion effectiveness. Moreover, it forced the US to fight in a somewhat differ-
ent manner than they would have if they had fought alone.18 These ‘lessons’

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are reflected in American statements to the effect that ‘the mission determines
the coalition, the coalition does not determine mission’. In short, the sub-
stantial disparity in military capabilities has led to an American preference
for relying on ad hoc ‘coalitions of the willing’ that are prepared to operate
under US control, rather than work in the political-military framework of
NATO. In NATO it would be constrained by the need to forge consensus
despite the fact that the alliance provides no substantive military value-added.

Thus, in the wake of 11 September 2001 the United States worked bilaterally
to garner contributions from some select states (which grew in number over
time). NATO did contribute to the response to the terrorist attacks by send-
ing AWACs to the US, deploying the east Mediterranean flotilla, sending
troops into Bosnia, and so on.19 But Washington in effect spurned NATO’s
offer to fight with the US in Afghanistan, thereby exposing in a very public
way the weakness of the alliance. NATO’s contributions, while certainly not
insignificant, were not central; rather the alliance’s contributions were on the
margins of the main US military operations.20 In the case of Iraq, it appears
that the Americans saw that NATO could provide necessary support for
Turkey. Initial US plans were for the 4th Army Division to use Turkey as a
forward base from which to launch an armed incursion into northern Iraq
and to have American aircraft fly out of Incirlik to conduct bombing attacks
in Iraq. As a consequence, Turkey was legitimately concerned that it would
be on the receiving end of Iraqi retaliatory attacks, even if these were osten-
sibly aimed at American targets on Turkish soil. NATO was a perfect vehi-
cle to provide the equipment and military personnel to improve Turkey’s
security from the American point of view. Alliance involvement would have
no direct impact on the US military’s capacity to mount and conduct a large
invasion of Iraq while sustaining its multitude of other overseas commit-
ments. Moreover, it is likely that the US perceived that an official NATO deci-
sion of support for Ankara under the aegis of Article 4 of the treaty would
furnish extra political cover for the newly formed Turkish government to
agree to let the US use Turkey as a forward base in the face of substantial
and vocal domestic public opposition. Thus, much as was the case after
September 2001, the Americans were not interested in enlisting NATO to con-
tribute directly, rather it perceived the alliance as only being useful in help-
ing on the margins of the main operation being mobilised against Iraq.

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US Role in Europe

The final issue is the role of America in Europe. There are two aspects to this,
one being the firmness of the US commitment to European security and the
other its authoritative voice in NATO. Firstly, the forward deployment of US
troops in Europe and the extension of the American nuclear deterrent to pro-
tect Europe has been the primary foundation of NATO’s defence efforts. The
Europeans have long harboured fears that the US might abandon them. In
the period of the cold war the issue of whether and to what degree the secu-
rity of the United States was coupled to the security of western Europe occa-
sioned iterative, often heated, transatlantic debates, most notably over the
nature and practice of the strategy of flexible response.21 In the post-cold war
period this issue manifested itself in European concerns about whether the
United States, with the Soviet threat gone, would remain militarily engaged
in Europe, particularly as Washington drew down substantially American
forces from forward deployment on the continent. Moreover, the general ret-
icence of the US to use its military force, particularly ground forces, to address
the serial crises in the former Yugoslavia (including Kosovo), raised ques-
tions amongst the European allies about whether the US was willing to share
equally the risks entailed in protecting Europe. Secondly, the US, due to its
substantial military contribution to the common defence and European reliance
on this contribution, meant that Washington assumed a dominant or hege-
monic position of authority in NATO’s councils. In an alliance based on con-
sensus decision-making, the US was the primes inter pares. When it wanted
something strongly enough, it could through consultation and persuasion,
even including diplomatic arm twisting, convince the European members to
agree. There has long been a general sense that where the US led, the rest of
NATO usually followed. Washington’s dominant position within alliance
councils has been the source of some tension over the decades, particularly
for France which has long argued for more equality for the Europeans in
NATO’s political and military decision making. In the 1990s, with the Soviet
threat to Europe gone and no other immediate threat apparent and with the
slow US withdrawal of some 200,000 personnel from the continent, the
European’s dependency on the US was lessened considerably. Nonetheless,
the US has continued to be dominant in NATO’s councils, largely resisting
efforts (particularly those by France) to institute a greater European role and

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voice within the alliance, leaving European aspirations for a more equal role
within the alliance frustrated.22

The uneasy tension between these two aspects has been greatly heightened
by American political and military predominance and, post-11 September,
the Bush administration’s willingness to employ that power unilaterally to
protect America and its interests. On the one hand, the Europeans are con-
cerned that the US will increasingly pull away from Europe unless they are
able to convince Washington that they are both politically willing and mili-
tarily able to contribute effectively to the management of risks and dangers
in the wider global security system as well as those close to home. On the
other, there is concern that the US will increasingly use its preponderant mil-
itary power to act unilaterally in the manner it sees fit without reference to
its allies or their interests. The response of the European allies to this dilemma
of fear of abandonment and loathing of American behaviour in the lead up
to and immediate aftermath of the Iraq war, was as diverse as the members
themselves. It occupied a broad spectrum that ranged from France’s position
at one end and that of Britain at the other.

The view in Paris, one seemingly shared by Germany, was that American
power should be constrained by Europe balancing the US. France has long
articulated a preference for a multilateral international order because this
offers it the greatest diplomatic room for manoeuvre to establish its claim to
being a major international player and to achieve to the greatest extent its
national interests. French concern about the growth of American power was
reflected in France’s then foreign minister Hubert Vedrine’s statement in 1998
that the US was a ‘hyperpussaince’. Vedrine was not shy in arguing that France
‘cannot accept . . . a politically unipolar world . . . that is why we are fighting
for a multipolar one’. Pierre Lellouche has pointed out that French President
Jacques Chirac was an advocate of ‘a multipolar world in which Europe is
the counterweight to American political and military power.23 France’s efforts
to create a constraining balance to US power ranged from the joint statement
in Moscow by Chirac, Schröder and Putin opposing Washington’s policy on
Iraq, to attempts to rally the EU to a common European position on the cri-
sis. At the same time, France was mindful that there was a risk that its stance
over Iraq could convince the US to pull back from Europe. Hence, while
France was engaging in diplomatic jockeying over Iraq in an attempt to

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‘discipline’ American power, it also continued to co-operate with the US on

a range of anti-terrorism issues.

At the other end of the spectrum was Britain which, while harbouring con-
cerns about an unfettered United States, adopted a different approach. This
is epitomised by the ‘special relationship’. The ‘special relationship’ is pred-
icated on the belief that Britain’s interests in the world are best secured
by a close, even unquestioning, alignment with its more powerful friend.
Additionally, the argument runs, staying close to Washington is the most
effective way to influence American policy. Prime Minister Tony Blair, in an
address to Britain’s ambassadors and senior diplomats in January 2003, argued
that Britain ‘should remain the closest ally of the US, and as allies influence
them to continue broadening their agenda. The price of influence is that we
do not leave the US to face the tricky issues alone. . . . So when the US con-
fronts these issues, we should be with them’.24

Britain’s policy with respect to Iraq was that it had to stand ‘shoulder to
shoulder’ with the United States for better or worse. As a loyal and valued
ally it would, in return, gain access to, and arguably influence on, the inner
policy discussions of the Bush administration. Many if not most of the other
European allies, including the new ones and those states recently invited to
join the alliance, were willing to support politically and materially the US as
they saw it as the main provider of their security in Europe.25 Thus, as France
(and Germany) sought to balance the US in a belief that firm political resist-
ance could constrain American power and policy proclivities, Britain and
most of the new or putative members of NATO, chose, as one of Blair’s senior
advisers put it, to ‘hug them close’.26

NATO’s Transformation Post-Iraq

The agreement of the alliance members to transform NATO at the Prague

Summit in November 2002 in principle contribute to alleviating, if not obvi-
ating, these fundamental issues. The point of ‘transformation’ is to make
NATO more effective in managing the emerging threats posed by transna-
tional terrorism and the spread of weapons of mass destruction. It would
thereby demonstrate to the Americans the alliance’s continued relevance.
There are two key elements to the agreed transformation of the alliance, each

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with a number of linked initiatives. First, the summit formally approved ‘out
of region’ NATO missions in principle, a huge step for an alliance that has
persistently claimed to be purely defensive and non-interventionist in nature
and a guarantor of stability rather than a revolutionary actor. Secondly, the
summit approved a US proposal to form an ‘elite’ NATO Reaction Force
(NRF) for rapid deployment in Afghanistan-like crises.

The first active expression of NATO’s new ‘out of region’ mandate was the
decision by the alliance following the debacle over support for Turkey to take
command of the International Stability and Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul.
The alliance’s first step into a role in Afghanistan came from German, Dutch
and Canadian arguments that NATO should have a supporting role in the
command of ISAF, as the alliance could provide resources individual mem-
bers lacked (especially the Canadians) if they were to sustain their command
of the operation. NATO would also furnish a necessary degree of command
continuity across the rotation of lead nations. The US, for its part, was keen
to have the alliance assume a formal role in Afghanistan and, in spite of ini-
tial French reservations that this would result in the US-led military alliance
becoming caught in an open-ended mission, the alliance officially agreed in
April 2003 to assume command of the ISAF operation.27 NATO’s formal
assumption of command of ISAF in early August 2003 was soon followed
(in October) by a US driven agreement to expand the alliance’s mandate to
northern areas of Afghanistan.28

The significance of NATO’s shift from a focus on the defence of the Fulda
Gap to ensuring security in the Khyber Pass should not be underestimated.
NATO’s new willingness to undertake ‘out of region’ missions has opened
up a range of new prospective activities for the alliance. A matter of long
running debate within the alliance, pushed by the US, has been whether
NATO should undertake to contribute formally to the US-led post-war recon-
struction efforts in Iraq. NATO very early on agreed to provide informal sup-
port for the Polish-led, largely European, force that deployed to Iraq to help
provide security and to aid post-war reconstruction efforts. The US, in a seem-
ing reprise of NATO’s path into Afghanistan, has continued to urge NATO
to take command of the 9500-member multinational brigade in central Iraq,
and even possibly the larger British-led operation in the south.29 At the NATO
Istanbul Summit in June 2004, US arguments for a significant NATO role in

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Iraq were resisted, but the alliance did agree after some internal opposition
that it would formally contribute to the training of Iraqi military personnel
in Iraq.30 There have also been a number of suggestions that NATO should
take on a broader role in the Middle East up to and including the provision
of any peacekeeping forces required in the event of a Palestine-Israel peace
agreement.31 And Kofi Annan, UN secretary-general, observed that ‘NATO’s
increasing willingness to “go global” presents important opportunities, in
particular for Africa.’32 This range of current and speculative missions sug-
gests that NATO has made a clear break from its past reluctance to address
‘out of area’ issues.

It is one thing to claim an extra-regional reach, it another matter to have the

expeditionary military capability to exercise it. The NRF is that capability.
The purpose of the NRF, according NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander,
General James Jones, is to ‘give the alliance the military capability to do what
it could not do before - insert military forces into a deteriorating situation
earlier in a crisis, with more speed, at greater ranges, with more sustainabil-
ity than ever before’.33 The NRF is supposed to be able to deploy a substan-
tial lead element within five days and the complete force within 30 days, and
to fulfill missions that range from evacuations and peacekeeping to counter-
terrorism and high-intensity combat. When it reaches its projected full oper-
ation capability in 2006, it is to consist of some 20,000 to 22,000 personnel
from all services. That is, it will be a joint force of integrated land, sea and
air elements with the logistics components to support them - the equivalent
of a brigade sized combined joint force.34

General Jones, among others, sees the NRF not solely as a necessary means
to give NATO a rapid and robust expeditionary military capability, but also
as a key lever to redress the issue of the Europeans’ meagre military capa-
bilities.35 Military units assigned to the NRF will be on ready alert for six
months, after which they will be rotated out and replaced by other contributed
units that are expected to be equipped and trained to fit into the NRF struc-
ture. This will push member states to ensure that the units they allocate to
the NRF have been furnished with the right modern equipment and train-
ing. In a very real sense, the manning of the NRF will force member states,
and in particular the smaller ones, to improve significantly select elements
of their military capability in order to ensure their forces can function at the

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requisite level of military operations. In terms of war-fighting this should

ensure, at least in principle, that the NRF forces can fight alongside US forces
if need be.

The NRF as a lever for developing European military capabilities links directly
to the Prague Capabilities Commitment. NATO has jettisoned the Defence
Capabilities Initiative (DCI) from the 1999 Washington Summit because only
very limited headway had been made in meeting the targets set.36 To redress
this failure, NATO at the Prague Summit formed the Prague Capabilities
Committee to focus on 12 areas (in four major ‘baskets’) needing improve-
ment. The resultant NATO Defense Transformation Initiative (NDTI) ‘has a
narrower focus on new missions and . . . a small, but select number of forces
for them.’37 As Thomas Szayna has explained, the logic is that individual
member states will take on ‘capabilities tasks’ in advance as one or more of
their responsibilities, leading to so-called ‘niche’ responsibilities for even the
smallest member. This will be based on each member’s perceived areas of
‘comparative advantage’.38 In linking member’s commitments to the NRF to
that member’s NDTI commitments, it is hoped that they will be more will-
ing to make the effort needed to fulfill their pledges.

Possible Futures?

These two initiatives together affect the third issue: the role of the US in
Europe. The central question is whether and to what degree they are likely
to be successful.

First, with respect to out of area operations, the enlargement of NATO’s geo-
graphical writ as agreed at Prague is designed, in principle, to address the
long outstanding issue of NATO’s policy on ‘out of area’ operations. But in
spite of NATO taking on an ever-broadening role in Afghanistan and a smaller
one in Iraq, there is little reason to believe that the alliance has resolved the
issue. The enlargement of NATO’s writ at Prague appears to be another
attempt to save the alliance from irrelevance by giving it new, yet undefined,
duties. There has been no discussion let alone a clear policy statement that
provides a coherent rationale or set of guidelines to establish when and where
NATO is justified in acting. Nor do post-Prague developments in NATO, such
as its acceptance of a role in Afghanistan or even the prospect of at least a

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minor role in Iraq, suggest any clear and reasoned sets of guidelines. It appears
simply that this is what the US prefers and this is what other NATO mem-
bers believe they need to commit to in order to ensure that the US does not
walk away from the alliance.

Former secretary-general Lord Robertson made clear that NATO must not
fail in its first ‘out of region’ mission. Robertson, in his last speech to the
NATO ambassadors, argued that, ‘Afghanistan will be . . . tough but it has to
be a success’, and ‘(f)or that to be guaranteed, the nations will have to wake
up to what they have taken on’.39 NATO’s new secretary-general, Jaap de
Hoop Scheffer, has echoed this, suggesting that NATO’s credibility as a mil-
itary alliance is at stake.40 The massive expansion of the alliance’s mandate
beyond Kabul to the rest of the country requires the commitment of significant
military resources if NATO is to succeed. As yet, while some progress has
been made, the political commitments that NATO has received from its
members do not go far enough to meet what is required. And, even then the
alliance is finding it difficult to transform those political commitments into
concrete capabilities.41 The reluctance of members to commit resources and
capabilities, or to fulfill those obligations they have made, reportedly stem
from concerns of over-commitment as well as from a general lack of enthu-
siasm about spending ‘more money by sending equipment and personnel to
Afghanistan.’42 Some of NATO’s member states may agree with German
defence minister, Peter Struck, when he said, ‘The defense of Germany begins
in the Hindu Kush’, but the lack of will by many member states to provide
the required military capabilities suggests that the sentiment is not deeply
felt.43

The difficulties encountered in fielding and operating the Afghanistan mis-

sion strongly suggest that NATO may in principle have an ‘out of region’
mandate, but the differences within Europe and across the Atlantic in the
assessment of threats and in the perceptions of how to respond remain. Even
with respect to the so-called ‘big issues’, such as the proliferation of WMD,
differences persist.44 NATO has a trans-regional, even global mandate, and is
developing in the NRF the means to fulfill it. But there is no real agreement
within the alliance about the purpose of that mandate. It is hard to escape
the impression that NATO’s members agreed to the ‘out of region’ mandate,
in particular Afghanistan and certainly Iraq, largely due to the insistence

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of Washington and with the apprehension that unless they demonstrated

the alliance’s relevance the US could effectively abandon Europe to go its
own way.

Second, with respect to Europe’s military contribution to the common defence,

the NRF was proposed by the US in part because, unlike the DCI, Washington
believed it provided a much narrower goal which the Europeans should be
able to meet. Indeed, the agreement of the defence ministers in June 2003 to
the specifics of the plans to transform NATO apparently made the US mili-
tary officials, normally dismissive of the NATO and its military capabilities,
sit up and take notice. The NRF in particular was instrumental in convinc-
ing the US that NATO’s member states were serious about seeking to close
the capabilities gap by generating a modern, deployable force. The Supreme
Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), General Jones, has been very aware
of the importance of the NRF, and pressed ahead in developing the new
force.45 The NRF, on the announcement of its initial operational capability in
October 2003, comprised some 9000 multinational army, naval and airforce
personnel which were almost entirely European.46 Significantly, the US con-
tributed only some 300 personnel to this initial force and has indicated that,
even as the NRF grows to reach its proposed level of some 20,000 to 22,000
personnel, this contribution will not be appreciably increased.47 The lack of
a US commitment of significant capabilities to the NRF is undoubtedly in
part a reflection of the fact that the American military currently finds itself
over-stretched. But it also appears in part to reflect the fact that Washington
sees the development of the NRF as a test of the Europeans’ willingness to
provide mobile, deployable, sophisticated capabilities that can fight with the
US military even at the basic level of a brigade sized, combined joint force.
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that, for the foreseeable future, that the NRF
will remain a NATO European force with only a token US presence.

More broadly, it is far from obvious that the Europeans will close the mili-
tary gap, or indeed even improve to the point that the gap is no longer grow-
ing. The Europeans were not able to achieve the goals of the 1999 DCI, and
there is currently no evidence that European public opinion is willing to
accept higher defence spending. As the Economist observed in early 2002,
‘Europeans do not want to give up their butter for guns, not least because
they feel there is no threat at present that would justify attempting to close

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such a yawning gap in capability.’48 While some European states, such as

France, Norway and Britain, have sought to increase their defence spending,
others, such as Germany, are reducing theirs and the rest are struggling to
maintain their current levels. The Europeans are left, for the most part, to
reconfigure and reduce their forces in order to make them more deployable
and effective, and to develop niche capabilities (as some states are currently
doing). This process is at best very slow, due to legacy systems, the costs of
maintaining people in uniform and the expense of upgrading capabilities.
All this is compounded by the high expense and inefficiencies of national
military procurement systems and providers in European states. The central
question, then, is not whether the Europeans can close the yawning capabil-
ities gap - as this is at best a very long range hope - rather it is whether they
can, over the next three to five years, make the NRF effective enough to deal
with crises without American help.

Will success in implementing the NRF significantly affect the American view
of the value of working under the aegis of NATO? The current propensity of
the United States to act unilaterally is unlikely to undergo a substantial rever-
sal. Mark Pollack contends that this tendency is a ‘decades long secular trend’.
He argues that the policies of the Bush administration certainly represent an
intensification of this trend, but that the Clinton presidency often acted in a
manner that was unilateral, in spite of its rhetorical commitment to multi-
lateralism.49 As Madeleine Albright used to proclaim, to paraphrase, the US
is the world’s ‘indispensable nation’. What this meant in the 1990s, in European
terms, was that the US acted only when it wanted to or when it felt it absolutely
necessary to do so (as it did in the case of Bosnia) and then it usually dic-
tated the terms of its engagement (as it did in the case of Kosovo). US power
at present may be somewhat diffused due to the over-commitment of its mil-
itary forces, but it is not about to diminish. The US, as long as it perceives
itself vulnerable to threats ‘out there’, will continue to act in its own self-
interest, which is to ensure the survival, security and prosperity of the American
people. And the United States still feels vulnerable.50

This does not mean that the US will automatically act unilaterally. In the sum-
mer of 2004 the Bush administration appeared to be coming round to an
understanding that there are limits to American power, and hence that work-
ing with allies can be useful and even desirable.51 But many Europeans per-

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ceive this apparent lean toward multilateralism as mostly tactical positioning

for the US presidential elections in November 2004. Many European policy-
makers therefore are hoping that the Democrat candidate, John Kerry, wins
the electoral race. Kerry has at least stated that he would consult and engage
with America’s allies and friends.52 There is a reasonable probability that who-
ever wins the election, US policy will be more multilateral, certainly more so
that it has been over the first three years of the Bush administration.53 It is
equally probable, however, that if and when the US does consult and per-
suade NATO members to co-operate, that any such co-operation will be on
American terms54 or they will act unilaterally if they must.55 As US secretary
of state Colin Powell has framed the issue, ‘(t)ogether if we can, alone if we
must’. The US still has little reason to subject itself to the compromises needed
to work co-operatively within the structure of NATO if the alliance does not
provide any significant military added value. Not to put too fine a point on
it, continued European military weakness provides significant incentive for
the US to act unilaterally.

And this observation brings up a central conundrum for Europe. The US

exhorts NATO’s European states to do more to contribute to the common
defence while at the same time arguing that the threats to this common defence
are effectively global in nature. If the Europeans do succeed at least in pro-
viding and sustaining the NRF to the standard set for the force, the question
then is what military role will the global hegemon see Europe and NATO
playing in the common security?

Clearly one such role the US might see for European NATO is in post-conflict
reconstruction efforts. This is of course suggested by the US efforts to con-
vince alliance members to undertake missions in Afghanistan and Iraq and
its long-standing arguments that Europe take on even more responsibility
for the Balkans. It is further underscored by the fact that the US-led Opera-
tion Enduring Freedom, which is prosecuting counter-insurgency war against
the Taliban, and latterly al-Qaeda, in eastern and southern Afghanistan,
remains a separate war-fighting mission from the expanded NATO-led ISAF
mission. This particular division of labour can also be observed in the trans-
atlantic negotiations between the EU and the US over control of the opera-
tions in Bosnia, with Washington arguing that it wants NATO to retain control
over the counter-terrorism file and the special force of around 500 Italian

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carabinieri, while at the same time keeping under its own control the large
American military base in Tuzla.56 The reticence of the US to hand over com-
plete control of Bosnia to the EU, particularly those elements of NATO’s
mission most directly related to Washington’s ‘war on terrorism’, is curious.
The US has long wanted the Europeans to take full responsibility for the
military management of the Balkans so that it can withdraw its own forces
there.

Another possible role is suggested by the French-led European Security and

Defence Policy (ESDP) military operation to the Congo earlier in mid-2003.
The growing scale of the killing in the eastern Congo raised considerable con-
cern in the UN and in western capitals of a new ‘genocide’ in Africa. The US
recognised that something had to be done, with one US diplomat noting that
‘(w)e support a member state that is willing to consider this task quickly’
which was interpreted by some as an implicit nudge to the French to take
on the responsibility.57 Similarly, the US proved to be very reluctant to inter-
vene directly in the conflict in Liberia in the summer of 2003. Only under
considerable public and international pressure, due to the historical ties of
the US with Liberia, did the US intervene with a small force, sufficient to
defuse the immediate crisis. But it made clear that the force, and the much
larger reserve force based on ships off the coast, were not there to stay and
that the UN or African states should take on the task of managing the still
difficult situation.58 The apparent reluctance, or perhaps lack of interest, of
the US in engaging in attempts to rescue failed states in Africa, leaving it to
others to respond to these crises, stands in distinct contrast to the fact that
US military forces are active in a range of African countries, from Algeria to
Djibouti to Kenya, in the hunt for terrorists.59 The distinguishing character-
istic is ‘relevance’ to America’s global security agenda.

These examples admittedly are a very small data set from which to draw
conclusions. Nonetheless, they strongly suggest templates of the roles that
the US most likely sees the Europeans and NATO as playing. These are
niche roles, ones that are on the edges of what the US sees as its primary
security interests or ones that it recognises need to fulfilled but which it has
little interest in dealing with directly because they do not fit with its main
strengths and preferences. What these examples appear to reflect is what one
official of the Bush administration termed ‘multilateralism à la carte’. That

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is, Washington will choose from the multilateral part of its menu of options
when it serves US interests and purposes.

The implication is that US foreign and security after the next election, under
whatever administration, is likely to be more multilateralist in nature than
the muscular unilateralism of the first three years of the Bush administration,
as it is now widely understood that there are limits even to US military power.
But being ‘more’ multilateral is a matter of degree and perception; it is unlikely
that a ‘more multilateralist’ US policy will be anything like the robust mul-
tilateralism that the Europeans would like, for the US perceives this as being
too constraining. In light of the Pentagon’s, and indeed Washington’s, aver-
sion to fighting wars by committee and to making compromises it would
rather not make if it is to sustain consensus, it is difficult to escape the impres-
sion that greater American multilateralism is likely only to mean that NATO
and the Europeans will be pressed to take on roles on the margins of the
global interests and policies of the US.

Conclusions

In the wake of the Defence Ministers’ Meeting in Brussels in early June 2003
at which the recommendations for the transformation of the alliance were
agreed, the then secretary-general, Lord Robertson, enthused that ‘(t)his is
a new NATO. A NATO transformed in [the] Prague Summit.’60 The NATO
that exists today is certainly different from the one that existed when
the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, particularly if the Prague initiatives
are successfully implemented. Moreover, more than a year on from Lord
Robertson’s claim, the strains in transatlantic ties that resulted from the
serious disagreements over Iraq appear to have eased somewhat and the
alliance itself has made considerable progress in implementing critical deci-
sions taken at the Prague Summit. In spite of Robertson’s claims that this is
a new NATO - as well as the alliance’s own efforts - its future as an effective
military organisation is highly contingent.

Transatlantic relations in the summer of 2004 were improved, but serious ten-
sions nonetheless still existed. Underlying current tensions are three funda-
mental issues that have long troubled the alliance. One is the question of
NATO’s role outside of Europe. Although NATO has firmly embraced the

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concept of conducting operations outside of Europe, there is as yet no clear

agreement about what guidelines the alliance should follow in regards to
operations in other theatres. The long-standing differences between Europe
and the US on their respective assessments of the degree of threat posed by
external risks and dangers, and over the how such risks and dangers should
be approached, remain.

The second issue is that of the disparity in power between the US and Europe.
The wide gap in capabilities has led Washington to believe that, given its
perception that European military assets have only a marginal utility, to
engage in operations under the aegis of NATO is not worth the constraints
that the alliance’s commitment to consensus imposes. There is little real
prospect that Europe will be able to close the gap, broadly conceived, for at
least ten years if at all. Thus much will ride on how successful the Europeans
are in creating and supporting an effective NRF that meets the standards cur-
rently set for it. As General Jones noted, ‘(if) the NATO Response Force works,
NATO will be transformed. If it doesn’t work, we’ve got major difficulties.’61
The NRF if successfully implemented will provide the alliance with an effec-
tive crisis management tool, but overall it will still be a comparatively small
force capable only of limited military operations, particularly at the high end
of war-fighting, unless it is working with US military forces.

Success or failure in resolving these first two problems will affect directly the
third issue: the US role in Europe. In particular, they will influence the way
the Americans sees NATO. There is no reason to believe that the US will ever
be willing to give up its role as primes inter pares within the alliance; hence
the question is whether it might be willing in time to share some leadership
responsibility if it sees its NATO partners as politically willing and militar-
ily effective allies. Another critical question for NATO is what sort of roles
will a more multilateralist-inclined US see it playing. The comparatively lim-
ited nature of the NRF, the most probable viable European capability, sug-
gests that Washington would likely see NATO as being tasked to conduct
select crisis response operations that it perceives as impacting only margin-
ally, if at all, on US interests and security. Or. Alternatively, the NATO role
might be in those crises that Washington is not enthusiastic about dealing
with due to its disinclination to engage in humanitarian emergencies, nation-
building or peacekeeping.

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The degree to which the alliance succeeds will determine how the US sees
NATO. It is difficult to see the transatlantic differences over ‘out of area’, or
‘out of region’, missions ever being fully resolved due to the differences in
interests that exist between the US as a global power and the Europeans as
either regional or local powers. Moreover, the distinctive approaches that
both sides bring to questions of how to confront particular external threats
and dangers will remain, sometimes convergent, often divergent. These dif-
ferences will likely continue to be addressed and debated on a case-by-case
basis. Therefore it will be critical for NATO to create sufficient effective capa-
bilities, primarily through the NRF, to convince the US that the alliance has
military value.

Today there appears to be two very general possible futures for NATO based
on the failure or success of its effort to transform. If the Europeans fail even
at generating and sustaining the NRF, the US is likely increasingly to see
NATO as having little real military utility. Such a general outcome does not
mean that NATO will vanish, that ‘the death of NATO’ is nigh. The US has
a clear interest in sustaining NATO, if only to ensure both peace and stabil-
ity in Europe and the maintenance of America’s hegemonic position there.
The difference will be that the US, rather than being an intimate, active mem-
ber of NATO, could well pull back from Europe to become an off-shore bal-
ancer, unwilling to work under the auspices of the alliance. NATO in this
general future would become increasingly more political than military in
nature. It would become, as some detractors put it, a political talking shop.

If NATO succeeds in its transformation effort and provides at least a mod-

icum of usable and effective military capability through the NRF, Europe
must be concerned about the degree to which it will be subject to the polit-
ical and strategic global agenda of the US. The European allies may well face
an America that presses them, either through NATO, or even the ESDP, to
take on those military missions too trivial to excite Washington’s interest,
whether these be managing security problems in Europe, peacekeeping and
nation-building from the Balkans to the Middle East to Afghanistan, or human-
itarian or crisis response missions in Africa. NATO in this future would be
little more in military terms than an auxiliary to US forces.

For an alliance that sees itself first and foremost as a military organisation,
neither of these futures will be welcomed. Fear and loathing in NATO indeed.

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Notes
1
The basis of the request was Article 4 of the Washington Treaty which states that
NATO’s members will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them,
the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any member coun-
try is threatened. See NATO: Basic Texts, The North Atlantic Treaty, Washington
D.C., 4 April 1949, at http://www.nato.int/docu/basictxt/treaty.htm#FN1.
2
The author acknowledges Hunter S. Thompson for the phrase ‘fear and loathing’.
See Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey into the Heart of the
American Dream (New York: Warner Books, 1971) and Fear and Loathing on the
Campaign Trail ’72 (New York: Warner Books, 1973).
3
Quoted in: Michael J. Glennon ‘Why the security council failed’, Foreign Affairs,
May/June 2003 at: http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20030501faessay11217/michael-
j-glennon/why-the-security-council-failed.html?mode=print (14/06/03).
4
See Elizabeth Pond, ‘The Greek tragedy of NATO’, Internationale Politik, (Transatlantic
Edition), 1(1), Spring 2003.
5
Quoted in Jim Mannion, ‘NATO agrees sweeping reforms, but cracks remain after
Iraq’, Agence France Presse, 12 June 2003, at http://web.lexis-nexis.com/executive/
document?_m=d885dc18f377266d90d5fded3957fd23&wchp=dGLbVtz-zSkSl&_md5=
6231c35ac37cf3dfb75b3f77c37e82d7&cont=1. Elizabeth Pond, in her book on NATO
after the Iraq crisis also refers to the dispute as a ‘near death experience’. See
Elizabeth Pond, Friendly Fire: The Near Death of the Transatlantic Alliance (Washington
DC: Brookings Institute, 2003).
6
See Pond, ‘The Greek tragedy of NATO’.
7
The degree of US disdain for its ‘weak-kneed’ allies was reflected in Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s statement regarding ‘Old versus New Europe’, among
others, and the general comments emanating out of the US such as ‘cheese eating
surrender monkeys’, ‘axis of weasels’, and ‘chorus of cowards’.
8
For two accounts of the events leading up and then following the dispute within
NATO, see Pond, Friendly Fire; and Philip Gordon and Jeremy Shapiro, Allies at
War: America, Europe and the Crisis over Iraq (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004).
9
For an overview of the ‘out of area’ issue during the cold war period, see Elizabeth
D. Sherwood, Allies in Crisis: Meeting Global Challenges to Western Security (New
Haven CT: Yale University Press, 1990).
10
See, for example, Ivo H. Daalder, Getting to Dayton: The Making of America’s Bosnia
Policy (Washington DC: Brookings Institute, 2000); and Giovanna Bono, NATO’s
‘Peace-Enforcement’ Tasks and ‘Policy Communities’: 1009-1999 (Aldershot: Ashgate,
2003).
11
NATO Press Releases, Ministerial Meeting of the North Atlantic Council, Final

440 • Terry Terriff

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Communiqué, 14-15 May, 2002 Press Release M-NAC- 1(2002)59 at: http://
www.nato.int/docu/pr/2002/p02-059e.htm.
12
Undoubtedly the most well known explication of these differences is Robert Kagan’s
argument, which he pithily summed up as ‘The US is from Mars, Europe is from
Venus’. See Robert Kagan, Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New
World Order (New York: Knopf, 2003).
13
A third point of contention was that the other NATO members differed consider-
ably from the Bush administration in their estimation of necessity to address the
Israel-Palestine problem as a central component of addressing the issue of peace
and stability in the Middle East.
14
See, for example, Phil Williams, US Troops in Europe (London: Macmillan, 1985).
15
The US contribution is claimed to have been some 70% of the flights and 80% of
the bombs dropped.
16
For a detailed analysis of the extent of the gap in capabilities see David S. Yost,
‘The US-European capabilities gap and the prospects for ESDP’, in Jolyon Howorth
and John T. S. Keeler, Defending Europe: The EU, NATO and the Quest for European
Autonomy (London: Palgrave, 2003), pp. 81-106.
17
The then SACEUR General Wesley Clark has argued that Washington caused more
problems than did the Europe capitals, suggesting that this US concern is some-
thing of a myth. See Wesley K. Clark, Waging Modern War: Bosnia, Kosovo and the
Future of Conflict (New York: Public Affairs, 2001).
18
Interviews with US department of defense officials, April 2000.
19
For a thorough analysis of what NATO did contribute, see Tom Lansford, All for
One: Terrorism, NATO and the United States (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002).
20
As one NATO ambassador noted, ‘(w)e felt marginalised if not irrelevant. Robertson
really expected the US not only to be grateful, but also to take up the article 5 offer.’
Further, as a military official observed, ‘Robertson’s response to September 11 was
a real error of judgment. . . . It damaged Nato.’ Quoted in Judy Dempsey, ‘Robertson
struggles to rescue Nato’ FT.com, 12 February 12 2003, at: http://news.ft.com/servlet/
ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=104249178547
9&p=1012571727159.
21
See, for example, Ivo Daalder, The Nature and Practice of Flexible Response: NATO
Strategy and Theater Nuclear Forces since 1967 (New York: Columbia University Press,
1991). For an analysis of the US perspective on the viability of extending its nuclear
deterrent to cover Europe, see Terry Terriff, The Nixon Administration and the Making
of US Nuclear Strategy (Ithaca NY: Cornell Studies in Security Affairs, 1995).
22
See, for example, Michael Brenner and Guillaume Parmentier, Reconcilable Differences:
US-French Relations in the New Era (Washington DC: Brookings Institute, 2002), espe-
cially pp. 38-68. A particular instance of this US resistance was the dispute over a

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European assuming command of Allied Force Southern Europe in 1997. See Ronald
Tiersky, ‘French gamesmanship and the future of the alliance: the case of Allied
Forces Southern Europe’, in Lawrence R. Chalmer and Jonathan W. Pierce (eds.),
NATO 1997: Year of Change (Washington DC: National Defense University Publications,
1998), Tiersky chapter at: http://www.ndu.edu/inss/books/Books%20-201998/
NATO%201997%20Sept%2098/natoch2.html.
23
Quoted in: Michael J. Glennon ‘Why the Security Council Failed’, Foreign Affairs,
May/June 2003 at: http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20030501faessay11217/michael-
j-glennon/why-the-security-council-failed.html?mode=print (14/06/03).
24
Quoted in Peter Riddell, Hug Them Close: Blair, Clinton, Bush and ‘Special Relationship’
(London: Politico, 2003) p. 15.
25
Indeed, the dispute within NATO over furnishing support to Turkey under Article
4 of the Washington Treaty reinforced the belief of new alliance members, and those
states invited to join the alliance in 2004, that they could not rely on other European
states, particularly France and Germany, for their security and that only the US
would be willing to provide this. Interviews with Delegation Officials, NATO
Headquarters, July 2003.
26
On British policy, particularly with respect to Iraq, see Riddell, Hug Them Close.
27
Daniel Dombey and Hugh Williamson, ‘Nato to command Afghan mission’, FT.com,
16 April 2003, at http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/
StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1048313837986&p=1012571727102.
28
‘UN Council Approves a Broader Afghan Mission’, NYTimes.com, 14 October 2003,
at http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/14/international/asia/14AFGH.html?page-
wanted=print&position.
29
See Elaine Sciolino, ‘Drifting NATO finds new purpose with Afghanistan and Iraq’,
NYTimes.com, 23 February 2004, at http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/23/inter-
national/europe/23NATO.html?pagewanted=print&position=; and ‘NATO Chief
Says Iraq Role Depends on Baghdad, U.N.’, NYTimes.com, 4 March 2004, at
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iraq-nato.html?page-
wanted=print&position=.
30
See, for example, Reuters, ‘NATO Settles Dispute Over Training Iraqi Forces’, New
York Times, 26 June 2004, at http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-
iraq-nato.html?pagewanted=print&position=; and Daniel Dombey, ‘Paris holds out
over Nato training’, FT.Com, 29 July 2004, at http://news.ft.com/servlet/Content
Server?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1087374059706&p=
1012571727166.
31
See, for example, Paul Ames, ‘NATO eyes role in Mideast peace efforts’, Yahoo!
News. 11 June 2003, at http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=518&u=
/ap/20030604/ap_on_re_eu/nato_3&printer=1.

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32
Quoted in ‘Annan sees NATO African role’, The Mercury, 9 March 2004, at
http://www.themercury.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,8913923,00.html.
33
Quoted in Paul Amex, ‘Special force inaugurated: NATO unit can deploy quickly’,
Calgary Herald, 16 October 2003, at http://web.lexis-nexis.com/executive/
document?_m=63e5708ac582863ac6f1d7fdb34f5457&wchp=dGLbVtz-zSkSl&_md5=
41694d5076d0608a7c0d376868c85a85&cont=1 (06/02/2004).
34
The two other main elements are, first, effecting change in the alliance’s command
structure to make it leaner and more efficient with the emphasis on ensuring that
it is capable of generating and supporting expeditionary operations; and second,
the establishment of Transformation Command, which is to work on developing
new doctrines and concepts for alliance forces.
35
Interviews with SHAPE officials, July 2003.
36
DCI identified some 58 specific areas where military capabilities needed upgrad-
ing that were designed to improve mobility and deployability, sustainability, effec-
tive engagement, survivability, and interoperable communications. ‘NATO’s Defence
Capabilities Initiative’, NATO Fact Sheets, at http://www.nato.int/docu/facts/
2000/nato-dci.htm.
37
Jeffrey Simon, ‘NATO at a crossroads: can it cope with post-September 11th and
enlargement challenges?’, unpublished paper, Institute For Security Studies, National
Defense University, p. 3.
38
Testimony by Thomas Szayna (RAND Corporation) before the Committee on NATO
Enlargement of the US House of Representatives’ Committee on International
Relations, Sub-Committee on Europe, 17 April 2002.
39
Quoted in, ‘Dutchman takes NATO helm as alliance faces key tests’, Yahoo! News,
4 January, 2004, at http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=1511&u=
/afp/20040104/wl_afp/nato_chief_040104034905&printer=1.
40
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, speech on the 40th Munich Conference on Security Policy,
7 February 2004, at http://www.securityconference.de/konferenzen/rede.php?menu_
2004=&menu_konferenzen=&sprache=en&id=127&.
41
See, for example, Judy Dempsey, ‘Nato has no time to lose in Afghanistan’, FT.com,
2 December 2003, at http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=
FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&cid=1069493659428&p=1016649827938; Judy Dempsey,
‘Nato needs more tools for the job in Afghanistan’, FT.com, 27 February 2004, at
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c
=StoryFT&cid=1077690740504&p=1012571727166; and Reuters, ‘Karzai Calls on
Stretched NATO for Election Back - Up’, NYTimes.com, 10 March 2004, at http://
www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-nato-afghanistan-karzai.html?
pagewanted=print&position=.
42
Judy Dempsey, ‘Nato must prove itself in Afghanistan’, FT.com, 17 February 2004,

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at http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/
FullStory&cid=1075982606988&p=1016649827938.
43
Quoted in Pond, Friendly Fire, p. 36.
44
See Terry Terriff, ‘“A train collision in the making”: the proliferation of weapons
of mass destruction and transatlantic relations,’ Journal of Transatlantic Studies, forth-
coming Spring 2005.
45
Interviews with officials, Office of the SACEUR, SHAPE, July 2003.
46
Spain at present is the biggest contributor to the prototype force with 2,200, plus
ships, aircraft and helicopters, followed by France, with 1,700, and Germany at
1,100.
47
Interviews with NATO and SHAPE officials, July 2003.
48
Special Report, ‘America and Europe: Who Needs Whom?’ The Economist, 9 March
2002.
49
Mark A. Pollack, ‘Unilateral American, multilateral Europe?’, in John Peterson and
Mark A. Pollack (eds.), Europe, America, Bush: Transatlantic Relations in the Twenty
First Century (London: Routledge, 2003) pp. 115-27.
50
It is striking that in the initial months of the 2004 US presidential campaign the
dominant issue, rather than being the economy or other domestic issues as is the
norm, is about which party can better provide security and peace of mind for
the American public.
51
For a good overview of the steps both sides of the Atlantic to start mending trans-
atlantic ties, see Elizabeth Pond, ‘Lurching back together’, International Politik
(International Edition) 5(1), 2004, at: http://www.dgap.org/english/tip/tip0401/
pond.htm.
52
On Kerry’s foreign policy, see Perry Bacon Jr., Lisa Beyer, and Karen Tumulty,
‘Interview: John Kerry’, Time Online Edition, 7 March 2004, at http://www.time.com/
time/covers/1101040315/ninterview.html; also, Karen Gibbs, ‘Does Kerry have a
better idea?’, Time Online Edition, 7 March 2004, at http://www.time.com/time/cov-
ers/1101040315/nkerry.html; and Deborah McGregor ‘Bush and Kerry hasten to
set out their policy stores’, FT.com, 5 March 2004, at http://news.ft.com/servlet/
ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=107838154656
1&p=1012571727162.
53
For an argument to this effect, see Gerald Baker, ‘A new US foreign policy?’, FT.com,
11 March 2004, at http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/
StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1078381706999&p=1012571727102.
54
Indeed, for many European policymakers the 2004 US presidential campaign was
a case of ‘fear and loathing on the campaign trail’. If Kerry were elected he would
almost certainly ask the European allies for more direct help in Iraq, and if they
declined the request of a ‘multilateralist’ president they would risk inflicting fur-

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ther, even permanent, harm to already damaged transatlantic relations. Alternatively,

if Bush, a president they much disliked, were to win, they at least would be able
to say ‘no’ without inflicting further harm. The reference is to, Thompson, Fear and
Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72.
55
Even Kerry said that, if he were elected president, he would act unilaterally if need
be, up to and including engaging in pre-emptive war, to protect the US. See foot-
note 52 on Kerry’s statements of his views of US foreign policy.
56
The US also argued that NATO should retain control of the issues of war crimi-
nals. See, Judy Dempsey, ‘US and Europe vie for control of Bosnia force’, FT.com,
8 March 2004, at http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/
StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1078381608815&p=1012571727102.
57
Quoted Felicity Barringer, ‘UN council may request foreign force for Congo’,
NYTimes.com, 13 May 2003, at http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/13/interna-
tional/africa/13CONG.html?pagewanted=print&position=. See also, Reuters, ‘France
Considering Rapid Reaction Force for Congo’, NYTimes.com, 12 May, 2003, at
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-congo-democratic-
un.html?pagewanted=print&position=.
France took on the task and transformed the venture into an official ESDP mission
that was successful in fulfilling its limited mandate. Reportedly, the US was inter-
ested in a French-led ‘coalition of the willing’ and was irritated when France turned
the undertaking into an official ESDP one. Personal communication.
58
See, for example, Linda Feldman, ‘Is US inching toward intervention?’, Christian
Science Monitor, 7 July 2003, at http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0707/p01s03-
usfp.htm. Indeed, the US Marines who were put ashore were convinced that their
stay would be very brief and so failed to take anti-malarial prophylactics (due to
potential side affects), resulting in a significant number of them contracting malaria.
See Associated Press, ‘Navy Is Investigating Post-Liberia Malaria’, NYTimes.com,
10 September 2003, at http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/10/international/
africa/10MALA.html?pagewanted=print&position= (10/09/2003).
59
See, for example, Jim Lobe, ‘Pentagon’s “footprint” growing in Africa’, Foreign
Policy In Focus (Silver City, NM & Washington DC: 12 May 2003), at http://
www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0305africa_body.html; and Craig S. Smith, ‘US
Training African Forces to Uproot Terrorists’, NYTimes.com, 11 May 2004, at
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/11/international/africa/11AFRI.html?hp=&page
wanted=print&position= .
60
US Department of State, ‘Lord Robertson signals “a New NATO, a NATO trans-
formed”’, International Information Programs, 12 June 2003, at http://usinfo.state.
gov/topical/pol/nato/03061204.htm.
61
Quoted US department of defense, ‘Jones discusses changing troop “footprint”

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in Europe’, Federal Department and Agency Documents, 10 October 2003 at

http://web.lexis-nexis.com/executive/document?_m=3e8c0f9a3842b8dd9570b2ad720
ebebc&wchp=dGLbVtz-zSkSl&_md5=50024c6dc5365cfdcdd58247af766d98&cont=1
(06/02/2004).

446 • Terry Terriff