But there is, of course, another question: even if NATO did the right thing, did it do it right? Did it succeed? Did we win? In one sense, of course, the answer is clearly yes: as a result of NATO’s political cohesion and military effectiveness, Slobodan Milosevic capitulated to the terms that the leaders of the alliance established in Washington on April 23 as conditions for an end of the bombing. But that’s not quite a dispositive answer to the question, is it? Asking whether the alliance’s first major military action in half a century was a success and a victory calls to mind Zhou Enlai’s famous answer to the question of how he assessed the French Revolution: “It’s too early to tell,” he replied.
The ultimate verdict on Kosovo will depend both on the situation on the ground and the effect that the war and its aftermath have, over time, on transatlantic attitudes, relations and institutions. On this subject, I sense a basic difference of view on opposite sides of the Atlantic. Many Americans are saying never again should the United States have to fly the lion’s share of the risky missions in a NATO operation and foot by far the biggest bill. Many in my country–notably including members of Congress–are concerned that, in some future European crisis, a similar predominance of U.S. manpower, firepower, equipment and resources will be neither politically nor militarily sustainable, given the competing commitments our nation has in the Gulf, on the Korean Peninsula and elsewhere around the world.
Many Europeans seem determined never again to feel quite so dominated by the U.S. as they did during Kosovo or, for that matter, during Bosnia. In the next crisis–whatever, wherever and whenever it is–our allies want a say in the conduct of operations more nearly commensurate with the political onus that they bear in supporting the war. At least no one, on either side, is complacent about the status quo. It did not take Kosovo for both Americans and Europeans to recognize that there is an unwelcome and unhealthy asymmetry in the transatlantic relationship, and that we must find ways to rebalance our respective roles.
There are three main dimensions to the problem we collectively face and to the solution we must collectively apply. The first is military. Here the two relevant sets of initials are ESDI–the European Security and Defense Identity–and DCI, the Defense Capabilities Initiative. The second dimension is economic and commercial, and the task there is to enhance cooperation among our defense industries. The third challenge is political, and it requires an intensified effort by all the structures and organizations of our community, notably including the European Union, to reach out more proactively, more comprehensively and more quickly to the post-communist East.
Let me take these three points one at a time. On ESDI, I’ll start by reiterating what I hope is a clear, unambiguous statement of American policy: the U.S. is for ESDI. It’s in our interest for Europe to be able to deal effectively with challenges to European security well before they reach the threshold of triggering U.S. combat involvement. As ESDI goes from being a concept to a reality, our support will be guided by the answers to two questions: first, will it work? Second, will it help keep the alliance together, and that means the whole alliance, European and non-European, EU and non-EU? We would not want to see an ESDI that comes into being first within NATO but then grows out of NATO and finally grows away from NATO, since that would lead to an ESDI that initially duplicates NATO but that could eventually compete with NATO.
In the nearer term, we and our Canadian neighbors will be watching closely to see how the EU defines its security relationship with the other six allies who do not happen to be EU members: Iceland, Norway, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and, of course, Turkey. We hope that ESDI will allow non-EU allies to help shape planning and decisions for European-led military operations, and to participate in those operations if they so desire. We would also hope that once ESDI is a reality all allies would, whenever possible, continue to act together.
Our ministers committed themselves to precisely these principles first in Berlin in ‘96, then again in Washington this past April. However, two other meetings seem, to our ears at least, to have emitted a somewhat different set of signals. The Anglo-French Summit at St. Malo last December raised concerns among non-EU allies that they might not be sufficiently involved in planning and decision-making structures. Then came the EU leaders’ declaration at Cologne in June, which could be read to imply that Europe’s default position would be to act outside the alliance whenever possible, rather than through the alliance.
Let me turn to the related question of resources. As [NATO secretary-general designate] George Robertson has said frequently and forcefully, even the best-laid plans for ESDI will come to naught unless its European advocates and architects ensure that it has sufficient military muscle. Hence, the Defense Capability Initiative–DCI–which the alliance leadership announced in April. That was in the midst of an operation in which many of our nations had planes in the air, but in which American B-2s and F-117s undertook many of the most vital missions. That’s because they were the only ones that could fly at night, in any weather, evade defenses and deliver pinpoint strikes. For similar reasons, U.S. planes also flew two thirds of the transport, refueling and intelligence missions. Moreover, it took months for most allies to get their KFOR contingents pre-positioned in Macedonia and deployed into Kosovo.
That’s why we–all of us–need DCI: it’s mostly about transport and logistics, about getting forces to the area of operation and keeping them fed and equipped. Already, a number of allies are restructuring their forces and acquiring the necessary equipment–but there’s still a long way to go. Given the constraints we all face on spending, the challenge here is not so much to spend more but to be more efficient.
Let me assure you that Secretary [of State Madeleine] Albright, Secretary [of Defense William] Cohen and the rest of our colleagues have spent a lot of time thinking about our end of the bargain. In that spirit, we’ve broadened European military representation in NATO’s new command structure; we support European command of operations where European forces predominate on the ground–KFOR being the most obvious case in point. We’re also committed to supporting EU-led operations by making available NATO transport, intelligence and logistics assets. We’re in favor of establishing a mechanism for ensuring NATO-EU coordination and hammering out practical arrangements for sharing assets and modernizing our defenses.
Over the past decades, both NATO and the EU have accomplished a great deal in the political sphere. NATO began life as a collective-defense alliance, and it remains one today. But NATO has also always had a political function. For example, in the early ’80s it promoted the consolidation of civilian-led democracy in Spain, and on numerous occasions it has helped keep the peace between Greece and Turkey. Similarly, politics has always been both the subtext and the context of European economic integration. That was true when the European Coal and Steel Community provided an umbrella for the reconciliation of Germany and France in the aftermath of World War II, and it has been true in the post-cold-war era. The European Union not only gave Europe its first “stateless currency” since the days of the Roman Empire but also helped bring into being a concert of liberal democracies, in some ways the first, and certainly the most advanced, in history.
A crucial aspect of what has made the EU so successful to date and so promising for the future is the way it has dealt with the related issues of communal identity, civil society, national sovereignty and international integration. As we Americans watch what is happening under the aegis of the EU, one of the things we most admire is the way in which the old system of nation-states is giving way to a new system in which nations feel secure enough in their identities and in their neighborhoods to make a virtue out of their dependence on one another. The treaties of Westphalia and Versailles seem to be giving way to those of Maastricht and Amsterdam. On matters where borders have become an obstacle to efficiency and prosperity, such as commercial activity and monetary policy, much of Europe is investing authority in supranational bodies; on other matters, where communal identities and sensitivities are at stake, such as language and education, central governments are devolving power to local authorities.
In this fashion, Europe is managing and sublimating forces that might have ignited civil strife and conflict across borders in what has, instead, been half a century of unprecedented peace and prosperity. Our hope is that the EU–as the principal force for positive change in Western Europe–will find new and imaginative ways to induce, in the post-communist East, the protection of minorities, the empowerment of regions and the pursuit of transnational cooperation.
One way, obviously, is to keep bringing new members into the EU itself. You’re doing that. We recognize that EU enlargement is a complex process. We hope we will be able to congratulate the newest members of the EU sometime during President Romano Prodi’s tenure and see it launch the next round of accession negotiations early in his term. But enlargement is not the only tool in the EU’s kit bag for enhancing the stability of the continent. If the EU further opens its markets to nonmembers in the East, the result will be not just more prosperity for those countries but also better prospects for market reform and political stability. We are looking for ways to increase access to our own markets for products from southeastern Europe by providing trade preferences and setting up regional investment funds.
Just as the EU and NATO have different but overlapping memberships, so they have different but mutually reinforcing missions. Just as the U.S. wants and needs its European allies to be equal partners in our common defense, so all of us in NATO should want the EU to succeed in nurturing within the broadest possible political and geographic space those values and institutions, those habits of national and international life, that have come to characterize Western Europe over the past 50 years.
If that happens, the EU will be able to go about its business of deepening and broadening in a far safer, more hospitable environment. And our alliance will be more likely to be able to go about its own preferred vocation, which is deterrence; it will be less likely to face another test like the one that it had to pass earlier this year. In that case, we will have indeed learned, and applied, the ultimate lesson of Kosovo.
