Thoughtful piece by a suprising source: Anand Menon, director of the European Research Institute at the University of Birmingham.
"It is time to abandon attempts to endow the European Union with a defence policy of its own. Proponents of the idea claim it is necessary to allow Europe to contribute more to the overall western defence effort and to exert some influence over US foreign policy. The paradox is that in choosing the EU as a vehicle through which to further European defence ambitions, they risk failing on both counts.
The latest Franco-German proposals to further the EU's defence ambitions highlight the follies of the project. In effect, Paris has acquiesced to Germany's military ineffectiveness in return for Berlin's acceptance of French institutional obsessions that would disconnect the EU from Nato.
...Most important, whatever their pretensions to a greater military capacity, the Europeans will for the foreseeable future depend on US military assistance. Yet the Americans suspect that European defence ambitions are motivated by a desire for competition with the US, not co-operation. French demands for European autonomy in military planning do little to assuage US concerns.
Nato, while far from a perfect organisation, suffers from few if any of the drawbacks that encumber the EU. The alliance by design allows the Europeans to work closely with the Americans. It does not include the neutrals. It manages to avoid decision-making paralysis through US influence and a culture of problem solving. Its secretary-general - currently Lord Robertson - will prove far more effective than EU bureaucrats at cajoling its members into greater defence spending. And Nato is tremendously flexible. Its greatest achievement since the end of the cold war has been its success in blurring the distinction between members and non-members. Some or all of more than 40 states can carry out a mission using Nato command structures. The most obvious course open to Europeans if they want to wield more military power is to work through Nato..."


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