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Volume 3, Number 3
February 2002
William Anthony Hay is Executive Director of FPRI’s Center for the Study of America and the West. This essay is based on a presentation he made at FPRI’s monthly briefing on the War on Terrorism on February 11, 2002. Othe panelists included Stephen Blank of the US Army War College and Hafeez Malik of Villanova University. The briefings are offered each month as a public service and are free and open to the public.
The war on terrorism provided the Bush administration a defining challenge around which to structure its foreign policy: destroying terrorists (beginning with Al Qaeda) along with the governments that shelter them. This protracted conflict also has become a fulcrum for turning previously unfavorable situations to America’s advantage. Although the immediate focus after September 11 became South Asia and the Middle East, the war on terrorism also has major implications for Europe. Terrorism brings the United States and European allies together by presenting a security challenge absent since the end of the Soviet threat. By defining Washington’s foreign policy agenda, it gives European leaders something to engage. September 11 also forced European governments to reassess their own policies on a range of issues.
The Florida election dispute and the lengthy appointment process at the Departments of State and Defense delayed the development of a comprehensive U.S. policy on Europe in 2001. Resolving issues left by the Clinton administration, particularly the Kyoto Treaty and the International Court of Justice, provided an unwelcome early distraction for the new administration, and it also antagonized allied governments that had misread Clinton’s erratic multilateralism as a firm American commitment. Missile defense was another point of friction, and one that, despite its importance in Washington, did not provide a comprehensive framework for transatlantic relations. At the same time, the European press, led by the Guardian and Le Monde adopted a disdainful view of Bush and his administration that seemed to portend a break within the alliance.
The President and his national security officials spent the spring assuring the Europeans of their commitment to consultation and transatlantic cooperation. Donald Rumsfeld used an informal NATO meeting in early February to consciously define American policy within the accepted terminology of shared risks and shared burdens. Without retreating from plans for missile defense, he cast it as an opportunity to develop a new collective approach to security. During a European trip later that month, Colin Powell ended speculation on Washington’s commitment in the Balkans with the phrase “in together, out together." Washington demonstrated its seriousness by leading efforts to resolve the Macedonian crisis. Powell also set discussion of plans for an EU defense initiative within the context of improving overall NATO capabilities.
President Bush further developed the administration’s approach during his European trip in June 2001, which skipped major capitals in favor of visits with friendly center-right leaders in Spain and Poland before the EU summit in Gothenburg, Sweden and a brief meeting with Vladimir Putin. Bush used the trip to answer critics of the administration, particularly in a speech at Warsaw University on June 15 that outlined his approach to Europe.
Bush spoke of a “common Europe,” but defined it in several ways, each with important policy consequences. As a geographical expression, Europe clearly includes Russia and other states along the former Soviet borderlands. Bush also discussed an organizational Europe defined by the European Union and NATO, economic and security institutions that exclude Russia and its periphery. On a deeper level, Bush appealed to a European ideal expressed by democracy, free markets, and civil society that might be described as a 21st century Western civilization. Several passages seemed to echo the spirit of Alcide de Gasperi and other Christian Democrats while extending it beyond Cold War-era borders and across the Atlantic. Bush also affirmed both the United States’s role as a European power and its determination to preserve NATO.
These definitions offer flexibility regarding the meaning of Europe, its institutional memberships, and its geographical compass. The choice of Poland as the venue for a major speech underlined Bush’s commitment to broadening Europe eastwards, as did his support for NATO and EU expansion. Bush told a Brussels press conference a few days later that European democracies must be welcomed into European institutions and that Russia needs to hear it has a future within Europe.
The speech and Bush’s personal performance relieved European anxieties. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder echoed Bush’s words in describing “our Euro-Atlantic community of states” as a vital force for international stability and prosperity. EU Commissioner for External Affairs Christopher Patten wrote in the International Herald Tribune that European leaders at the Gothenburg summit welcomed a U.S. administration with an internationalist outlook and readiness to develop America’s relationship with Europe. Disenchantment with “American unilateralism” and the much-touted “values gap” between the United States and Europe turned out to be an overstatement.
The monumental violence of September 11 brought home the new threat facing both the United States and Europe and temporarily buried anti-Americanism. The European parliament and stock exchanges in London and Frankfurt were evacuated that day as the scale of the attacks became apparent. The French government declared a high state of alert, deploying troops and security forces around sensitive locations. Earlier plans that they had uncovered for similar terrorist attacks with hijacked aircraft on the Eiffel Tower and the U.S. embassy in Paris provided more than enough grounds for alarm. September 11 showed that the frontlines in the new war would be everywhere.
Institutional Europe and individual countries quickly rallied to support the United States. NATO invoked article 5 of the Washington treaty, which stipulates that an attack on one member is to be considered an attack on all, on the evening of September 12. The move set a precedent by including terrorism within the definition of armed attack as discussed in the April 1999 Washington summit, and it gave the U.S. access to NATO resources including bases, airspace, and personnel. Deployment over American airspace on October 8 of NATO-assigned AWACS aircraft manned by multinational European crews marked another first and provided a tangible asset that underlined the organization’s value.
What of the European Union’s response? While EU leaders gave America their full support, only its member states could provide military forces, which would be controlled by national governments. Britain immediately pledged full support and took an active part in the Afghan campaign as well as building the diplomatic coalition behind it. France provided special operations forces along with surveillance aircraft for tracking Al Qaeda. Relatively few military assets from the American or European inventory played a direct part in overthrowing the Taliban, despite offers from several European capitals. The job was done in a combined operation that used U.S. airpower along with American and British special forces to support Afghan troops. Sizable American units only secured key areas once the Taliban had collapsed. European forces will provide a British-led peacekeeping force in Kabul to aid the new government over the coming months.
Some reports have hinted that the Afghan peacekeeping force might become a prototype for the much-discussed European Rapid Deployment Force established last year, but national governments rather than the EU have driven policy since September. Two incidents highlighted the EU’s marginalization. British Prime Minister Tony Blair invited his German and French counterparts to a planning session over dinner on November 3. Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi quickly demanded an invitation, and Spain’s Jose Maria Anzar was added to the list. Dutch leader Wim Kok then declared his intention to attend. Invitations later went to Belgium’s Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, who currently holds the EU presidency, and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana. What had begun as an effort by leading European powers to discuss policy on Afghanistan ended in political farce, with other leaders elbowing their way in. A similar scene occurred at the EU summit in Laeken on December 15. When Belgium’s foreign minister spoke of a 3,000-man EU peacekeeping force for Afghanistan, he was corrected by national leaders who stated that their countries individually would deploy any forces to be sent. On being tested by events, EU claims for a role in diplomacy and security policy rang hollow.
While the U.S. and Europeans generally worked well together on the Afghan phase of the conflict, some old tensions have reappeared in recent weeks. Americans were astounded by widely-expressed solicitude for prisoners at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay. A gap in understanding also developed over the Arab-Israeli conflict where European governments have been far more willing to grant political concessions to the Palestinians in return for a cease-fire than a Bush administration deeply offended by Yasser Arafat’s refusal to fulfil promises to end violence. Still, that overall pattern could be detected even before September 11. European governments generally have adopted positions on Middle Eastern between those of Washington and Arab leaders that provide room for maneuver in pursuit of their particular objectives.
Perhaps most importantly, September 11 brought out tensions beneath the surface of national politics in Europe. Criticism of U.S. treatment of Al Qaeda detainees at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba hints at a revival of anti- Americanism that may give socialist governments trouble from within their own parties and elsewhere on the left. Some protests emerged with the first attacks on the Taliban in October. France has been surprisingly muted in its public reaction given a history of distinguishing its interests from those of the United States, but domestic concerns about Arab immigrants and terrorism encourage quiet support for American policy. All European governments realize that participation is the prerequisite for influence over policy. Tony Blair placed Britain firmly behind Washington and acted as a spokesman for the coalition despite some rumbling from the Labor backbenches. Italy also took a vociferously pro-American view with an overwhelming parliamentary majority voting for Berlusconi’s decision to offer substantial military aid. As with Japan, in demonstrating its willingness to deploy forces, Italy shed its post-1945 inhibitions on military action.
Germany presented a more complex scene, with more open protests than elsewhere in Europe. The Afghan campaign sparked pacifist demonstrations with anti-American overtones that Schroeder rebuked sharply. A newscaster on one of Germany’s two public television networks provoked outrage by claiming that Bush and bin Laden had both displayed intolerance, and the leader of a public employees union warned that war would “spread a fire of hatred.” The ex- communist Party of Democratic Socialism led opposition to the war despite efforts to cooperate with ruling Social Democrats in Berlin’s local elections. A peace rally in Berlin featuring placards calling for “no war in our name" despite Schroeder’s pledge to the U.S. of unlimited assistance.
September 11 accelerated an ongoing reassessment of German foreign policy and an increased willingness to act independently as a major power. Schroeder promised Washington a 3,900-man contingent to support the war in Afghanistan. This gesture of support would provide an important military contribution, but more importantly Schroeder’s act freed Germany from the restraints that had prevented it since 1945 from projecting power beyond its borders. The deployment required authorization by the Bundestag, and Schroeder made the November 16 vote on it a question of confidence in his coalition government. Doing so placed great pressure on Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and his Green party, forcing them to choose risking the coalition or losing rank-and-file support by abandoning their pacifist roots. The Bundestag did, however, ratify the decision without immediate fallout.
Two other factors may also come into play in Germany’s 2002 general election. The Social Democrats' defeat in Hamburg by a new law-and-order party led by a local judge, Ronald Shill, underlines the potency of issues connected with immigration and security after September 11. One of Germany’s more liberal states, Hamburg gained notoriety as the city where Mohammed Atta studied before entering Al Qaeda. Shill rode a backlash against both petty crime and evidence that Hamburg had become a refuge for terrorist groups to break the Social Democrats' 44-year control over the city-state’s government on September 23. The election and Shill’s declaration that he would take his local party into national politics encouraged the selection of Barvaria’s minister-president Edmund Stoiber as the candidate for the center-right alliance of Christian Democrats and the Bavraian Christian Social Union. A more dynamic candidate than his two Christian Democrat rivals, Stoiber’s rejection of consensus politics offers voters a clear choice. Schroeder called Stoiber’s nomination “a radicalization of the right in Germany,” but economics plays an important role. Bavarian unemployment is half the German average, and Schroeder’s coalition government must struggle against public frustration with economic stagnation that sharpens debate on questions of immigration and public order. German politics will become more contentious over the next year, with repercussions for Europe generally.
The exposure of Al Qaeda cells in Hamburg highlighted serious, though hesitantly expressed, fears about Muslim communities in both Europe and the United States. Liberal immigration and asylum policies have given terrorists and their sympathizers outposts in the heart of the West. Despite having nearly as many Muslims as France, German authorities have done nothing to track Islamic groups linked with terrorism abroad. A radical mosque near London served as a propaganda operation and recruiting center for men like the accused shoe-bomber Richard Reid, and security officials privately have described the British cities of London and Leicester as key bases for Al Qaeda and similar groups. The situation presents a formidable intelligence and law enforcement problem that can no longer be dismissed. France had already moved against Islamic radicals after earlier threats, expelling many to Algeria. Other European governments changed their policies drastically after September 11, with Austria and Sweden deporting foreign nationals facing charges or sentences in the Middle East. Britain and Germany aggressively pursued a similar line and recently arrested terrorists and sympathizers. Otto Schily, Germany’s interior minister, who as a young lawyer had represented members of the Baader-Meinhof gang, stated that his country would deport suspects to the Middle East providing they did not face capital charges.
Schily’s qualification makes the offer meaningless given the realities of the Middle East, and it shows the problem raised by extradition. Even within Europe, cooperation depends upon particular circumstances. French officials long complained of Britain’s unwillingness to deport suspects in an earlier investigation until very recently, in contrast to their immediate extradition to the United States of Al Qaeda’s Zacharias Moussaoui. The EU might find a role in coordinating extradition and other aspects of law enforcement, and an EU working document on measures against terrorism noted that the European Court of Human Rights may have to revisit earlier rulings given the need to balance protection of suspects with public security. Other barriers to a common policy are more intractable. Many countries have an ingrained tradition of granting political asylum that conflicts with blanket extradition policies. Proposals for an EU arrest warrant drew fierce opposition in Britain on the grounds that it subjected British citizens to prosecution for activities that are legal in the United Kingdom and that trials abroad would deny the accused protections enshrined in common law. Efforts by investigating magistrates in Spain and Belgium to press charges against Chilean General Augusto Pinochet and Israel’s Ariel Sharon opened the door to the politically motivated prosecution of foreign leaders and nationals on matters unrelated to human rights. Political scandals in Italy, Belgium, and France could easily become European versions of Whitewater or Iran-contra. Concerns over becoming a target himself for ambitious, left-leaning investigating magistrates prompted Berlusconi’s determined opposition to the EU arrest warrant that won an opt-out for Italy at the Laeken summit. While talks continue among other EU members, the exemption for Italy essentially vitiated the measure. Consequently, extradition will remain an issue resolved bilaterally between governments on a case- by-case basis.
Differences between the U.S. and its European allies over the war on terrorism are more apparent than real to this point. Beneath rhetoric on both sides governments clearly recognize a common threat. European leaders have supported American action in Afghanistan and offered military support according to their capabilities, but two major tests lie ahead. The first is the domestic threat. Responding to terrorism and the communities that give terrorists footholds in the West imposes particular strains on social democratic governments caught between their party’s militant wing and public opinion. The challenge cannot be ignored, but addressing it will profoundly affect domestic politics. Social democratic sensibilities have driven both European criticism of the United States and the EU’s development since Maastricht in 1991, and September 11 may accelerate a growing backlash against such views in Continental Europe. National interests and domestic politics are more likely than ever to trump ambitions for a common EU foreign and security policy along with trust in elites behind them.
The second test is whether European governments will offer support for American plans in the next phase of the protracted conflict against terrorism. Bush’s reference to the “Axis of Evil” in his State of the Union address drew a sharp, if delayed, reaction in Europe. French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine dismissed it as simplistic in reducing all the world’s problems to terrorism, while his British counterpart Jack Straw attributed the bellicose tone to forthcoming Congressional elections. Germany’s Joschka Fischer insisted that allies are not satellites, and proceeded to argue that security policy required development aid as much as military spending to be effective. All these criticisms reflect a social democratic view of post-cold war international politics epitomized by Tony Blair’s concept of "humanitarian war” waged for universal principles divorced from motives of national interest. The Bush administration rejects this approach categorically. Despite Washington’s preference for cooperation, Powell recently made clear that America would act alone, if necessary, against rogue states.
Despite the grumbling, major European states are unlikely to defend Iraq, Iran, or North Korea, or argue that they should be left alone to harbor terrorists and deploy weapons of mass destruction. While insisting that options against Iraq should not be limited to military action, Fischer significantly insisted that Saddam accept UN inspectors and be prevented from producing strategic weapons. Vedrine also called for renewed inspections in Iraq. Germany and France now support a harder line against Iraq than before, albeit one opposed to direct efforts to topple Saddam. The real argument will not be whether action should be taken against the “Axis of Evil,” rather how and when to do it. Because their forces still largely focus on NATO’s old mission of protecting Central Europe from Soviet attack rather than developing the capability to project power overseas for sustained operations, the Europeans lack a strong military card to play in this argument.
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