Atlantic Community:Open Think Tank Article "Strengthening the EU to Strengthen NATO"

Strengthening the EU to Strengthen NATO

Ambassador Victoria Nuland: “Europe needs, the United States needs, NATO needs, the democratic world needs – a stronger, more capable European defense capacity.”

Ambassador Victoria Nuland, the United States Permanent Representative to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), called for a strengthening of the European Union in a speech in Paris, France.

We, in the United States, need a Europe that is as strong and united as possible, ready and willing to bear its full measure of responsibility for defending our common security and advancing our shared values. And [Europe], I would argue, needs an America that is engaged, consulting and cooperating with Europe - finding common solutions to common challenges.

The US has been increasingly turning to the EU as an institution, Nuland said, as opposed to the twenty seven individual member states.

Though a commitment to soft power has increased, collective hard power has gone down, and as Europe is learning in Chad, not even a peace support mission is possible without helicopters, transport aircraft, communications equipment, surveillance, and intelligence. "All the development aid in the world, all the governance support and police training in the world does no good if you can't first provide security for the people you aspire to help."

Europe, the US, NATO, and the world needs a stronger European defense system. The US will be looking to the French presidency of the EU this summer with the hope that France will lead the effort to increase European defense spending. If Europeans will invest in their own defense, they will be stronger when working with the United States.

Though NATO has had some operational success in Afghanistan, the reality is that crime and corruption are on the rise as the international community struggles to coordinate efforts. The Afghan mission is forcing NATO members to recognize the necessity of a combined civil-military effort and to make such changes accordingly.

A true transatlantic approach will require a common place where NATO and the EU can train and plan for missions. This does not mean that institutions should be combined, but rather that NATO members learn to act together while retaining autonomy.

At the same time, barriers need to be broken down within institutions. "On the EU side, a partner like Turkey which contributes generously to EU missions and wants to cooperate with the European Defense Agency should be welcome, should be consulted and offered a security agreement and rights commensurate with its contribution and potential. In response, NATO should open the doors of partnership fully to Cyprus and finalize its security agreement, while also encouraging Malta to come back to the Partnership for Peace." Europe needs to take the initiative in resolving conflicts between NATO and the EU.

Ambassador Victoria Nuland has held posts in Moscow, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, Guangzhou, China and various positions in Washington under both Republican and Democratic administrations. She holds a B.A. from Brown University and speaks Russian, French and some Chinese. Nuland is the first woman to occupy the post of United States Permanent Representative to NATO.
The above is a summary of a speech given on February 22, 2008, in Paris, France.

The Atlantic Community interviewed Ambassador Nuland in October 2007.

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March 20, 2008

ilyas m mohsin, ppp, Platinum Contributor (250)

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Ambassador Victoria Nuland appears to be a stalwart in the use of diplomatic language. She has talked of generalities with which no normal diplomat would disagree openly. However, as diplomacy stands for finding solutions to ticklish matters, openness and such overtures do not go hand in hand. More often ‘no comments’ is the weapon used. A classical example is the famous quote from ‘Daddy’ Bush, during his tenure as the President of US, “read my lips” when questioned about an issue which had surged as a hot potato.
EU’ expansion and the demise of the Soviet Union have let loose new tensions/ currents between partners. Shorn of a Communist threat, the environment is relaxed despite the 9/11 and its fall-out.
The emergence of India and China on the economic horizon with new clout tends to influence the ground realities at the Global level. Now that Russia has made Billions of $ in the last 8 years from crude oil etc, like the major US corporations, it would be anybody’ guess how it plays its cards once George W leaves the US in distress.

April 1, 2008

Liviu C

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I am afraid that such generalities suit the situation. Specifics would entail that structures were in place to take advantage of such advice where none currently exist. Following such generalities would perhaps produce some policy advances toward these goals.

I am unsure whether I concur that tensions have risen in the wake of the bi-polar world with a causal relationship. There is certainly a need to redefine the security arrangements in the world. Nuland's comments illustrate, at least to me, that even the operators within the US foreign policy see the need to embrace a strengthening ESDP and CFSP rather than the careful, disengaged and at times antagonistic approach. With or without US support, these structures will continue to integrate Member States. The US, and its foreign relations institutions, should not pass on the opportunity to mend the fences as Bush is on his way out even if the overall policy does not prescribe it and gain wider influence and partnership with the US.

I find it interesting that the Ambassador notes that the EU needs to take the initial steps toward bridging the institutional divides or barriers. Is this a subtle admission of an insider that sees no end to the US ambivalence? I do not know. It does appear that NATO is becoming increasingly Europeanized and its priorities converging with Europe. The US needs to reach out to maintain some of its self-destroyed channels of influence. Europe has often, although unspoken and unwritten, implied a higher moral ground when it comes to its approach to international actorship; it should act on it once again if this is the case.

May 30, 2008

ilyas m mohsin, ppp, Platinum Contributor (250)

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Europe may claim to have held a higher moral ground as against the US but history may not support this dictum. Except the British, dubbed as 'the nation of shop-keepers', all other colonial powers dealt very harshly with their colonies. The British, due to liberalism or perhaps to cut their losses, were able to maintain quite a paternalistic attitude, generally, in their colonies except when threatened by the loss of 'the golden jewel.'
Hitler hurt not only the 'democratic values', he also wanted his pound-of-flesh out the colonial empires. So the story goes as per his slogan of 'Lebensraum' for Germany.
US has no colonial cupboard, except Phillipines briefly and as colony itself, but the power that it ran in to after the collapse of Europe on the debris of the World War 11 was unique. It got aggravted by the braekup of the Soviet Union by the Afghans with massive help from US/ Paksitan.
What is being done by US since the last 7 years is unlike her ideology/
laws which has booeranged badly.