OTR Politics - February, 2004

(This piece was originally published by the World Security Network and is reprinted here with permission. WSN invited our replies to General Naumann, and the idea of an online symposium on NATO’s role in Iraq at the Old Town Review emerged. For two responses, by Alan Koenig and Morgan Meis, see below.—The Editors.)

American's Success in Iraq Serves European Interests

By General (ret.) Klaus Naumann

The current instability in Iraq is the result of political ineptitude on both sides of the Atlantic, misjudgments of the situation on the ground after the fall of the dictator, and the desire of all U.S. enemies to see it fail there.

The disagreement about the right course of action in Iraq resulted in the marginalization of the UN and in NATO’s worst crisis to date, which is far from resolved. Moreover, the dispute has dashed the hopes that a Franco-German leadership might speed European integration in a 25-member European Union.

The U.S. certainly did the right thing in ousting an inhumane regime in a region of vital importance to Europe.

But the legality of the U.S.-led intervention remains doubtful. What’s more, the U.S. has lost its reputation and credibility worldwide, mainly because it kept changing its case for the armed intervention, which in the end was based almost entirely on the claim that Iraq possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction. This claim has yet to be borne out, however, and the ongoing search – thus far in vain – for WMDs has led the public to forget the uncontested fact that for 12 years Iraq brazenly flouted 18 resolutions of the U.N. Security Council.

Even those who champion the force of law say nothing about this flagrant breach of international law. Though none of the prophecies of doom we heard before the war have come true, the world – let alone Iraq – has not become a safer place by any stretch of the imagination. Above all, the international order made up of the U.N., NATO, and the EU has been hit hard by the grave damage done to its main anchor, NATO.

NATO stood, in essence, for cooperation between Germany and the U.S. Germany was America’s partner in Europe, as America was Germany’s ultimate guarantor of security. That put Germany on an equal footing with France and enabled Germany, reconciled with its most important neighbors, to drive European integration forward. And that was the secret of the success of German foreign policy, whose iron rule was never to have to choose between the U.S. and France. Now this rule has been needlessly broken, and the upshot is Germany’s current lack of influence – indeed, its impotence – which has become the fundamental stumbling block for the development of Europe.

Yet this crisis could now become a great opportunity for NATO and the EU.

The U.S. has long since come to realize that it needs the Europeans – to win peace, if not wars. It has learnt the hard way that this world is too complex to solve problems by military might alone. The U.S. also knows the only way to win the Europeans over is to give them an influence commensurate with their contribution.

Europeans, for their part, ought to have grasped by now that any attempt to position Europe against the U.S. is bound to fail. Amongst the 25 Member States soon to comprise the EU there is no majority for such an adversarial leadership. The Union is not united on either of these two issues. On the contrary, they are dividing the ranks and may even end up tearing the Union apart. Europe still needs the U.S.: for one thing, to complete the process of European integration, and, for another, to bring long-term stability to Russia.

America has brought reconciliation and peace to Europe. No one has felt that more directly than Germany, when, in 1989, initially only the U.S., and later on, Spain and Turkey, but no one else, supported the German desire for unification.

The U.S., on the other hand, can remain the uncontested world power only with Europe by its side. The combination of America’s global power with the economic – and hopefully soon military – might of Europe; the combination of America’s impatient desire to change the world for the better with European patience, born of historical experience, in its persevering but cautious efforts to promote human rights and the rule of law – this combination constitutes the most effective tool of international policy on our planet. It offers the full panoply of political options: peaceful resolution of conflicts as well as recourse to armed intervention as a last resort.

Because of this, America must not fail in Iraq. Iraq must be a success, for that is the only way to stabilize the trouble spots on Europe’s doorstep and extinguish the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflagration. In other words, America’s success in Iraq serves European strategic interests.

And because this is so, European policy must not be guided by obstinate adherence to the positions of the past, but by a search for the solutions of the future.

Europe should now show that it doesn’t leave troubled friends in the lurch, just as the Americans didn’t leave us in the lurch when we were in trouble. Europe has to realize that what happens in Baghdad will determine whether this is to be a peaceful or a turbulent century. Iraq is the make it or break it event for NATO and for the West in general.

If NATO were to provide a peacekeeping force with a UN mandate to create safe framework for the transitional Iraqi government that is now in the offing, and the EU and the USA were to pool their efforts to help the country back on to its feet, these steps could turn the crisis into an opportunity for the people of Iraq – as well as for all of us in the West. The key lies in Berlin.

Alan Koenig Responds:

General (ret.) Naumann’s policy position for greater U.S. and European cooperation in Iraq, though undeniably pragmatic, skews towards a totalizing and perhaps overly optimistic view of the Bush administration’s political convictions on European involvement. While Naumann is fair-handed in apportioning “political ineptitude on both sides of the Atlantic,” the recent punitive Pentagon directive banning Iraqi reconstruction contracts for “non-coalition nations” complicates his assertion that “The US also knows the only way to win the Europeans over is to give them an influence commensurate with their contribution.” The directive, authored by Assistant Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, indicates a department, and in defending it, an administration, focused on set values and proclamations of principle over pragmatism.

As Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita stated on the Defense Department press release, the directive sought to reward “coalition nations” who contributed troops or political will: “Those countries have to make that determination and reflect their public's opinion or try and affect their public's opinion. That takes political will and sometimes just standing up and saying ‘We're in this coalition because we believe in the cause.’” A vital portion of this administration believes that much of Europe failed to make the appropriate commitment at the appropriate time, and that some penance is due for this nonfeasance. This recurring strain of conviction (and punishment) over cooperation might hamper future cooperation efforts both on Iraq and other security issues. European aid and expertise is certainly desired but contingent upon the proper expressions of principle and “political will.”

Naumann’s assertion that, “Europeans, for their part, ought to have grasped by now that any attempt to position Europe against the U.S. is bound to fail.” may require a second look. Europe, through the auspices of the WTO, successfully positioned itself against U.S. trade policy on steel tariffs, and the break over troop deployments to Iraq by Spain, Italy and Poland, the “New Europe” that in Secretary Rumsfeld’s parlance broke with “Old Europe,” illustrates that European unity vis-à-vis American foreign policy can not be assumed. Administration hawks have pinpointed the fissures within the developing EU, and proved willing to exploit them, while European trade officials exhibit equal cunning in targeting politically sensitive states as WTO retribution for Bush’s protectionist steel tariffs.

It is essential not only, as Naumann notes, for a European search of “solutions for the future” to enhance (and temper) American efforts, but also for America to request aid and expertise from its European allies in a sincere spirit of cooperation. The key lies not just in Berlin, but within the corridors of Washington D.C.

Morgan Meis responds:

To the question of how serious the split between the US and Europe really is, Thomas Friedman has recently opined that,

What I'm getting at here is that when you find yourself in an argument with Europeans over Iraq, they try to present it as if we both want the same thing, but we just have different approaches. And had the Bush team not been so dishonest and unilateral, we could have worked together. I wish the Bush team had behaved differently, but that would not have been a cure-all — because if you look under the European position you see we have two different visions, not just tactical differences. Many Europeans really do believe that a dominant America is more threatening to global stability than Saddam's tyranny. The more I hear this, the more I wonder whether we are witnessing something much larger than a passing storm over Iraq. Are we witnessing the beginning of the end of ‘the West’ as we have known it — a coalition of U.S.-led, like-minded allies, bound by core shared values and strategic threats?

This is, in a very real sense, the anti-Naumann scenario and it transcends traditional political boundaries. Thomas Friedman, for instance, generally leans to the Left of the political spectrum. This sense of genuine rift also exists on the European side. French philosopher Derrida and German philosopher Habermas recently collaborated on a public letter suggesting that a new kind of European identity could be developed around the Europe-wide opposition to the Iraq war.

Habermas and Derrida write:

There are two days we should not forget: the day on which the newspapers informed their astonished readers of the oath of loyalty to Bush, to which the Spanish Prime Minister had invited European governments willing to go to war behind the backs of their other European Union colleagues; but no less 15 February 2003, when the protesting masses in London and Rome, Madrid and Barcelona, Berlin and Paris reacted to this surprise coup. The simultaneous nature of these overwhelming demonstrations - the largest since the end of the Second World War - might be regarded with hindsight as entering the history books as marking the birth of a European public.

If this is going to be a founding moment for a new European public then that public will hardly be one that recognizes its deep ties to the US in the way that Naumann suggests.

Stepping back from the particulars of either of these viewpoints for a moment something interesting emerges. In Habermas and Derrida’s letter a Kantian line is being followed not dissimilar to that articulated in Perpetual Peace. There, Kant dreamed of a European alliance that would rein in the terrible aggression of the European sovereign states. This dream has, to some degree, been realized with the EU and it is the natural extension of such an idea to oppose the immense sovereign power of the US.

There is a deep seed in European thinking that seeks to do exactly this. It exists on this side of the Atlantic as well. But there is also a tendency in American thought that does not emerge from such Kantian insights and that does not emerge from the lessons of the perpetual clashes between continental powers. Rumsfeld’s quips about Old Europe, cynical as they may be, only resonate because Americans aren’t as inclined to worry about power in the same way that Europeans are. The proceduralism at the root of Habermas’ arguments isn’t natural to American sensibilities.

In a recent speech about democracy in the Middle East President Bush spoke the following words:

"President Reagan said that the day of Soviet tyranny was passing, that freedom had a momentum which would not be halted. He gave this organization its mandate: to add to the momentum of freedom across the world. Your mandate was important 20 years ago; it is equally important today. A number of critics were dismissive of that speech by the President. According to one editorial of the time, ‘It seems hard to be a sophisticated European and also an admirer of Ronald Reagan’. Some observers on both sides of the Atlantic pronounced the speech simplistic and naive, and even dangerous. In fact, Ronald Reagan's words were courageous and optimistic and entirely correct."

Many Americans share a healthy sense of skepticism about how much such lines correspond with the reality of the last twenty-five years. But many Americans, within the circles of power and without, are perfectly willing to countenance the possibility that America can play such a role. This possibility is inconceivable to a vast majority of Europeans. In the long run, there may very well be much more that we share than otherwise, but that is a proposition that, in the current situation, must be proved rather than assumed. For it may be the case that we are emerging into uncharted waters.

General [ret.] Klaus Naumann was the former Chairman of NATO’s Military Committee and Chief of Staff of the German Federal Armed Forces. Alan Koenig and Morgan Meis are OTR Editors.