US ambassador delivers stark warning on defence planning

Date: 09/11/00

By Simon Taylor

THE US ambassador to NATO has warned that the EU could weaken the alliance's ability to deal with major crises if it creates a rival planning unit to guide its new security and defence policy.

Ambassador Alexander Vershbow argues that the Union and NATO should set up a "combined and fully reciprocal NATO-EU defence planning process". Failure to do so, he warns, could lead to "competing or even conflicting priorities being given to member nations in the two organisations".

This could result in a "weakening of the alliance's overall capacity to deal with major crises, together with new political frictions in the transatlantic relationship".

Diplomats say Vershbow's warnings are targeted at plans tabled by the French presidency to set up a Union planning unit independent of NATO. "The French do not see the need for NATO's cumbersome procedures," explained one official.

EU governments recently began discussing a blueprint for the bloc's own military planners. Some are pushing for the Union to rely as much as possible on NATO's existing planning unit at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Mons, Belgium.

But others argue that the EU needs to develop an independent facility which will better reflect the complex relationship between EU member states and the Union's institutions.

One diplomat said the debate was a repeat of previous arguments over the risk of NATO dominating the Union's new structures. "Europe could build its own multinational planning capability like SHAPE but the US sees this as the beginning of separate and parallel structures," he said. "On the other hand, you have the member states which say you are militarising the EU.

If you use SHAPE, some see NATO infection taking place."

But others argue that it is naïve to think that the Union would ever be able to plan operations above a certain size without NATO help.

"The EU could plan a humanitarian operation with 3,000-4,000 people but beyond that you need NATO," said one official.

He added that the problem facing member states was how to ensure that the Union retained the power to decide whether to launch missions in cases where NATO had a major input on important technical questions such as the type of forces needed.

In his speech, Vershbow insisted that the Union and NATO members could work together on planning "without implying that the EU is subordinating itself to NATO and without requiring France to rejoin NATO's integrated military structure".

The ambassador said a "coherent, collaborative approach" would avoid "inconsistencies between the military standards and requirements of the two organisations". combining planning operations would, he said, "acknowledge that there is only one pool of forces from which NATO and EU nations will draw for real world crisis operations".

The US ambassador to NATO has warned that the EU could weaken the alliance's ability to deal with major crises if it creates a rival planning unit to guide its new security and defence policy.