Our conference title of "Europe: Leaderless and drifting" seems particularly well suited to the issues that we are going to discuss today. Our first two areas of discussion on UN legitimacy and on transatlantic relations use the word "we", which may mean Europe or may mean the different perspectives on these subjects from the UK or from Germany. When we come to the third issue of engagement with Islamic countries, there may be a greater sense of European common purpose, and in our final segment on EU-NATO developments, we shall again find ourselves drifting and rudderless I fear.
When we consider these issues, we shall be doing it through our different national perspectives of the role of the transatlantic dimension. To some extent, it is perhaps unfortunate that we cannot call on a French input to our discussions. For the most of the time there has been little difference in the British or German view of the importance of the transatlantic relationship. Iraq was an exception, and still sours the debate, and has had repercussions beyond the original dispute over the legality and legitimacy of the 2003 intervention. Yet in terms of public opinion, there has been much in common in the views of both nations over key issues. We were able to agree on the Kosovo 1999 campaign without UN legitimation, and a precedent was set. I think we will want to discuss in our first session whether Iraq has moved Europe back more strongly into the camp which argues that UN authority is necessary for intervention. Even the US has seen the costs, both military and financial, of trying to be self authorising. Tony Blair has given his view in a speech at Reuters this week, but it has excited little interest. Despite his enthusiasm for intervention, I hope that we will consider carefully under what circumstances, if any, Europe should back intervention without UN authority. What are the necessary conditions? Is post event retrospective UN authorisation satisfactory?
As we discuss this, we will move inevitably into our second topic on our relationship with the US. Again, Iraq will inevitably colour this discussion, but we perhaps need to look forward to Germany with a new political complexion, and Britain living in hope of a new leader at some stage soon. There is also the added complication of a second term US President with poor ratings, and continuing problem in Iraq, and developing problems in Iran. Yet, it would be wrong for us to expect dramatic changes in the US approach to international affairs. The new US National Security Strategy was published last week. The foreword by President Bush is perhaps the best example of the gulf between European and US perceptions of the world. The opening words: "My fellow Americans, we are at war." He talks of the "inseparable priorities" of "fighting and winning the war on terror and promoting freedom as the alternative to tyranny and despair". The European approach would be to talk of the challenges we face, and the need to reduce the risks to our citizens while promoting international peace and stability. Is this just a difference of rhetoric – or is it, as I believe, a real difference in how we approach international events from each side of the Atlantic. The developing crisis over Iran will be an important case to examine. His introduction to the National Security Strategy concludes with the words: "America must continue to lead" – we shall want to answer whether Europe must continue to follow.
As we consider, George Bush's wish to spread democracy in the broader Middle East, we shall come to our third strand of the Mullah and the ballot box. There is a perception that the US push for elections in Iraq, Afghanistan and amongst Palestinians is coupled with an unwillingness to accept the result when it is uncongenial to perceived US interests. There is of course a similar concern in Latin America as more populist movements gain power. We cannot in Europe just sit on the sidelines and criticise the US for inconsistency. We are ourselves ambivalent to the growing power of Islamic parties through the ballot box. The success of Hamas has brought the problem into sharp focus. It reminds us that the unfinished business of the Middle East peace process continues to act as a source of instability. Isolation and sanctions, whether against the Palestinians or the Iranians will only deepen the support for the extremists. Yet what do we do when newly elected governments refuse to accept the cosy conventions of the international community, and call for the elimination of another sovereign state? And in Iran's case does this rhetoric mean that we cannot contemplate any risk of it acquiring nuclear weapons, whatever the consequences might be of a pre-emptive military action?
And if military action is always in the background of international relations, what do we think of the current tools at our disposal? In the last session we focus on our traditional angst over European defence and NATO. Perhaps we should start by asking the question which Rupert Smith has posed in The Utility of Force. Are we now equipped and structured to fight the wrong wars. We are still locked into military establishments for wars of attrition, industrial wars. We no longer want to take and hold territory. We are in the business of shaping the thinking of the people among whom we operate. Yet in NATO, the initiatives are for the NATO Response Force, a high readiness, high technology, warfighting deployable capability. Strange that we feel that is the priority, when it takes us a year to agree on an enlargement of the task in Afghanistan, which is about protecting NGOs as part of our reconstruction efforts. Similarly, we will need to talk of the developments on the European defence side of the equation, where there are similar paradoxes. The EU should be better placed than NATO to weave the complex web of military power, rule of law, human rights, civil society and economic development. But is it? And is the political will there to do anything? We come back to our title for this conference: Europe: Leaderless and Drifting. What can we do before we drift into the rapids and over the waterfall ?
Tim Garden
March 2006