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US defense secretary has tough words for allies in European Union

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December 6, 2000 

BRUSSELS-- (UNB/AP) - The United States wants a military force the European Union is developing to be well funded and effective, but Defense Secretary William Cohen warned Tuesday that NATO could be weakened if the EU takes on too much military autonomy.

The 15-nation European Union is developing its own rapid-reaction force, separate from NATO, but with plans to share some NATO planning facilities, intelligence and communications. It would use the force to address crises that the transatlantic alliance does not want to get involved in.

Cohen was expected to stress to fellow defense chiefs at a NATO meeting here Tuesday and Wednesday that Washington does not want the EU to duplicate NATO's extensive system for planning operations.

"If ... they try to or are desirous of a separate operational planning capability, separate and distinct of that from NATO itself, then that is going to weaken the ties between the United States and NATO, and NATO and the EU," Cohen told reporters traveling with him to Brussels.

"There should be a single planning operation, and not duplicative and redundant, because that will only weaken NATO itself," Cohen said on the way to the last NATO ministerial meeting he will address before leaving his post at the end of the Clinton administration.

France, which is not a member of NATO's integrated military command, would prefer the EU military force to be more autonomous than the United States and some of the other allies would like.

U.S. officials fear a separate EU planning system could cut European NATO members that are not EU members out of the decision-making process. They also are concerned about how NATO and the EU military organization would cooperate and keep security tight.

The NATO meeting comes before a EU summit in Nice, France, on Thursday and Friday, during which the European organization's leaders are expected to discuss a new blueprint to guide their defense and security policy.

The 19-nation NATO alliance pledged at a summit last year to increase its military capability, making forces lighter, quicker and better equipped to deal with future threats. This coincides with EU plans for its own force.

Both projects are expensive, and so far, few military budgets have increased.

Ministers will discuss the NATO plan and the EU's proposed rapid reaction corps - a 60,000-man force that is to be ready by 2003.

The key question, a senior NATO diplomat said, is whether the Europeans follow through with the resources needed to make the rapid reaction force genuinely deployable and capable of acting independently while also fulfilling their pledges under NATO.

NATO members collected their "peace dividend" - savings off military spending during the decade following the end of the Cold War. Now, top officials say, it's time to think about the future and pay to restructure military forces for new kinds of threats, including terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, regional and ethnic conflict.

The United States is increasing its defense budget, and the Europeans "need to do more in order to modernize their forces," Cohen said.

The defense ministers also will review Bosnia and Kosovo, where the alliance leads forces totaling 60,000 troops. There are no immediate plans to reduce troop numbers in Bosnia, which were cut to 20,000 last spring, or in Kosovo, where the situation remains volatile.