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Earlier this month, Secretary of Defense William Cohen fired another salvo in the transatlantic squabble over "burdensharing," the code word for the division of costs and responsibilities in the NATO alliance. At a February 2 hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Secretary Cohen insisted that the Europeans buy new military equipment and reduce the size of their armies to give them more punch. "They have to put more money into procurement ....[and] reform the way they shape their forces," Secretary Cohen said. The charges brought an enthusiastic response from the chairman of the committee, Senator John Warner (R-Va): "That was a very powerful statement you made and it coincides with the views on this panel." Although the burdensharing debate is as old as NATO itself, the recent tensions touch on a relatively new phenomenon -- the capability gap opening between the United States and its allies. In the air war against Yugoslavia, 61% of all flight sorties were conducted by U.S. aircraft, with the rest of the alliance mustering only enough airplanes to fly 39% of the missions. At the height of the conflict the United States had 731 aircraft in the theater, compared to only 84 from France, 58 from Italy, and 33 from Germany; the largest European contributors. These statistics were detailed in the Pentagon's recently released after-action report to Congress, "Kosovo/Operation Allied Force." Despite the statistics, the charges leveled by the Pentagon against the European allies are not entirely fair. The capability gap is a legacy of the Cold War [see "We Can Rely on Allies," CDI Weekly Defense Monitor, December 2, 1999]. Because updating military arsenals is a slow process, NATO countries today fight with weapons devised and built during the Soviet era. The Europeans are best prepared for a massive mechanized army clash in Central Europe; the most likely war scenario in that period. Conversely, a sizable part of the U.S. military was built for mobility so that it can quickly reinforce the 350,000 U.S. troops already pre-positioned in Europe. While the United States was busy preparing airlifts and mobile units, Europeans never worried about getting to the battlefield; they expected the war to come to their doorstep. However, Europe's procurement record since the end of the Cold War is spotty. Virtually all allies cut their budgets significantly. Because the size of the militaries (and the related personnel expenses) remained largely unchanged, the budget category that suffered the most was procurement [see CDI's spending graphs at: http://www.cdi.org/issues/Europe/eudefense.html ] Secretary Cohen is right in urging Europe to cut the size of their armies. The savings achieved can help Europe build a more mobile force, like the 50,000 to 60,000-strong rapid reaction force the European Union (EU) wants to field by 2003. In addition to the planned European corps, the EU took steps last year to create its own political and military bodies. In 1999, the EU created the post of a High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy; a post which -- if member nations dare delegate the necessary responsibility -- could develop into a European version of the U.S. Secretary of State. If and when the EU has the tools to carry out military operation independent from NATO, the United States will be able to reduce its extensive military presence in Europe and the associated financial and personnel expenses. It is ironic then that the U.S. Administration has responded cooly to the EU's defense efforts. Representatives of U.S. Departments of State and Defense insist that all European military operations be conducted within NATO. If not, NATO must at least have the "right of first refusal;" an obligation, in fact, for the Europeans to first turn to NATO if a problem arises. Only if NATO (in this case, essentially only the U.S.) decides not to take action, would the European Union be allowed to go ahead. Needless to say, the Pentagon's and State Department's stance on European defense efforts undermine U.S. calls for Europe to carry a larger portion of the defense burden. The United States cannot have its cake and eat it too. If the Europeans are to build a force fully capable of military operations in Europe, they will surely expect to be in charge of it. As for the Pentagon's worries about "Fortress Europe," its patronizing statements about the EU's effort are more likely to bring about a transatlantic rift than to prevent it.
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