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Something's afoot in Europe but nobody seems quite sure what it is. At a December 1999 summit in Helsinki, Finland, the fifteen members of the European Union (EU) agreed to form a defense organization. It will have its own 50,000-60,000-strong army serving in peacekeeping and crisis management roles. European leaders dubbed their new initiative the Common European Security and Defence Policy (later abbreviated to CESDP). The United States is a European power in its own right with around 100,000 troops stationed on the continent. Naturally, the U.S. Departments of State and Defense as well as Congress quickly chimed in with their opinions on CESDP. Or did they? The problem is, virtually all U.S. officials refer to the European defense efforts as ESDI, which stands for European Security and Defense Identity. Both the House and the Senate of the U.S. Congress held hearings on ESDI. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott affirmed that "the U.S. is for ESDI." There is not one reference to ESDI in European Union's communiques. Assuming both U.S. and European officials are referring to the same initiative, what explains the different names? A simple mixup? Maybe, maybe not. ESDI is not just another name for EU's initiative but rather a different concept altogether. In the early 1990s, NATO launched the European Security and Defense Identity as a means to strengthen European military capabilities and to give Europeans a larger role in the alliance. ESDI was a direct response to the Balkan wars that broke out in early 1990s. The mayhem in Bosnia and Croatia left European countries embarrassed at their own inability to prevent or intervene in the conflict. Hence ESDI is a way of raising Europe's profile in NATO operations. The United States, which has long complained about allies "not sharing the NATO burden," enthusiastically supported Europe's plans. Alas, ESDI never got far off the ground. Most European countries balked when it came to committing money to defense and reforming their Cold War era militaries. When NATO launched its air war against Yugoslavia in 1999, the United States again found itself in the familiar role of leading the military operations and contributing most of the materiel. Of the 1,058 NATO aircraft fighting in Yugoslavia, over two-thirds - 731 planes - were American. The subsequent peacekeeping operation was a more international affair with about 10-15% of troops coming from the United States and the rest from Canada, European NATO allies, and countries from as far away as Azerbaijan and Argentina. After Kosovo, Europeans renewed efforts to add military muscle to their economic prowess. This time, however, the responsibility was handed to the European Union. Presumably, being in charge of their own military affairs will prove more of an incentive for EU members to invest in their militaries than being subordinated to a U.S.-led NATO. The EU had already been trying to coordinate members' positions on foreign policy issues as part of its effort to "deepen" European integration in addition to enlarging the EU. The Common European Security and Defense Initiative, launched at Helsinki, is an extension of the EU's foreign policy efforts in the best Clausewitzian tradition. The EU's plans, however, caused grumbling in the United States. Stephen Larrabee of the Rand Corporation summed up the worries of many in the U.S. defense establishment when he said in recent Senate testimony that the new European initiative "could end up weakening, rather than strengthening, NATO." ESDI, on the other hand, promised to increase European contributions to NATO without jeopardizing U.S. control over the organization. The persistent use of "ESDI" rather than "CESDP" by U.S. officials could be a subtle transatlantic hint that the way to strengthen European defenses is through NATO rather than the EU. Equally likely, however, the references to ESDI may betray simple ignorance of EU terminology. Even critics of CESDP actually use ESDI in their verbal attacks on the initiative. John Holton of the American Enterprise Institute recently warned that "it is possible that ESDI has a hidden agenda to project European military power 'out of area' without U.S. involvement." The true ESDI (under NATO) could hardly do that, for it would be subject to U.S. veto. To the credit of Washington pundits, Europe has become a veritable jungle of acronyms. Between ESDI, CESDP, CFSP, PfP, WEU, and EDC (all current or past European defense and foreign policy initiatives), simply remembering the right acronym has become a hurdle. It may be necessary to get the language straight first before the substance can be addressed.
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