Friendly Fire: The Near-Death of the Transatlantic Alliance (EUSA's U.S. -Eu Relations Project)

158 Pages·2003·0.71 MB·English

by  Elizabeth Pond

F R I E N D L Y
F I R E
The Near-Death of the
T A
RANSATLANTIC LLIANCE
E L I Z A B E T H P O N D
E U R O P E A N U N I O N S T U D I E S A S S O C I A T I O N
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FRIENDLY FIRE
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Other titles in EUSA’s U.S.-EU Relations Project series:
C.Randall Henning and Pier Carlo Padoan,Transatlantic Perspectives on
the Euro (2000)
David Vogel,Barriers or Benefits? Regulation in Transatlantic Trade(1997)
Miles Kahler,Regional Futures and Transatlantic Economic Relations(1995)
Catherine McArdle Keller,A New Security Order: The United States and the
European Community in the 1990s(1993)
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F R I E N D L Y
F I R E
The Near-Death of the
TRANSATLANTIC ALLIANCE
ELIZABETH POND
EUROPEAN UNION STUDIES ASSOCIATION
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
BROOKINGS INSTITUTION PRESS
Washington, D.C.
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Copyright © 2004
european union studies association
415 Bellefield Hall,University ofPittsburgh
Pittsburgh,PA 15260
www.eustudies.org
Friendly Firemay be ordered from:
Brookings Institution Press
1775 Massachusetts Avenue,N.W.,
Washington,D.C.20036
Tel.[phone] or 202/797-6258
Fax:[phone]
www.brookings.edu
All rights reserved.No part ofthis publication may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means without permission in writing from
the Brookings Institution Press.
Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication data
Pond,Elizabeth.
Friendly fire :the near-death ofthe transatlantic alliance /
Elizabeth Pond.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8157-7153-3 (pbk.:alk.paper)
1.United States—Military relations—Europe.2.Europe—Military
relations—United States.3.United States—Foreign relations—Europe.
4.Europe—Foreign relations—United States.5.United States—
Military policy.6.United States—Foreign relations—2001–
7.World politics—1995–2005. I.Title.
UA23.P549 2003
327.7304—dc22 2003019910
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The paper used in this publication meets minimum requirements ofthe American
National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence ofPaper for Printed Library
Materials:ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Typeset in Minion
Composition by OSP,Arlington,Virginia
Printed by R.R.Donnelley,Harrisonburg,Virginia
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Contents
Foreword vii
Preface ix
one
Pax Americana
The Shock of9/11 1
two
Pox Americana?
2002 Polemics 21
three
The Franco-German-American War
Fall 2002 to Spring 2003 45
four
Postwar Europe 75
Notes 97
Persons Interviewed 119
Suggestions for Further Reading 123
Index 131
v
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Foreword
This is the fifthmonograph in the European Union Studies Associ-
ation’s U.S.-EU Relations Project series, and it comes at a time of
continuing crisis.Elizabeth Pond began this book during the buildup to
the war in Iraq.She presented the first draft at a roundtable at the Center
for Strategic and International Studies in Washington,D.C.,on January
24,2003,a moment when relations between the United States and France
and Germany had taken a particularly bad turn.Around the table were
discussants from all ofthe major European embassies,as well as from the
U.S.Departments ofState and Defense,other government agencies,aca-
deme,and think tanks.On the basis ofthe rich and revealing discussion
at this meeting,Pond reworked her material and presented it at the EUSA
Eighth Biennial International Conference in Nashville,which took place
at the height ofthe war,in March 2003.The finished volume appears at a
time when transatlantic relations are clearly in need of reconstruction.
Therefore, the importance of this work has grown during the period
between its conception and its publication.
Elizabeth Pond is ideally placed as an analyst oftransatlantic relations.
An American who has lived for many years in Europe,she has been a
journalist,a teacher,and a scholar.Both she and EUSA owe a considerable
debt to those who have made EUSA’s fifth U.S.-EU Relations Project pos-
sible.The idea originated with discussions among my colleagues on the
2001–03 EUSA Executive Committee: Karen Alter, Jeffrey Anderson,
George Bermann, Donald Hancock, Mark Pollack, and George Ross.
Simon Serfaty,director ofthe Europe Program,Center for Strategic and
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Foreword
International Studies,generously hosted the Washington,D.C.,workshop.
The German Marshall Fund ofthe United States gave important financial
support for this workshop and the roundtable at the EUSA conference in
Nashville.The membership of the European Union Studies Association
helped underwrite the publication ofthe monograph through their mem-
bership dues, and they receive a complimentary copy as a benefit of
membership. Robert Faherty, director of Brookings Institution Press,
deserves credit for his continued interest in the U.S.-EU Relations Project
monographs.Finally,the project would not have been possible without
the hands-on direction ofValerie Staats,executive director ofEUSA.
Martin A.Schain
Chair,European Union Studies Association,2001–03
viii
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Preface
This book is a second draft of the bizarre history of the decay and
threatened dissolution ofthe West in 2002–03.At this early date it does not
aspire to completeness.It does,however,aspire to fairness in portraying
the most important ofthe cumulative brawls that led to the near-death of
the transatlantic alliance in 2002–03. Given the angry polemics that
accompanied each twist and turn,this is no modest goal.There is as yet
no generally agreed basic narrative ofprecisely what happened,how,and
why.Conflicting virtual realities abound.
The study was commissioned by the European Union Studies Associ-
ation to examine post–9/11 security issues in the transatlantic community
that the world’s sole superpower invented halfa century ago.It assumes
that the process we are witnessing today is a double adjustment:to the new
threats ofterrorism and proliferation ofweapons ofmass destruction on
the one hand, and to the Pax Americana of a polity wielding more
absolute power than any since ancient Rome on the other hand.It assumes
further that relations in the transatlantic community that was formed
after 1945 were in greater crisis in 2003 than ever before.This last thesis
is far less contested today than when I,among others,first propounded it
in the spring of2002.By early 2003 no less a judge than master diplomat
Henry Kissinger,relativizing all the past fights over missile deployments,
chicken exports,and even France’s imperious withdrawal from NATO’s
military command in the mid-1960s,ranked the transatlantic estrange-
ment as the worst in a half century.1 Secretary of State Colin Powell
seconded the judgment in speaking ofthe alliance as breaking up.
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