The Iraq conflict ignited transatlantic tensions smoldering since the
end of the Cold War. Although politicians in both Europe and America
profess to regret the obvious split within the once-sturdy Atlantic
Alliance, the United States and its people clearly perceive their
security needs very differently than do most of Europe's governments
and all of its populations. NATO is not the solution to this split;
it is the heart of the problem. The continuing existence of this Cold
War relic stands in the way of the necessary evolution of European
integration to include full responsibility for Continental security.
In the 21st century, Europe can neither become a responsible power
center nor a competent partner for the United States so long as
Europeans remain dependent on a non-European power for their
security--or even for the appearance of their security.

A Transatlantic Watershed

What A.J.P. Taylor called "the struggle for mastery in Europe" is
over, replaced by the slow construction of the "Common European
House." Europe today faces no external military threat, but many
dangers in other fields. This is, by the destructive standards of
European history, a uniquely blessed set of circumstances. Nor does
the United States exercise a dominant role in European
affairs--despite the overheated rhetoric about American
"imperialism", "hegemony" or "hyperpower" status. The ability of
European governments to thwart Washington's agenda on Iraq in the
United Nations, and the inability of American diplomacy to open doors
in Brussels for genetically-modified agricultural products, helps to
demonstrate that Europe retains its freedom of action when and where
it chooses to exercise that freedom. Sadly, and without
justification, Europe remains willfully subservient to the United
States in the security realm.

Today's tensions are not the temporary kind the Alliance experienced
during the Cold War. There is no Soviet threat to bring us together,
nor much memory among our populations of the shared burden of
maintaining the West during those decades. As the distinguished
German commentator Josef Joffe said recently in these pages,

The Atlantic Alliance has been dying a slow death ever since
Christmas Day 1991, when the Soviet Union committed suicide by
dissolution. Having won the Cold War, the Alliance lost its central
purpose and began to crumble like a bridge no longer in use--slowly,
almost invisibly.

The United States did not assume the role of European ordnungsmacht
either quickly or willingly and has always carried the burden
uneasily. Even after World War II, the United States initially
responded to Europe's crisis with economic rather than military
support. For many Americans, the Marshall Plan was seen as an
alternative to what eventually became NATO. Only thanks to the
crudeness of the Soviet threat did the United States again engage
itself in European security affairs, but even then without believing
it would involve a long-term commitment of forces. When the Alliance
was formed, it was to serve a European purpose: to provide military
security during a period of postwar reconstruction and the reforming
of the European state system. The United States, albeit reluctantly,
undertook this task because it could find no other viable means to
prevent Western Europe from falling prey to Soviet power.

Today, the Alliance serves a non-European purpose, that of "force
multiplier" and "toolbox" for supporting U.S. military interventions
outside Europe. Many in Washington are understandably attracted to
this seemingly useful transformation of NATO, but the change contains
a fundamental flaw. The entire rationale for the Alliance--collective
defense in Europe--has been reversed, or even inverted, without any
revision of the North Atlantic Treaty or consideration by national
legislatures. This transformation of the Alliance came about for the
most bureaucratic of reasons: to give NATO something to do so as to
justify its continued existence. Yet, redefining the Alliance as a
"toolbox" for global power projection raises the issues of whosepower
and for whose purposes? These questions are the cancer that has been
eating away at NATO for the past decade.

No longer can thoughtful Europeans argue that Europe's interests are
congruant with NATO's purpose. The United States envisions a NATO
that no longer provides for Europe's security, but instead requires
Europeans to serve as auxiliaries in distant enterprises of
questionable benefit to Europe (and with little if any genuine
consultation). Whether out-of-area activities are valid on their
merits is not the point. In going out of area to avoid going out of
business, in the formulation of a former Secretary-General, NATO has
carried out a silent, political coup d'état on its member-states.

Some Europeans, especially in the former Warsaw Pact countries now
entering the Alliance, are concerned about Russia. Yes, Russia
presents a real, even acute, security crisis, but to itself more than
to others. While Russia retains major nuclear capabilities, the bulk
of its ground forces have deteriorated to such an extent that they
may be more of an internal danger than a direct one to any potential
adversary. In Russia (as in Ukraine and Belarus) multiple
crises--demographics, epidemic diseases and health care,
environmental degradation, industrial and agricultural collapse, the
weakness of both civil society and the rule of law--combine to
present the rest of Europe with the potential of large failed states
on its eastern edge.

The challenges Europe will face on its eastern edge are similar to
those already posed by Africa: legal and illegal migration, organized
and disorganized crime, plus new strains of drug-resistant diseases
and HIV/AIDS on an epidemic scale. No military alliance can respond
to these dangers. Indeed, the real threat is that Russia and its
neighbors may be permanently excluded from the Common European House
by the severity of their problems. Just as the Iron Curtain once
divided the First and Second Worlds, the new Schengen frontier of the
European Union (what some already call the "Paper Curtain") is poised
to separate an expanded European First World from a neighboring
European Third World.

The intense controversy over the Iraq War demonstrated that many
Europeans are not willing to accept any transformation of NATO into
America's toolbox. While some European governments will support the
United States in most out-of-area undertakings, such as in Iraq, and
all European governments will support the United States in some
contingencies, as in Afghanistan, no European government will accord
Washington automatic cooperation in situations in which European
interests are not clearly engaged. As the United States is a global
power, a clash between America's needs and Europe's interests is
inevitable. Iraq was merely the first instance.

No reconfiguration of NATO will solve this problem. Moving bases from
Germany or the Low Countries to Poland or Romania may provide some
employment in the recipient states, but bases are not much good if in
a crisis you cannot rely on overflight rights from other countries.
European governments more than once denied overflight or use of
facilities to American forces even in the halcyon days of Cold War
solidarity when the issue at hand was out of area. More recently, the
inability of the United States to use the formerly-vital facility at
Incirlik in southern Turkey for combat operations in Iraq, despite
intense U.S. pressure, shows that bases remain very much subject to
the discretion of sovereign states with interests and policies of
their own--as, indeed, they should be. In any case, the tendency in
Washington to think of Europe and NATO in terms of refueling points
and as a "toolbox" is hardly the stuff of a robust alliance. This is
how one speaks about underlings, not allies. Such condescension
speaks volumes about how both NATO and the transatlantic relationship
have changed.

Building a Common European House, Not a Garrison

Both NATO and the European Union (EU) are expanding eastward, yet,
for the states of central and eastern Europe, Russia included, the EU
is of far greater importance than NATO. Most applicant governments
understand that membership in the EU means joining Europe, while
membership in NATO is reaching beyond Europe to the United States.
That the two are inherently contradictory is not yet clear to many in
eastern Europe, but this reality will become obvious as the
coordination mechanisms of the EU begin to impose common external
policies on the former Warsaw Pact states. Whether they like it or
not, the new EU members have no credible alternative to a full
European identity. They are too small and economically backward not
to require the sponsorship of larger powers. But they are no longer
front-burner topics for American policy. As a global power, the
United States is drawn to the crisis points of the world. The region
from the Baltic to the Black Sea is simply not troublesome enough to
retain more importance for Washington than for Brussels.

The core dynamic of the European Union is integration and the sharing
of former national prerogatives. This dynamic has progressed quite
far in many areas but remains inert in defense policy because NATO
has remained the primary security instrument for most EU members. The
Alliance, however, is not a mechanism of European defense
integration, nor has it ever been. NATO is a mechanism to integrate
American power into Europe. Yet its very success has inhibited
significant military integration within Europe. Despite a number of
showcase combined units, like the Danish-German-Polish Corps or the
Baltic Peacekeeping Battalion, there is no aspect of public policy in
Europe today as rigidly organized within national parameters as
defense.

The consequence is grotesque: a European defense establishment in
which the whole is significantly less than the sum of its parts. Many
of the parts are excellent, with Europe fielding high quality units
and capabilities that, in some cases (such as paramilitary units),
are superior to those of the United States. Yet, except for Britain
and France (and increasingly even for them), the lack of scale, the
fragmentation and duplication, and the sheer waste of resources
within European defense establishments vitiate what could be the
world's second-strongest concentration of military power. That Europe
fields two million personnel in uniform is not an achievement but the
heart of the problem. Half the number--even one-quarter--properly
led, equipped and trained in modern operational skills, would produce
a whole much greater than the disparate national parts deployed today.

The problem is not really one of money, and the United States has
done ill service by so often measuring "burden-sharing" in financial
rather than operational terms. True, most European countries spend
far less of their national income on defense than does the United
States, but this is a doubly false comparison. First, the aggregate
of European defense spending is vast and dwarfs the resources
available to any power center on earth other than the United States.
Without spending another euro, Europe has a combined military budget
beyond the dreams of Russian, Chinese, Indian or other military
planners. Second, America spends defense money in ways Europe need
not, as Europe has no pretensions to being a global military power
with the attendant--and costly--instruments of global force
projection.

The problem in Europe is that the bulk of defense spending has little
to do with defense, but is allocated to create direct and indirect
employment and to retain a pattern of redundant, if ineffective,
"balanced" national force structures. To spend more money in this
context would produce little in the way of additional usable
capability. The obvious answer is greater integration of European
defense efforts and forces. The leading edge of this process today is
integration of Europe's defense industries, where there has already
been considerable progress under the force of necessity from reduced
acquisition budgets, as in the creation of the European Aeronautic
Defense and Space multinational conglomerate.

There is nothing novel about multilingual and cross-border defense
cooperation in Europe. If European units can cooperate within NATO,
they have the talent to do so within a European rubric. The challenge
lies in outgrowing the heavy hand of American tutelage and learning
to do things without always asking for American guidance. That this
can be done was shown in the Balkans, where Italian- and Belgian-led
operations in Albania and Eastern Slavonia performed as well as, if
not better than, U.S.-led missions, while the non-U.S. peacekeeping
districts in Bosnia and Kosovo are well-run without Americans. The
necessary next step is to expand this experience to a broader
European context.

Three special issues will complicate European defense integration.
First is the role of the two European nuclear powers, Britain and
France, with their residual Great Power capacities and instincts.
While the so-called Saint-Malo initiative--which British and French
leaders undertook in late-1998 to broaden and deepen their bilateral
defense cooperation--is currently at a standstill, it demonstrated
that London and Paris can cooperate in the military field, as they
often have in the past. Accommodating their forces to a larger
European structure will be difficult, but they can also provide
essential leadership and staff talent. Second is the role of the NATO
members not now in the European Union--above all, Turkey. Recent
events have so undermined previous assumptions between Ankara and
Washington that Turkey's future security standing and its
relationship to Europe must change almost regardless of other issues.
Third is the role of the European neutrals, those EU members not
currently in NATO, or what is often called the security "free
riders." They will need to transfer their United Nations "Blue
Helmet" experience into European cooperation. These issues will not
be simple to resolve--if, indeed, they ever are "resolved"--but they
can also become catalysts for greater European security integration
in a post-NATO Europe. In any case, these are intra-European, not
transatlantic, questions.

For Europe to move beyond the existing national-parochial military
structures means moving beyond NATO to a European collective defense
and security organization. The experience since the 1991 Maastricht
Treaty suggests the process will be slow and halting, but it also
shows how detrimental is the continued presence of the United States
as the leading player in European security affairs. To restate an
obvious point, the United States is currently a European power, but
it is not a European country. It is not invited to participate at the
European Council of Ministers or European Parliament when other
issues are discussed--nor will it ever be.

European integration has now proceeded so far that Europe must take
over full responsibility for its security if the European project is
not to become fatally imbalanced. Europe will not likely follow the
American federal model, but it is worth asking how the young United
States would have developed if Britain had overseen U.S. defense
policy well into the 19th century. It is quite unlikely that the
phrase "United States of America" would have evolved from a plural
into a collective singular had American security been decided in
London. Nor can a "United Europe of States" emerge while Washington
guides Europe's defense.

To any citizen of Europe, the basic stakes are huge. European
integration cannot attain maturity without Europe taking full
responsibility for its own defense. Much of the public skepticism
within Europe about the developing pace of integration stems
precisely from a widely-held understanding that a united Europe is a
sham so long as it remains subordinate to the United States in the
most fundamental area of public policy. It is therefore wrong to wait
until other major integration issues are resolved. The building of a
union does not proceed in neat and distinct stages, but in a
synergism of parallel developments in many fields. Security policy
cannot be placed into a desk drawer while a European constitution is
on thetable. Indeed, the creation of a common European security
system to replace NATO--and incorporating much that NATO has built
over the years--will go a long way toward persuading its citizens
that "Europe" is a genuine concept worthy of their support and
participation.

Dependence and Its Cure

Underlying all other problems is the European psychology of
dependence on the United States. This is now so much a matter of
habit and experience that few diplomats or soldiers on either side of
the Atlantic can recall a time when the sense of inferiority in the
security realm was not pervasive among Europeans, or when Americans
did not automatically assume they must take the lead to get anything
done. Both sides have forgotten why the dependency began and that it
was never intended to become permanent.

European capabilities already far exceed European self-confidence.
Europe will remain inferior to the United States in power projection
and logistics, but that would only be important if Europe were to
emulate America's global role. Europe played that game once and lacks
the will to repeat it. Nor would the Continent's weak demographics
support that. Nonetheless, an "Europuissance" able to maintain
Continental stability, participate successfully in peacekeeping
operations and project power into regions proximate to Europe is well
within Europe's grasp. None of these duties requires the global air
and sea lift capabilities, the bombardment capabilities or the scale
of America's military establishment. What they do require is European
self-confidence and a willingness to proceed without always looking
over the shoulder for instructions from Washington.

Many Europeans admit they want to maintain NATO so that the Americans
will pay a large share of Europe's security costs. This is a classic
problem of welfare dependency--the mentality of the dole. Few refuse
a subsidy, even when they recognize they would be more independent
and productive without it. Free money has a narcotic effect on
governments, especially finance ministers, but narcotic dependency is
widely recognized to be unhealthy, producing lethargy and leading to
gradual deterioration of the organism. The reality stands in sharp
contrast. Europe has a larger population than America, a total
economy of comparable size, a modern industrial and technological
base often very competitive with America's (and certainly beyond
those of any other part of the world), and a vast wealth of relevant
military and political experience. The notion that, somehow, Europe
is "not ready" for security independence is nonsense.

Europe's psychological dependency is similar to that of a person who
uses crutches for an extended time after a serious injury. Though
they provide both physical and psychological support during the
healing process, crutches should be abandoned when self-sufficiency
is again attainable, lest the patient's full recovery be jeopardized.
The European organism suffered massive trauma during the 20th century
through two suicidal wars and two brutal ideologies. Europe was
fortunate to have an American doctor who propped it up first with the
Marshall Plan and then with NATO. These were vital for the healing
process, but the American doctor failed to wean his European patient
off of the crutches when the time was right.

Today, Europe must recognize that some of its injury is permanent and
must simply be endured. In other respects, the healing is complete.
To continue to employ the NATO crutches, although psychologically
reassuring, is not only unnecessary but actually harmful. It is
unnatural that Europe should remain dependent on a non-European power
for its security when its own economy is restored and the Soviet
threat no longer exists. There is no precedent for this in all
European history, and it strikes at the core of European
self-perception. The NATO crutches now prevent the European organism
from developing in a fully-balanced and mature manner, twisting its
body in ways that are painful and ultimately injurious. The crutches
now do more harm than good, and a benign American doctor should send
his European patient back out to walk naturally in the world.

There is no need to bemoan the passing of NATO. Alliances are not
pyramids, but pragmatic undertakings like business partnerships. It
is almost a truism of history that alliances die after achieving
victory. The Atlantic Alliance was a remarkable success among
military pacts. Not only did it maintain cohesion longer than most
alliances, but it fulfilled its most optimistic agenda in full--with
minimal violence or destruction. But all human activities have their
term, and the supreme wisdom in public policy is knowing when not to
press a policy too far.

For better or worse, the United States has global responsibilities
and unique global capabilities. At the same time, Washington's
diplomatic and political capacities are already overburdened. While
U.S. operational and logistical capabilities are today supreme,
America's overall force structure is little more than half the size
it was a generation ago, and its reserves are seriously
overcommitted. The best forces can cover only limited tasks,
especially for a democratic nation that employs only volunteers.
Stated plainly, NATO is a luxury the United States can no longer
justify. This vast subsidy for Europe is in direct conflict with the
procurement and development budgets required to maintain the American
technological lead in an ever-competitive world. Today's precision
weapons will be commonplace tomorrow, and even the Pentagon's immense
budget cannot always keep up.

Painful though it may be for many Europeans to recognize, America's
destiny lies in many directions. Europe is yesterday's problem
precisely because the Alliance's mission was so fully achieved. (As
is surely obvious, the same is not true in other parts of the globe.)
U.S. policy also follows the country's demographics, and these are
changing at a dazzling pace. America's national bloodline becomes
less European in origin every day, as its African, Latin American,
Asian and Middle Eastern identities become more predominant. Whether
one finds these trends worrisome or welcome, the future of U.S.
foreign policy is evident on the sidewalks of any American city.

The transatlantic relationship will not disappear or become marginal
for either side, but it will increasingly become dominated by
economic issues. Despite the frequent assertion that NATO gives the
United States leverage over European economic policy, this rarely
proved true during the Cold War. It certainly is not the case today,
when the single transatlantic relationship possesses mixed political,
economic and security strands. This is the result of our Cold War
success. We can afford to haggle over steel tariffs because steel is
not needed for battle tanks. Brussels will continue to be the locus
of U.S. concerns in Europe, but at European Union offices rather than
at NATO headquarters.

The present disproportionate concentration of power in a single
political entity was not the plan or expectation of the United
States. When the Cold War ended, Washington (with a few dissenting
voices) anticipated that a multipolar "new world order" would unfold,
with the United States as its leading power and significant power
centers in Europe, Russia, China and Japan. The emergence of the
United States as "hyperpower" was in part the product of a
decade-long economic boom that allowed Washington to fund an
increasingly sophisticated military with a declining share of
national income--although the U.S. military shrank substantially from
its Cold War norm. More important by far in the formation of a
unipolar world were the protracted collapse of Russia, the long-term
stagnation of the Japanese economy, the slow transformation of
China's economic success into diplomatic activity, and--above
all--Europe's extended "peace dividend" combined with its refusal to
assume a role in the world commensurate with its prosperity. Thus,
the United States did not conspire to unipolar status but attained it
by default. If the world system is imbalanced today, and if Europeans
feel unease at the scope of America's role, they have none but
themselves to blame.

It is also evident that Europe and America differ quite profoundly
about the role of armed force in international affairs and, more
fundamentally, about the role of the United States. A senior German
diplomat in Washington says he tries to explain to visitors from home
that Americans still believe that fighting for freedom, even for the
freedom of someone else, is a legitimate use of force. Europeans, on
the other hand, regard war as an unalloyed evil, and the last time
Germans were asked to fight for freedom was against Napoleon. America
and Europe do share a common intellectual framework for jus ad
bellum, but in justifying war we place different emphases and even
different definitions on "just cause", "legitimate authority" and
"proportionality." These differences are real and will remain. While
personalities play a role in the transatlantic invective, it is naive
to think that changing a few faces would alter the basic
contradictions, because these are grounded in public opinion. My old
neighbor Robert Kagan has written perceptively and provocatively
about the differences, although he stopped short of drawing the
logical policy conclusions: that the main instrument of the Cold War
now inhibits rather than encourages transatlantic cooperation and
should be eliminated.

It should go without saying that Europe and America need to be
partners in world affairs. The question is, how best to practice
partnership? NATO represents the model of a dominant senior partner
and various junior partners. The growth of European identity and of
European integration makes this approach obsolete, even abstracting
from the end of the Cold War and the lack of an external threat. With
hesitant steps and many imperfections, Europe is nonetheless becoming
a unified and collective partnership of its own. There must be a more
balanced transatlantic partnership, with the United States
undoubtedly the stronger and more active party, but with Europe
becoming an increasingly cohesive and confident player with interests
and ideas of its own. This new model may be unwelcome to many in
Washington--it may be unwelcome to some in Europe--but America and
Europe will thereby become better partners, and possibly even friends.

The essence of a true transatlantic partnership is mutual respect of
a type now absent. Such an attitude can come about only when Europe
respects itself as an independent actor on the world stage and when
America sees in Europe a partner worthy of respect. If both sides
continue trying to resuscitate NATO, the mutual resentment, hostility
and contempt characteristic of the recent transatlantic relationship
will only get worse over time. Mutual respect will not guarantee a
successful alliance between America and Europe, but it will establish
a much more solid foundation for partnership than currently exists.

Mutual respect is not itself a policy, nor will it assure either
accord or cooperation. In some important policy areas, such as the
Middle East, the priorities of Europe and the United States diverge
too greatly for any institution (let alone NATO) to bring them
together. In areas of primary European interest, such as the Balkans,
it is high time for the United States to withdraw. In areas of
marginal European interest, which is much of the world, Washington
and Brussels need to increase their diplomatic dialogue and their
coordination of non-military instruments like foreign aid. Where
American and European interests clearly conjoin, as in fighting
international terrorism, there must be a true partnership.

Americans should welcome a whole, free and non-subordinate Europe. If
the United States and Europe truly share common values, there is
nothing to fear from diverse perspectives or policies. Americans
generally favor competition and regard monopolies as likely to
produce arrogance, uncritical thinking and bad decisions. Very well.
Let us welcome a little friendly competition from Europe, as we will
have more than enough of the unfriendly kind from elsewhere.

E. Wayne Merry is a former State Department and Pentagon official and
currently a Senior Associate at the American Foreign Policy Council
in Washington, DC.