U.S. Warns Europe on NATO

Speaking at an annual meeting of NATO defense ministers, Cohen said too many questions about the planned rapid reaction force remained unanswered.

The proposed 60,000-strong force has been generally welcomed by NATO, a number of whose members also belong to the EU. But, analysts said, there is worry among the Americans and others that France was pushing too hard for the force to have a significant planning capacity of its own, independent of NATO. While a member of NATO, France is not a member of its integrated military command.

Cohen has warned that the EU force should not have a separate planning operation but should rely on NATO for such functions. He seemed frustrated that it was taking so long to arrive at clear, practical arrangements, such as when and how often the two organizations should meet.

The EU wants to exclude from decision making for its rapid reaction force six NATO members that do not belong to the EU. But the United States, backed by Britain, insist that NATO should be at the core of planning involving the EU force.

The NATO countries that the EU would exclude were the Czech Republic, Hungary, Iceland, Norway, Poland and Turkey. These six countries, and Turkey in particular, oppose the EU position.

The discord, analysts said, rendered uncertain whether a proposed NATO-EU foreign ministers meeting in mid-December would take place. The meeting would be the first official step in a NATO-EU dialogue on the ESDP.

The conflict over defense policy seemed likely to reappear at the EU summit conference opening in the French Riviera city of Nice Thursday. France was expected to push for the introduction of "enhanced co-operation," a "two-tier Europe" procedure whereby groups of countries would be allowed to go ahead with integration projects without the rest of the EU.

Britain and others fear the new plans might upset arrangements for the rapid reaction force. Britain, where there is strong domestic opposition to the force, has given assurances the force would not become a European standing army and would do nothing to undermine NATO.

France argues that applying "enhanced cooperation" to defense matters would aid flexibility in crisis management.

At the Brussels ministerial meeting, a number of governments were also expected to call for reductions in NATO forces on "peacekeeping" duties: KFOR in Kosovo and the Stabilization Force (SFOR) in Bosnia-Herzegovina. While SFOR troops might begin to withdraw by mid-2001, NATO officials believed KFOR would have to be maintained in Kosovo for the foreseeable future.

NATO Secretary-General George Robertson was expected to ask for the European NATO members to do more for the modernization of their armed forces. Modernization was necessary to bridge the technology gap between the military capabilities of the United States and European NATO members, according to diplomatic sources.

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