Roundup: US, Europe Inconsistent Over NATO, Security

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, February 03, 2002

Roundup: US, Europe Inconsistent Over NATO, Security

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Defense ministers and foreign ministers of NATO countries and the foreign ministers of Tajikistan and the Kyrgyz Republic gathered here on Saturday to discuss the global security situation after the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

But it is evident that the United States and Europe differed on matters regarding the development of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the global security.

Addressing the meeting, U.S. Senator John McCain said, "This campaign for freedom and against terror across the globe is a joint endeavor that will commit the United States and our friends and allies across Europe."

"But a necessary condition for its success is an assertive, and distinctively American, internationalism that will propel a global campaign to reorder international relations, just as a new, more just order emerged from the ashes of this war-torn continent under American leadership in 1945," McCain said.

He noted that American leadership within NATO has been enhanced by its leading role in the ongoing anti-terrorism war.

The senator expressed his hope that NATO's European members and the United States could put aside their "previous differences over an emerging European security identity in favor of NATO's existing security architecture."

However, officials from European countries voiced their dissatisfaction over the current development of NATO and called for military balance between the United States and other NATO members.

"We are confronted by the problem of how to reduce the imbalance between the United States' military capabilities and those of Europe, " Italian Defense Minister Antonio Martino said.

"The new global defense and security tasks are on such a scale that they cannot be managed by the United States alone, and require that Europe makes a greater contribution," he continued.

"There must be a fairer sharing of responsibilities and costs, and hence of rights over decision-making regarding our common defense and security missions," he added

Observers said Europe's lack of necessary technical facilities has made it unable to perform all security and defense missions together with the United States.

NATO General-Secretary George Robertson said in an interview before the Munich meeting that NATO's European members lag far behind the United States in terms of military technology.

The U.S.-European gap was more obvious in the anti-terrorism war in Afghanistan than in the Kosovo war, the official pointed out.

The unbalance is "unhealthy" for the alliance because it is becoming more and more difficult for the Americans to "cooperate with allies when they need the allies."

Robortson called on the United States to give its European allies more help in developing military technology.

"Even a superpower needs coalition partners," he said.

Deputy U.S. Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, stopping short of pointing out European countries' inability of fully-cooperating with the United States in the anti-terrorism war, said, "our policy in this war has been to accept help from countries on whatever basis is most comfortable to them."

"Some will join us publicly, others will choose quiet and discrete forms of cooperation," said the U.S. deputy at the security conference, adding that "this maximizes their cooperation and our effectiveness."

Official statistics have shown that the European Union's defense costs are merely a half of that of the United States and their military fighting capacity is only one-tenth of the United States.

Europe must strengthen its security and defense policies to create a balanced sharing of burden and responsibilities between the United States and Europe, said Angela Merkel, chairman of Germany's biggest opposition party the Christian Democratic Union.

"The decision to establish an European Rapid-Reaction Army is completely right," said the chairman, adding that the army should not be a "paper tiger."

"The establishment of the army should be completed by 2003," she said.

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