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IV. The Transatlantic Relationship, the Greater Middle East, and Asia
Independent Task Force Report
The Future of Transatlantic Relations
February 1999
As indicated at length in the preceding section, U.S.-European collaboration regarding the challenges of the continent has been notably intense and successful in recent years. The same cannot be said for transatlantic efforts to exploit opportunities and deal with threats to Western interests emanating from the greater Middle East and from East and South Asia.
The principal and shorter-term worry in this respect relates to different perspectives and sometimes policies by the two sides of the Atlantic regarding most issues concerning the greater Middle East. Despite the obvious fact that Western interests related to securing access to energy at reasonable prices from the Gulf and slowing the flow of weapons of mass destruction into the region are increasingly threatened, the United States and Europe are often at odds on how best to protect these vital interests and meet these serious threats. (Washington would add to its interests in the greater Middle East protecting the safety and security of Israel, but it is not clear how high that interest actually ranks in European priorities for the region.)
The Transatlantic Military Challenge
A fundamental challenge facing the United States and Europe over the next decade is to translate and transfer the extraordinary patterns of transatlantic cooperation that helped end the Cold War and have provided such a salutary boost to European stability in recent years to regions outside Europe, in the first instance to the Persian Gulf area. At present, it is almost solely America’s military responsibility along with help from the United Kingdom on behalf of the West to secure the flow of energy from the Gulf and in parallel to take almost all the risks associated with that military protection. These risks include especially terrorism against
Americans and U.S. facilities worldwide and growing threats from weapons of mass destruction to U.S. forces in the region and perhaps to the American homeland. Since Europe is far more dependent on imported oil from the Gulf than is the United States, this may not be a tenable division of labor over the long run in the view of American citizens. After all, why should their sons and daughters have to go into mortal danger in an area that is certainly at least as crucial to Europe as to the United States?
Answers from the other side of the Atlantic sometimes go something like this:
—“We prefer to concentrate on our historic task of stabilizing Europe at least for the next decade”;
—“We don’t do combat anymore; that’s the U.S. specialty”;
—“Our comparative advantage in Europe regarding the greater Middle East is in instruments of political economy, not of military force”;
—“Our outdated military forces simply cannot get to the Gulf in a timely manner capable of rendering real assistance to the United States”;
—“We cannot afford the resources required to create the sort of power projection capabilities that would allow us to join the United States in a major way in Gulf contingencies”;
—“We rather like the current situation in which the United States takes almost all the risks concerning the Gulf and we Europeans, as free riders, reap the rewards; why would we want to change that?”;
—“Don’t ask us to go fight in the Middle East as a result of the failure of U.S. policies, about which we were not consulted.”
These European answers seem largely to suffice today in a Washington that has been drenched in preoccupying scandal and in a nation that is content and prosperous at this writing. However, this could change should events in the Gulf force the United States to go persistantly into significant military combat almost entirely without its European allies, as it did at the end of 1998. If such intervention goes sour, causing considerable U.S. casualties, America at large could begin to ask why this patently unfair transatlantic military division of labor exists regarding protecting energy resources from the Gulf, especially since U.S. dependence on Gulf oil is declining. One could not dismiss the possibility in this circumstance of a precipitous U.S. military withdrawal from the Gulf region, leaving it mostly up to the allies to fend for themselves for the oil on which they so desperately depend. This would be a catastrophic outcome for all concerned on both sides of the Atlantic.
The United States needs genuine coalition partners as it seeks to manage this volatile and dangerous region, and the European allies are the only viable candidates. If they do not join the United States importantly in this endeavor, including participating when force is required as an instrument of deterrence or coercion, one could well expect increasing American unilateralism, as with the attacks on the Afghanistan terrorist camps and alleged Sudanese chemical weapons facility in the summer of 1998. As a consistent pattern of U.S. behavior, this would undermine transatlantic cooperation across the board and make it even less likely that the allies would join Washington in a comprehensive way to promote Western vital interests in the Middle East as recommended in this report.
This is not to argue in any way that military instruments are the answer to all, or even most, of the problems of the greater Middle East. That is certainly not so. The European Union has led the way in a manner Washington should emulate in tangibly recognizing the importance of economic assistance to the region to buttress moderate Arab regimes and to try to address the underlying causes of societal instability. Indeed, it is useful to remember that it was Norway that brokered the Oslo agreement and that the European Union provides the bulk of financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority. But integrated U.S.-European military action based on routine preparations across the Atlantic and usually securely connected to diplomatic action should be one feasible and ever ready (not just rhetorical) transatlantic instrument. This is why the European failure, except for Britain and to a lesser degree France, to modernize their force capabilities must be urgently reversed.
No Hostile Hegemon
The good news is that these U.S. national interests are for the most part not seriously threatened. The demise of the Soviet Union and the current extraordinary weakness of Russia—the only plausible candidate for a country with a dominating continental appetite—means that the emergence of a hostile hegemonic threat to Europe appears quite unlikely for at least 15 to 20 years at the earliest.
The Middle East Peace Process
Even if EU governments could be persuaded to proceed over the next several years to modernize their military forces and expand their geopolitical horizons in the way this report suggests, that would not remove the more pressing disagreements across the Atlantic regarding the most effective policies toward the region. Despite the progress in the Middle East peace process at Wye Plantation in October 1998, most Europeans believe that Washington as demonstrated through the rest of 1998 is not sufficiently tough on Israel when Jerusalem takes what the EU regards as unreasonable positions in negotiations with the Palestinians, and that American Middle East policy is overly influenced by U.S. domestic politics. As noted in general at the outset, there is no doubt that special interest groups have great influence on America’s Middle East policies. This is an abiding characteristic of American democracy today and it is unlikely to be altered any time soon.
Nor is the close link in the minds of American presidential aspirants between their chances for success and their stance on U.S. policies on the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians going to change. Indeed, domestic political support for Israel is probably stronger among U.S. politicians, including in Congress, than at any time in many decades. Thus, although in recent years EU involvement in the real negotiations has increased a bit, the willingness of any U.S. administration to allow the Union to play anything approaching an equal role in the Middle East peace process is likely to remain quite limited. These U.S. domestic political inhibitions are reinforced by a perception in Washington that EU policy toward the peace process is sometimes overly influenced by European dependence on Arab oil and insufficiently sensitive to Israel’s genuine security requirements and by the judgment of participants in the region that—despite the Oslo Accords—it is the United States that holds the external key to progress in the peace process. None of this is very new and, despite allied frustrations, U.S.-European cooperation regarding the Middle East peace process will have to work within these constraints.
Nevertheless, somewhat more balance between the two sides of the Atlantic regarding relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors is possible and desirable. Washington should quicken the trend toward using the EU as a reinforcing diplomatic instrument to support U.S. efforts; at the same time Washington needs to pay more attention with more resources to the underlying causes of instability within moderate Arab regimes. For its part, while responsibly importuning the United States to press Israel for more flexibility in the peace process, the European Union should tie its aid to the Palestinian Authority more directly to strenuous and successful efforts by Yasser Arafat to combat terrorism against Israel.
Dealing with Iraq
U.S.-European collaboration regarding Iraq has been largely effective in recent years but is becoming increasingly strained. In 1998, some in the alliance, notably France, have seemed to wish to “normalize” Western relations with Baghdad by finding a way to lift U.N. economic sanctions, while trying to maintain some observation of Iraq’s WMD capabilities. Others wonder what Washington’s long-term strategy is toward Iraq, given the Clinton administration’s obvious strong disinclination to use force against Iraq, until the end of 1998, as well as revelations in the media that on a half-dozen occasions the administration pressured U.N. teams not to carry out surprise inspections against suspected sensitive Iraqi sites.
And meanwhile in the region, there is as demonstrated in the recent U.S.-U.K. attack now virtually no support for the use of military action against Iraq if it stays within its borders. Finally, slow progress in the peace process and a perception, most importantly among friendly Arab regimes, that Washington is unwilling to confront what they regard as the intransigent Netanyahu government to produce greater Israeli flexibility further undermines American influence and effectiveness in the area as a whole. It appears, therefore, that Saddam Hussein is gaining and the West is losing in this long struggle over the future of Iraq’s WMD capability.
What can be done about this? Preventing Iraq from building weapons of mass destruction continues to be a transatlantic vital interest in the Persian Gulf. There seems no doubt that Saddam would use a significant portion of any renewed oil resources to rekindle Iraq’s WMD program as well as to begin to rebuild Iraq’s conventional military capability. Neither the United States nor Europe can look favorably on Iraq’s efforts to obstruct U.N. arms inspections and disregard Security Council resolutions. But the Gulf War coalition is now badly frayed and appears unable to respond effectively to these provocations. Using force against Iraq to keep Saddam in his box currently carries risks, given the weakness of the administration, the opposition of most allies, and the resistance of moderate Arab nations. Without the impetus for further joint action—including again the major use of force—in dealing with Iraq, however, the West will be left with a failing long-term strategy and Baghdad will probably possess a significant deliverable WMD capability perhaps including nuclear weapons within a decade. This would be a calamitous setback for America and its allies.
The United States and its transatlantic partners must therefore look for opportunities to reinvigorate some remnant of the Gulf War coalition and to use sustained force against Saddam Hussein, as they did in mid-December. To continue to again prevaricate endlessly on this score will only further weaken Western interests and influence in the Middle East over the long term. At the same time, U.N. Security Council sanctions must remain in place indefinitely, with a renewed and more rigorous enforcement regime to try to deny Iraq any materials that could be utilized for its WMD or ballistic missile programs. The transatlantic community also must consider further efforts to isolate Saddam and encourage his removal, even though that will not be easy. This should be a high priority.
Interacting with Iran
The U.S. strategy of “dual containment” with respect to Iraq and Iran has failed. Iraq is slipping away from U.N. control and Iran is far from isolated, either in the region or with respect to Europe. Indeed, Congress mistakenly passed sanctions legislation to punish the allies for not agreeing to a U.S. policy that had virtually no support anywhere in the world. At the same time, the European Union’s critical dialogue with Iran produced no tangible changes in Tehran’s external policies of seeking weapons of mass destruction, supporting international terrorism, and opposing the peace process.
A new transatlantic bargain therefore needs to be established to deal with an Iran that is clearly changing internally under President Khatami but whose external policies still remain a significant threat to transatlantic interests in the greater Middle East. This joint U.S.-European approach should be based on specific, agreed criteria regarding the nature over time of Tehran’s international actions—especially its WMD programs—and not to Iran’s domestic debates. Since it would be unrealistic to expect sharp departures over the short run in Tehran’s foreign policies, an immediate distinct improvement in Iran’s external behavior should not be a precondition to this fresh Western effort to improve relations with Tehran.
However, this further U.S.-European opening to Iran cannot be allowed an unlimited time to run its course, lest Iran get the benefits of interaction with the West without improving its international conduct. The United States and Europe should agree on roughly how long they will give Iran (three years?) to become a responsible regional player in the greater Middle East and, crucially, what the West should do if Iran fails the test. In the spirit of this new transatlantic accord regarding Iran, the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act should not go into effect. It would be best if it were wiped entirely from the legislative books.
Finally with respect to Iran, the allies need to become much more attentive to the dangers of Tehran’s WMD programs and to the need for a transatlantic counterproliferation military capability. Although Europe has done much in recent years to improve controls on its sensitive technology transfers to the Middle East, the allies appear to believe they have therefore mostly solved the problem. To the contrary, Iran is pursuing active covert acquisition activities for its nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs. Europe must face up to the interrelationship between these clandestine Iranian WMD efforts and the significant additional resources that will be generated for these programs by an expansion of Iran’s economic interaction with the West, especially regarding energy extraction and pipelines. If the West does not more effectively address the challenge of Iran’s WMD programs, it appears likely that Tehran, like Baghdad, will possess a formidable deliverable WMD capability within a decade.
These WMD developments in both Iraq and Iran will make U.S.-European cooperation on counterproliferation increasingly important, especially with respect to theater missile defense and standoff forces.
The Caspian Basin
The Caspian basin, because of its immense energy resources, is likely in the next decade to become an area of increasing importance to the transatlantic community as a whole. At present, however, the United States appears to be dominating Western political, economic, and military interaction with the region. A more unified and strategic U.S.-European approach would lessen the appearance and reality of U.S. preeminence in the area that in turn causes special problems with Russia. It would also diversify transatlantic instruments to promote stability in the Caspian basin and—should a crisis occur there—make it more likely that the United States would have cooperative and engaged allies in trying to help manage the situation.
The United States, Europe, and Asia
While most Europeans are reluctant to think seriously about the traditional security implications inherent in promoting Western interests in the greater Middle East and confronting threats against them, the allies are virtually absent in Asia in this respect.
Asia, despite its current economic difficulties, will continue in the long run to be one of the most dynamic regions in the world and one of the West’s greatest strategic challenges. The United States and Western Europe share vital and important interests in Asia: slowing proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; restoring Asian financial and economic stability; maintaining peace and security in the region; managing the rise of China as a regional and perhaps eventually a global power; dealing with an increasingly active India; and preventing military conflict on the Korean peninsula.
Events in Asia in the past two years have severely undermined the stability of the region and represent the following significant threats to those transatlantic interests:
Except for the Asian economic crises, about which more is written in the next section of this report, the allies have been mostly uninvolved in trying to defend these Western interests and meet these threats. Despite long historic connections between Western Europe and Asia, the allies seem content to leave Asian security almost entirely in the hands of the Americans and the regional players. (Europe’s multilateral engagement with Asia—the Asia-Europe meeting—has thus far been weak and ineffective.)
With respect to the nuclear tests in South Asia, European governments have been too passive, at least in public. They appear to have mostly left the management of the problem and the onus of responsibility to the Clinton administration, which has been seeking to convince India and Pakistan to refrain from mounting nuclear warheads on missiles that could deliver them; to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; and to forgo the export of sensitive WMD and missile technologies. Apart from a small financial contribution to the Korean Economic Development Organization, Europe has done too little to promote stability on the Korean peninsula, to try to freeze and ultimately dismantle North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, or to try to ensure that North Korea does not export sensitive technologies to the world’s trouble spots, particularly the Middle East. This is shortsighted given the recent U.S. discovery of a suspected North Korean underground nuclear weapons facility and Pyongyang’s firing of a missile over northern Japan in late August 1998. Indeed, in mid-December 1998 the 1994 U.S.-North Korea Agreed Framework is in danger of collapse, a fact that seems to have largely escaped the Europeans. The allies have also made no serious effort to persuade China to end its sensitive technology transfers to Iran and have had little to say about the P.R.C.’s nuclear and missile relationships over the years with Pakistan.
Indeed, except for the trade dimension, the allies seem disinterested in the strategic implications of the rise of Chinese power, even though China’s continuing integration into the international system will have substantial consequences in the next century. Instead, Western Europe approaches China in any practical sense with an almost entirely commercial orientation. For example, it has virtually no involvement in the Taiwan issue, which is by far the most serious and immediate security question in Asia outside the Korean peninsula and the Indian subcontinent.
All this seems to be another outgrowth of Western Europe’s self-preoccupation at present. Asia apparently appears a very long way away for the allies, given the many challenges Europe faces at home. The notion of Europe playing an important role in managing the balance of power and strategic equilibrium in Asia between and among Japan, China, and India seems utterly foreign on both sides of the Atlantic. This is a pity since the United States is almost entirely alone as it designs policies toward the P.R.C. and Asia more broadly, and could certainly benefit from European involvement, assistance, and counsel. With Europe standing aside from these geopolitical challenges in Asia, the United States will be inevitably drawn toward unilateral action, some of which could seriously damage allied interests.
Prescriptions
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