NATO's Dilemma and the Elusive European Defence Identity

1 `No to NATO for Now', The Tocqueville Connection, Maastricht, The Netherlands, 3 October 1997 (www.adetocqueville.com).

2 Anand Menon explains that Prime Minister Edouard Balladur favoured rapprochement with NATO, while President Mitterrand was adamantly opposed: `From Independence to Cooperation: France, NATO and European Security', International Affairs, vol. 71, no. 1, 1995, pp. 19-34.

3 Jacques Isnard, `Rénovation des commandments ou simple replatrage?', Le Monde, 30 June 1997.

4 Agence France Presse, 7 June 1996. See also Mariano Aguirre, `L'OTAN au service de quelle sécurité?', Le Monde Diplomatique, April 1996, p. 11.

5 This phrase was critically examined by the Dutch daily Het Parool, 5 June 1996.

6 Jane's Defence Weekly, 21 May 1997, p. 18.

7 Joseph Fitchett, `Early Elections in 1997 Halted France's Long Journey Back into NATO', International Herald Tribune, 3 July 1998.

8 Robert L. Hutchings, American Diplomacy and the End of the Cold War: An Insider's Account of U.S. Policy in Europe, 1989-1992 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), pp. 274-275.

9 A comprehensive account of the involvement of NATO is found in Dick A. Leurdijk, The United Nations and NATO in Former Yugoslavia, 1991-1996: Limits to Diplomacy and Force (The Hague: Netherlands Institute of International Relations [`Clingendael'], 1996).

10 Folkert Jensma, NRC Handelsblad, 12 January 1994 (www.nrc.nl).

11 Paul Cornish, `European Security: The End of Architecture and the New NATO', International Affairs, vol. 72, no. 4, 1996, pp. 761-762.

12 For Jospin's comment, see Martin Walker, `With Friends Like These, Who Needs Enemies', Guardian Weekly, 6 July 1997, p. 9. The exact words of Paul-Marie de la Gorce were `situé au sein de l'OTAN'; see `Quand l'Europe refuse une défense... européenne', Le Monde Diplomatique, July 1997. Dominique Moïsi, `The French Contradiction', Financial Times, 25 July 1997.

13 The Economist, 21 June 1997.

14 Agence France Presse, 23 April 1996.

15 Agence France Presse, 3 July 1997.

16 Robert P. Grant, `France's New Relationship with NATO', Survival, vol. 38, no. 1, Spring 1996, p. 66.

17 William T. Johnsen and Thomas Durell-Young mention a few instances when the president and the Foreign Ministry quelled French Defence Department attempts to `normalize' relations with NATO. See `Franco-German Security Accommodation: Agreeing to Disagree', McNair Paper no. 20, August 1993. Several French analysts have argued in the security debates since the end of the Cold War that the reasons for France to remain outside NATO's military structure have ceased to exist. See, for example, Daniel Vernet, `The Dilemma of French Foreign Policy', International Affairs, vol. 68, no. 4, October 1992, pp. 655-664.

18 Paul Cornish (see note 11 above), p. 757.

19 David S. Yost, `France and West European Defence Identity', Survival, vol. 33, no. 4, July/August 1991, p. 331.

20 François Heisbourg, `The European-US Alliance: Valedictory Reflections on Continental Drift in the Post-Cold War Era', International Affairs, vol. 68, no. 4, October 1992, pp. 665-678, at p. 673.

21 The following points were also expressed by Gilles Andréani at a forum with Stanley Sloan on 22 January 1996. The Tocqueville Connection (see note 1 above).

22 Grant (see note 16 above), p. 66.

23 Le Monde, 4 September 1997.

24 United Press International, 10 September 1996.

25 Charles Barry, `NATO's Combined Joint Task Forces in Theory and Practice', Survival, vol. 38, no. 1, Spring 1996, pp. 91-93.

26 Brigadier Graham Messervy-Whiting, `The Refinement of WEU's Operational Capability', NATO's Sixteen Nations, Special Supplement, 2/1998, p. 9.

27 The concern about lines of command is far from doctrinal. In their second interim report (July 1996) on IFOR, NATO's Joint Analysis Team recommends that in cases of peace enforcement, operational command and not just operational control be given to the overall commander. The latter includes the authority to assign and reassign forces where needed.

28 `NATO's New Command Structure', Strategic Survey (IISS), 1997/98, p. 43.

29 See, for example, Jean-François Bureau, `La réforme militaire en France: une mutation identitaire', Politique Étrangère, Spring 1997, pp. 69-81.

30 Alyson K. Bailes, `NATO: Towards a New Synthesis', Survival, vol. 38, no. 3, Autumn 1996, p. 27.

31 Wim Brummelman & Robert van de Roer, NRC Handelsblad, 3 June 1996.

32 Paul Quiles, `Défense Européenne et Otan: la derive', Le Monde, 11 June 1996.

33 Pascal Boniface, `Un triomphe américain en trompe de l'oeil', Le Monde, 10 July 1997.

34 Barry (see note 25 above), p. 88.

35 Remarks at a colloquy titled `The European Security and Defense Identity', Madrid, 4 May 1998 (www.nato.org).

36 Private correspondence with Paul Cornish, January 1998.