During the initial phase of the US invasion of Iraq, Donald Rumsfeld, the American Secretary of Defense, famously derided his uncooperative NATO allies in Berlin and Paris as 'Old Europe' and praised the support from the fledgling democracies in Eastern Europe..
Neither Chancellor Gerhard Schroder nor President Jacques Chirac were amused, and anti-American sentiment on the Continent skyrocketed.
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In the last two years, however, a sea-change has taken place in Western European politics. The Iraq war is still highly unpopular, but voters in France and Germany have elected a new leaders devoid of a jaundiced view of America and ready to re-engage the US on matters of global security.
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Although President Bush and the Republican Party consider Iraq to be the 'frontline' in the 'War on Terror', Old Europe believes the faultline lies in Afghanistan. Indeed, the foreign policies of Angela Merkel, Nicholas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown have been nearly indistinguishable toward Kabul. In their view, the failure of Afghanistan to become a viable, democratic nation-state would effectively give the Taliban and Al-Qaeda a license to continue regional and international terrorist operations. Hence, Old Europe has decided draw a security line in the sands of Afghanistan.
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Angela Merkel, German Tightrope Walker
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As soon as she became the first female head of state in her country, Angela Merkel began to repair US-German relations within NATO by conducting a personal dialogue with President Bush. While still tepid on Iraq, the German government, which allowed several of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers to operate on its soil undetected, remains deeply concerned over extant Al-Qaeda cells both within its borders and abroad. When Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama visited and spoke to 200,000 applauding 'Berliners', he also chatted with his potential future colleague in private.
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Merkel reminded Obama that the number of deployable German soldiers to Afghanistan was capped at 3,000 by Parliament. As that mandate will lapse in October, however, her Minister of Defense, Franz Josef Jung, has already announced that Germany will send an additional 1,000 troops by the end of the year. Clearly, Merkel intends to bolster NATO prospects for success in the remote Asian region.
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Nicholas Sarkozy: Out From The Long Shadow of de Gaulle
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If Chirac and Sarkozy had followed the lead of their distinguished predecessor, Charles de Gaulle, then France would have broken off virtually all military ties with the US upon the unilateral invasion of Iraq. Fortunately for Washington, critical demagoguery from French politicians of all stripes was the only political fallout from the rift. A long-term chasm in Franco-American relations certainly could have been the result.
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Fifty years ago in September (1958), an already alienated de Gaulle wrote a famous diatribe against the integration of military forces under NATO to President Eisenhower and the British Prime Minister. The liberator of France from the Nazis wanted no part in surrendering any portion of French sovereignty to a transnational security arrangement dominated by the US and the UK, and his independent course proved domestically popular.
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Despite likely temptations to follow a similar course out of spite, Chirac and Sarkozy reacted prudently. Sarkozy, who had been Minister of the Interior prior to being elected President, understood the linkage between international and national security. For France to maintain its security, it needs to fully participate with Washington in joint efforts to eradicate terrorist financing and root out pockets of militants abroad.
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Beyond pragmatic considerations, Sarkozy shares similar ideological underpinnings to that of the American president. Consider the following statement made by Sarkozy in Afghanistan only a few days ago:
'A part of the world's freedom is at stake here. This is where the fight against terrorism is being waged. We are not here alone against the Afghans. We are with the Afghans so as not to leave them alone in the face of barbarism.'
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These words could easily have come from the of mouth George W. Bush. Rather than rhetorical lip-service, Sarkozy authentically divides the world into civilization and 'barbarism' with Afghanistan being the epicenter of the struggle. As French forces have been increased from 1,900 to 2,600 over the last few months in the embattled nation, Sarkozy has offered more than words to NATO.
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Gordon Brown: Reluctant Warrior, Steadfast Ally
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Only hours after President Sarkozy arrived in Afghanistan to offer equal doses of solace and inspiration to French soldiers reeling from a fatal ambush of ten of their comrades-in-arms, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown appeared to confer with Afghan President Harmid Karzai.
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Unlike his French counterpart, Brown exudes English stoicism. His comments are usually focused on tangible issues, and his meeting with Karzai was no exception. As the person most responsible for the 8,500 British regulars in Afghanistan at the request of NATO, Brown was quick to offer constructive criticism on the sluggish development of the Afghan army. Although plans call for a doubling of its size from 60,000 currently to 120,000 by 2013, recent gains by the Taliban and successful terrorist bombings by insurgents, according to Brown, suggest that both the number and the timeline are inadequate to address pressing security requirements. No one seems to disagree. Limited resources and a lack of personnel with expertise in intelligence, logistics and communications, however, will inhibit rapid advances.
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Nevertheless, Brown's visit to Kabul underscored the centrality of Afghanistan to the NATO mission of retaking a once fertile land for globally-planned terrorism.
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If Afghanistan were able to establish a monopoly on violence within its borders, the classic international relations definition of a functional nation-state, then the West would have measurable evidence of its progress in containing and diminishing actionable terror threats in the heartland of extremism.
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Although understandably antagonized by the unilateral posture of the US, Old Europe never wavered in its commitment to both NATO and Afghanistan. As both the Taliban and Al-Qaeda have both managed to reconstitute their forces over the past five years, Washington could not be more fortunate.
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J Roquen