A debate on the new role of the European Union and NATO has been raging
for years across the Atlantic community and especially in Europe over the years.
The collapse of the Soviet Union and thereby the end of the Cold War followed by
the rise, in the US eyes, of `rogue states' and international terrorism, changed
the conception of security of the West drastically. If a clear demonstration was
needed, 9/11 with its `spectacle' revealed the need for a rethinking of configuration of
security concepts, forces, methods and tactics. There followed the Madrid and
London bombings and other potentially spectacular threats (e.g., the plots for bombing
the Ramstein, the US Air Force base in Germany, and the New York Times Square)
that were successfully foiled.
The insurgent attacks in occupied Iraq and Afghanistan continue unabated.
After nine odd years, and especially after four years of fierce
struggle there, `Operation Enduring Freedom' led by
the US in Afghanistan shows no sign of either a
clear victory, end or lasting freedom and stability. "…[P]rospects for an early
US-NATO military victory in Afghanistan fade and pressures for the withdrawal of the US
combat forces grow," observes Selig
Harrison. The US under President Obama has
declared July 2011 as the time to start the US military—currently 100,000-strong—pull
out. US' European allies who contributed troops to that Operation and still deploy
them in Afghanistan are showing increasing signs of weariness and the mood to
withdraw. The Dutch were the first NATO ally to pull out of Afghanistan, their military
contingent having been 2,000-strong at its peak and the bulk of them deployed to the
Uruzgan province in the south. A US-led coalition force was scheduled to replace them.
The Dutch coalition government, indeed, fell over a controversy surrounding the
issue.
Besides, Canada is also scheduled to leave after 2011 despite the US
pressure to stay on. According to a Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR)
survey, French public support to International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has been falling.
Even the conservative-led coalition government in Britain seemed to have been
considering withdrawal for a while. There were early hints that the British might follow the
Dutch and Canadians and decamp from the failed war in 2011. In June 2010, the
UK Defense Secretary, Liam Fox, had asked himself what his troops were doing in
a `broken 13th century country', and he and Foreign Secretary Hague
answered—without consulting with the US Defense Secretary, Robert Gates—that they
should come home as soon as possible. Fox, partly under the US
encouragement, subsequently pledged to stick it out. Let us first look at the ground reality
in Afghanistan, the ISAF dilemma arising from that scenario and the concomitant
or consequent European predicament over indefinite military commitment
and deployment. Our case study is focused on the US ally in the `war', Germany. |
