ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, November 13, 1996 TAG: 9611130035
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-13 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DONALD NUECHTERLEIN
WHEN BILL Clinton starts a second term as president two months from now, an important foreign-policy issue he needs to address is French President Jacques Chirac's demand that France be given the primary role among Europeans in formulating NATO's foreign and defense policies.
When Chirac agreed last year to reintegrate France into NATO's military structure, from which President DeGaulle had withdrawn in 1966, he expected that Washington would agree to give his military a major command within NATO's military structure. His government stated publicly two months ago that a Frenchman should head NATO's southern command in the Mediterranean, a post that has long been filled by a U.S. Navy admiral.
Secretary of Defense William Perry responded soon thereafter that the United States had no intention of relinquishing this key command, with its operational control of U.S. and NATO forces in Bosnia as well as other parts of the Mediterranean.
France views itself as spokesman for the new European Union on relations with the Arab countries. Chirac recently visited Israel and several Arab countries and gave public support to PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat in his recent confrontation with Israel's new prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, on the stalled peace process in the West Bank. Chirac suggests that France should speak for Europe as an equal partner with the United States in negotiating peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Washington was not pleased with Paris's meddling.
The Clinton administration is also irritated by France's refusal to curtail investment in Iran, which Washington brands as a country supporting terrorism. Saudi Arabia now suggests that Iran provided help to the terrorist bombers who destroyed an apartment building in Dhahran last summer, in which many American military personnel were either killed or wounded.
A larger issue in U.S. relations with all the NATO allies, not just France, is the extent to which NATO should be expanded into eastern Europe, to include Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary by 1999. France is not keen on that idea, but Germany supports it.
Another less visible issue is the extent to which Europe will become more protectionist, when it achieves monetary union, and challenges the United States on a range of economic and trade issues. France, with its protectionist attitude, will be in the forefront of that challenge.
The end of the Cold War and Russia's demise as a major threat to Europe raises this question for many Europeans and Americans: Why does the United States still have 100,000 military forces based in Europe and hold NATO's top command positions?
It is a reasonable question. And France raises a legitimate point when it says Europe should take greater responsibility for its own defense. Privately, Germany agrees with this proposition. But, like the smaller European NATO members, Bonn prefers not to risk a backlash in Congress that could result in a U.S. troop withdrawal.
For its part, Great Britain seems happy with the current arrangement because London is strongly opposed to France taking a larger role either in NATO or the European Union.
Many Americans, including this writer, will applaud if the Europeans, half a century after World War II and five years after the Soviet Union's collapse, do take more responsibility for security problems on their continent. The idea of a "united Europe" has resonated with Americans as much as with Europeans for decades. And on economic integration, Europe has largely accomplished that goal, except for monetary union, which is nearing completion.
However, Europe's inability to deal effectively with the terrible civil war in Bosnia demonstrated that such unity does not exist on key political and defense issues. Only when President Clinton agreed to send American troops as part of a NATO intervention force in Bosnia in 1995 did Europe agree on a policy to stop the war before it spread to other countries.
Neither Britain nor Germany was prepared to engage their military forces in Bosnia until the United States agreed to participate. President Clinton rightly insisted that the NATO operation would be led by an American commander. Now France wants that role for itself.
Bill Clinton must address two important questions regarding NATO in his new term.
First, how many American troops, and for how long a period, should stay in Bosnia as peace-enforcers, beyond the Dec. 20 deadline that he originally set? Second, and more fundamentally, what should be the future American military role in Europe?
France is now pressing the Clinton administration to come to grips with a reality that most Europeans already accept: that with Russia no longer a threat to the continent, the size of NATO's military forces and the organization's command structure need to be reconsidered.
Europeans do not wish America to withdraw from the continent, but instead to start the process of turning over greater responsibility in defense matters to NATO's European members.
It is time for President Clinton, now that he has been elected to a second term, to address this key foreign-policy matter with his European counterparts, preferably at a summit meeting sometime in 1997.
Donald Nuechterlein, a resident of Albemarle County, is a political scientist and author of the forthcoming, "A Cold War Odyssey: Changing Fortunes on Three Continents."
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