[R-G] French Kissing: NATO's Global Mission Creep

[Anthony Fenton]

http://counterpunch.com/johnstone03132009.html

French Kissing

NATO's Global Mission Creep

By DIANA JOHNSTONE

NATO, the main overseas arm of the U.S. military-industrial complex,  
just keeps expanding. Its original raison d’être, the supposedly  
menacing Soviet bloc, has been dead for twenty years. But like the  
military-industrial complex itself, NATO is kept alive and growing by  
entrenched economic interests, institutional inertia and an official  
mindset resembling paranoia, with think tanks looking around  
desperately for “threats”.

This behemoth is getting ready to celebrate its 60th birthday in the  
twin cities of Strasbourg (France) and Kehl (Germany) on the Rhine  
early in April. A special gift is being offered by France’s  
increasingly unpopular president, Nicolas Sarkozy: the return of  
France to NATO’s “integrated command”. This bureaucratic event, whose  
practical significance remains unclear, provides the chorus of  
NATOlatrous officials and editorialists something to crow about. See,  
the silly French have seen the error of their ways and returned to the  
fold.

Sarkozy, of course, puts it in different terms. He asserts that  
joining the NATO command will enhance France’s importance by giving it  
influence over the strategy and operations of an Alliance which it  
never left, and to which it has continued to contribute more than its  
share of armed forces.

The flaw in that argument is that it was the totally unshakable U.S.  
control of NATO’s integrated command that persuaded General Charles de  
Gaulle to leave in the first place, back in March 1966. De Gaulle did  
not do so on a whim. He had tried to change the decision-making  
process and found it impossible. The Soviet threat had diminished, and  
de Gaulle did not want to be dragged into wars he thought unnecessary,  
such as the U.S. effort to win a war in Indochina that France had  
already lost and considered unwinnable. He wanted France to be able to  
pursue its own interests in the Middle East and Africa. Besides, the  
US military presence in France stimulated “Yankee go home”  
demonstrations. Transferring the NATO command to Belgium satisfied  
everyone.

Sarkozy’s predecessor Jacques Chirac, wrongly labeled “anti-American”  
by US media, was already willing to rejoin the NATO command if he  
could get something substantial in return, such as NATO’s  
Mediterranean command. The United States flatly refused.

Instead, Sarkozy is settling for crumbs: assignment of senior French  
officers to a command in Portugal and to some training base in the  
United States. “Nothing was negotiated. Two or three more French  
officers in position to take orders from the Americans changes  
nothing”, observed former French foreign minister Hubert Védrine at a  
recent colloquium on France and NATO.

Sarkozy announced the return on March 11, six days before the issue is  
to be debated by the French National Assembly. The protests from both  
sides of the aisle will be in vain.

There appear to be two main causes of this unconditional surrender.

One is the psychology of Sarkozy himself, whose love for the most  
superficial aspects of the United States was expressed in his  
embarrassing speech to the U.S. Congress in November 2007. Sarkozy may  
be the first French president who seems not to like France. Or at  
least, to like the United States better (from watching television). He  
can give the impression of having wanted to be president of France not  
for love of country, but in social revenge against it. From the start,  
he has shown himself eager to “normalize” France, that is, to remake  
it according to the American model.

The other, less obvious but more objective cause is the recent  
expansion of the European Union. The rapid absorption of all the  
former Eastern European satellites, plus the former Soviet Republics  
of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, has drastically changed the balance  
of power within the EU itself. The core founding nations, France,  
Germany, Italy and the Benelux countries, are no long able to steer  
the Union toward a unified foreign and security policy. After France  
and Germany refused to go along with the invasion of Iraq, Donald  
Rumsfeld dismissed them as “old Europe” and gloated over the  
willingness of “new Europe” to follow the United States lead. Britain  
to the west, and the “new” European satellites to the East are both  
more attached to the United States politically and emotionally than  
they are to the European Union that took them in and provided them  
with considerable economic development aid and a veto over major  
policy issues.

This expansion effectively buried the longstanding French project to  
build a European defense force that could act outside the NATO  
command. The rulers of Poland and the Baltic States want U.S. defense,  
by way of NATO, period. They would never accept the French project of  
an EU defense not tied to NATO and the United States.

France has its own military-industrial complex, totally dwarfed by the  
one in the United States, but the largest in Western Europe. Any such  
complex needs export markets for its arms industry. The best potential  
market would have been independent European armed forces. Without that  
prospect, some may hope that joining the integrated command can open  
NATO markets to French military products.

A slim hope, however. The United States jealously guards major NATO  
procurements for its own industry. France is unlikely to have much  
influence within NATO for the same reason it is giving up its attempt  
to build an independent European army. The Europeans themselves are  
deeply divided. With Europe divided, the United States rules.  
Moreover, with the economic crisis deepening, money is running short  
for weaponry.

 From the viewpoint of French national interest, this feeble hope for  
marketing military hardware is vastly outweighed by the disastrous  
political consequences of Sarkozy’s act of allegiance.

It is true that even outside the NATO integrated command, France’s  
independence was only relative. France followed the United States into  
the first Gulf War – President François Mitterrand vainly hoped  
thereby to gain influence in Washington, the usual mirage that beckons  
allies into dubious U.S. operations. France joined the 1999 NATO war  
against Yugoslavia, despite misgivings at the highest levels. But in  
2003, President Jacques Chirac and his foreign minister Dominique de  
Villepin actually made use of their independence by rejecting the  
invasion of Iraq. It is generally acknowledged that the French stand  
enabled Germany to do the same. Belgium followed.

Villepin’s February 14, 2003, speech to the UN Security Council giving  
priority to disarmament and peace over war won a rare standing  
ovation. The Villepin speech was hugely popular around the world, and  
greatly enhanced French prestige, especially in the Arab world. But  
back in Paris, the personal hatred between Sarkozy and Villepin has  
reached operatic heights of passion, and one can suspect that  
Sarkozy’s return to NATO obedience is also an act of personal revenge.

The worst political effect is much broader. The impression is now  
created that “the West”, Europe and North America, are barricading  
themselves by a military alliance against the rest of the world. In  
retrospect, the French dissent accomplished a service to the whole  
West by giving the impression, or the illusion, that independent  
thought and action were still possible, and that someone in Europe  
might listen to what other parts of the world thought and said. Now,  
this “closing of ranks”, hailed by the NATO champions as “improving  
our security”, will sound the alarms in the rest of the world. The  
empire seems to be closing its ranks in order to rule the world. The  
United States and its allies do not openly claim to rule the world,  
only to regulate it. The West controls the world’s financial  
institutions, the IMF and the World Bank. It controls the judiciary,  
the International Criminal Court, which in six years of existence has  
put on trial only one obscure Congolese warlord and brought charges  
against 12 other persons, all of them Africans – while meanwhile the  
United States causes the deaths of hundreds of thousands, or even  
millions, of people in Iraq and Afghanistan and supports Israel’s  
ongoing aggression against the Palestinian people. To the rest of the  
world, NATO is just the armed branch of this enterprise of domination.  
And this at a time when the Western-dominated system of financial  
capitalism is bringing the world economy to collapse.

This gesture of “showing Western unity” for “our security” can only  
make the rest of the world feel insecure. Meanwhile, NATO moves every  
day to surround Russia with military bases and hostile alliances,  
notably in Georgia. Despite the smiles over dinner with her Russian  
counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, Hillary Clinton repeats the stunning  
mantra that “spheres of influence are not acceptable” – meaning, of  
course, that the historic Russian sphere of interest is unacceptable,  
while the United States is vigorously incorporating it into its own  
sphere of influence, called NATO.

Already China and Russia are increasing their defense cooperation. The  
economic interests and institutional inertia of NATO are pushing the  
world toward a pre-war lineup far more dangerous than the Cold War.

The lesson NATO refuses to learn is that its pursuit of enemies  
creates enemies. The war against terrorism fosters terrorism.  
Surrounding Russian with missiles proclaimed “defensive” – when any  
strategist knows that a shield accompanied by a sword is also an  
offensive weapon – will create a Russian enemy.

The Search for Threats

To prove to itself that it is really “defensive”, NATO keeps looking  
for threats. Well, the world is a troubled place, thanks in large part  
to the sort of economic globalization imposed by the United States  
over the past decades. This might be the time to be undertaking  
diplomatic and political efforts to work out internationally agreed  
ways of dealing with such problems as global economic crisis, climate  
change, energy use, hackers (“cyberwar”). NATO think tanks are  
pouncing on these problems as new “threats” to be dealt with by NATO.  
This leads to a militarization of policy-making where it should be  
demilitarized.

For example, what can it mean to meet the supposed threat of climate  
change with military means? The answer seems obvious: military force  
may be used in some way against the populations forced from their  
homes by drought or flooding. Perhaps, as in Darfur, drought will lead  
to clashes between ethnic or social groups. Then NATO can decide which  
is the “good” side and bomb the others. That sort of thing.

The world indeed appears to be heading into a time of troubles. NATO  
appears getting read to deal with these troubles by using armed force  
against unruly populations.

This will be evident at NATO’s 60th anniversary celebration in  
Strasbourg/Kehl on April 3 and 4.

The cities will be turned into armed camps. Residents of the tranquil  
city of Strasbourg are obliged to apply for badges in order to leave  
or enter their own homes during the happy event. At crucial times,  
they will not be allowed to leave home at all, except under emergency  
circumstances. Urban transport will be brought to a standstill. The  
cities will be as dead as if they had been bombed, to allow the NATO  
dignitaries to put on a show of peace.

The high point is to be a ten-minute photo op when French and German  
leaders shake hands on the bridge over the Rhine connected Strasbourg  
and Kehl. As if Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy were making peace  
between France and Germany for the first time. The locals are to be  
locked up so as not to disturb the charade.

NATO will be behaving as though the biggest threat it faces is the  
people of Europe. And the biggest threat to the people of Europe may  
well be NATO.

Diana Johnstone is author of Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and  
Western Delusions (Monthly Review Press).
She can be reached at diana.josto at yahoo.fr