Strategic Forum, Number 235, October 2008. The Absence of Europe: Implications for International Security?

Facing a worsening economic situation and a war in Iraq that will be difficult to end in short, grave overstretch the next U.S. administration will seek to return to a more multilateral foreign policy and attempt to work closely with Europe. But Europe may not be willing or able to meet American expectations to play a larger role in international security. Europe has not become a federal United States of Europe, as French statesman Jean Monnet hoped, and it has failed to achieve consensus on institutions. At least for the next year, the European Union EU will be trying to find a way around the June 2008 defeat of the Lisbon Treaty, the set of institutional reforms aimed at streamlining the work of the enlarged union. Without adequate institutions to formulate and implement a common foreign policy, the EU cannot make effective use of military force. And without greater capability, Europe whether as the EU, through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization NATO, or as individual states will punch below its weight. The EU has derived much of its influence from enlargement, but it seems to have lost its nerve over the possibility of Turkish membership. NATO expansion, meanwhile, has inflamed Russian resentments and helped to trigger the Georgian crisis. A more assertive Russia could divide Europe and complicate transatlantic ties a threatening Russia could cement them.