ABSTRACT
For several years after the inception of the EU’s European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP), Europeans could be forgiven for asking if Americans really supported such an initiative. Since NATO’s creation in 1949, Washington had regularly hectored its European Allies to assume a larger share of the burdens of collective defense and – beginning with NATO’s involvement in Bosnia in 1995 – crisis management. However, when President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Tony Blair agreed in December 1998 that the EU ‘must have the capacity for autonomous action, backed up by credible military forces, the means to decide to use them and a readiness to do so, in order to respond to international crises’, Washington’s initial reaction struck Europeans as distinctly chilly. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright stressed the need for Europeans to avoid ‘the Three Ds’: ‘decoupling’ European decision-making
from the Alliance; ‘duplication’ of NATO structures and planning processes; and ‘discrimination’ against Allies (notably Turkey) who are not EU members (Albright, 1998). Other American officials and experts privately fretted that key consultations and decisions on security matters might migrate over time from NATO, where America’s unique political and military strengths ensure it has a preponderant role in shaping Alliance policies and operations, to the EU, where there is no US seat at the table.
