YEARENDER: Sarkozy push for strong EU defense hits British resistance

Paris - When he leaves office, in two years or seven, it could very well be that Nicolas Sarkozy's greatest accomplishment as French president will have been to bully Europe into emerging out of the protective military shadow of the United States. At least partly to that end, the French president steered France back into NATO's military command, reversing a decision made by Charles de Gaulle in 1966 and making Paris a full NATO member again.

In exchange for the move, which was completed on April 4, 2009, a French general, Stephane Abrial, was named head of NATO's Allied Command Transformation in Virginia, the first time that one of the alliance's supreme commanders is not an American.

Another French general was appointed commander of the Allied Joint Command Lisbon, giving Paris - and Europe - unprecedented sway in NATO.

Sarkozy has always maintained that his decision to end France's halfway status within NATO was made to strengthen Europe's ties with the United States and to spur fellow Europeans to become equal military partners for Washington.

"If France shoulders all her responsibilities in NATO, Europe will have more influence in NATO. And so NATO will not be an exclusively US-dominated organization," he said in a March 2009.

"European defense will be stronger, because by ending ambiguity as to our goals, we are creating the necessary trust to develop a strong and autonomous European defense."

Sarkozy's strategy was also to demonstrate that a militarily strong Europe - in the form of the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP), or, alternately, Defense Europe - would not threaten, but rather strengthen, transatlantic ties.

"If we present Defense Europe as an alternative to the alliance with the United States, we are sure to kill off the idea of Defense Europe," he said in March. "If we present Defense Europe as an action complementary to the alliance with the United States we will push Defense Europe forward.

Sarkozy's ambitions were given a rhetorical boost by US President Barack Obama, who said Washington supported a stronger Europe. His predecessor, George W Bush, made the same statement near the end of his second term.

This is a significant change from the suspicion and skepticism with which Washington greeted the ESDP at its birth in 1999.

US support was "important for France's transatlantic-minded partners in the European Union," said Bastian Giegerich, research fellow for European security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London.

The ESDP has scored some successes in its decade of existence, deploying troops to Bosnia and Congo, police officers to Afghanistan and peace monitors to Indonesia. Its largest and most multinational mission was the 2008 EUFOR deployment in Chad and the Central African Republic.

But eight months after France's return to full NATO membership, Sarkozy's initiative has scored mostly symbolic gains. "There has been little change in substance," primarily due to British resistance, Giegerich said.

For example, Sarkozy's proposal of an independent EU operations headquarters to plan and manage EU military missions has made little headway.

Because of the economic crisis, money for defense is tight, so London is insisting that it would be a waste of funds to duplicate what NATO is doing.

"The British clearly prefer to do their things through NATO," Giegerich said.

When the idea of an EU operations headquarters was first floated by Sarkozy's predecessor, Jacques Chirac, it was firmly rejected by both the United States and Britain, with Washington calling it "the most serious threat to the future of NATO."

However, the United States appears to have changed its tune on the issue. But not Britain.

The British discussion of European defense "has not yet responded to the US shift" in policy towards the ESDP, Giegerich pointed out. The British resistance to Sarkozy's European defense initiative will only intensify if, as expected, the country's Conservatives win next year's general elections.

"That would be a setback for ESDP and Sarkozy," Giegerich said. "British conservatives believe that the ESDP is dangerous for NATO."