– NATO...Are Its Final Days Just Ahead


Folly that could wreck NATO
Daily Mail - UK

When our government refused to hold the promised referendum on the European Constitution, it insisted that what it called a tidying-up treaty would not extend the influence of Brussels over defence or foreign affairs, and that all talk of a European Army was so much scaremongering.

As so often with the EU, it turns out that not only have ministers been misleading the British people, but that plans for a European Army are proceeding rapidly, with the support and assistance of our Government.

Next week, a combination of Liberal Democrat and Labour peers will almost certainly rubber-stamp Britain's ratification of the treaty and Ireland will hold a referendum which until recently it was assumed would also back the Constitution (although it now appears the Irish may be having second thoughts).

Once these inconvenient democratic niceties are out of the way, the French are due to take over the presidency of the Union in July. And they have been quite clear that the big project for their six months in charge is to push ahead with plans for a European military force.

It might surprise many in Britain to know that Brussels already has a considerable military capacity. There are two rotating EU battlegroups, seconded from member states, an operations room in Brussels, and naturally, a panoply of committees and other bureaucracies to develop strategy and tactics.

But once the Lisbon constitution is in place, Europe's military ambitions will be able to accelerate. Under a scheme known as Permanent Structured Cooperation, in which Britain, France and Gerseduced-many are all planning to participate, a core group of nations will push ahead with creating a far more significant EU force, 60,000 strong.

Some 10,000 British troops would be permanently seconded to this force, and France is determined that a new military planning centre will be set up in Brussels to run it.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, has been scheming to win U.S. and British support by promising that France will fully rejoin Nato, but only in exchange for the creation of a proper EU Army.

Some U.S. politicians - and some in the British Government, although they have been careful not to say so publicly - have been

by this idea because they believe it will encourage other European nations to spend more on defence, shouldering more of the burden which currently falls almost exclusively on Britain and America.

This is, of course, a complete pipedream. For a start, European countries are reluctant to send even the limited number of soldiers they have on overseas operations.

And when European soldiers are sent overseas, they are often under instructions from their governments not to do any fighting. According to reports, in a recent incident in Afghanistan, a senior Taliban commander cornered by German special forces was able to walk away because they were were not allowed to shoot unless shot at.

No wonder that U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates complained earlier this year about 'some allies being prepared to fight and die' and others who are not.

Not only does the EU lack the political will to fight overseas, it has none of the necessary resources either. Britain is virtually the only member with combat-ready helicopters or planes to transport troops rapidly around the world.

So any significant overseas operation inevitably depends on the Americans, who last year spent £270billion on defence, compared with £30billion in Britain and only £8billion in the likes of Spain. Luckily, we are able to work with Washington through Nato, which gives us access to U.S. troops, equipment and their vital spy satellites.

But the development of a European Army would undermine Nato, creating two parallel military bureaucracies that would not only cost a fortune - much of it, as usual, from the UK taxpayer - but compete directly with each other.

How long before the Americans decided the game wasn't worth the candle, and left the EU countries to get on with it? Then, when Britain faced a threat to our national interest, we would be reduced to asking for mythical EU military aid.