BACKGROUND: In his speech, de Hoop Scheffer blamed Washington’s unilateralism and disdain for NATO after September 11. But in reality there is more than enough blame to go around. France, after all, was the government that vetoed any major commitment to either Afghanistan or Iraq. Nor do many other European governments feel obliged to live up to their pledges of support there. Although Iraq dominates current headlines, De Hoop Scheffer’s and President Hamid Karzai’s repeated warnings and continuing failure to obtain meaningful results from NATO are already having an effect, since Afghanistan’s elections are being postponed for six weeks to mid-October. Ostensibly, the reason is rivalry among the warlords, but in fact the main cause is the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan’s under-defended provinces, a direct outcome of NATO\'s failure so far to establish meaningful security beyond Kabul. Although NATO formally pledged to send 3,500 troops to Afghanistan at Istanbul, reality is rather different. Most of these troops are intended to stay only through the elections. NATO is sending one rapid reaction battalion of 700 men to be based in Afghanistan and an “over the horizon” force of two battalions and a brigade headquarters that can deploy rapidly from outside Afghanistan in an emergency. NATO will also replace coalition command of four provincial reconstruction teams in northern Afghanistan. However, NATO officials candidly admit that this is a token force which, and the postponement of the elections underscores the fact that NATO cannot find the troops needed to deal with Afghanistan requested by Karzai and De Hoop Scheffer. It is increasingly evident that NATO members, and European governments in particular, cannot or will not raise the necessary troops or funds to pacify or aid Afghanistan. Although the U.S. now seeks allied help and nobody disputes the legitimacy of its war in Afghanistan in reply to the September 11 attacks, it also is clear that France under President Jacques Chirac is intent on subverting the use of NATO forces in Afghanistan or Iraq. However, Chirac is not alone. Although Chirac has long contended that the leadership of the Atlantic alliance is now vacant and presumably seeks to install France as Europe\'s leader, and in doing so disparage the real threats of proliferation and terrorism, other states have neither reformed their armed forces sufficiently to defend themselves against terrorism or to project meaningful forces abroad to meet those threats. Worse, signs are mounting that Europeans do not feel themselves threatened by terrorism enough to act to prevent it in Afghanistan. It is not only a question of soldiers. The aid pledges made in 2001 and 2002 and at the Tokyo and other conferences have not been met and the resulting failure to follow through on these promises has hobbled efforts at reconstruction in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, NGO and humanitarian relief organization reports almost unanimously concur that the situation with regard to security remains precarious, the Taliban are still in business on both sides of the Pakistani-Afghan border.

IMPLICATIONS: Despite repeated pleas, little or nothing has been done to increase security in Afghanistan. Iraq has consumed Washington\'s attention, resources, and manpower and European governments are still unable to project power effectively. European governments, despite almost three years of warnings, remain unconvinced in practice about the reality of the terrorist threat, remain unwilling to reform their militaries sufficiently to produce usable and projectable military power, and are still divided over the wisdom of operating in the Islamic world. The poisonous Franco-American rivalry threatens to bring about not just lasting divisions on both sides of the Atlantic, but also permanent divisions within Europe since European governments will hardly accept French dictates, especially when the resources to back them up are lacking and the policy amounts to appeasement of terrorism. The upshot is that NATO remains divided over policy within and beyond Europe and threat assessments concerning proliferation and terrorism; insufficiently reformed; and unable to effectively project power into crisis areas. This situation can easily lead to the emergence of two failed states in the Muslim world with the ensuing capability to project terrorism if not capabilities for abetting proliferation beyond their borders. Unlike Iraq, the war in Afghanistan nominally enjoys a solid international consensus. But that consensus seems increasingly nominal. That and Iraq shows that the terrorists are in sight of a major objective, namely a permanent split among their enemies. European leaders increasingly appear to be unable to surmount their personal and political prejudices against George W. Bush and his polices to realize that they too are at risk from terrorism, if not proliferation. As a result all European and international security organizations find themselves increasingly unable to act effectively abroad or to enhance security in the Middle East. This paralysis endangers both Afghanistan and Iraq, and will endanger European security too. French policy, for all its sonorous rhetoric, is no more than appeasement and a desire to attain a position in Europe that it cannot sustain and which is at odds with most other European regimes’ interests. Whatever Washington’s past and present sins are, the effort to intensify and prolong dissension within the Atlantic alliance has negative and dangerous reverberations throughout the world. An alliance that will not rise to the test in Afghanistan will not be able to do so either in the Caucasus and Central Asia, two areas it has now proclaimed as having strategic significance. Neither will it be able to deal adequately with threats to security in Iraq or elsewhere in the Middle East.

CONSLUSIONS: NATO’s current paralysis can only inspire its enemies to believe that if they push hard enough through violent acts of terrorism, they can achieve its complete withdrawal from the arena and isolate Washington which cannot sustain its unilateral ambitions of the past. In other words, the division of the allies can soon become not just a strategic opportunity but a strategic advantage for the terrorists and radicals throughout the Islamic world. Once that happens, they will not hesitate to bring the threat home to European governments who have wrongly sheltered behind the belief that the terrorist threat does not include them in its list of enemies. Those European leaders and regimes who believe they can hide behind rhetoric while not acting, are playing a dangerous game. While terrorism’s repercussions will first be felt, if they are not already being felt, in Afghanistan and Iraq, ultimately they will certainly not avoid Europe either.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Professor Stephen Blank, US Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA 17013. The views expressed here do not in any way represent those of the U.S. Army, Defense Dept., or the U.S. Government.