Word: europeanizer
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...most European nations, defense spending has been falling for years. Starting in 1985, through the decade after the cold war ended, it was reduced 40% in the U.K., 15% in Germany and 7% in France. Only seven out of NATO's 26 members meet the alliance benchmark of spending 2% of their GDP on defense - compared to 3.8% in the U.S. - and in most cases, those percentages are falling. The result is sharply diminished capacity, even in those nations that are ready to field troops to fight...
...Fight, to Build, or Both? Despite the americophile tendencies of Sarkozy, many French - like other Europeans - see NATO and the Afghanistan operation as an endorsement of a U.S. agenda. More than that, they see NATO's role in Afghanistan as a manifestation of a particularly American way of solving problems, one that puts too much emphasis on combat at the expense of nation-building. The European dream is that its armed forces can specialize in development without having to pick up a gun. "The question is not which of the NATO countries is the toughest, but which strategy is most...
...keep. As to which, consider this: the Taliban recently ordered four cell-phone companies in the country to shut down at night to prevent the U.S. military from tracking cell-phone-carrying insurgents, although the military says it doesn't actually do so. Zinni puts the situation in context. "European countries saying that, 'We contribute to NATO because we're involved in reconstruction,'" he says dismissively, "is like saying, 'I'm in charge of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic...
...policy in Afghanistan, believes nonetheless that Germany's lack of military capacity "restrains German foreign policy." The Bundestag has failed to debate the situation in the war-torn Sudanese region of Darfur, he says, because it is nervous about feeling obliged to dispatch German troops to help out. Most Europeans acknowledge that if the current government in Kabul of Hamid Karzai is allowed to fail and the country returns to Taliban rule, the resulting instability could create new safe havens from which the Taliban and al-Qaeda could threaten Europe as well as the U.S. Yet it seems...
Things could change, of course. There will be a new Administration in Washington next year, conceivably one whose temper and tone will be such that European public opinion will swing behind the need to fund its military establishments properly (though don't count on the latter ever happening). Meanwhile, it is clear that NATO is facing a test in Afghanistan that is unlike anything it has encountered, and one that it may not survive. U.S. frustration with some of its European partners could compel Washington to establish other coalitions of the willing instead, says military analyst Michael O'Hanlon...