France's New Choices in Security Policy

FRANCES NEW CHOICES IN SECURITY POLICY By Yves Boyer SecurityissuesinEuropeareinaphaseoftotalredefinition,whiletheoutlines ofthe current international landscape are in general blurred.1 Countries from Sweden to Greece and from the United Kingdom to Russia find that the traditional parameters that defined their relationships with the international environment have been totally modified. The collapse ofthe Soviet empire, the implication ofnew European constructions fortransatlantic relations, and the many questions about the political evolution of Eastern Europe and the southern fringes of the Eurasian landmass all have major significance for security arrangements. European security architecture as it stood during the ColdWaris thus in aphaseofradical transformation. Its formerstability may be lost. The changes have already had destabilizing effects on the system of alliances that existed between the early 1950s and 1989. The Warsaw Pact Treaty Organization disappeared with the loss ofSoviet control over Eastern and Central Europe. The Atlantic Alliance risks losing its own preeminent position, astheNorthAtlanticTreatyOrganization(NATO) mustnowtakeits place alongside otherinstitutional frameworks such as the Western European Union (WEU) or the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). DuringtheColdWar,theEuropeansecurityscenecouldbedescribed assixteenNATOmembersagainstthesevenmembersoftheWarsawPact. In 1992theNATO-16areactingonaradicallyalteredEuropeanmapwiththirtysix othernations, all members ofthe CSCE, many ofthem aspiring tobecome ' This text is adapted from a presentation made during a symposium held in Tokyo, in December 1992, between the International Institute for Global Peace (Tokyo) and the Royal Institute of International Affairs (London). 89 90 SAISREVIEW members of the European Community (EC) and NATO. Consequently, a political competition has developed among the various institutional frameworks which are now entitled to play arole on European security issues. The reshaping ofthose institutions will reflect new political influences and a new balance ofpower between the European Community and the United States. The safest strategy for building a new, stable security architecture in Europe willbeonethatcombinestakingadvantageofthecollapseoftheformerSoviet bloc with pursuing such traditional goals as building the European Union. How new and old goals affect each other will shape Europe's security arrangements in the next decade, and set the framework for France's choices in security and defense. Present Changes and Uncertainties Changes which are rapidly modifying perceptions and attitudes may be placed in three broad categories. Weakeningofthe WesternAlliance. ThedisintegrationoftheSovietbloc and the implosionofthe formerUSSRhave naturally diminished the Western Alliance. The end ofany military threat from the East has taken away much ofthe glue that held together the West as a grouping of countries sharing the same democratic values, facing acommon threat, grouped within adefensive alliance under U.S. leadership. The West's former enemies have become its partners. Notasingle weekgoes by at NATO headquarters without a visiting delegationfromaformerWarsawPactcountry. Theleadersofthosecountries have all beeninvitedtoaddresstheNorthAtlanticCouncil. In December 1991 , at the first meeting of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC), President Yeltsin himselfsuggested that his country mightjoin NATO in the not-so-distant future. NATO's "Drang nach Osten" is fervently awaited by otherCentral and Eastern Europeancountries. AfterthejointRussian-Polish communique of August 1993 stating Russian understanding of the Polish desiretomoveclosertoNATO,earlyPolishmembershipinNATOwasbeing seriously considered.2 While such developments can be read as a sign of NATO's strength in theEast, they also clearly undermine the rationale forits solidarity in the West. However, the backward movement made by the 2 See: "Elargissement de G????/Pologne: Mme. Suchocka estime que le sommet atlantique devrait apporter une 'réponse claire,'" NouvellesAtlantiques, no. 2550, September 3, 1993. FRANCE'S NEW CHOICES IN SECURITY POLICY 9 1 Russian leadership late in October 1993 on the issue ofNATO enlargement cast doubts on the rapid extension ofNATO toward the East. The strengthening ofthe NACC and the development ofjoint exercises with Eastern and Central Europe for peacekeeping operations will probably represent, for the time-being, theonlypoliticallyacceptablemovebytheWest,leavingafeeling ofdisillusion in Eastern and Central Europe. TheerosionofWesternsolidarityhasalreadyhadanimpactoneconomic relations among its members. Discord is exacerbated by the enduring world economic crisis, with difficult and acrimonious trade issues becoming more prominent. Former U.S. President George Bush, in a speech made in early 1992inKansasCity,accusedtheECcountriesofbuildinganew"IronCurtain" ofprotectionism. Atthe endof 1992, the United States threatenedthe EC with a commercial war ifthe Community refused to bow to American requests on farm products. These difficult and painful discussions on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) issues between the EC and the United States illustrate the divisive effects of losing their common enemy. Among the EC members...