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bne October 2018
Opinion 65
for Europe to play a more assertive role in the military alliance that has traditionally been a US proxy as well as for the creation of a dedicated EU military force.
“It is in our own interest to strengthen the European part of the North Atlantic Alliance. Not because Donald Trump is always setting new percentage targets, but because we can no longer rely on Washington to the same extent,” Maas wrote.
An EU army a half step away from largely relying on the
US military for European security and setting up a truly multinational force under the direct control of the UN. Articles 42 and 43 of the UN Charter authorize the Security Council
to use armed forces to maintain international peace and security, but in the past it has been organized along national lines, with members contributing forces from with their own armies to a “blue helmet” force and with the US often taking the lead. However, Article 43 of the UN charter provides for
a permanent independent UN Army that the UN itself could put into the field. This provision has never been used and
no plans to create UN army have ever been drawn up. What Maas is talking about is for the creation of a half measure, a pan-European force with a single command that would work in tandem with the US force in any UN mandated operation, instead of the command-by-committee that is the case now with all European countries being individually represented. Obviously if the EU had a permanent standing army of its own, the role of Nato would be diminished and the UN
would take on a larger role in international peacekeeping.
New world order
Maas’s solution to all these problems is for Germany to tie up with France and then use the combined weight of a united Europe to match the US’s increasingly self- interested foreign policies.
“Let’s use the idea of a balanced partnership as a blueprint, where we assume our equal share of responsibility. In which we form a counterweight when the US crosses the line.
“If we go it alone, we will fail in this task. The outstanding aim of our foreign policy is to build a sovereign, strong Europe. Only by joining forces with France and other European nations can a balance with the US be achieved,” Maas said in his article.
This is an openly confrontational statement and one that won’t go down well in the White House. Moreover Maas explicitly says it is time for the Franco-German alliance to take over the job of global policeman – a role that has until now been played by Washington.
“The European Union must become a cornerstone of the international order, a partner for all those who are committed to it. She is predestined for this, because compromise and balance lie in her DNA,” said Maas.
What does this mean for Russia? On balance Putin will probably be happy to see US power dialled back.
The US mourns the death of Senator John McCain, but the lasting image of the veteran US politician for the Kremlin is his speech on the stage in the midst of the Euromaidan protests in 2014 saying “America is with you.”
America is outraged by Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election, but the Kremlin feels much the same about the US. Putin watched from the sidelines when US political advisors got Boris Yeltsin re-elected in 1996, lifting his ratings from 8% to 54% by using the whole box of dirty electoral tricks and then boasted about it in a Time magazine cover story “Yanks to the Rescue – the secret story of how American advisers helped Yeltsin win.”
Putin went on to equate the US funding of pro-democracy NGOs as attempts to build a pro-US democratic force that would act as a fifth column inside Russia. He finally intro- duced a law forcing NGOs that took foreign grants to be ladled “foreign agents” in July 2012, which was about the same time as he started the modernisation of the army, which marks the point of no return in the decaying relations between Moscow and the west.
The annexation of the Crimea followed two years later, immediately followed by a big push to set up a Russian payment system and so break Washington’s potential chokehold over executing financial transactions using cards
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