Month: November 2002

In a speech this week in Prague, it is thought Bush will mention the growing integration of Europe, and point to its stability and the peace that has been present in Europe (excepting the Balkans) since the end of the Second World War.

What I note about the new members of NATO joining soon, is that they are all also joining the EU, most of them in 2004, and the rest in 2007. For some time now I have felt that the EU will not be a threat to NATO, as some have been saying, but NATO will form a major part of the European Common Foreign and Security Policy. The Rapid Reaction Force will simply be a NATO/EU army under a different name.

Needless to say I disagree with the remarks in the London Independent on the same subject. It stands to reason that Britain will not have to choose between EU Defence and NATO, but that increasingly the EU will be NATO. As a result of US unilateralism, NATO will likely become a European project rather than one dominated by the US.

This article is a few days old but I thought it worth mentioning. Paul Kennedy writes an interesting piece on Bush, and the coming war in Iraq. I have read about Bush’s liking for Churchill before, and his wish to liken himself to the inimitable Winston. I myself have an admiration for Churchill even if he was a bit of a war monger!

Richard Norton-Taylor, the Guardians security affairs editor, proposes that America will always call the shots, and will be judge jury and executioner – with the EU and the rest of NATO there to clean up the mess.

I do not agree that the EU cannot catch up with the US militarily or strategically. With the expansion of the EU, and the ambition of its leaders, the EU will continue to thrive, and so become a rival to US power. A very scary situation indeed.