Thomas Bray:
If there is a consistent thread to John Kerry’s constantly shifting Iraq policy, it’s that George W. Bush didn’t do enough to create a real coalition to do the fighting. If elected, Kerry pledges to rectify that oversight.
But that involves several large assumptions, beginning with the question of whether the foremost absentees from the Iraq conflict, France and Germany, would report for duty. Second, what could these two countries bring to the party even if they were so inclined?
The answer: Not a lot.
The harsh fact is that the European military establishment, never large to begin with, is a 90-pound weakling. The United States, despite years of cutbacks beginning in the wake of the Cold War, plunked down nearly $400 billion last year to support its military. That’s about 3.7 percent of gross domestic product, only about half the amount spent at the height of the Cold War. The European Union, by contrast, spends less than 2.0 percent of its GDP on the military.
France spent a grand total of about $40 billion in 2002, according to North Atlantic Treaty Organization figures. Germany spent about $37 billion. The United Kingdom, though Prime Minister Tony Blair has proved to be a stalwart friend, came up with about $37 billion. Canada is off the charts at a mere $10 billion, and shrinking fast.
In Bosnia, where the French and Germans did collaborate in the sort of coalition Kerry favors, the United States had to deliver an embarrassing 85 percent of the missile strikes because of the primitive condition of the European air forces.
Why is Europe so weak? The trend began well before the end of the Cold War. Increasingly, Europe opted for the free-rider approach, happy to let American taxpayers shoulder the major share of the burden. But Europe’s continuing power-slide strongly suggests there may be an even more fundamental reason for its weakness: the debilitating effect of the vast European welfare state.
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A broader European coalition to help out in Iraq? Don’t count on it. There isn’t much that France and Germany could contribute, beyond some marginal peacekeeping forces, even if they wanted to. And they are likely to remain unwilling to do so even if John Kerry is elected.
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