Allies at War: America, Europe and the Crisis Over Iraq by Philip H. Gordon and Jeremy Shapiro (New York; McGraw-Hill; 2004)
Friendly Fire: The
Near-Death of the Transatlantic Alliance by Elizabeth Pond
(Washington; Brookings Institution Press; 2004)
I won’t rehash everything I wrote then in this post. (Although the original still sounds good to me.)
There were some intense arguments and discussions and notable differences among the NATO allies over the Iraq War. Gordon and Shapiro called it "the worst transatlantic crisis in nearly 50 years" i.e., the worst one ever up to that point. (NATO itself was founded in 1949.) I assume they meant by “nearly 50 years” refers to the Anglo-French-Israeli invasion of Epypt in 1957. In that crisis, the US blew the whistle on the whole operation and demanded they pull out, which they did. Since that time until Trump 2.0, the British were especially careful not to get into major difference with US foreign policy. A posture that British Prime Minister Tony Blair struck with particular obsequiousness during the Iraq War.
The Western powers regarded the end of the Warsaw Pact and the fall of the Soviet Union as a triumphal moment. And the Balkan Wars of the 1990s became the occasion for considerable active cooperation among the NATO partners even after the perceived threat of a Soviet invasion of western Europe, previously the main source of NATO cohesion, was completely eliminated.
It was symbolic that the only time that NATO's military mutual assistance clause has ever been evoked was after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the United States. Because it dramatized the overwhelming dominance of the US in the alliance. The NATO allies were fully prepared to assist the US in the Afghan War - but the Bush administration refused to make the action a NATO mission. The Cheney-Bush Administration shared a general distrust of coalition warfare. And they tended to take a negative view of the US experience with NATO allies in the Kosovo War of 1999.
Although Kosovo is widely recognized as an independent country, the US-NATO intervention did wind up establishing the new state of Kosovo which had been a part of Serbia’s sovereign territory. The war was aimed at stopping an ethnic cleansing in progress by Serbia against Kosovars. But the war also resulted in large numbers of ethnic Serbians being driven out of Kosovo, as well.
The policy of the Cheney-Bush Administration regarded NATO as a kind of farm team to provide troops for ad hoc coalitions for missions to be determined and controlled by the US. But that Administration’s disdain and even contempt for Europe as a defense partner. The Obama Administration had better relations with Europe. But it was also his administration that official declared the containment of China as being the highest strategic priority for the US.
The Trump 1.0 government approved substantial military aid to Ukraine, from which Russia had seized Crimea in 2014 at began waging a proxy war in two provinces in western Ukraine. The European allies tended to see that as a desirable policy. The Biden Administration had positive relations with the NATO allies, including the much larger scale of support for Ukraine’s defensive after the larger 2022 invasion by Russia.
But the Trump 2.0 Administration has shown open contempt for its European allies. The Republican sneering at France in particular over its dissent over the US policy in Iraq was mild by comparison. It’s clear now that the Europeans have to assume primary responsibility for European defense and have to hold major reservations about the US willingness now to honor its mutual-defense commitment to NATO members.
The 2000s by comparison were a mild spell of discontent on the part of the European allies.
Bush's 2002 State of the Union address in which he introduced the phrase "axis of evil" to describe Iraq, Iran and North Korea was an important milestone in the longer-term US-European relations. The speech signaled to the NATO countries that he meant to confront Iraq in an immediate sense, with or without their support, and despite the strong objections of France, Germany, and others.
Pond’s book recounts the evolution of postwar German attitudes toward war up until that point, which included providing assistance to Israel when it was attacked by Iraqi Scud missiles during the Gulf War of 1991. Eventually, the "red-green" coalition government headed by Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer successfully persuaded their parliament to support active German participation in the Kosovo intervention of 1999. She also takes notice of an event that was little appreciated and quickly forgotten by Bush partisans: “[A]fter 9/11 the chancellor [Schröder] even put his own office on the line in a touch-and-go vote of confidence in parliament to send German forces into combat, for the first time since World War II, alongside U.S. and British troops in eastern Afghanistan.” (pp. 52-53)
But when Schröder publicly opposed an immediate war on Iraq in his re-election campaign, the Bush Republicans reacted with a fury that reflected two factors: the intense anti-Europe bent of Republican foreign policy, and the Bush dynasty's extreme emphasis on personal loyalty.
Most German voters opposed the Iraq War and opposed their country participating in it. Germany emphasizes the observance of international law, especially when it comes to launching wars of aggression, and one would think any remotely sane American with even the most superficial sense of history would be glad of that fact. And German officials doubted the accuracy of the Bush administration's claims on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and the imminence of the danger Saddam presented to Western interests and as it turned out, they were right.
Another milestone event was the publication in the Wall Street Journal of the "Letter of Eight" of 01/30/03. The eight being Britain, Spain, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Denmark, Portugal, and the Czech Republic, and the letter being a general statement of support for the Bush administration's hard line against Iraq.
Gordon and Shapiro accept the official version that the Bush Administration was not involved in the preparation of this letter, "although U.S. officials were aware of it." Yet they tell a story of its origins that raises more than one question.
NATO's decision on defense of Türkiye early in February 2003 was another occasion for conflict. In substance, the question had to do with a fairly technical issue of NATO military planning in the event of Turkish participation in the Iraq War. Gordon and Shapiro relate diplomacy at some length. It was finally resolved by a compromise, and in any case the Turkish parliament soon voted against participation in the war.
Gordon and Shapiro relate a diplomatic crisis cooked up by the Bush team over Türkiye, which seemed to show a desire on the US side to denigrate and possibly deliberately damage the alliance. Secretary of State Colin Powell expressed his fear on this occasion that NATO was "breaking itself up because it will not meet its responsibilities."
Pond also observes of the US approach to this particular issue of NATO assistance to Turkey:
Future Prospects
Gordon and Shipiro had this important critical analysis:
NATO was fundamentally founded on a system of international order and law, one which excludes preventive wars, of which the Bush administration's war of choice in Iraq was one. Neither the NATO alliance, or any other long-term cooperative military arrangement with the European democracies, are going to work when there's an American administration committed to preventive war, as the Cheney-Bush government was and which “Peace President” Trump basically accepts. The European democracies are committed to a system of international law and order that rejects preventive war.
In a subsequent article, Lurching Back Together (Internationale Politik 1/2004 Spring issue), accessed 05/29/04), Pond noted hopefully and with amusement that some of the leading neoconservative Martians have at least adopted a more humble tone recently:
Notes:
(1) Dowd, Maureen (2004): Marquis de Bush? Spiegel International 27.05.2025. (Accessed: 2025-28-08).
There were some intense arguments and discussions and notable differences among the NATO allies over the Iraq War. Gordon and Shapiro called it "the worst transatlantic crisis in nearly 50 years" i.e., the worst one ever up to that point. (NATO itself was founded in 1949.) I assume they meant by “nearly 50 years” refers to the Anglo-French-Israeli invasion of Epypt in 1957. In that crisis, the US blew the whistle on the whole operation and demanded they pull out, which they did. Since that time until Trump 2.0, the British were especially careful not to get into major difference with US foreign policy. A posture that British Prime Minister Tony Blair struck with particular obsequiousness during the Iraq War.
The Western powers regarded the end of the Warsaw Pact and the fall of the Soviet Union as a triumphal moment. And the Balkan Wars of the 1990s became the occasion for considerable active cooperation among the NATO partners even after the perceived threat of a Soviet invasion of western Europe, previously the main source of NATO cohesion, was completely eliminated.
It was symbolic that the only time that NATO's military mutual assistance clause has ever been evoked was after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the United States. Because it dramatized the overwhelming dominance of the US in the alliance. The NATO allies were fully prepared to assist the US in the Afghan War - but the Bush administration refused to make the action a NATO mission. The Cheney-Bush Administration shared a general distrust of coalition warfare. And they tended to take a negative view of the US experience with NATO allies in the Kosovo War of 1999.
Although Kosovo is widely recognized as an independent country, the US-NATO intervention did wind up establishing the new state of Kosovo which had been a part of Serbia’s sovereign territory. The war was aimed at stopping an ethnic cleansing in progress by Serbia against Kosovars. But the war also resulted in large numbers of ethnic Serbians being driven out of Kosovo, as well.
The policy of the Cheney-Bush Administration regarded NATO as a kind of farm team to provide troops for ad hoc coalitions for missions to be determined and controlled by the US. But that Administration’s disdain and even contempt for Europe as a defense partner. The Obama Administration had better relations with Europe. But it was also his administration that official declared the containment of China as being the highest strategic priority for the US.
The Trump 1.0 government approved substantial military aid to Ukraine, from which Russia had seized Crimea in 2014 at began waging a proxy war in two provinces in western Ukraine. The European allies tended to see that as a desirable policy. The Biden Administration had positive relations with the NATO allies, including the much larger scale of support for Ukraine’s defensive after the larger 2022 invasion by Russia.
But the Trump 2.0 Administration has shown open contempt for its European allies. The Republican sneering at France in particular over its dissent over the US policy in Iraq was mild by comparison. It’s clear now that the Europeans have to assume primary responsibility for European defense and have to hold major reservations about the US willingness now to honor its mutual-defense commitment to NATO members.
The 2000s by comparison were a mild spell of discontent on the part of the European allies.
Bush's 2002 State of the Union address in which he introduced the phrase "axis of evil" to describe Iraq, Iran and North Korea was an important milestone in the longer-term US-European relations. The speech signaled to the NATO countries that he meant to confront Iraq in an immediate sense, with or without their support, and despite the strong objections of France, Germany, and others.
Pond’s book recounts the evolution of postwar German attitudes toward war up until that point, which included providing assistance to Israel when it was attacked by Iraqi Scud missiles during the Gulf War of 1991. Eventually, the "red-green" coalition government headed by Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer successfully persuaded their parliament to support active German participation in the Kosovo intervention of 1999. She also takes notice of an event that was little appreciated and quickly forgotten by Bush partisans: “[A]fter 9/11 the chancellor [Schröder] even put his own office on the line in a touch-and-go vote of confidence in parliament to send German forces into combat, for the first time since World War II, alongside U.S. and British troops in eastern Afghanistan.” (pp. 52-53)
But when Schröder publicly opposed an immediate war on Iraq in his re-election campaign, the Bush Republicans reacted with a fury that reflected two factors: the intense anti-Europe bent of Republican foreign policy, and the Bush dynasty's extreme emphasis on personal loyalty.
Most German voters opposed the Iraq War and opposed their country participating in it. Germany emphasizes the observance of international law, especially when it comes to launching wars of aggression, and one would think any remotely sane American with even the most superficial sense of history would be glad of that fact. And German officials doubted the accuracy of the Bush administration's claims on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and the imminence of the danger Saddam presented to Western interests and as it turned out, they were right.
Another milestone event was the publication in the Wall Street Journal of the "Letter of Eight" of 01/30/03. The eight being Britain, Spain, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Denmark, Portugal, and the Czech Republic, and the letter being a general statement of support for the Bush administration's hard line against Iraq.
Gordon and Shapiro accept the official version that the Bush Administration was not involved in the preparation of this letter, "although U.S. officials were aware of it." Yet they tell a story of its origins that raises more than one question.
In fact, the contents of the letter were not particularly controversial; officials from France and Germany later said that they had no objection to the language in the text. The timing and symbolism of the letter, however, were highly significant. The idea of such a letter originated with Michael Gonzalez, the deputy editorial page editor at the Wall Street Journal Europe, who did not believe that the Franco-German vision of Iraq or transatlantic relations was shared by other European leaders. Gonzalez thus contacted the office of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to propose that Berlusconi write an op-ed piece setting out his own, more Atlanticist, views. Berlusconi like the idea, but wanted to associate it with other like-minded leaders, so he contacted Spanish Prime Minister José Maria Aznar, who in turn got in touch with Portuguese Prime Minister José Manuel Durao Barroso and Britain's Tony Blair. (p. 129)This diplomatic event intensified the conflict and raised suspicions among the antiwar camp that the US was trying to divide Europe in order to dominate its policies. The Trump 2.0 regime is even more openly hostile to European democratic parties and governments.
NATO's decision on defense of Türkiye early in February 2003 was another occasion for conflict. In substance, the question had to do with a fairly technical issue of NATO military planning in the event of Turkish participation in the Iraq War. Gordon and Shapiro relate diplomacy at some length. It was finally resolved by a compromise, and in any case the Turkish parliament soon voted against participation in the war.
Gordon and Shapiro relate a diplomatic crisis cooked up by the Bush team over Türkiye, which seemed to show a desire on the US side to denigrate and possibly deliberately damage the alliance. Secretary of State Colin Powell expressed his fear on this occasion that NATO was "breaking itself up because it will not meet its responsibilities."
Pond also observes of the US approach to this particular issue of NATO assistance to Turkey:
Substantively, the specific NATO dispute may have been risible. But what was at stake was indeed the survival of the alliance. After fifty-four years of protecting Europe, introducing unprecedented confidence building in open shared military planning ,socializing generations of American and German and Turkish and Greek officers to mutual trust, and helping the new post-cold war democracies to tame their armies, NATO now faced potential obsolescence, given American indifference verging on contempt.Republican contempt and even hostility to the democracies of Europe and ignoring the important of European allies as a power multiplier for the US itself did not begin with Donald Trump. We saw in the 2000s the hostility of the Republican neocons to the US. Their outright contempt for the European allies was all too clearly on display during the Cheney-Bush era.
For the Americans [in the Bush administration] it was clear that Paris was the villain in gratuitously demolishing the transatlantic alliance. Some in Washington were so angry at the French - and at Tony Blair for getting them into the UN mess in the name of a spurious multilateralism - that they were ready to punish Europe by themselves helping to demolish NATO. For the French, the sparring may still have been a game, which they were winning on points. But to some Germans, Washington itself was the villain in sacrificing the alliance to its obsession with invading Iraq. Their real worry was that the aggrieved United States might now declare its independence from an encumbering Europe. In the end only the hegemon [the US] that created the post-World War II cooperative institutions, in the belief that they magnified U.S. influence, had sufficient power to snuff out those institutions, in the belief that Washington was now strong enough to manage the globalized world on its own. (p. 72)
Future Prospects
Gordon and Shipiro had this important critical analysis:
Both sides [the US vs. dissenting NATO countries] made some real miscalculations. Bush administration officials, hewing to a theory of leadership that weaker allies would have little choice but to follow America's lead if the direction of U.S. policy were clearly spelled out, never believed that opponents in Europe would dare challenge U.S. power. They were thus surprised and appalled when France, Germany and Russian - let alone Mexico, Chile, Cameroon, and others on the Security Council - did just that. The Americans, so convinced they were right about what to do in Iraq, vastly underestimated the resistance to war in Western Europe, in Turkey, and in the rest of the world. For their part, many Europeans - particularly the French - for too long did not believe that even the assertive, unilateralist Bush administration would, in the face of widespread public opposition, be able to go to war based mostly on alleged flaws in a highly technical Iraqi weapons declaration. They thus misread Bush as badly as some in Washington misread the French. (p. 158) [my emphasis]It's safe to say that most European leaders have a less optimistic view of American intentions and attitudes toward them in 2025!
NATO was fundamentally founded on a system of international order and law, one which excludes preventive wars, of which the Bush administration's war of choice in Iraq was one. Neither the NATO alliance, or any other long-term cooperative military arrangement with the European democracies, are going to work when there's an American administration committed to preventive war, as the Cheney-Bush government was and which “Peace President” Trump basically accepts. The European democracies are committed to a system of international law and order that rejects preventive war.
In a subsequent article, Lurching Back Together (Internationale Politik 1/2004 Spring issue), accessed 05/29/04), Pond noted hopefully and with amusement that some of the leading neoconservative Martians have at least adopted a more humble tone recently:
Neoconservative apostle Robert Kagan sounds almost Kantian [peace-oriented] as he not only revels in US power, but now worries as well about the perception of US legitimacy in the world. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Under Secretary of State John Bolton, and Defense Policy Board member Richard Perle, on their most recent visits to Old Europe, were notably restrained and are no longer demanding either an invasion of Iran or the resignation of Gerhard Schröder as German chancellor.Former Vice President Al Gore at the time was (appropriately) harsh on the subject of the Cheney-Bush foreign policy attitudes. Maureen Dowd mostly managed to keep her general contempt for Al Gore mostly under control when she reported:
Thundering at New York University about the man the Supreme Court chose over him, Al Gore said, "He has created more anger and righteous indignation against us as Americans than any leader of our country in the 228 years of our existence as a nation." …Dowd was noted for her distinct dislike of and disdain for Al Gore. But in this case, what she surely took to be a criticism - one of the most virulent attacks on a sitting president – actually makes Gore’s criticism even more laudable with two decades of hindsight.
The former vice president accused the commander in chief of being responsible for "an American gulag" in Abu Ghraib, as depraved as anything devised by the Marquis de Sade. It was hard to tell whether President Bush would be more offended by the sadomasochism or by the fact that the marquis was French.
Mr. Gore blasted the administration's "twisted values" and dominatrix attitude toward the world: "Dominance is as dominance does."
"George W. Bush promised us a foreign policy with humility," he said, in one of the most virulent attacks on a sitting president ever made by such a high-ranking former official. "Instead, he has brought us humiliation in the eyes of the world." (1)
Notes:
(1) Dowd, Maureen (2004): Marquis de Bush? Spiegel International 27.05.2025.
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