The US administration (and previous US administrations, including that of Ronald Reagan) has expressed its support in recent weeks for the institution of the European Union, the multinational body which acts increasingly as a federal state superimposed upon the nation-states of Europe. Interestingly, some of the most enthusiastic comments come today from Colin Powell in a post-resignation interview with the UK’s Telegraph newspaper.

From a US perspective, this makes solid strategic sense – endorsing the EU as a valid body for representing the interests of European powers has several advantages:

• it allows Europe to pull something like its own weight in defence matters – each individual European country’s defence spending and capabilities are dwarfed by that of the US, and joining 25 countries’ capabilities together allows these countries to present something like an equivalent to the US’s immense military power. Since the US has been trying for the last thirty years to get European nations to pull their own weight militarily, this at least seems like a step in the right direction
  
• it also allows European nations to speak with one voice – something which would be beneficial if it allowed the US to speak to “Europe” as a single coherent entity rather than as 25 separate nations, each with their own views and needs. The creation of the post of EU Foreign Minister under the proposed new EU Constitution would be a large step in this direction
  
• it allows Europe to solve the problems in its own backyard directly without reference to Nato, the UN or other supranational bodies, thus excluding the US from situations which would best be handled locally.

For all of these reasons, US administrations have endorsed the creation and strengthening of the EU and the extending of its powers into the military sphere in particular over the last thirty to forty years. However, in a greater sense, this endorsement of the EU is not in the US’s best interests.

An obvious example is the recent war in Iraq, where a number of European nations endorsed and supported the stance of the US, while the two most powerful EU nations – France and Germany – and others did not. Under the proposed changes to the EU, the 25 countries would either have to speak with one voice, in which case they would not have supported the war in Iraq, or the creation of the post of EU Foreign Minister will be simply a hollow gesture, in which case it does not actually benefit the US at all. In Colin Powell’s interview in the Telegraph, he says, “I’ve always viewed [Javier] Solana as something like the EU foreign minister, anyway.” In which case, why bother to create the position formally?

Another problem with this approach, especially with Republican administrations, is that their ideological counterparts in the UK especially but also in the rest of Europe are actually the least enthusiastic about expansion of the EU’s powers. Thus, when Reagan endorsed the EU during the 80s, he actually was going against the grain as far as his closest ally in Europe, Margaret Thatcher, was concerned, since she was vehemently against any expansion of the EU’s powers.

This is more readily seen when one imagines US Republicans’ response to proposals to give the UN much broader powers, to regulate all industries at a supranational level, give it its own military force to be used as the broad membership wished, to over-ride the decisions of individual nation states within it, etc. If the UN tried to take on these powers there would be outrage in the US, and yet this is exactly the role the EU plays in Europe.

So, it would be far better if the US were to take a more moderate stance on the EU, not endorsing its expansion nor advocating its dismantling, while bolstering support for Nato, an institution which truly serves the needs of both the US and European nations militarily, without the headaches that a strengthened EU creates.