US Features
'The cowboy has been retired': multilateralism back in vogue
By Leon Mangasarian
Sep 10, 2006, 19:00 GMT

Berlin - The view from Europe is that when a top American neoconservative declares 'the cowboy has been retired,' it is prime evidence the United States may be turning away from its go-it-alone stance following the attacks of September 11, 2001.

In his latest Washington Post column, Charles Krauthammer wrote with apparently gritted teeth that even if diplomacy was again king it has always been seen as an option, even by hardcore unilateralists like himself.

Multilateralism was okay, if 'there is something the allies will actually help accomplish,' admitted the columnist, who became famous for coining the term 'Bush derangement syndrome' for opponents of US President George W Bush.

More cynically, he added, it could also be used as a fig leaf if there is nothing to be done about a problem.

Gary Smith, head of the American Academy think tank in Berlin, says the apparent conversion of Krauthammer speaks volumes.

'It is obvious the lesson from the Iraq disaster is that the US needs to consult with and act with our allies,' Smith said.

A German government official - speaking on condition of anonymity - agreed, saying, 'America has learned that going it alone leads to a dead end.'

Continuing turmoil in Iraq has, for instance, fuelled US support for Washington's more multilateral approach to dealing with Iran's nuclear programme, according to Smith.

But he cautioned American multilateralism also meant more pressure from Washington on European allies to contribute forces. If this was not forthcoming, the US as the world's only superpower could as a last resort revert to unilateralism on an issue as vital as Iran.

'Multilateralism is only as good as our allies are,' he said.

Lebanon is another example of the Bush administration's conversion to greater multilateralism, according to observers. Washington eventually backed European calls for an expanded United Nations peacekeeping force, even if no American troops are being sent for the mission.

Following the initial burst of multilateral support for the US after the 9/11 attacks - which lasted through the Afghan war but dropped after Bush's February 2002 'Axis of Evil' speech - both NATO and the UN were subsequently sidelined as the US and major European powers split on the Iraq war.

Five years on and with joint action back in vogue, however, NATO and the UN are struggling to meet rising demands for troops and equipment to be deployed in the global anti-terrorist response.

NATO has been remaking itself since the 1989 collapse of the Berlin Wall ended its Cold War mission of Western European territorial defence against the now defunct Eastern Bloc.

The alliance took its biggest step in 2003 when it took command of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. It was NATO's first-ever mission outside of the Euro-Atlantic area.

US forces and Afghan rebel groups may have chased the Taliban from power in 2001, but NATO-ISAF has steadily expanded its role in Afghanistan and now covers 75 per cent of the country.

A NATO spokesman said 20,000 alliance troops were now operating in Afghanistan and more on the way. With some US forces to be shifted to NATO command, the total number of soldiers is expected to rise to well over 25,000.

However, with southern Afghanistan experiencing its worst fighting since 2001 - and over 1,600 people dead in the past four months - the success or failure of NATO's Afghan operation could make or break the 26-member alliance.

Beyond Afghanistan, NATO forces are serving in missions around the world, including Operation Active Endeavour in which alliance ships are patrolling the Mediterranean to protect against terrorist activity.

Some 17,000 NATO troops are in Kosovo, where they have facilitated the UN to administer the territory since 1999. Although NATO has formally handed over responsibility for Bosnia-Herzegovina to the European Union, the Alliance continues to operate in the country.

AWACS radar aircraft are routinely deployed by NATO to help protect major events including this summer's football World Cup in Germany.

Meanwhile, the number of UN troops serving as 'blue helmet' peacekeepers around the world is poised to reach a record high given plans for 15,000 UN soldiers for Lebanon and up to 24,000 troops for Sudan's war-torn Darfur region.

There are already almost 73,000 UN troops and police serving on peacekeeping missions worldwide, according to the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations.

But getting soldiers for new missions is often proving difficult, as seen in recent efforts to win firm pledges for the Lebanese force.

According to Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja, whose country holds the European Union presidency, part of the problem is that countries which traditionally supply peacekeepers have reached their limits of manpower and resources.

'We're scraping the bottom of the barrel,' Tuomioja said in an interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa, adding that this was especially the case for the Nordic nations.

Tuomioja said the trend was to give peacekeepers increasingly robust mandates, following UN debacles such as the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and the massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica in 1995 - both of which took place as blue helmet forces stood by.

Despite the complexities of multilateral approaches, however, the American Academy's Smith predicts the lesson of Iraq will make diplomacy and joint actions the norm for future US foreign policy.

'The problems in the world are too great to believe that one can deal with them alone,' he said.