WASHINGTON, May 13 (UPI) -- There is no question that the Bush administration made many egregious mistakes in its conduct of the Iraq war during the period from April 2003 to the end of 2006 when controversial and much-criticized Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was succeeded by the far more widely respected incumbent Robert Gates, who was retained in that position by new President Barack Obama.
However, any dispassionate analysis of the wrong and ill-advised use of military power by the United States in Iraq or elsewhere is not a valid argument to proclaim that military power is a relic of a brutal past to be discarded by enlightened people. The history of the Russian invasion of the former Soviet republic of Georgia in the Caucasus and its aftermath over the past eight months illustrates this point.
The 27-nation European Union reacted in general in a rather meek way to the five-day Russian army blitzkrieg that conquered one-third of the mountainous and forested territory of Georgia in August. The Russian government led by President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the former president, acted in a ruthlessly effective and decisive manner while the European Union and its constituent nations watched helplessly.
EU spokesman Martin Selmayr commented at the time, "We can't send storm troopers, but we have a trade and economic policy we can discuss (with Russia). We are an economic force."
Selmayr's statement, especially its last sentence, should be remembered and analyzed carefully. It is partially true in its first half. The European Union certainly does not currently have any effective means of military power projection outside the territories of its constituent member states, as Selmayr implied with his comment that the Brussels-based EU lacked "storm troopers."
His comment was also revealing in its equation of any effective rapid military projection capability by the peace-loving democracies of 21st century Europe with the storm trooper elite forces of Nazi Germany, the most infamous and justly reviled political regime of modern history.
The second half of Selmayr's statement regarded the option of the EU successfully bargaining with Moscow by pressing the Russians on economic issues.
The EU spokesman did not say, "Under the circumstances, we think it would be a bad idea to send in our storm troopers. Still, in any event, our military is prudently standing by." He said, "We can't send storm troopers." He did not say, "We would rather not send them." He said, "We can't send them."
This was a revealing admission of the European Union's powerlessness after more than half a century of highly successful, ever-increasing economic and political development and integration to create any military structures capable of protecting and preserving the economic or national-security interests of the EU and its allies anywhere else around the world.
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Part 4: Why the European Union is still militarily powerless and likely to remain so
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(Paolo Liebl von Schirach is the editor of SchirachReport.com, a regular contributor to Swiss radio and an international economic-development expert.)
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(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)
