http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/23/world/europe/military-brexit-nato.html 2016-09-22 17:43:16 After ‘Brexit,’ E.U. Revives Idea of Its Own Joint Military Command The notion of a European military headquarters outside of NATO is back, and the United States now seems quietly supportive of the idea. === LONDON — In late April 2003, just after the rapid fall of Baghdad, four of the founding countries of what is now the France and Germany, which had fiercely opposed the war against Saddam Hussein, led by the United States and Britain, joined with Belgium and Luxembourg in what the American State Department sniffily dismissed as “the chocolate summit.” The Americans were outraged that the French-German “couple,” having noisily opted out of the war in Iraq, had then dared to propose a European defense command separate from In the end, because of American and British opposition, the project went nowhere, like so many other grand European ideas. But now — after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have both turned long, bloody and hollow, and after For a European Union shaken by the British exit, cooperation on security, a major concern of voters on the Continent, was an obvious focus of last week’s Without Britain there to veto, France and Germany won approval for a joint European military headquarters. “It was a way in Bratislava to signal that we could move ahead post-Brexit, that the E.U. is alive and kicking,” said Camille Grand, director of the Paris-based The proposed joint military headquarters, Mr. Grand said, was “a small step, but it would give the E.U. some institutional visibility and the ability to command a small-scale operation on its own.” This time, the United States seems quietly supportive. The atmosphere in 2003 was fraught and conflictual, with allies deeply divided. “Those were very different times and a very different American administration,” said Stefano Stefanini, a former Italian ambassador to NATO. Now the Americans just seem desperate to get European allies to meet the Atlantic alliance’s military spending target of 2 percent of gross domestic product. President Obama has pushed Europe hard to The headquarters does not imply a European army and represents little competition to the Atlantic alliance, which retains large planning, intelligence and operational facilities. Britain and France, reluctantly, understood that they needed those capabilities when they led even the short But in circumstances where there is no obvious “lead nation,” the headquarters would provide the European Union a military planning and operational capacity it lacks, even for small missions, like The headquarters would allow faster deployment, Mr. Korteweg added, “so you could slow the escalation of a nearby conflict and thus slow the momentum for migration.” Britain, which has one of the most powerful militaries in Europe, rivaled only by that of France, vows after withdrawal from the European Union to play its full role in NATO, to which most European Union nations also belong. But the loss of Britain from the bloc can only mean a And a new headquarters, of course, “won’t solve the E.U.’s big problems,” Mr. Korteweg said, citing the usual dire list of weak economic growth, eurozone debt, uncontrolled migration and Russia. “But,” he added, “looking at what the E.U. wants to achieve post-Brexit, this is a first step, and there will be others.”