INTRODUCTION As the Americans call a special sitting of the NATO council to discuss the US Government’s grave concerns about the proposal by the Franco German axis to establish an embryo Euro-Army with a separate planning and management structure to NATO, another point of serious conflict arises. The proof that nations can support a common alliance, never mind a common government or defence policy, is the extent to which they can trust each other to supply vital military materials in time of conflict. We know from the first Gulf War that Belgium refused to supply the United Kingdom with ammunition. We recall that even as the Germans marched into Belgium in 1940 the Belgian Government objected to British troops entering Brussels to defend them! We know that the German and Belgian Governments were supplying Croatia with weapons as the UK and US Governments were trying to stop the break up of Yugoslavia. We know that the German secret Services provisioned the Kosovo terrorist organisation the KLA which provoked the Serbs into defending Kosovo which led to the 1999 war.
Today there is a major attempt by France and Germany to consolidate their aircraft and shipbuilding industries as the basis of their single “European” (i.e. Franco-German) defence policy. In other words their own activities define their defence and foreign policy as being incompatible with that of NATO and of course the Anglo American alliance. The extent of their divergence is clear from the trust they put in their own defence industries. This brief report from german-foreign-policy.com demonstrates this conflict in one particular area – shipbuilding.
Berlin’s “New order” for European shipbuilding has met problems in the shape of existing joint ventures in the industry with US business. The Government planned to bring together German shipbuilders with the largest German military shipbuilders HDW at its head and combine them with two French defence contractors. The European Aerospace and Space group EADS was to serve as a model. The German HDW is a precondition for such a plan because it is a leader in the building of both conventional and fuel cell driven submarines. (1)
But the majority shareholder in the Kiel based shipbuilder is the US investor One Equity Partners who originally wanted to sell on its shares. Berlin planned to guarantee Franco-German co-operation in European shipbuilding by imposing a boycott of the sale of defence companies to “area foreign” companies (ie Americans!). But now the US corporation wants to keep its majority control of HDW. The Americans are however prepared to co-operate in a European shipyard solution but are not prepared to lose control. Therefore One Equity Partners would continue to play a key role in the “New order of European Shipbuilding” and thus hinder the plans for a European military structure which could challenge the USA.
