Israel Matzav: Gates rips Europe's pacifist mood

Gates rips Europe's pacifist mood

In a speech to NATO officers at the National Defense University on Tuesday, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates ripped Europe for its mood of opposition to the military, which he called a danger to peace.

“The demilitarization of Europe — where large swaths of the general public and political class are averse to military force and the risks that go with it — has gone from a blessing in the 20th century to an impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace in the 21st,” he told NATO officers and officials in a speech at the National Defense University, the Defense Department-financed graduate school for military officers and diplomats.

A perception of European weakness, he warned, could provide a “temptation to miscalculation and aggression” by hostile powers.

The meeting was a prelude to the alliance’s review this year of its basic mission plan for the first time since 1999. “Right now,” Mr. Gates said, “the alliance faces very serious, long-term, systemic problems.”

Mr. Gates’s blunt comments came just three days after the coalition government of the Netherlands collapsed in a dispute over keeping Dutch troops in Afghanistan. It now appears almost certain that most of the 2,000 Dutch troops there will be withdrawn this year. And polls show that the Afghanistan war has grown increasingly unpopular in nearly every European country.

Unfortunately, Gates has two elephants in the room with him. One is a potential conflict in Iran, which was not even mentioned in the New York Times' coverage.

The other is that the President of the United States is even more opposed to military conflict than the Europeans are.

What could go wrong?

Israel Matzav: Gates rips Europe's pacifist mood