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AMERICA yesterday warned the European Union against developing its own defence capability as a rival to Nato.
Strobe Talbott, deputy to the US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, and a close friend of President Clinton, said it was essential that any defence role should remain strictly within Nato, and must not be developed at the alliance's expense. Speaking at Chatham House, home of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, he maintained that the US supports the principle of the EU developing its own "security and defence identity" (ESDI) - which was approved last year by Tony Blair.
But he said: "US support would be guided by the answer to two questions - will it work and will it keep the alliance together, European and non-European, EU and non EU? We would not want to see an ESDI that comes into being first within Nato but then grows out of Nato and finally grows up away from it and could even compete with it."
Recent statements, including the Anglo-French protocol signed by the Prime Minister and President Chirac at St Malo in December 1998, had raised concerns that Europe's position might become one of seeking to "act outside the Alliance whenever possible, rather than through it".
America has tended to accept the idea of stronger Euro-defence structures, not least as an answer to the huge imbalance in American and European defence capabilities within Europe itself. In Kosovo, the vast majority of the aerial firepower deployed was American.
Mr Talbott said: "Many Americans are saying never again should the United States have to fly the lion's share of the risky missions in a Nato operation and foot by far the biggest bill. Pat Buchanan, a US presidential candidate, has said during his campaign that it is strange to find 250 million Americans stationing 100,000 men in a Europe with 350 million people.