Look Who's Leading NATO

France is flexing its muscles in Libya, a sign of Sarkozy's international ambitions.

Whatever one’s opinion of the war in Libya, one thing is beyond debate: French President Nicolas Sarkozy is leading it. Every step of the way – from the decision to go into Libya in hopes of preventing a Bosnia-style bloodbath in Benghazi, to the escalating airstrikes on Tripoli, to the recent decision to deploy attack helicopters to strike Moammar Gadhafi’s entrenched forces – Sarkozy has been out in front. His American counterpart, on the other hand, has been “leading from behind,” in the oxymoronic phrase of an unnamed White House adviser.

This role reversal at the top of the western alliance is not particularly sitting well on either side of the Atlantic. When U.S. forces are involved, Americans want to be in the lead. (Perhaps that explains why an ABC News/Washington Post poll reveals that Americans disapprove of President Barack Obama’s handling of the Libya crisis 49 to 42 per cent.) And when NATO is involved, Europeans want Washington to lead, albeit grudgingly sometimes.

The examples abound. As the Cold War thawed and the West contemplated a response to Moscow’s new openness, Manfred Woerner, the late NATO secretary general, reminded then-president George H.W. Bush that “the United States should not expect others to deliver much. They are waiting for the Americans.” With Washington averting its gaze from the Balkan wars of the 1990s, Jacques Chirac, Sarkozy’s predecessor, mixed contempt with delight by concluding, “The position of leader of the free world is vacant” – a backhanded admission that the U.S. did indeed play a special leadership role in Europe and in the world.

When asked about Washington’s refusal to join France in deploying attack helicopters in Libya, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe’s response was loaded with disappointment. “We regret that … We would be more efficient if they joined us.”

Likewise, when his British counterpart, William Hague, urged nations participating in the Libya intervention to “expand our efforts in NATO,” he was directing his message at Washington. “The United Kingdom in the last weeks supplied additional aircraft capable of striking ground targets that threaten the civilian population,” he said. “Of course, it would be welcome if other countries did the same.”

Only one country in NATO can supply the quality and quantity of assets – attack choppers, gunships that can loiter and hit dug-in forces, precision-strike aircraft – needed to bring the Libya mission to a rapid conclusion. That country is the United States.

Even so, Obama’s insistence on waging what the White House calls a “time-limited, scope-limited action” hasn’t deterred the French and British from pursuing their objectives in Libya. To be sure, that may be part of Obama’s calculus: “Leading from behind” may be intended to force more balanced burden-sharing within NATO.

Of course, U.S. reticence could also lead France and others to conclude that NATO and the U.S. need not be bothered with international problems like Libya, and that the European Union is better suited for the job. Whether that development would be helpful, counterproductive, or neither is a subject for another essay.