FW: EU Defense Agency

Harry Papasotiriou answers a question posed by Jon Kofas: "Having followed EU defense developments fairly diligently, I would say that they do not amount to much thus far. The EU is likely somewhat to augment its capability to conduct peace-keeping and very limited peace-enforcing operations without American participation. But NATO's new Response Force is much more formidable than the EU's Rapid Reaction Force, since it is designed for war-fighting tasks. NATO is likely to remain Europe's main defense organization for many years to come. The European nations are simply unwilling to commit resources for defense on a scale that might permit them to become substantially more autonomous from the United States in military matters".