EU Tries Again on Foreign Policy

The Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Solana [EU foreign-policy chief] says he believes the EU will one day be as powerful a player in global foreign policy as it is today in trade, where its influence in cases like aircraft subsidies has proved to equal that of the U.S. "It's not so far away, if you take away military power in the sense of going to war," he says in an interview.

That is a big if, given that effective diplomacy so often depends on the background threat of force. An even bigger threat to the EU's global influence may be its tendency to fracture over big foreign-policy issues, creating paralysis. That happened when Yugoslavia disintegrated into war in the 1990s, and again over the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. With 25 nations instead of 15 to corral since the EU expanded in May last year, Mr. Solana's job has gotten harder. ...

The EU's dependence on diplomacy without threat of milirary force makes them impotent. This is why their efforts to disuade Iran from its nuclearambitions is unlikely to produce anything of substance.

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