Stardate 20020205.1823

(On Screen via long range sensors): I am getting thoroughly weary of hearing European diplomats use the word "coalition".

“For any coalition to last, it has to be real,” French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine publicly chided Secretary of State Colin Powell.

For a coalition to exist, all the partners in it have to contribute and to risk and suffer equally. And for it to last, it has to benefit all its members. What is France contributing to this mythical coalition to make it worth America's while? One carrier that didn't show up until after the conflict was largely over? One frigate? A lot of unwanted advice on what to do? Yeah; it's the advice.

Advice is cheap. And some advice has a value less than zero.

However, Vedrine doesn't rate as high on the unmitigated-gallometer as one Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden.

“Will Americans fight a war through NATO ever again?” asks Bildt. “It’s doubtful.” Instead, the Swede bitterly imagines a different division of power: “The U.S. reserves the right to itself to wage war, and dumps on others the messy, expensive business of nation-building and peacekeeping.”

What's wrong with this picture? Try this: Sweden is not a member of NATO. What business is it of Bildt's to complain about how members of NATO act?

And this claim that "The Americans get to have all the fun and leave us with the hard part" is ludicrous. Fighting a war is messy and expensive. Unless it's being fought with American wizard-weapons, war is where you get use the body-bags. (And it may well be that we're going to use a lot of body bags before this is over even with wizard-weapons.)

Peacekeeping is easy by comparison – and in any case, we never asked them to do that. (The US opposed the use of peacekeepers in Afghanistan.)

But he's got one thing right: NATO is almost certainly dead, in practice if not on paper. Article V was invoked by NATO, but it was never intended to be a way for the alliance to force a member to not go to war. It was supposed to mean that the other members of the alliance would support the war if one member was attacked and decided to retaliate with force.

The best answer to all of this was what Rumsfeld said about a week ago:

Wars must be fought by "coalitions of the willing" – they should not be fought by committee. The United States has taken the lead in the war in Afghanistan, not allowing coalition partners to determine the mission.

If the Europeans don't like that, then they won't count as "willing" and won't be included in our coalitions.