BERLIN--Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates rebuked some of America’s staunchest allies Friday, saying the United States has a “dwindling appetite” to serve as the heavyweight partner in the military order that has underpinned the U.S. relationship with Europe since the end of World War II.

In an unusually stinging speech, made on his valedictory visit to Europe before he retires at the end of the month, Gates condemned European defense cuts and said the United States is tired of engaging in combat missions for those who “don’t want to share the risks and the costs.”

“The blunt reality is that there will be dwindling appetite and patience in the U.S. Congress, and in the American body politic writ large, to expend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources ... to be serious and capable partners in their own defense,” he said in an address to a think tank in Brussels.

The speech comes as the United States prepares to begin withdrawing some of its forces from Afghanistan this summer and as it and other NATO powers engage in an air campaign against the forces of Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi. In both cases, Gates said, budget cuts and sheer reluctance among European partners to fight have made the missions significantly more difficult and shifted the burden onto the United States.

Official European reaction appeared muted Friday. In Germany, where many officials privately acknowledge that defense spending has been trimmed with the assumption that the United States would intervene in an emergency, a Defense Ministry spokesman said Gates’s speech was still being analyzed. A spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was feted Tuesday at a state dinner at the White House, also declined to comment. The French Defense Ministry had no immediate reaction, either.

But NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen shares Gates’s concerns about European willingness to contribute to its own defense, an alliance spokeswoman said. “There is clearly a long-standing concern about the transatlantic gap in defense spending,” Oana Lungescu told reporters in Brussels.

Gates’s criticism drew mixed reactions from European think tanks. Daniel Korski, a senior policy fellow at European Council on Foreign Relations said the speech displayed ignorance about widespread budget cuts across Europe. But Jonathan Eyal, director of international security studies at the Royal United Services Institute in London, said the departing U.S. defense chief delivered a message that Europeans need to hear.

In Libya, Gates said, “the mightiest military alliance in history is only 11 weeks into an operation against a poorly armed regime in a sparsely populated country, yet many allies are beginning to run short of munitions, requiring the U.S., once more, to make up the difference.”

Gates and other U.S. officials have criticized Europe in the past, saying it is failing to hold up its end of the bargain. But his harsh language Friday in the speech to the Security and Defense Agenda think tank, delivered after a NATO defense ministers’ summit in which NATO and American top brass tried but largely failed to secure additional resources for the Libyan campaign, was a sign of just how tenuous the military relationships have become.

“Future U.S. political leaders, those for whom the Cold War was not the formative experience that it was for me, may not consider the return on America’s investment in NATO worth the cost,” he said.

Gates said he has “worried openly” in the past “about NATO turning into a two-tiered alliance between members who specialize in ‘soft’ humanitarian, development, peacekeeping and talking tasks and those conducting the ‘hard’ combat missions — between those willing and able to pay the price and bear the burdens of alliance commitments, and those who enjoy the benefits of NATO membership ... but don’t want to share the risks and the costs.”

Gates expressed alarm about “the real possibility for a dim, if not dismal, future for the transatlantic alliance.” He added: “Such a future is possible, but not inevitable. The good news is that the members of NATO, individually and collectively, have it well within their means to halt and reverse these trends and instead produce a very different future.”

Gates is stepping down as defense secretary on June 30 after more than four years in office. Obama has nominated CIA Director Leon E. Panetta to succeed him. Panetta’s Senate confirmation process started Thursday with testimony before the Armed Services Committee.

The global financial crisis has stretched the budgets of countries around the world, and even the U.S. defense budget, long immune to cuts, has seen its projections trimmed. But many countries in Europe have been quicker to reduce their forces. Last fall, Britain and France agreed to share an aircraft carrier. This spring, Germany eliminated its draft and slimmed the size of its ground forces. Smaller countries have made big cuts to forces that were never particularly large. (Source: Washington Post)

Story Date: June 11, 2011