Even as it pledged 12,500 ground troops, 18 warships and 72 combat aircraft, the British government yesterday insisted Europe's new Rapid Reaction Force would not become "a standing European army". Downing Street dismissed suggestions that Brussels would have power to deploy British troops as "complete garbage" and insisted NATO remained the "cornerstone" of Britain's defence.
The Defence Secretary, Mr Geoff Hoon, likewise maintained deployment would remain a matter for "a British prime minister accountable to the British parliament". However, as political and military criticism mounted, the Conservative leader, Mr William Hague, repeated: "If it looks like an elephant and sounds like an elephant, it is an elephant."
And Sir Malcolm Rifkind, a former Conservative defence secretary, accused Labour ministers of "gesturing" toward Europe while adding nothing to Europe's actual defence capability.
He told BBC Radio 4's World At One programme there was no point "pretending" to increase Europe's military capability "simply by merging existing forces with all the defects that are already known". Gen Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley, former commander-in-chief of allied forces in northern Europe, told the same programme that European states lacked the military hardware and skills, specifically suitable aircraft for airlifts and all-professional, all-regular forces, that the United States could provide through NATO.
Sir Malcolm was earlier joined by his Conservative colleague, Lord Carrington, and former Labour ministers, Lord Healey and Lord Owen, in a letter to the Daily Telegraph attacking the new force as "an openly political project" and warning it could lead to the US losing any role in European security.