Seeking to assuage concerns across the Atlantic that it’s not taking enough military responsibility, Europe’s defense ministers announced Tuesday that a European army could be deployed within the next year.

The European Rapid Reaction Force will most likely not be ready at the beginning of 2003, as originally planned, but could fully take over NATO’s mandate in Macedonia as early as the middle of next year, said German Defense Minister Peter Struck. The announcement that the 60,000-strong force is deployable comes at a time when the United States and Great Britain are pushing Europe to form a similar force for NATO on the eve of a historic alliance summit in Prague.

Washington, wary of the European Union’s bureaucratic density, would prefer to have the military alliance directing a European special force’s deployments. But European countries, like France, want an EU-led force to distinguish itself from the American-led NATO alliance. Others are concerned the two forces could overlap.

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer told the German parliament last week there “should be no doubling up.”

Enough soldiers, not enough equipment

The 15 members of the European Union can together provide 100,000 troops, 400 combat aircraft, and 100 ships to use in a rapid reaction force, according to European Union defense documents. Troops, then, don’t seem to be the issue. Equipment, like transport planes, heavy lifts and communications networks, is.

The EU currently relies heavily on NATO to provide that equipment. Joint plans to build military transport planes, like the Airbus A400, won’t be completed until 2008. An EU force, the way France envisaged, would be independent of NATO and therefore not dependent on the United States’ military assets.

“If the U.S. is occupied with other operations, there’s no guarantee those assets would be available,” said Daniel Keohane, a senior analyst at the Center for European Reform in London in an interview.

Finding a purpose for NATO

But Washington wants to see NATO and Europe more closely intertwined. The 21,000 strong rapid reaction force would give new purpose to an alliance that is experiencing an identity crisis in the post-Cold War world.

"NATO must transition from an organisation that was formed to meet the threats from a Warsaw Pact, to a military organisation structured to meet the threats from global terrorists," U.S. President George W. Bush told reporters in Prague on Wednesday.

Should it not, warn analysts, it will risk losing the interest of the United States.

“NATO hasn’t been offering anything that is so useful to the Americans recently,” said Keohane. “If the U.S. is not very interested in NATO then that doesn’t bode well for the future of the alliance.”

Two forces, same soldiers

Keohane shares the opinion of many European officials that the two forces can co-exist peacefully and cooperatively.

"If it can be managed properly (the NATO force) can raise the bar for the EU force," Keohane said. "You're reducing duplication."

Greek Defense Minister Yannos Papantoniou, whose country was originally against the European Union force, said the two forces will “complement” each other.

”Europe can sustain both,” and train people “to partake in both,” he said.