Europe's unusual American

By Angus Roxburgh BBC News Online, Brussels

General James L Jones looks like a film-star general - tall, rugged, smooth-talking.

In fact he is a four-star general, who has been Supreme Commander of Nato forces since January, and consequently the most powerful American in Europe.

Jones grew up in Europe and feels culturally at home there

He combines a shrewd and - he says - intuitive understanding of the European mind with thoughts about the future of the Atlantic alliance which would make many Europeans blanch.

I met General Jones, known as Saceur (Supreme Allied Commander Europe), in another acronym, Shape (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe) - the nerve centre of Nato operations.

He began by explaining why he feels so close to Europe. "I lived in France for 15 years (aged 3-18) and I feel culturally at home in Europe, whether it's France, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Germany. I've been in all those places as a young person."

That alone makes him an unusual American, and perfectly placed for his job - for which he was recommended, ironically, by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, shortly before he insulted many French and Germans by referring to them as "old Europe".

Pivotal moment

I asked General Jones if Mr Rumsfeld understood the cultural differences as well as he did, and he jumped to his boss's defence.

A great alliance should not be timid about doing great things General James Jones

"Oh, I think he understands the cultural differences very well. Although he hasn't said this, I think [Mr Rumsfeld] knew very well what my background was before he ever put my name up to the president for consideration."

In terms of military thinking, General Jones appears to be very close to Rumsfeld.

But he will need all his innate understanding of Europe to push through some very controversial ideas.

Rumsfeld recommended Jones for the job

He sees this as a pivotal time, when Nato must transform itself from an alliance originally formed to defend Western Europe against the Soviet threat, into "a military alliance that is more agile, flexible and credible, global and maybe even pro-active."

"A great alliance," General Jones says, "should not be timid about doing great things."

That means dealing with a 21st-Century world, full of "insidious, elusive threats" which can come at you from any anywhere - not necessarily within Nato's old geographical remit, nor from any particular nation-state.

Instant deployment

Militarily, his plan is to replace Nato's concentration in huge European bases with what he calls "lily-pads"- a family of hubs and forward operating bases, from which mobile units can swat terrorist threats anywhere in the world.

Nations will probably have to consider in the near future whether the will of the majority can continually be stymied by the opposition of one or two nations General Jones

Next month he plans to launch the first Nato Reaction Force - a group of up to 2,000 troops capable of responding "at a moment's notice" to a crisis.

But it is the political component of this plan which will raise eyebrows in most European countries.

For, he says, there is no point in maintaining a force at the highest level of readiness unless you have a decision-making process that enables instant deployment.

That, says General Jones, could mean abandoning Nato's hallowed tradition of taking all decisions by consensus.

"Nato has to consider as it expands to 26 nations," General Jones said, "whether its parliamentary rules for making decisions are valid in terms of the requirements of force utilisation in the 21st Century."

Revolutionary thought

What did that mean, exactly? I asked.

"That nations will probably have to consider in the near future whether the will of the majority, short of article five [that is, in situations where Nato's mutual defence pact was not invoked], can continually be stymied by the opposition of one or two nations."

That sounded like a Rumsfeld-esque stab at "Old Europe" - a reference to France, Germany and Belgium's opposition to US and UK plans for war against Iraq.

In a future Nato, run along General Jones's lines, a majority of nations, led by the US and including more pro-American nations from central Europe, could outvote a minority of doubters and launch strikes against terrorist targets around the world.

That is a revolutionary thought - and one which, even with his "intuitive" understanding, General Jones will have difficulty selling to his European allies.