Wesley Clark with Klaus Reinhardt (left) and Juan Ortuno (right) at KFOR change of command

  JUAN ORTUNO could not hide his pride. Officers from Eurocorps, the forerunner for the controversial new European Rapid Reaction Force, had just taken over the headquarters of the KFOR peacekeeping operation in Kosovo. The Spanish general and Eurocorps commander wept at his welcoming ceremony in Pristina and struggled to express himself in his broken English.

The six months after the takeover on April 18 were the first operational test for a force that grew out of the Franco-German brigade in 1993 and now also contains soldiers from Belgium, Spain and Luxembourg. As trial runs go, it left much to be desired, although, by the time it ended last month, it was deemed not to have been the complete farce that some had feared.

Gen Ortuna's linguistic travails rapidly became a standing joke in Pristina. His briefings were famously confused, prompting a German colleague to ask after one: "Did anyone understand a word of that?" An aide once acknowledged wearily: "It wouldn't really make any difference if he tried to express any of his military ideas in Spanish, because he doesn't have any."

"The best that can be said is that he tried hard," said a Nato staff officer. The view within Nato, which maintained operational control over Gen Ortuna and his staff during their stint in Kosovo, was summed up by another officer: "Thank God war hasn't broken out again in the Balkans. I don't know how they would have coped."

In fact, the Eurocorps was able to provide only 350 of the 1,200 headquarters staff in Pristina and remained within the overall Nato-led mission framework. When asked about how the Eurocorps decision-making process affected him, one senior British cavalry officer in Kosovo said: "We just let it go in one ear, then out the other in its own good time."

Although Gen Ortuna's problems with his English were extreme, the question of communications go to the heart of the prospects for the new European force. Paris had initially wanted French to be the lingua franca of the Eurocorps operation in Kosovo, an initiative that was rejected out of hand given that the rest of the KFOR operation uses English as its common language, in keeping with Nato policy.

Eurocorps, which has its headquarters in Strasbourg and comprises 50,000 troops from the five countries, was the successor to the Franco-German Brigade, formed in 1991. At an early brigade open day at a barracks near Stuttgart, German soldiers looked on jealously as their French counterparts drank wine and ate freshly cooked hare, while they had to settle for soft drinks and pre-packed rations. (The strength of the Green lobby in Germany was such that its troops are forbidden to kill wild animals on training exercises. They must also remain teetotal.)

Nor were the differences limited to culinary matters. Conscripts from the two countries admitted that they would not be able to help each other if they ran out of ammunition: their automatic rifles (Famas for the French, G-3 for the Germans) are incompatible.

They might not have understood the request for extra supplies anyway: although officers were expected to be bilingual, few of their subordinates were. On another occasion at a camp just across the border in France, dignatories were amused to see German and French soldiers about-turning in opposite directions, a parade ground shambles produced by the two countries' different drill techniques.

However, brigade members do not seem overly perturbed at the principle of vive la difference. "If there were ever a real war, then this unit would be in chaos," admitted a German sergeant-major. "Different languages, different communications equipment, different weapons. In peacetime, as a unit of friendship, we work splendidly. But in war, it would be a horror."

Indeed, in the early 1990s, there was no attempt in Paris or Bonn to hide the fact that the formation of the brigade was an act of political symbolism by Franois Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl. For the Germans, it was further testimony to Mr Kohl's cherished dream of greater European co-operation and integration. In Paris, it was viewed as a counterbalance to what they call the American "hyperpower", reflecting the anti-US driving force behind French military planning for the past 40 years.

Paris had begun planning a joint brigade with Germany after Charles de Gaulle pulled his forces out of the Nato command structure in the 1960s. Because they do not work within the Nato framework, French troops no longer have standard operating procedures in common with their European counterparts - a significant drawback to the prospects for the ERRF.

France's go-it-alone attitude means that the forces rely on French equipment, which is often inferior to that of allies and potential enemies. When deploying to the Gulf in 1990/91, this became risible. The aircraft carrier Clemenceau had to be turned back in the Red Sea when it was realised that the Iraqis had more up-to-date French air defence systems than did the French themselves. When the French light-armoured division was sent to the Gulf, it proved an embarrassment. Unlike that of the British, it could not be integrated with the American armoured divisions, because it had no experience of the Nato tactics of the US forces.

Nine years later in Kosovo, little had improved. Under Gen Ortuna's uncertain command, the Eurocorps' national contingents did their own thing - most of all the French brigade in the divided town of Mitrovica where the the UN administrator, Bill Nash, a retired US major-general, publicly condemned the French commander for his men's hot-headed behaviour. It does not augur well for harmonious future relations in the new rapid reaction force. "Whatever a rapid reaction force should be, Eurocorps is nowhere near it," said a senior Nato officer. "In Kosovo, they faced disintegration of command to a disastrous degree."

In April, Lord Robertson, the Nato secretary-general, denied reports that Gen Wesley Clark, the American Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, had reservations about Eurocorps' ability to run the show. In the event, any doubts proved well-founded - and mirrored the prevailing view in Nato that Eurocorps was more a manifestation of Franco-German political ambitions than a serious military force.

"Eurocorps has become a highly political issue now," said Charles Heyman, a retired major in the Royal Green Jackets who now edits Jane's World Armies. "The politicians and military hierarchy have to cling to the line that it is a success, but the soldiers and junior officers tell a very different story. They talk about problems of communication and logistics, mismatches in equipment and a huge amount of time wasted by bureaucracy and politics.

The character of the new American administration means that, whether we like it or not, the relationship between the US and Europe in the next four years is going to be even more influenced by military and military-industrial considerations than in the past. The military dialogue, whether over missile defence, the European effort to create a reaction force, the expansion of Nato, policing the Balkans, weapons procurement or readiness to deal with crises in the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere, will be important, sometimes dominant. Controversial trade questions are often connected with the military sphere, as in aviation. Europe and America are in for a rough ride over the next four years. The new administration is likely to be impatient with European concerns and out of tune with European politics. A serious falling out is quite possible.

It is going to be difficult. The US under Bush will increase military spending, in part because of defence industry pressure, exaggerate threats and over-emphasise military solutions while at the same time avoiding or retreating from the use of its military forces in emergencies. Europe, for its part, is likely to continue to talk more about military preparations than to reach into its pocket to pay for them,and the temptation to play around with the reorganisation of European armed forces as a form of political signalling may well not be resisted.

Yet, under all the posturing and the fantasies which so often govern military matters, there is a real requirement for military forces as instruments, among others, needed to deal with future crises. And there is also a real requirement to sustain the relationship between Europe and America which has, for obvious historical reasons, taken such a strongly military form in the past.

The phrase "a simple soldier" probably ought to be banned, since these days soldiers are far from simple, and military affairs have become a branch of international politics. General Naumann is a former chairman of the Nato Military Committee and one of his country's top soldiers. This means he is as well versed in alliance intricacies as he is in tank army manoeuvres. Giving the Prince Friedrich of Prussia Memorial lecture for the British- German Association at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, he offered an elegant solution to at least four different problems. Europe's difficulties with America, Britain's difficulties with Europe, Europe's military backwardness and Russia's difficulties in coming to terms with its reduced circumstances could all be dealt with, he suggested, if Britain took the lead in a new programme of European military improvement.

This would be a burst of effort, with appropriate additional spending, to catch up in certain key technical areas, especially in what is called battlefield awareness. After this push, defence spending could fall back again to more normal levels. With such an effort, the new reaction force would be effective, without it the force would either remain on paper or be inadequate if ever assembled.

How does all this connect with the large questions of strategic relations? In Naumann's view, Britain would represent to the US both the seriousness and the benign nature of the European effort. The technical improvements would restore the faltering inter-operability of American and European forces, which are getting to the point where they find it hard to communicate or go into the field together. The technical and political improvements together would keep America engaged in Europe.

America would then be better able to do a job of critical importance for Europe which Europe cannot do. That is to reassure a Russia which, in spite of its decline, responds seriously only to its old enemy, the US. Everything, in this argument, is thus neatly connected. Although Naumann speaks of adequate preparations for the reaction force as a "litmus test" for Europe, there is something about the way he reasons which suggests that it is the general improvement in capacity rather than the possibility of independent action by the Europeans which is most important to him.

The new force could be useful only in small emergencies, while the technical upgrading, and the political will it would demonstrate, would have the effect of "rebalancing" Nato and ensuring its survival. In all this Naumann is a true Nato soldier, his eye as much on the divisions that constantly threaten to render military capacity useless as on any potential enemy. Certainly, in its 50 years of confrontation with the Soviet Union, Nato had no battles with the Russians but plenty within its own ranks. Senior officers tended always to believe that resolving these internal battles was as much part of the deterrent as were the nuclear missiles or the armoured divisions guarding the Fulda Gap.

  General Wesley Clark, the last Nato supreme commander, is one of those who see dangers in even the most carefully managed pursuit of a separate European military capacity. Naumann suggests instead that Nato could be strengthened and the triangular geopolitical relationship between America, Europe and Russia stabilised if it is gone about in the right way.

Within the terms he sets, Naumann's argument is a respectable one. But there must be some doubt about the endless pursuit of ever more advanced military technology, in which America may now set a stiffer pace. For one thing, arms sales tend to transfer some of such technology to potential enemies, necessitating further technical leaps in the advanced countries. For another, the requirement that western forces have overwhelming technical superiority reinforces the casualty sensitivity that is their greatest weakness.

More broadly, in both America and Europe, the military is too often seen as the right response to problems better tackled in different ways. But if military capacity nevertheless has its necessary place, especially that portion of it institutionalised in Nato, then General Naumann's ideas are worthy of consideration.