That Continental Army: The EU is spoiling for a fight -- or at least a military.

London It was a classic old-fashioned scoop. The March 3 Sunday Telegraph carried the texts of two official letters to Sir David Manning, foreign-affairs adviser to prime minister Tony Blair. The first letter, dated January 17 and sent from the office of foreign secretary Jack Straw, urged that British troops join the European Union's fledgling Rapid Reaction Force (ERRF) in what was intended to be its first mission -- replacing the present NATO mission in Macedonia. The second letter, dated five days later and signed by an adviser to defense secretary Geoff Hoon, strongly opposed both the mission itself and any British participation in it.

If the revelation of this official disagreement was embarrassing, the reasons given by both ministers were still more so. The Foreign Office line was almost deliciously serpentine. There was "growing pressure," it reported, for the EU to take over the NATO mission this spring; this was a mistake and should be opposed "at least for now"; but if Britain looked like it were "becoming isolated," then "we would do better to accept an EU mission and seek to shape it to our specifications"; and such a course would naturally require Britain's "contributing some forces to take part in this, first, ESDP [European Security and Defense Policy] mission."

No satirist could have improved on this as a description of the bankruptcy of British policy on the EU. Since the Foreign Office invariably argues that Britain must avoid being "isolated" in EU affairs, and since Britain is invariably isolated on important matters, the FO always ends up advising that Britain should mount a brief show of resistance and then give way. This generally happens.

At first glance, the Defense Ministry's arguments were more realistic. It warned that the situation in Macedonia was likely to deteriorate; that the British troops would thereby be put at risk; that Britain's armed forces were already "over-stretched"; and that the proposed intervention might well destabilize the entire Macedonian region.

But these objections did not in themselves amount to a reason that Britain should oppose the mission. No, Hoon's grounds for opposition were much more in accord with New Labour's obsession with "spin" and opinion management -- and just as concerned as the FO with the objective of selling European defense integration to nervous British voters. So the official memo reached the conclusion that if the ERRF got into real trouble in Macedonia, "there would be a real risk that the EU's first mission would end in failure or rescue by a re-engaged NATO, which would be disastrous in presentational terms." One senses that, of the two possibilities, an outright defeat might be preferable to Europe's being rescued by NATO yet again.

What is especially embarrassing to the Blair government about this leak is that both letters reveal the nakedly political -- and militarily pointless -- nature of the ERRF. Putting troops in harm's way in order to demonstrate your political commitment to a mission you privately think is mistaken is almost a definition of recklessness. Yet elevating political above military considerations in this way is how the ERRF works.

It began its current life as a way for Tony Blair to demonstrate his credentials as a "good European" despite Britain's holding aloof from the euro. Britain pledged 12,500 ground troops, 18 warships, and 72 combat aircraft to the proposed 60,000-strong Euro-army. The idea met with immediate criticism: What was the European army for? In what kind of crises would it intervene? And where? Where would it get its military resources? From NATO, thus ...