Earlier this year the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, made an important speech before an audience of European diplomats and military experts in Munich. His remarks were temperate in tone. But their substance-including strong support for national missile defence (NMD), scepticism about Europe's proposed rapid reaction force, and agnosticism about keeping US troops in the Balkans -left many Europeans deeply unsettled about the future of US-European relations.
Now many Europeans are confused as well as unsettled-and so is the new administration. Colin Powell, secretary of state, has staked out positions contrary to those of Rumsfeld and other conservatives; he is expressing support for the rapid reaction force, pledging to consult closely on NMD, vowing not to withdraw US troops from the Balkans precipitously, urging that Iraq sanctions be revisited and approving efforts to engage North Korea. President Bush has sided with one secretary one day, with the other the next. He has also supported Kyoto in one speech only to renounce it in another.
This approach to foreign policy is unnerving, but it is also to be expected in an administration back in power after an eight year lay-off. Europeans should give the administration time to forge a consensus. This process is likely to round off many of the rough edges (for example, on the rapid reaction force, the Balkans and Iraq), while leaving some sharp points exposed (probably climate change, possibly NMD.)
More important, it is useful to recall that fretting about the future of US-European relations is as old as the alliance itself. Almost every decade brings a new crisis-Suez in the 1950s; France's departure from Nato's military command in the 1960s; the Siberian pipeline affair in the early 1980s; the proposed deployment of US missiles in Europe in the mid-1980s. Once again there are headlines about rising anti-Americanism and caustic references to US hegemony. But don't panic. It's the usual Sturm und Drang of the transatlantic relationship.
Indeed, the past decade was marked by considerable transatlantic achievement against long odds. After the cold war, many people predicted that Nato would fade away because it had lost its reason for existence. The new democracies in central Europe and the Baltics would fail. The EU would never realise its scheme for a single currency or foreign policy. The US-EU relationship would founder as the US turned away from Europe toward Asia or Latin America. The former Yugoslavia would become a quagmire. Russia would revert to communism or embrace extreme nationalism.
In fact, Nato has taken on new missions, members and partners. Europe's new democracies are on their way into the transatlantic mainstream. The EU has brought monetary union into being and made a start on a common foreign policy. President Clinton co-hosted 15 US-EU summits; evidence of a unique partnership. Russia, despite its problems, completed the first democratic transfer of power in its history. The one nightmare which came true was war in ex-Yugoslavia. But for all its failings, Nato intervention did dampen the conflict and helped to oust Slobodan Milosevic by democratic means.
Yet conventional wisdom often encompasses a kernel of truth. The truth is that the transatlantic relationship has entered a period of transition which must be carefully managed. The end of the cold war ended the US and Europe's existential interdependence. Into the vacuum surged two complementary but sometimes conflicting phenomena: US "hyper-power" and a new European identity which is being forged by economic, political and security integration. As a result, Americans and Europeans focus less on our common values and interests, more on our differences. The challenge is to deal with the differences which are real and to debunk those which are not.
The Values Gap. Some Europeans argue that our societies are drifting apart, citing as evidence America's support for the death penalty, guns and unchecked capitalism. It's a gulf that they expect to grow wider with the arrival of George W Bush, whom French Education Minister Jack Lang labelled a "serial assassin" for presiding over executions in Texas. This image of the US as a violent, uncaring society is widely held in Europe. Diplomats regularly raise the death penalty in their meetings with US officials, newspapers chronicle life on death row. At a recent benefit for Amnesty International in Paris, its director cited in this order "the corridors of death in America, decapitations in Saudi Arabia, mutilations in Sierra Leone and political prisoners in China" as among his organisation's most urgent challenges.
Yet Americans are engaged in a debate over the death penalty-which is allowed by international law; has been retained by about 100 countries including India, Japan and Turkey; and was upheld by the US Supreme Court. Illinois recently declared a moratorium on its use. Other states, alarmed by evidence that innocent people were wrongly executed, are poised to revisit the policy. I do not support the death penalty-and neither do 40 per cent of Americans, up from 25 per cent four years ago. Sixty-four per cent of Americans want a halt to executions while steps are taken to ensure that the system works fairly.
As it turns out, Europeans support capital punishment in numbers similar to Americans-about 50 per cent in France and Italy, and over two-thirds in Britain. In France, prison conditions contributed to the suicide of 124 inmates in 1999. That is close to the number of Americans (134) put to death in Texas during George W Bush's tenure as governor.
It is a similar story with guns and violence. Large majorities of Americans favour more stringent gun controls. Despite a rash of horrific school shootings, violent crime in the US has been in rapid decline. Overall violent crime is at its lowest level since 1978. The murder rate is at a 35-year low.
Most puzzling is the perception that America has sold its soul to savage capitalism and the military industrial complex at the expense of the poor. With unemployment at 4 per cent, negligible inflation, a rising minimum wage, and the highest level of home ownership in our history, America's economic success is wide and deep. The percentage of the federal budget devoted to social spending has increased over the past eight years, from 42 per cent to 50 per cent; it is expected to reach 60 per cent by the end of this decade. Meanwhile, military spending has declined from 23 per cent of the budget in 1980 (4.9 per cent of GDP) to 16 per cent today (2.9 per cent of GDP.) A government beholden to corporate interests would hardly have taken on Microsoft, the very symbol of US economic power. Nor would it impose the most expensive regulatory system in the world-68,000 pages of rules framed to protect the health of its citizens and workers, preserve the environment and maintain corporate transparency. By one estimate, overall direct regulatory costs were $720 billion in 1998.
The gap between rich and poor has widened, but from the top, not the bottom. Income per capita has increased all along the distribution; the poverty rate is at its lowest level since 1979. America's tax system remains progressive. The rich are funding the system to a record level, the poor are finding relief from their federal tax burden through the earned income tax credit. Acute problems remain-especially in education and health care-but Americans seek to address them. Perhaps most important, European and American approaches to the economy seem to be merging, not diverging. At its "dot com" summit in Lisbon last year, the EU-led by Britain and Portugal-urged its members to adopt flexible labour markets and policies that support innovation and deregulation.
Globalisation is Americanisation. Thirty-five years ago, Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber warned Europeans-in his book The American Challenge-of the threat from US multinationals. Now, some say that his cri d'alarme has proved prescient. Everything is American-from movies to music, McDonalds to Microsoft. Not only are the products American, but so are their vectors-the internet and the English language. The strip-malling of Europe is wiping out indigenous culture.
These are understandable concerns, to which the Bush administration must be sensitive. But they reflect only half of the reality. Americans too are concerned about the cost of globalisation and fear being left behind in the global economy. Many are worried about abdicating sovereignty to supranational institutions. US power may be imperial but, uniquely in history, its reach is a function of the free will of those "conquered." McDonalds has not expanded from 14 to 861 outlets in France since 1984 at the point of the sword. Polls show that significant majorities in Britain, Germany, Italy and even France do not see American popular culture as a threat.
Indeed, Europe has more to gain from globalisation than the US, given its more export-dependent economies, a smaller natural resource base and ageing populations. Multinationals such as Vivendi and Bertelsmann are more than a match for their US counterparts. And France-the world's fourth leading exporter, with comparative advantages in telecommunications, transportation, and aerospace-should welcome the new opportunities.
Neither Americans nor Europeans can stop globalisation. But, more than any others, we can pace and shape it. We can seek more or fewer trade agreements or security pacts. We can do more or less to strengthen or shrink social safety nets, protect or abandon the environment, set or ignore labour standards. In short, together we can work to spread the benefits and share the burdens of globalisation. That is a challenge which should unite, not divide, the world's most privileged societies.
The Interests Gap. It is said that the fate of the comprehensive test ban treaty (CTBT) and NMD shows a US willing to forsake shared security for unilateral advantage. Never mind that Washington unilaterally declared a moratorium on nuclear testing in 1992 and continues to abide by it, despite the Senate's rejection of CTBT. Never mind the peculiar logic advanced by "decoupling" alarmists, that if an effective NMD is deployed, a more secure America will become a less dependable ally. Never mind that in the Balkans-where European interests were more at stake than our own-America led the way.
Europeans see our approach to CTBT, landmines, the International Criminal Court (ICC) and UN arrears as evidence of selfish unilateralism. As Charles Grant claims (Prospect, January 2001) the US talks up international norms and treaties, only to flout them when they don't produce the results we want. Yet in almost all cases cited above, US activism launched the initiative. Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy were fathers of the nuclear test ban; Americans were the first to promote the ICC and a landmines treaty; America helped launch the UN and is its largest contributor. In poll after poll, Americans support international engagement. Further, this argument risks boomeranging back on Europe, given Europe's sorry record on abiding by WTO decisions or standing up for UN sanctions against Iraq.
The US does sometimes seek exemptions from new rules to account for its unique responsibilities in the world. It is precisely because we go out of our way to share the risk with Europeans and others that we ask for a little leeway. Grant is right to point out that in the 21st century, "soft power" counts for as much as hard power. But someone still has to provide hard power-and that someone remains, disproportionately, the US. Consider landmines. On the Korean Peninsula, 37,000 US troops serve in the name and under the mandate of the international community. They face 1m North Korean troops across the border. Anti-personnel landmines, deployed where there are no villages or civilians, are a key part of our defence. We sought an adequate transition period to phase out these mines and develop alternatives. When that was rejected we could not sign the landmines treaty.
To the extent that there is a real transatlantic rift in the making, it concerns how Europeans and Americans perceive threats to our security. While we tend to agree on the threat (Iraq or missile proliferation from "states of concern") we often disagree on how to react (Iraq sanctions or NMD). Americans choose containment, Europeans choose engagement. If they persist, these tactical differences could evolve into strategic divergence.
America Opposes European Integration. European elites seem convinced that the US fears a stronger Europe and so opposes Europe's efforts to integrate economically, politically and militarily. In fact, for the past decade, American leaders of both parties have been in the forefront of those who advocate a stronger, integrated Europe. Americans come to this view from the lessons of the 20th century and the imperatives of the 21st. In the 20th century, when Europe was divided and its nations at war, the US also paid a price. In the 21st century, problems such as ethnic and religious conflict, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, networks of terror, crime and drug trafficking, environmental degradation and the spread of infectious disease, defy borders and are likely to be more effectively solved with allies than alone. During Operation Desert Storm, 95 per cent of American airlift went through bases in Europe; during the Kosovo air campaign it was not much less. The US needs Europe as a partner.
How Europe pursues integration-for example, through federation or reinforced cooperation-is a choice for Europeans to make. But most American policy-makers see no inherent problem with either the enlargement or the deepening of Europe. On the contrary, the prospect of joining the EU, Nato and other Euro-Atlantic institutions has encouraged aspiring countries to settle intractable disputes over borders and ethnic minorities and to deepen their commitment to democracy and free markets.
From Cold War to Trade Wars? The commercial disputes over bananas, airbus, GMOs and more, creates the impression that the US and EU are economic gladiators locked in a death struggle. In fact, these cases account for less than 2 per cent of the trade that flows across the Atlantic-more than $1 billion every day. American investment in Europe has increased seven fold over the past six years. European companies are the leading investors in 41 out of our 50 states, employing one in 12 US factory workers.
There is a danger that the small number of disputes which do exist could corrode the overall relationship. At risk too is the free trade consensus which Clinton worked hard to build: if people perceive that the system created to resolve our differences is not delivering, they will disown it. The Bush administration faces a difficult choice: either to insist on the sanctity of the WTO dispute resolution system-but risk a spiral of retaliatory strikes-or to seek political settlements to these problems outside the WTO, but risk undermining that institution. In fact, the best way to save the WTO would be to stop making it the institution of first recourse for every trade problem which emerges over the Atlantic. Disputes with a high "political" content might better be settled bilaterally. The WTO is good at applying trade rules, but bad at dealing with political considerations. Either way, Americans and Europeans should not lose sight of the fact the transatlantic trade and investment relationship is overwhelmingly positive.
A New Deal? Europe has long yearned for political punch commensurate with its economic weight. Yet it has sought the benefits of leadership without assuming its burdens. Now Europeans are poised to take on more of the load, notably in the security area. If they do, Europe should have more of the influence it desires in the conduct of common policies.
Burden sharing has been at the heart of America's complaint about Europe. In this view, first of all we rebuilt a war-ravaged continent-or at least its western half. Then we carried it through the cold war with our nuclear deterrent and 300,000 troops. America did most of the dirty work during the Gulf war. We pulled European irons out of the fire in the Balkans. Yet Europe continues to freeload. The EU countries spend about 60 per cent of what the US spends on defence and produce less than 25 per cent of our deployable fighting strength. Europe has more than 2m men and women in uniform, but is hard-pressed to deploy more than 40,000 at a time.
This reality is changing-a fact which Americans should welcome and encourage. In Kosovo, Europeans are providing 80 per cent of the troops. More important, the EU has set for itself ambitious goals which, if realised, would rebalance the transatlantic defence burden. By 2003, the EU has vowed to establish a 60,000 strong rapid reaction force, deployable within two months and sustainable for a year in crises where Nato is not engaged. It also has pledged to develop a roster of 5,000 police which would help fill a gap in international crisis management. If the EU makes good on these commitments, it will be better able to take the lead in meeting challenges which may not engage Nato's interests (like the 1997 unrest in Albania or the recent crisis in Sierra Leone).
The real questions are whether the Europeans will provide training for new missions; the lift capacity to transport troops to a conflict; the communications technology to effectively control operations; the equipment to enable them to act in concert with Americans. And above all, whether they will pay the higher defence budgets such as this requires.
We also must ensure, as Tony Blair has insisted, that the EU develop this new capacity in co-ordination, not competition, with Nato-by providing for regular Nato-EU meetings, including Nato experts in its force planning and giving the non-EU European Nato allies like Turkey a clear decision-shaping role in European security policy. In turn, Nato must make assets such as planning available to the EU, to avoid unnecessary spending and duplication.
Encouraging the Europeans to carry more of the security burden also means acknowledging that if they do, America must give them a greater say in the conduct of policy. This will be harder to put into practice than it is to admit in principle. But if the frustrations of multilateralism are real, the costs of unilateralism are even higher. Our policies must remain truly "common." New divisions of labour-for example, in which the US handles high intensity conflicts and the Europeans handle low end tasks, or in which Europe does Europe and the US does the rest of the world-are a recipe for strategic divergence.
The alliances, agreements and treaties we pursue constitute the international rules of the road for the 21st century, protecting those who adhere to them while isolating those who do not. As Charles Grant argues, one of Europe's principal complaints against the US is that when we do not like the way a particular rule is turning out, we reject it. As Europe assumes more responsibility, America will have to concede to it a bigger role in the way these rules are developed and applied. In such a world, Europe and the US are more likely to agree on the scope of an international criminal court, the sweep of a landmines treaty, the sway of a UN mandate. The international system itself will emerge stronger as the US-European consensus grows broader and deeper.
