[dremanu]

A creaking partnership

Jun 3rd 2004
From The Economist print edition

Though the Americans and Europeans are getting together four times this month, they still find it hard to get on

THE commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings, on Sunday June 6th, will have an elegiac tone, and not just because of the memory of the soldiers who died that day. There is a growing sense in both the United States and Europe that the western alliance that was born out of the second world war, and triumphed in the cold war, is failing to recover from the cruel strains of the past three years.

June was supposed to be hatchet-burying time on both sides of the Atlantic. During the month, the paths of the western leaders will cross no fewer than four times. First, on June 6th, George Bush visits France for the commemoration ceremonies. The G8 summit of the world's richest countries takes place in America from the 8th to the 10th. An American-European Union meeting in Ireland will follow on June 25th-26th, and a NATO summit in Istanbul two days later.

Each episode in this elaborate dance has been designed to advance transatlantic comity a step. In Normandy, Mr Bush will reach out to the Europeans who opposed his invasion of Iraq, and suggest to them that bygones be bygones. At the G8 meeting, the Europeans are supposed to respond by signing up to Mr Bush's proposed initiative to encourage democracy and reform in the Middle East, a measure that Condoleezza Rice, America's national-security adviser, has called the president's main diplomatic effort this year.

At the Irish meeting, or so the Americans hoped, the Europeans would agree to some sort of common agenda for stabilising Iraq. To top it off, the NATO summit is to discuss expanding military ties with certain Middle Eastern countries and—or so the Americans also hoped—consider some sort of collective role in Iraq, perhaps taking over certain of the coalition's military operations there. The most optimistic Americans even hoped that more European troops might soon be sent to Iraq.

That was America's hope and at one time it even looked plausible. Both sides seemed ready for rapprochement. The Bush administration's travails in Iraq have cast doubts on the neo-conservative notion that American security is best served when the United States frees itself of entangling alliances and goes it alone. European leaders are no less alarmed at the dangers of a profound and persistent rift. The handover of “sovereignty” in Iraq seemed a good omen, with UN Security Council members preparing to vote on a resolution to bless the new Iraqi government that takes over on July 1st.

Yet, in practice, the chances of wider co-operation in Iraq depend on security improving enough to make European involvement possible. That is not happening. Instead, America's setbacks in Iraq have emboldened those Europeans who opposed the war, and damaged the political leaders who stuck by Mr Bush.

The ambitious hopes for June had dimmed even before the first prepared statement was delivered. For a start, America and Britain are not getting a free pass on the new UN resolution. France is disputing the details and no one expects the measure, when it is accepted, to pave the way for troops from those European countries that have so far held back.

No kiss and make up

Michel Barnier, France's foreign minister, has said that France will not send troops to Iraq now or in the future. Indeed, America is struggling to persuade those Europeans that already have troops on the ground—such as Italy, Poland, the Netherlands, Denmark and Romania—to stay the course, rather than follow the Spanish example and pull out. The Czech defence minister said this week that Czech military policemen are likely to be withdrawn at the beginning of next year. The British, as ever, are the exception, with Tony Blair openly preparing to commit more soldiers.

In both Italy and Poland, opposition parties are making great play of their anti-war credentials. One EU official comments that, in former times, European leaders would have been fighting to get close to the American president at such events as the D-Day commemoration, but “not many of them will want to do that now.” Mr Bush may still hope that June 6th will provide him with useful photos for his re-election campaign to challenge John Kerry's claim that he has unnecessarily endangered American security by offending important allies. But there is a risk that any gains will be outweighed by what promise to be noisy anti-Bush demonstrations when the president visits Rome on June 4th on his way to Normandy.

In April, Colin Powell, America's secretary of state, asked NATO to consider “a new collective role” in Iraq: perhaps leading the coalition's operations in south-central Iraq. The idea was rejected by Gerhard Schröder, Germany's chancellor, who has said that he would oppose any use of NATO troops in Iraq (although 16 of the organisation's 26 members have soldiers there, they contribute them as individuals, not as part of NATO). The Bush administration has admitted that the 135,000 American troops will have to stay there for the foreseeable future.

Modesty in all things

NATO will not come to its summit entirely empty-handed, but will offer limited military partnerships to some Middle Eastern countries as part of the so-called Istanbul co-operative initiative. This will be a first sign that the organisation is preparing to play a part in a region that the Bush administration describes as the main source of strategic danger to the western alliance.

Europeans, while increasingly shy of Iraq, say that they will give more money to NATO's operation in Afghanistan, where the international peacekeeping force is under NATO command. Europeans are also hoping to get the go-ahead to take over peacekeeping in Bosnia from NATO and to turn it into the EU's biggest ever peacekeeping operation. Still, compared with Mr Powell's original request, NATO's (and Europe's) involvement in Middle Eastern security remains modest indeed.

The final version of America's “Greater Middle East Initiative” may be no less modest. This, originally, was an attempt to institutionalise Mr Bush's call, made at a conservative think-tank in Washington last year, for democratic transformation in the Middle East. When al-Hayat, an Arabic newspaper published in London, leaked the first working paper in February, Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak, denounced the plan as “delusional”. The EU's foreign affairs commissioner, Chris Patten, concurred politely: “We would not want to give the impression we are parachuting our ideas into the region.”

Last week, a revised version, due to be adopted at the G8 summit, showed marked changes. Out go the main proposals for encouraging political change, such as an Arab version of the National Endowment for Democracy, which makes grants to pro-democracy groups. A Middle East Forum, modelled on the Helsinki accords that held up basic standards of human rights to Soviet-controlled states during the cold war stays in, but whereas the communists committed themselves to the accords by signing them, the new agreement is to be signed by America and Europe alone. Participation by the Arab states will be voluntary.

The new draft makes explicit that “change cannot be imposed from outside”. References to “democracy” and “reform” have been replaced by regime-friendlier terms such as “modernisation” and “development”. Symbolically, the name of the initiative has been changed from “Greater Middle East” to “Broader Middle East and North Africa”. Afghanistan and Pakistan have been excluded, and the initiative has ended up more like a traditional development project in the Arab world than an attempt to use democratisation as an instrument in the war on terror. The two bits of the plan that remain mostly unchanged are a literacy programme and a $500m micro-finance scheme to channel loans to small businesses and individuals.

All that said, the initiative still matters. It is a first step in turning Mr Bush's wordy rhetoric about democracy and the Middle East into some form of reality. And it demonstrates increasing belief in the “soft power” that the administration scorned only a year ago.

At some point in the merry round of summits, there is also likely to be an American-European declaration on non-proliferation and on combating terrorism. The point will be to underline the two sides' shared analyses of the major security threats facing the world. Yet for all the hints that America may be tending towards giving “soft power” its due, there are still important divergences on how best to deal with these common threats.

The Europeans believe that an effort to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must be at the front of any effort to win the “war on terror”. They remain despairing about what they regard as the Bush administration's willingness to indulge Ariel Sharon, Israel's prime minister. Mr Bush's endorsement of Mr Sharon's recent plan to pull out of Gaza while cementing control over much of the West Bank irritated European leaders. It showed, the Europeans believe, an abrupt reversal of American policy, taken without consulting European allies.

There are other marked differences over less high-profile bits of the Middle Eastern agenda. While America recently imposed trade sanctions on Syria, the EU is moving in the opposite direction, putting the finishing touches to a trade and co-operation agreement. The same contrast between an American policy based on confrontation and a European policy based on “constructive engagement” has long been observable in relations with Iran.

How others see us

The alliance's open disagreements over Iraq and the Middle East have been pretty well aired. What may be more alarming is the underlying deterioration in relations that is reflected in popular attitudes on either side of the Atlantic. A survey by the Pew Research Centre released in March showed a sharp reversal in European attitudes to the United States over the past two years. Whereas 63% of French people had a positive attitude to America in the summer of 2002, this had shrunk to 37% by March 2004. In Germany, a 61% positive rating had fallen to 38%. And all this was before the news broke of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

The poor opinion appears mutual, at least so far as France is concerned. In the same poll, the 79% of Americans who reported a favourable view of France in 2002 had shrunk to 33% by March 2004. Ratings for Germany have held up relatively well: 83% of Americans had a good view of Germany in 2002, and 50% still reported positively this year—a lovefest compared with German attitudes to America. More Americans regard the European Union favourably than negatively: 39% are reported positive, 26% negative, with (unsurprisingly) large numbers of don't-knows.

Europeans entertain a series of entrenched and tiresome stereotypes: they tend to believe that the American government is run by religious, gun-toting zealots; that big business and the “Israel lobby” controls the agenda of the American government; that Mr Bush's policies are dictated by the oil industry. The popularity of such views has turned Michael Moore, a polemical American film-maker, into a hero in much of Europe. Mr Moore's film, “Fahrenheit 9/11” recently carried off the top prize at the Cannes film festival and the film-maker himself received a 19-minute standing ovation. His book “Stupid White Men” sold 1.1m copies in Germany alone. Conspiracy theories about America get a ready audience in much of Europe. The Pew survey showed that 60% of Germans and 58% of French believed that the war on terrorism was being fought “to control Middle East oil”, higher figures than for Pakistan, where 54% supported the idea.

Even high-level European officials can, when off-duty, get pretty steamed up about America. One senior man at the EU, who regularly deals with top officials in Washington, recently remarked at a Brussels party that the “fucking ideologues” in the Bush administration had got their come-uppance. He placed them in the same ideological world as Jean-Marie Le Pen, the far-right leader in France. Staring deeply into his wine glass, the official complained that his interlocutors in Washington displayed an attitude of “total contempt” for visitors from the EU.

But economically, things are benign

Fortunately, whatever their private feelings about each other, both sides know that they have to do business together. And, as a new study by Dan Hamilton and Joseph Quinlan of the Centre for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins University illustrates, transatlantic economic ties are flourishing as never before. The authors note that “Corporate America pumped $87 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) into Europe in 2003 (see chart below). That represented a jump of 30.5% from 2002.” Meanwhile Europeans accounted for 65% of FDI into America last year.



Despite all the attention that the rise of China and India attracts in the United States, the truth is that these emerging markets are still dwarfed in importance by the mutual economic ties between Europe and the United States. Over the past decade American firms have invested ten times as much in the Netherlands as in China. Last year, American investment in Ireland alone (population 4m) was $4.7 billion, more than two-and-a-half times greater than American investment in China (population 1.3 billion). The amount of money flowing in the opposite direction is also huge. European firms employed roughly two-thirds of the 6.4m American employees of foreign firms in 2001. Ironically, given widespread European antipathy to the Texan conservatism of George Bush, Texas is the American state which receives most European investment.

These numbers present a much more optimistic picture of ties between America and Europe than the politicised vitriol that flows over Iraq and other issues. They also suggest that the politicians' speeches about common western values—which in the current climate it is tempting to dismiss—have some basis in reality. The reason why Americans and Europeans are more comfortable doing business with each other than with anywhere else in the world is that they do have a great deal in common. Their societies are relatively rich. Their consumers buy similar products and have similar aspirations. Their businessmen are comfortable with each other's legal and political environments.

It would be too much to conclude that the depth of these economic ties makes a further deterioration in transatlantic relations impossible. Some serious analysts even speculate that the transatlantic relationship could yet evolve from partnership to strategic rivalry. Certainly there are influential voices within the European Union who see the organisation's future as driven by an effort to develop a “counter-balance” to American power. Opinion polls in Europe show strong support for such a development.

The closeness of business and economic ties may place some limits on the extent to which European countries push opposition to the United States. But the real limiting factor is that there is so far little evidence that European countries are prepared to do what is necessary to evolve into a genuine alternative power block. Proposals to promote a common European foreign policy through a new European constitution are timid and show little real desire to impose a single line on the EU at the expense of national sovereignty. And while the European public may express a desire for the EU to become a serious global player, there is nugatory support for the increased defence spending that would be necessary to make this happen. Fully-fledged transatlantic strategic rivalry is still a long way off.

And after the election?

In the meantime the transatlantic partnership is in trouble. The quadruple summits, with their modest potential, are unlikely to improve things much. They are much more likely to usher in five months of wait and see—until after America's presidential election in November.

It can be argued that any result would be an improvement on the present. If Mr Kerry wins, Europeans will be delighted. The Democratic candidate has said that he will put ties with traditional allies—meaning Europe above all—front and centre of his foreign policy (Mr Bush said much the same when he came to office). Just as important, Mr Kerry will not bear the baggage of the past four years.

But even if Mr Bush wins, things might improve somewhat. The problems in Iraq have lessened the influence of the neo-conservatives in his administration. Since they are also the main Euro-sceptics, their reduced influence would open up a chance for better relations. For different reasons, Donald Rumsfeld, another obstacle to closer ties, may not serve a second term as secretary of defence. It was far from certain that he would stay anyway, even before the horrors at Abu Ghraib.

All this might make a second Bush administration less hostile terrain for Europeans, though it is also likely that Colin Powell and Richard Armitage will retire too, so Europeans will be losing friends as well as critics in the administration. If nothing else, Europeans will know more or less what to expect a second time around.

They would much prefer Mr Kerry. But could there be a post-honeymoon breakdown if the Democrat wins? The hard differences between America and Europe over the uses of force, the importance of international treaties and so on will not vanish overnight. In addition, Mr Kerry has made going to the Europeans for money and troops his main solution to the problem of instability in Iraq. But what happens if he goes to the Europeans and is rejected? The danger of disappointed expectations remains real.

[dremanu]

Richard N. Haass
President, Council on Foreign Relations
The United States and Europe: Adjusting to the Global Era
The C. Douglas Dillon Annual Lecture
Royal Institute for International Affairs, Chatham House, London
June 1, 2004

A quarter century ago, the dominant issue that occupied politicians, pundits, and protesters alike was how best to manage the competition with the Soviet Union, and, more specifically, how best to deal with the perceived challenge posed to the countries of Western Europe and to NATO cohesion by Soviet deployment of SS-20 missiles.

The disagreements were often prolonged and intense, much as they had been over previous matters of policy, much as they would prove to be over still others, such as whether to fund the gas pipeline that some feared would give the Soviet Union great leverage over the countries of Western Europe. The differences today that dominate trans-Atlantic discourse stem from contemporary matters - Iraq is for good reason uppermost in our minds, though it is far from the only source of discord - yet they are similarly intense.

But it would be wrong to see today's differences as simply more of the same, one more chapter in the long story of European-American relations that had its roots in the post-World War II period and went on to survive tension over Korea, a full-blown crisis over Suez, and deep differences over Vietnam.

What all these earlier disputes or crises had in common was that they occurred within a geopolitical context - the Cold War - and an intellectual and political framework, that of containment. This context and framework introduced a certain discipline into trans-Atlantic ties. Europeans and Americans alike recognized the need to limit and manage their differences so that their core capacity to deter and, if need be, to defeat the Soviet Union remained intact.

The end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union brought the context to an end and rendered the framework obsolete. A policy that had weathered any number of dissents and debates proved incapable of surviving success.

It is now 15 years, not quite a generation, since the Berlin Wall came down. The features of the post-Cold War context are relatively clear if, alas, not always benign. Fundamentals include the reality of American primacy and a resulting imbalance of power; globalization, i.e., the vast number and speed of cross-border flows of people, technology, goods, services, ideas, germs, dollars and euros, arms, e-mails, carbon dioxide, and just about anything else you can think of; and relatively peaceful relations among the major powers, which at a minimum include the United States, China, Japan, Russia, India, and an increasingly integrated and enlarged Europe.

If the context is clear, the political framework, that is, the successor to containment, is not. The challenge, then, for Europeans and Americans today could hardly be greater: to cooperate in a much-different context than the one for which the relationship and its institutions were designed - and to do so absent an agreed-upon policy framework.

Such cooperation is possible. In 1990, in the wake of Iraq's invasion and occupation of Kuwait, Europeans and Americans joined to resist and ultimately reverse Saddam's aggression. And throughout the decade of the 1990s, Europeans and Americans combined (if not always quickly and smoothly) to stop ethnic conflict in Bosnia and Kosovo. Europeans and Americans also worked together to bring about NATO's enlargement. Most recently, Europeans and Americans have collaborated in the war against terrorism and in particular in Afghanistan, where U.S. and NATO personnel are both present and active in a precedent-setting "out-of-area" intervention.

What made these cases of cooperation possible was that Europeans and Americans saw the situations similarly. Saddam's aggression was seen as a direct challenge to the basic and widely-held legal notion that a state could not employ military force to gain control over the territory, people, or resources of another country. When it came to the Balkans and Afghanistan, a good many Europeans and Americans shared the view that sovereignty is less than absolute, that governments had obligations as well as rights, and that the international community had a right to intervene when governments either fail to live up to the responsibility of protecting their own people or chose to support terrorism.

Expressed differently, similar approaches to international law have on occasions provided the necessary framework for concerted trans-Atlantic action. But the extent of this shared perception should not be exaggerated. In recent years, a significant rift has emerged across the Atlantic over a range of international arrangements, including the International Criminal Court, the Kyoto Protocol, and the ABM Treaty as well as the role of the UN more generally. Europeans tend to believe the United States is uncritically supportive of Israel and insufficiently sympathetic to Palestinian rights and claims. Even when there is agreement in principle between Americans and Europeans, such as in the realm of trade, it does not always translate into practice.

Most pronounced have been differences over how to deal with what the United States traditionally terms "rogue actors," including Iran, North Korea, Syria, Libya, and Saddam's Iraq. Europeans lean toward dialogue and incentives, the United States to isolation and penalties. Iraq, of course, is the most salient example of this phenomenon, where a marked majority of European governments and publics opposed the U.S. decision to go to war, believing it to be premature at best, unnecessary and ill-advised at worst.

In some cases, these differences reflect different experience; Americans understandably felt September 11 more acutely than did Europeans. But there are also differences regarding the perceived utility and legitimacy of military force, the role of international law, and approaches to statecraft. And there are the political and demographic realities that lead to divergent approaches vis-à-vis the Middle East and trade.

It will not be easy to bridge these differences. Still, I am prepared to assert that it is important to try to maintain the integrity of trans-Atlantic cooperation - less as an end in itself so much as a means to important ends. The United States, for all of its power, very much needs partners in addressing the regional and trans-national or global issues that constitute the principal strategic challenges of this era. There is nothing the United States can do better on its own. In particular, there is no way the United States by itself can successfully tackle terrorism or the spread of nuclear weapons or global climate change or maintaining a world trading system. Europe both as a collective and as individual states constitutes a principal partner, one which for all its differences and limitations is still relatively likeminded and capable.

But Europe, too, needs to work to maintain the basic trans-Atlantic bond, if for different reasons. Europe has a stake in the success of an American-led enterprise that seeks to promote greater order, wealth, and opportunity. Differences over strategies and tactics should not obscure the reality that the United States and Europe still share a good deal in common. Both oppose and are prepared to act against genocide, terrorism, and proliferation.

In addition, Europe has much to worry about. These problems will not simply go away or leave Europe untouched. Europe may be more at peace than at any moment over the past few centuries, but Europeans should not assume their continent will remain an island of stability and prosperity. European construction cannot be allowed to be all consuming; a parochial Europe is vulnerable to unsettled regional conflicts and to many of the challenges associated with globalization.

Translating an appreciation of this mutual need into reality, however, will not happen of its own accord. It will require both intellectual honesty and political investment on both sides of the Atlantic.

Europeans for their part must be willing to shed illusions about what they can accomplish in the world on their own. Loose talk about resurrecting a multipolar world is just that - loose talk. It is neither feasible nor desirable for Europe to set itself up as an independent geopolitical entity, much less as a competitor of the United States. Second, Europe must develop greater capabilities in the military realm. This is not so that it can become a major power on the scale of the United States, but rather so that it can act as a partner of the United States and carry out tasks on its own. A division of labor, one in which the United States employs military force and Europe turns to other policy instruments, will gradually divide the United States from Europe. An absence of common experiences and shared costs will over time exacerbate tendencies toward divergent perceptions.

Europeans must also be realistic in another way. Diplomacy cannot consist only of dialogue and incentives; credibility requires a willingness to use sanctions and if need be military force. This applies to such countries as Iran and North Korea. Europe must also confront its own politics if there is ever to be a new global trade arrangement. There is no way the current Doha development round can ever come to fruition if the Common Agricultural Policy remains largely intact. Here, recent indications of greater EU flexibility in this realm are welcome.

Americans for their part must accept that a strong and active Europe will not simply be content to do America's bidding on the world stage. Still, Washington should support European construction, as a strong Europe is at least a potential partner of the United States whereas a weak Europe is not. That said, Europe should not expect that this support means that the United States will forego the option of working with individual European states when there is no EU consensus to partner with Washington.

The United States also needs European resources. American power is truly great, but it is not unlimited. The U.S. military is stretched given current needs in Iraq and Afghanistan; the fact that troops are being withdrawn from the Korean Peninsula and sent to Iraq is both unfortunate and revealing. The sort of troop-intensive nation-building exercises taking place in Iraq and Afghanistan are hardly unique; they are sure to be repeated elsewhere, and European contributions will be required in those two countries as well as in others. The good news is that Europe has much to add, especially as more than military might will be relevant. This clearly pertains to the global struggle against HIV-AIDS and other infectious diseases, as well as to global efforts to alleviate poverty. A strapped U.S. economy, one experiencing enormous fiscal and current account deficits, cannot bear the burden of promoting world order and development on its own.

Genuine consultation is a must. Consultation cannot consist of simply informing others of what has already been decided or going through the motions and not adapting policies yet still expecting support. Nor can consultations wait until a crisis is upon us; talks should be held in advance on how to deal with the central challenges of this era. This promises to be the best and most likely only way of forging a policy framework relevant to the challenges central to this era of international relations.

Both Europeans and Americans have reason to maintain and where possible expand their cooperation. As has already been alluded to, this is the optimal way to deal with those regional and global challenges that affect both but which neither alone can manage. Such challenges (and opportunities) go beyond the full gamut of transnational issues. Let me single out two. The first is to promote political, economic, educational, and social reform throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds. It is essential that young men and women in these societies see a reason to live. This will require meaningful reform resulting in meaningful political participation, economic opportunity, and access to an education that will provide the tools basic to this global era. Making progress here will require the wisdom and resources of both Europe and the United States.

The same applies to a second undertaking: reinforcing the integration of Russia and China into regional and global arrangements and promoting political and economic openness with them. It will be much easier to deal with today's challenges if Russia and China are full partners - and almost impossible to deal with these same challenges if they again become rivals of the United States and Europe.

Let me conclude this speech with a dose of realism. I have tried to make the case that trans-Atlantic cooperation remains highly desirable despite the passing of a context and a framework associated with the Cold War. Europeans and Americans alike would benefit greatly from working together-and pay as great a price if such cooperation eludes them.

But I also realize that it will not always be possible to forge common policies no matter how extensive the consultation and how sincere the effort. In this case at least, Iraq will not be an exception. The fact that Europe is no longer the geopolitical center of the world will make this task of maintaining a trans-Atlantic partnership both easier and more difficult. I say "easier" because the resources of Europe will increasingly be available for use elsewhere. But it will be more difficult because it will be harder to build common approaches to challenges that arise in far-off places where stakes are valued differently.

What will be important, then, is that the United States and Europe learn to disagree. The best guideline in such circumstances is to work to isolate the disagreement and not let it spill over and complicate much less infect the rest of the relationship. Such "compartmentalization" will be essential if inevitable differences are not to lead to a general deterioration of the relationship.

Americans and Europeans each have special tasks to limit the consequences of disagreement. Americans would be wise to explain their position and to offer up alternatives when a proposed international arrangement is deemed undesirable. Consistent with this is the need to consider employing incentives as well as penalties - and not to sequence diplomatic approaches so that the problem country in question must meet all of its requirements before it can receive meaningful benefits. And Americans like Europeans must take steps to end anomalies in trade policy that are clearly inconsistent with WTO principles. Quotas, subsidies, exempting entire sectors from competition - all are inconsistent with the goal of making trade as open as possible.

Europeans, too, have special responsibilities to limit disagreements. It is one thing not to support an American undertaking deemed essential by the United States; it is quite another to actively work to block it. The latter is inconsistent with the obligation that comes with being an ally. European leaders also have to do more to stem the rise of anti-Americanism in their societies; if they do not, they will find themselves unable to work with the United States even when they judge it to be desirable.

The corollary to this theme of inevitable but manageable disagreement is the need to accept that we are likely entering a new and different era of U.S.-European relations. There will be issues arising where Americans and Europeans see things differently and are attracted to different prescriptions. At the same time, reaching consensus among the 25 of the EU or the 26 of NATO will become more difficult. Trans-Atlantic relations (any more than trans-European relations) cannot be an all-or-nothing proposition; indeed, an all-or-nothing trans-Atlantic relationship runs the risk of becoming nothing. For this reason, the United States cannot be precluded from cooperating with like-minded European states when a common EU-American position cannot be reached.

In short, we are entering a more discretionary era, one in which the United States and Europe will be more selective when it comes to which challenges they will face together. The era will also be more discretionary in the sense that the United States will on occasion have to select those Europeans it works with. The probability that Europe itself may be charting a future in which individual countries come to define their relationship with the EU in different ways further supports this contention. To suggest all this should not be understood to be in any way anti-European; rather, it is simply a judgment and a prediction about how the future is likely to unfold.

Managing this reality will be far from easy. Both Americans and Europeans will need to adjust their thinking and their practices if the trans-Atlantic relationship is to prove as robust and as relevant to this era as it was to the previous one. I believe that the United Kingdom can and must play a central role in this process of adjustment. My reasoning is straight-forward: A Europe in which Britain plays a central role (regardless of where the UK ultimately comes out vis-à-vis the Euro and the Constitution) is likely to be both stronger and more Atlanticist, one more able and more likely to be a significant partner of the United States, than a Europe from which Britain is distant.

I am aware that not everyone will support this last judgment. Many argue there is a tension between Britain's ties to the United States and its ties to Europe. I am not sure I agree. Or, more precisely, if there is a tension, it can and should be creative, and it can and should be manageable. And again, it is surely preferable to the alternative, one in which Europe charts its future without Britain's perspectives and Britain charts its future without Europe's resources.