Thursday, April 05, 2007
The return of the Atlantic alliance
While I share The Economist's general view that the Atlantic alliance will not be as pivotal in the next 50 years as it was in the half-century just past, it is manifestly stronger today than just four years ago:
“USA applauds the EU's first 50 years,” read the ten-metre banner. Europe's political leaders must have noticed it, since the slogan was flapping over their heads from the unfinished American embassy as they posed for family photographs during the recent Berlin summit. They must surely have approved the sentiment—and reciprocated it too, since it has become conventional wisdom on both sides of the Atlantic.
For two or three years, European and American diplomats have been arguing that transatlantic relations are, in the words of Javier Solana, the EU's foreign-policy chief, “almost perfect”. It is not just that the two are no longer at each other's throats, as parts of Europe were with the Bush administration in the run-up to the Iraq war. They are working closely together in places such as Afghanistan, Kosovo and Lebanon. And on traditional transatlantic issues, such as trade, they think in terms of big projects such as a plan to tear down non-tariff barriers, which may get the go-ahead at the EU-US summit in Washington, DC, this month. In short, America and Europe are no longer Mars and Venus but a single sphere of influence surounded by rings of persuasion: Saturn, perhaps.
It seems to me that this dramatic rapprochement within the Atlantic alliance is unacknowledged by polemicists of both the left and the right.
5 Comments:
By 
D.E. Cloutier, at
Thu Apr 05, 09:38:00 PM:
It is also useful to remember Henry Kissinger's words in China this month: "International relations are now going through a sea change. The center of the world is moving from the European Continent to the Pacific. The key countries in tomorrow's world are located in Asia."
Link:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-04/03/content_5930416.htm
By Dawnfire82, at
Thu Apr 05, 10:05:00 PM:
A lack of friction doesn't necessarily mean an abundance of harmony.
By 
, at
Fri Apr 06, 04:58:00 AM:
Dan:
There are a number of European governments who are more allied with the Russian way of thinking than the US's.
By , at
Fri Apr 06, 11:58:00 AM:
What rapprochement? The EU's prime mover, France, rebuffed the UK's call for mutual political support under the EU charter during the recent hostage event. The EU has shown that it has the organizational testicles of a gnat.
chsw
By , at
Fri Apr 06, 04:09:00 PM:
The return of the Atlantic Alliance? Is that what The Economist now thinks? A month ago The Economist had the opposite view, expressed in this short, but disturbing essay, now, unfortunately hidden behind a subscriber wall.
Mr. Solana may think transatlantic relations are “almost perfect.” But in the essay from last month, The Economist reckoned the transatlantic alliance almost completely destroyed.
Westhawk had something to say about this gloomy essay at the time. The essay revealed Europe’s panic about its future. Europeans realize that NATO is dead, killed by anti-Americanism and European fecklessness in Afghanistan. With NATO dead, who will defend Europe? As described by The Economist, all western Europeans can do now is heap scorn on their neighbors to the east, who now have the best relations with the United States.
