Trans-Atlantic tension will remain
Daniel Korski 12:27pm
On both sides of the Atlantic, foreign policy types are busy drawing up wish-lists of what they want the other to do once a new U.S. President is elected. More troops for Nato's Afghan mission, says Barack Obama. No, retorts John McCain, support for sanctions against Iran is more important. Progress on Kyoto, say some Europeans. Others want the US and Europe to concentrate on reforming institutions like the UN, World Bank and the IMF.
Whilst it’s better than the fraught trans-Atlantic relations of the last eight years, this outbreak of list-writing nonetheless threatens to ultimately disappoint both parties. To ensure that relations between the world's strongest allies have a propitious, post-election relaunch, both parties will need to think not only about what they want but also about what they are willing to give.
Give-and-take characterizes all successful relationships, and the trans-Atlantic one is no different. But giving as well as taking may be harder for Europe than the U.S.
True, the contrast to 1992 could not be starker. Back then, asked whether he favoured George H W Bush or Bill Clinton, Spain’s then socialist Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez said: “We all become a little conservative as we grow older, so there’s a tendency to think that things will go better with the person you know." Today such views might be considered odd. Europe may favour Obama – whose Kennedyesque rhetoric and stand against the Iraq War has won him many admirers – but Europe’s leaders know, and can do business with, McCain, who is sincere about the EU’s biggest concern – the need to fight climate change. Both represent a new start and the impeding sense of relief is almost palpable.
However, neither Barack Obama nor John McCain will dissolve the laws of international relations or abandon U.S. interests. Take climate change. Both Obama and McCain have said they will endorse a "cap-and-trade" system in the U.S., which the Bush administration has resisted.
But on the question that matters most to Europe - a global agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol - the next U.S. president may not depart from Bush's position, which has been that China and India must be part of any deal. Once put under the microscope, other foreign policy issues show similar potential for trans-Atlantic divergence.
Standing in the way of a transatlantic love-in is also a rise in American anti-Europeanism, which will likely outlive the current administration. Even though the U.S electorate may repudiate some of President Bush’ policies - only 39% of voters now deny the invasion of Iraq was a mistake – many have a decidedly negative view of Europe, originally formed in the “Freedom Fries” days of the Iraq War, but fostered by the perception that prominent European nations are refusing to bolster NATO’s Afghan mission. Whilst neither Obama nor McCain are likely to stoke this sentiment, they will struggle to overcome it altogether.
To ensure that a new trans-Atlantic deal reflects Europe’s interests - but has enough traction in Washington to stick - common policies are needed on: how to tackle NATO’s Afghan mission; political instability in Pakistan; Russia’s growing militarism; China's emergence as a global power; the future of NATO; ESDP and the United Nations, as well as how best way to fight international terrorism.
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Chris
September 3rd, 2008 12:50pm Report this commentI'm impressed that 39% of American voters have got it right about Iraq, given the blizzard of lies from their MSM.
Austin Barry
September 3rd, 2008 1:00pm Report this comment"..the EU’s biggest concern – the need to fight climate change."
Is it really? If so the Russians and Islamists must be roaring with laughter.
Mike, Brighton
September 3rd, 2008 1:02pm Report this commentHow can climate change, a hypothesis based on a number of dubious assumptions coming under significant challenge be Europe's biggest issue?
In a world of nuclear proliferation, where Iran in maybe 2 years from the bomb with missile systems that threaten southern Europe. Where a newly emboldened and oil-rich gangster state Russia next door, rattles its sabres invades one of its pro-western neighbours and threatens Poland alongside European oil and gas supplies?
What nonsense
Guy Incognito
September 3rd, 2008 1:03pm Report this comment"The EU's biggest concern" is global warming? This might be 'the EU's' priority - a big hypothetical money-pit that allows endless jollies and self-aggrandizing speeches that amount to zip - but I think Europe's sovereign states are more concerned about genuine, existing problems, such as energy security, the demographic crisis and the control of their borders. Global warming languishes fairly low down the list, just ahead of finding Father Christmas and stopping trolls interfering with goat-related bridge traffic.
William Norton
September 3rd, 2008 1:38pm Report this commentIf we don't do what the Americans want, they'll send Sarah Palin to deal with us.
rightwingprof
September 3rd, 2008 3:32pm Report this commentKyoto? Are Europeans so ignorant of the United States that they do not understand that the President has no power to put a treaty into force? The Senate, during Clinton's Presidency, rejected Kyoto, not Bush.
GS London
September 3rd, 2008 3:41pm Report this commentHistory has it that England is most strongly allied with Portugal, not America. Still, useful in a scrap, those Yanks.
Dade
September 3rd, 2008 5:01pm Report this commentDid you just say this?
"but Europe’s leaders know, and can do business with, McCain, who is sincere about the EU’s biggest concern – the need to fight climate change."
You call McSame sincere about Climate change?
There's nothing further from the truth. He's only pretending to be concerned. Or why would he choose as running mate - Sarah Palin who supports Oil drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge?
Tom Friedman has more to say about this here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/03/opinion/03friedman.html?hp=&pagewanted=print
Dragutin Dimitrijevic
September 3rd, 2008 5:33pm Report this commentThe advocates for prevention of climate change made and continue to make a fundamental misstep with their argument. If they presented their position as "the necessity for energy self-sufficiency" that would attract more support and at the same time satisfy their goals of reduced hydrocarbon emissions. Since there is not enough hydrocarbon based raw material in the West (excluding the United States which has large deposits of coal and oil shale) most European countries especially cannot continue to function solely on their own reserves of coal, petroleum, natural gas, etc. European national programs with a stated objective of becoming energy independent through a transition to wind, solar and other benign methods of producing electricity would appeal to more people than the incessant whinging about man-made climate change. National programs of that nature would accomplish energy self-sufficiency (or near self-sufficiency) and at the same time reduce and eventually eliminate the combustion of hydrocarbon materials. The objective of energy independence should be stressed rather than the often quite shrill argument regarding climate change.
Hysteria
September 3rd, 2008 7:17pm Report this commentDade - what, prey tell, is wrong with drilling in ANWR?
Do you know anything about it? Ever been to the North Slope?
I do and I have............
Right...
October 2nd, 2008 5:21am Report this comment"Tom Friedman has more to say about this here:"
Why would I want to listen to anything Tom Friedman has to say?
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