The Atlantic, for 50 years the narrowest of oceans, is suddenly becoming wider.
The end of the Cold War is fragmenting the remarkable U.S.-European unity of principle and purpose that sustained the Atlantic alliance in its battles against German Nazism and Soviet Communism.
This shift is more basic than the much-publicized disagreement between the Europeans and the Clinton administration over the Bosnia crisis, or a quarrel between trading rivals over world trade talks. Both are symptoms, not causes, of the problem.
That problem is a matter of perception, a divergence in how the allies see the world that emerged from their Cold War triumph. After a half-century of viewing their world through similar “Western” eyes, the U.S. and Western Europe are developing different visions of both the present and the future.
Divided on the big issues, it’s no surprise they cannot agree on the details.
These differences have been developing over the last three years. They were on display at a recent conference near here, partly sponsored by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, that drew government officials, academics, business people and journalists from both sides of the Atlantic.
The conference, held in the sort of English country house that reminds Americans of “Masterpiece Theater,” was called to consider how the European Community and NATO can evolve after the Cold War and how Moscow’s former allies in Eastern Europe can link up with these Western institutions.
What emerged, though, was not an outline for the future but a geological chart of growing chasms between former allies. It was no news that the outbreak of peace is causing problems for the alliance, but few suspected that the glue cementing the alliance is weakening.
The future, as seen at the conference, was not one of hostility, because Americans and Europeans have few serious quarrels, nor isolationism, because the world is too interdependent now for that. Rather, it was something worse-an indifference to each other’s problems, a breakdown in the routine dialogue across the Atlantic, a growing irrelevance in the institutions that keep the relationship alive.
“International institutions are by definition expressions of collective purpose,” an American academic said, “so it’s not surprising that they flounder when we are so unclear about what our purposes are.”
Take NATO. To the Europeans, the alliance is the defense framework within which their democracies can flourish. This purpose is as valid today as ever. Support for NATO in Europe-even by the French-is nearly unquestioned.
But the American attitude is changing. For Americans, NATO was a specific response to a specific threat-the Soviet menace. It had a job to do, and it did it. With the job done and the threat gone, NATO needs a new purpose to stay credible in American eyes.
Most Americans at the conference were convinced Atlanticists committed to the U.S.-European alliance. Their message was a warning, baffling to the Europeans, that NATO must resell itself to retain political support among the American people and Congress and to hold the attention of a distracted administration.
NATO still has many uses. It remains the only institutional pipeline for day-by-day U.S. influence on European affairs. It provides a context within which a reunited Germany can grow stronger without threatening its neighbors. If the Western allies want to take joint military action, NATO is still the only game in town.
NATO officials themselves are proud of how they have transformed their forces to make them leaner and faster and of other post-Cold War reforms.
To the Americans, all this was fine but irrelevant. Even a worthy endeavor, they said, needs political backing if its members will be willing to sacrifice to promote it, and NATO lacks this now.
“NATO is crucial to prevent nuclear proliferation, especially in Germany,” a British speaker said. “It’s the American (nuclear) guarantee that removes the need for Germany, or for Japan, to have their own nuclear weapons. Does (President) Clinton understand this?”
He may not, the Americans answered, nor do the voters who must pay the bills for this guarantee.
If NATO needs a new mission, it could find it by admitting Poland, Hungary and other East European nations. This would protect these nations from the threat of chaos in the former Soviet Union. More important, it would do for them what NATO first did for the West Europeans after World War II-provide military security while they rebuild their economic and political lives.
This idea, floated from the American side, was enthusiastically seconded by East Europeans at the conference. But the West Europeans, having benefited from NATO in its heyday, balked at extending this boon to East Europeans, who need it now.
This would “strain” or “dilute” the alliance, they said. There already is an “implied” commitment to East European stability, they said. It is “too early” to give the East Europeans full membership, which might upset the Russians.
The East Europeans retorted that it will be easier to enter NATO now, while Russia is still relatively weak, and a lot easier than waiting until Russia explodes.
Besides, they asked, does the West still grant Russia a sphere of influence in East Europe, with veto power over their alliances? Is there is still an Iron Curtain across Europe, fostered by Western timidity? If so, what was the Cold War all about?
“NATO’s purpose is to promote democracy,” an East European said. “It’s not right to see its purpose as only not to disturb Russia.”
Geography determines perception: what you see depends on where you are. If the Americans see East Europe as a challenge to be met, some West Europeans see it a threat to be avoided. Already, the EC is throttling East European economic recovery through trade barriers and seems no more inclined to offer military help.
After World War II, the Truman administration opposed the idea of NATO and had to be sold on it by the Europeans. It now may be up to the East Europeans to sell an expanded NATO to their complacent Western neighbors.
Until they do, it will be increasingly hard for NATO to sell itself to the Americans, who everyone-especially the East Europeans-insist must remain as the alliance leader.
“Nothing goes in Europe without the Americans,” one European government official said.
“The core of a security system must be a NATO that extends as far east as practicable-and based on the United States,” a professor said. “The job is to convince the United States of that need.
“If NATO can’t handle Yugoslavia, what’s it for?” he asked.
The old NATO habit of day-by-day consultations, a sort of transatlantic schmoozing, is breaking down. This was seen as one reason why the two sides disagreed on virtually everything about Bosnia and Croatia and what to do about it.
“From the start, Europeans felt more threatened by Yugoslavia but less inclined to intervene,” a European said. “The United States felt less threatened but more inclined to intervene. The reason it didn’t do so is that two presidents couldn’t explain to their people why American soldiers should die there.”
Economically, the Americans and Europeans viewed the world through different lenses.
The Uruguay Round of world trade talks is stalled. But European officials, apart from the French, assume that success would be an undiluted Good Thing that would fend off trade wars and add hundreds of billions of dollars to the world economy.
Imagine the surprise of Europeans at the conference, then, to what one European called the “alarmingly cynical and short-sighted” attitude by Americans, especially businessmen, to the trade talks.
It wasn’t that the Americans opposed a trade agreement. They just felt it wasn’t very important. Agreement might have some marginal advantage but most businesses, including global ones, would keep on doing business as usual, even if the talks collapse.
Again, it was a matter of perception. The Europeans, with their colonial past, felt a successful Uruguay Round would open lucrative trade with the Third World.
But America’s No. 1 trade problem is Japan and the battle to open Japanese markets to U.S. exports and investment. Nothing on the Uruguay Round table deals with this problem. So the Americans saw the trade talks as irrelevant to their biggest trade concern and, hence, not very important.
This, in turn, reflected another problem, noted 20 years ago by then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger but never so crucial to Atlantic relationships: The EC and its members basically are regional powers, focused on European problems. The United States is a world power, with worldwide interests.
During the Cold War, the East-West balance in Europe almost always ranked high among those interests. That’s no longer true. With new demands on its attention, Washington must be convinced that what’s good for Europe is good for the U.S. too.
