The United States of America has a problem.
It’s not just a public-relations problem, or that its people are overpaid, overweight and here in London, although they are. It’s that they are misunderstood and mistrusted by many Europeans. That’s a big problem for the USA and for President Bush, and it is certainly a problem for Britain’s prime minister, Tony Blair, at this time of world tension.
Most people in Europe think America is full of warmongers, yet the majority of Americans as well as Europeans are in favor of war in Iraq, but only with the approval of the United Nations under a new UN Security Council resolution.
Pew Research found in January that by 4-1 Americans favor military action in Iraq if the inspectors find that smoking gun and report to the Security Council that they saw it in Saddam Hussein’s hand.
But if the inspectors can only report that they think it’s there but haven’t seen it, Americans are as torn about going to war as are the Europeans, with 46 percent supporting the use of troops and 47 percent opposed.
If they report there’s no smoking gun, Americans are 2-1 against the war.
Not so differently, 6 in 10 Britons are favorable toward British troops joining in a land war in Iraq alongside American forces if a second UN resolution is passed. Support without that resolution is just 15 percent.
The main reason is that the British don’t trust the American administration not to do something precipitous, without consulting allies and taking their views into account. They see Secretary of State Colin Powell and Blair, while not speaking for Europe, as having Bush’s ear.
I know firsthand he does. I happened to meet the president in Salt Lake City last year at the Winter Olympics. When told I was Britain’s leading pollster, the president told me, “You tell Tony Blair he’s doing a great job!”
History matters to Europeans, perhaps more so than to Americans, who are seen over here as prone to shoot from the hip, or even to shoot first and ask questions afterward.
This makes Europe pretty nervous.
Last month I was invited to deliver the Einstein Forum lecture in Potsdam, Germany.
I chose as my title “What Europeans Really Think about America.”
My principal source was the results of a survey we carried out last year for the Chicago Council on of Foreign Relations and the German Marshall Fund (results at www.mori.com).
The survey was carried out by Harris Interactive in the U.S. and by London-based MORI in Britain, France, Germany, Netherlands, Italy and Poland.
The survey found that:
– Most Europeans, especially in Britain, feel warmly toward America, yet neutral toward most other European countries.
– Nine in 10 Europeans (including the British) say the United States has a great deal of influence in the world.
– Two out of three Europeans (the French excepted) believe it is desirable that the U.S. exert strong leadership in world affairs. Of the Dutch, 74 percent said desirable; of the British, 68 percent; the Poles, 65 percent; the Germans, 61 percent; the Italians, 57 percent, but the French only 39 percent.
– A majority of Europeans say they would like the European Union to become a superpower like the U.S.; this is especially strongly supported among younger people, and more would think it desirable that the EU exert strong leadership in world affairs than do people in the U.S.
– Europe is split on rating the Bush administration’s handling of its overall foreign policy. The British, French, Germans and Dutch are on balance critical, the Italians and Poles more favorable,
– The European public is split on rating the Bush administration’s handling of international terrorism, with France being the most negative. In the other five countries, those saying “excellent” or “good” are about half, with the other half saying “fair” or “poor.”
– There is uniform condemnation of the Bush administration’s handling of the Arab-Israeli conflict, with as many as two-thirds in every country except Poland rating it as fair or poor, and a majority of Poles, 57 percent, also critical.
– There is even greater condemnation of the U.S. handling of global warming. Most people in most of these countries say they regard global warming as an “extremely important threat” to their country. At least twice as many in each country rate global warming as an extremely important threat as those who characterize globalization that way.
– There is overwhelming support across Europe, and especially in Britain, for strengthening the United Nations. Two-thirds of Europeans, including the British, support strengthening NATO. Four times as many people in Britain say NATO is essential to British security as say it is not, more than 3-1 in Germany and the Netherlands, more than 2-1 in Italy and Poland, and even nearly 2-1 in France.
Such strong support for NATO and the UN surprises most people here, and it must astonish Americans.
The German chancellor and the French president seem bent on weakening NATO, in opposition to the clear preference of their own citizens’ opinions. By 2-1 in both countries, the German and French people are in favor of strengthening NATO, and two-thirds of the French and 3 in 4 Germans are in favor of strengthening the UN.
Europeans have long memories.
They remember the efforts of President Woodrow Wilson to establish the League of Nations, only to see an isolationist Senate vote down America’s participation. They remember American support in two world wars. They remember U.S. support for setting up the United Nations at a time when American power was strong, and they remember America’s willingness to share that power with other, then much weaker, nations.
They certainly give NATO credit for much of the peace in Europe for the past 60 years.
But Europeans worry about the enormous military and economic power in the hands of the Americans today, with a political system they neither understand nor appreciate.
They are uncertain that the “checks and balances” are sound and will ensure that these enormous powers are not misused. They naturally want a seat at the table when decisions are made that may threaten them.
They see collective security in collective deliberation and collective action.
In the past 30 years, I’ve tried to keep an eye on anti-Americanism, both as an American citizen enjoying British hospitality for so many years, and more recently as chairman of the Pilgrims Society, an organization dedicated to the furtherance of Anglo-American fellowship.
Nothing surpassed the way the British in general and the British establishment reacted to the events of Sept. 11, the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the palace, the prime minister’s “Shoulder to Shoulder” speech, the queen and royal family in the congregation at St Paul’s Cathedral for the memorial service, and the outpouring of affection from the British people, with more than 50,000 signing the condolence books at the U.S. Embassy in London.
So why was I surprised–as has been every audience with whom I’ve shared the finding–that the percentage of those who say “I like Americans as people” has risen, not fallen, over the past decade, from the time of the famous Reagan-Thatcher love-in in 1989 to now?
It must be because of all the anti-American newspaper articles and statements by self-appointed spokesmen and spokeswomen who sound off in the media about British public opinion.
The British like Americans as people, and although they have some reservations about the current (and past) American president’s capacity for world leadership (as do many Americans), they think there’s a lot the British can learn from the Americans. Most have confidence in American foreign policy, though they sometimes consider it inept, and most people in Britain are prepared to back America in the wars both against terrorism and in Iraq.
