NSF INSIDER VIEW
Renewing the West
By Endy Zemenides
President Obama’s first major trip overseas takes him to Europe. With his stop in London for the G20, the President visits with a Europe that is a key trading partner with the U.S., and a partner whose assistance is vital if we are to emerge from this global economic crisis. Then to the NATO summit, where he will visit with partners in Europe who have stood with the United States for 60 years in the most successful military alliance in history. Finally, when the President reaches Turkey, he will have reached the edge of Europe, or left Europe altogether (or both in the same country), and realize how much closer Europe is to the most dangerous places in the world than we are.
The 2008 presidential campaign focused on many hotspots – Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, Russia’s incursion into Georgia – and positions were taken on all of those issues. Yet, the “Obama for America” campaign and the new administration – following the tradition of all the post Cold-War presidencies – has not been able to find an overarching structure or an easily identifiable raison d'être for American foreign policy. There is no equivalent to the Cold War doctrine of containment in the offing. The last attempt – trying to define American foreign policy in the context of a Global War on Terror – may have unwittingly given breathing space for more long term serious challenges to American primacy (i.e., China, a resurgent Russia) to assert themselves.
The various challenges to the world order shaped by the U.S. all come from outside what is considered “the West”. This provides tremendous impetus for the U.S. to revisit its relationship with its most reliable partners. No matter what the challenge, it is clear that the U.S. needs Europe in order to manage the new international order. There are at least two compelling reasons for the U.S. to revitalize its oldest alliance, redefine burden sharing within it, and thus renew the West:
- We can no longer “go it alone”
The American military is stretched to a point that the Pentagon’s two wars doctrine must be revisited. We are in the midst of a financial crisis that has global ramifications ( and in many ways, global roots) and that needs international coordinated action to be overcome. We are a debtor nation, and will remain so for the foreseeable future. While President Obama is popular overseas, the previous Administration’s lack of popularity, combined with the Iraq war, and the recent setbacks suffered by American capitalism have combined to decrease the U.S.’s influence to the lowest point in decades.
- This is not your father’s Europe
Or even President Clinton’s for that matter. Although the American foreign policy establishment has not treated Europe as derisively as former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (with his distinction of “old Europe vs. new Europe”), but the orientation of American foreign policy leaves one with the impression that Washington looks overseas and sees a European Economic Community and NATO partners, rather than a European Union that may be in fact transforming into a United States of Europe.
Today’s Europe has more people, more wealth, and more votes on every international body than does the U.S. On the security front, it has a 60,000 troop rapid reaction force outside of NATO control, has undertaken several security missions in the last five years, and Javier Solana – the EU’s High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy – is increasingly surrounded by military, rather than civilian, advisors. Europe’s wider and deeper social safety net has allowed it to weather the financial crisis better than the U.S. to date, and to resist the Obama Administration’s pressure for a European stimulus package. It also allows them to reverse their role with Americans in the conversation regarding what is the best way to structure capitalism. Culturally, Europeans study in each other’s universities, and are all glued to their televisions during the annual Eurovision contest. Language is no longer the barrier it once was. Finally, one should not underestimate the political symbolism of European discarding their marks, francs, lira, escudos, drachma, and other currencies in favor of the euro.
France has rejoined NATO military command, but French President Sarkozy continues to identify an autonomous European defense capability as an “absolute priority”. While in the short term this improves capability and stature of NATO, in the long term, it helps modernize French forces (by making them interoperable with American forces) and thus advances an autonomous European defense identity to a great extent.
The United States is still the "indispensible nation", it just needs stronger partners more than ever before. Europe can be - and should be - that partner. The parameters of that partnership still need to be determined, so the follow up to President Obama's trip to Europe will be key. There are a few pressing issues where the US and EU differ that should be watched closely:
Dealing with the financial crisis
This will remain an especially significant point of contention well beyond the end of the current crisis. What the EU and US are doing to stimulate their respective economies is but a small part of a much larger picture. A reorganization of the world financial order may be required, and continental Europe will have a much greater say than it did after World War II.
The role of NATO
Americans are committed to a wider role for NATO; Europeans see the future in a European defense identity that develops autonomously but in parallel to NATO. Now that France has rejoined NATO military command, can those competing visions be reconciled? Can NATO's unwieldly decision making structure survive further expansion of the alliance to countries like Georgia that were never part of Europe? Can Article V of the NATO Treaty (mandating the defense of every NATO member by all NATO allies) survive further expansion; will Americans be willing to risk New York, Frenchmen will to risk Paris, Greeks to risk Athens for the sake of Skopje or Tbilisi?
The "Eastern Question"
Just as the great European powers were focused on the fate of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century, so does the Western alliance remain fixated on the fate of Turkey. The moment of truth may come quite quickly, as a decision on whether Turkey can continue its accession negotiations with the EU in December.
The US is committed to a Turkey rooted in the West and believes that EU membership is part of that equation. The EU demands that Turkey comply with European standards, and there is some resentment in Europe towards the American push for Turkey's membership, the argument being that the US wants to bring Europe to Turkey rather than Turkey to Europe.
Nonetheless, Turkey faces serious obstacles to its EU membership, the foremost of which is its continued occupation of an EU member state (Cyprus) and its refusal to recognize that state (which puts Turkey in the relatively absurd position of needing the consent of a state it refuses to acknowledge). Fortunately, negotiations between Greek and Turkish Cypriots towards a settlement that will reunify Cyprus are proceeding. Still, there is doubt over whether the Turkish military will allow the Turkish Cypriots to negotiate freely. As long as the occupation of Cyprus continues, European countries that don't want Turkey in the EU for other reasons will have the cover of the Cyprus problem. In the meantime, Turkey's road to Europe runs through Nicosia.
The US needs Europe in order to successfully navigate the challenges in today's world, and Europe needs the US if it aspires to a greater political union with superpower status. What unites the US and Europe is much greater than what separates them. Of the many foreign policy challenges President Obama faces in 2009, perhaps no other one is as important and far ranging consequences as revitalizing the Euro-American/ Western Alliance.
Endy Zemenides is Political Director for Alexi Giannoulias, Partner with Acosta, Kruse & Zemenides, and member of the National Strategy Forum Review Editorial Board.