Not really:
washingtonpost.com
Divided Allies? Only At The Top
By William Drozdiak
Sunday, September 8, 2002; Page B03
BRUSSELS
From the strident commentary heard on both sides of the ocean, you would think the Atlantic alliance will soon follow the Soviet Union into history's trash heap.
European journalists accuse President Bush of preparing to drag the Western world into a cataclysmic war with Iraq. They portray the United States as an arrogant hegemon that disdains international law and tears up treaties such as those designed to combat global warming and prosecute war criminals. The American media, for its part, rails against "Euro-wimps" who always choose appeasement over military force when dealing with brutal dictators such as Saddam Hussein. The contrast in views seems so great that the antagonists appear to be living on separate planets -- Americans are from Mars, Europeans are from Venus, as analyst Robert Kagan wrote recently.
But a new survey of more than 9,000 respondents in the United States and Europe tells a strikingly different story. The most comprehensive poll of foreign policy attitudes ever taken of the countries in the Atlantic alliance, released last week by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations and the German Marshall Fund of the United States, shows a remarkable convergence of American and European public opinion on many issues. In fact, many of the views expressed by men and women, 18 years and older, from a broad cross-section of social and professional classes in the United States and six European nations, directly contradict the operative notions espoused by government policymakers and the chattering classes. As an American living in Europe and as a former reporter who has charted the ups and downs of the Atlantic alliance for most of two decades, I was surprised -- as were many European journalists -- by the survey results. The conventional wisdom, reflected in the alarmist tone of sundry editorials and the palpable tensions these days among Western capitals, had pointed to a growing disaffection between Americans and Europeans that suggested the partnership forged during the Cold War was finally breaking apart.
This perceived sense of alienation has lured presidents and prime ministers to join the chorus of Cassandras lamenting the state of the Atlantic partnership in the belief they were echoing the mutual recriminations of their citizens. The Bush administration has encouraged the "Euro-weenie" image by scorning consultations with European allies, whom some U.S. officials deride as weak and indecisive, particularly when it comes to reacting to a crisis that may require the use of military force. And European leaders have castigated what they see as a trigger-happy America, even to the point of wondering whether the time has come to go separate ways because the United States may simply be too powerful for its own good and that of its friends.
But the poll results indicate that politicians on both sides may be badly out of touch with the true sentiments of their constituents. On a broad range of issues, the survey suggests, Americans and Europeans still share similar visions, values and objectives. They see each other as dependable friends in a treacherous world and yearn for policies that will be mutually reinforcing. Americans are clearly uncomfortable with a go-it-alone attitude and want the Bush administration to work within the framework of the United Nations and international law. Europeans, meanwhile, would rather be seen as an equal partner with the United States, and not as a rival power.
The poll shows that large majorities of Americans and Europeans cite the same threats to their vital interests -- terrorism, Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. They also share similar degrees of concern about Islamic fundamentalism and the risk of war between Israel and its Arab neighbors, and most Americans and Europeans say they dislike the same countries -- with Iraq topping the list.
The current debate over Iraq, and whether the United States should take unilateral action against Saddam Hussein's regime, led many media outlets to focus on the Iraq-related poll questions. Sixty-five percent of the Americans surveyed, along with 60 percent of the Europeans, said the United States should only invade Iraq with United Nations approval and the support of its allies. Only 20 percent of Americans and 10 percent of Europeans said the United States should go it alone. Indeed, 61 percent of Americans said they prefer a multilateral approach to foreign policy problems that draws on support from the allies.
But other significant results received scant attention. For example, a clear majority of Americans differ with the Bush administration on two hot-button issues in Europe, saying they want to join the European Union in ratifying the Kyoto accord on global warming and the treaty creating an International Criminal Court. Meanwhile, most Europeans in the survey expressed much greater sympathy with the American campaign against terrorism and the possible use of force against Iraq than might be assumed, given the skepticism being voiced these days by their political leaders and commentators.
What accounts for this bizarre paradox? Are governments and political commentators so estranged from public opinion about the nature of Atlantic relations that they are ready to sign the divorce papers while the voters want to revive the marriage? Given the history of the past 50 years, perhaps such dissonance is not so strange after all. As someone who has written frequently about recurrent transatlantic tensions, I have always been amazed at the resilience of a partnership that is now widely described as an outmoded relic of the Cold War.
Despite crises such as Suez and Vietnam, fights over the deployment of nuclear missiles and Star Wars, and frustrations arising from the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, the Atlantic alliance has managed to survive the many notices of its impending death. And while their governments squabble over everything from butter to biotechnology, Americans and Europeans seem bent on keeping their commercial rivalry from hurting what they see as a cherished strategic relationship.
What has become clear -- particularly in light of differences over Iraq, the Middle East and the EU's ambitions for a stronger role in world affairs -- is that the United States and Europe still possess deep reservoirs of mutual public support. The ties that bind are often personal and link communities in myriad ways -- from the American GI's who spent part of their youth serving at bases in Germany to the ruling mandarins in Europe who studied at American universities. Trade and investment between the United States and Europe account for more than half of global economic activity. Three million Americans work for European companies, and an equal number of Europeans are employed by U.S. corporations.
Since the attacks of last Sept. 11, Americans and Europeans have come to share a deeper appreciation of both their most reliable friends and their most diehard enemies. Americans now express a much keener sense of their own vulnerability and no longer feel, as perhaps they once did, that they were sheltered from outside threats by the vast buffer of two oceans. Among Europeans, the fear has clearly grown that they, too, are highly vulnerable to terrorist attacks.
While few Europeans believe that a clash of civilizations is looming, they want to develop better ways of cooperating with the United States in order to combat threats to their shared beliefs in liberal democracy, free markets, and ethnic and religious tolerance. Even those Europeans who disagree with the Bush administration's policies, the poll shows, do not want a permanent break with the United States.
A year after the Sept. 11 attacks, Americans seem to have a better understanding of their need for friends in the world. In that respect, the Bush administration's dismissive attitude toward our European allies may soon become a political liability. Indeed, more than 60 percent of the Americans surveyed said the most important lesson of Sept. 11 is that the United States needs to work more closely with other countries rather than act more on its own initiative.
The message to politicians seems clear: Underestimate public support for the alliance at your own peril. Despite all the talk about rifts within the alliance, powerful majorities on both sides of the Atlantic want their governments to find cooperative solutions to their common problems.
William Drozdiak is the executive director of the Transatlantic Center, a Brussels-based policy center for U.S.-European relations sponsored by the German Marshall Fund of the United States. He was a Washington Post foreign correspondent from 1983 to 1986 and then again from 1990 to 2001, based in three Western European countries.
washingtonpost.com |
