America Rediscovers Europe

“You have become a major risk to our economy!” My friend is not one of those Euro-skeptic Americans that always predicted the final collapse of the European project. He believed in the Euro and in the construction of the European Union. It is clear that he no longer believes in it. He doesn’t even launch himself into useless controversy. The moment is too serious for that.

Yesterday, with the “subprime” crisis, the Europeans denounced an American capitalism that has placed the world economy in danger. Today, with the crisis of sovereign debt, is it not Europe that is at the center of the storm? Should we talk from now on of Europe as the sick man of the world, just as in the 19th century we described Turkey as the sick man of Europe? What is certain — and my friend is proof of this — is that Europe, for very bad reasons, has returned to the radar of America, for the first time since the Balkan wars, if not since the collapse of the USSR.

During the Cold War, Europe became the first line of defense for America. It was also one of the tangible proofs of the success of post-war American politics. The generosity, highlighted by the Marshall Plan, paid off; Western Europe did not become communist, and did not join the Soviet Bloc. America, like Mr. Perrichon, hero of “Monsieur Perrichon’s Travels,” by Eugène Labiche, loved us even more since it had saved us.

None of that is the case today. The difficulties of Europe refocus America on her own. A reflection of its success, Europe has now become a mirror of its limits. It is not enough to say that the European crises come at a bad moment for the United States, making even more uncertain the hope of an economic recovery before the U.S. presidential elections.

“Barack Obama ignored Europe, but she now calls herself to his attention.” The European crisis has, certainly, direct consequences on the American economy, but most of all, it forces the United States to confront — something they still refuse to do — the entrance to a new world that they no longer dominate as they did yesterday. In this regard, the European call for help to China, however unenthusiastic the response from the latter, is especially difficult for Washington to accept. It symbolizes profound transformations in the world.

In 1950, the West, led by the United States, represented 68 percent of the world’s wealth. That number is less than 43 percent today, and it will reach 32 percent in 2050, according to projections by financial institutions like Goldman Sachs. China has already become the second largest economic power of the world and Brazil is in the process of becoming the sixth largest economy on the planet, ahead of Britain.

Even if it wanted to come to the help of Europe, America would be incapable, taking into account the immensity of its deficits. It would be cruel to evoke the fable of the blind and the crippled to describe the state of competitive decline that now characterizes the relations between America and Europe. Certainly, America hopes to always be able to lean on Europe. In this case, the success of NATO in Libya appears to be a happy precedent, but can it serve as a model? A dictator is brought down at a cost — the Americans love to emphasize — insignificant for Washington (0.1 percent of the cost of their engagement in Afghanistan).

America has found a new formula, that of “leading from behind,” which is already the subject of debate in the United States. Can America be anywhere other than the frontline? Certainly, it wasn’t the European Union, but rather France and Great Britain who played the leading roles in this singular conflict. But America, thanks to the European powers, had not felt “alone” in the humanitarian intervention, with such assistance.

Where will America find itself tomorrow if Europe, in the middle of a financial, political and existential storm, finds itself constrained to huddle over itself, tending to its own wounds? The dream of America was to never again have to worry about Europe, to consider it as a problem fixed and outdated. America is now realizing that that is not the case. It is, however, putting on a brave face, like Barack Obama at the [G-20] Summit in Cannes.