Renewed Unease between the US and Europe

Signs of American impatience with European navel-gazing are increasing

One of the best taglines ever devised for a film was for Jaws 2. This first sequel (two more would follow) was released three years after the original Jaws and could not just feed off its success, but the tagline used to market the film was perfect: “Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…”

Contempt

A similar motto applies to relations between the United States and Europe. After the turbulent Bush era, it seemed as though President Obama had steered the relationship into calmer waters. Shortly after his election, he came to Europe to reassure his allies that his White House would take their views and their wishes seriously, and that the time of barely concealed American contempt (think of Donald Rumsfeld’s jibe about “old” and “new” Europe) was over. The change in climate put a stop to stories of Americans who come from Mars versus Europeans whose origins are more Venusian.

But as soon as the Europeans thought that it was safe again to dip their toes in the Atlantic Ocean, a great white shark appeared in the form of Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Last week, in a speech to a NATO conference in Washington, he warned of what he called the “demilitarization of Europe.” In other words, in many European circles there is a growing distaste for the use of military force. According to the American secretary, this was understandable immediately after the horrors of World War II, and even necessary for the rapprochement of old enemies, but in this century has become “an impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace.”

Aggressive

According to Gates, Europeans must come to realize that nowadays peace and security are threatened, not so much by well-organized, aggressive states, but mainly by failed states and by terrorist movements operating from countries with which normal diplomatic relations are otherwise maintained. Therefore, it is important that NATO develops into an international security alliance and no longer restricts itself to the objective for which it was founded in 1949: the defense of Europe’s territorial integrity. And that in turn means, according to Gates at least, that NATO countries must urgently invest in military equipment that is geared toward the changing strategic landscape and the needs of an expeditionary force.

The shortage of such equipment is embarrassing. For example, there is a desperate lack of combat helicopters. The Belgian army — which, to be honest, can barely be called an army — must make do with completely outdated Leopard tanks. Of all 28 NATO members, only five achieve the agreed level of defense spending (two percent of gross national product); most keep to well below that level.

Hardliner

Gates’s outburst would not attract so much attention if he were alone in his opinions.

But, suddenly, there are more signs of renewed American impatience with European navel-gazing, and with the unwillingness or inability of allies to shoulder responsibility and to position themselves with strength in the world. And not just from hardened (neo) conservative Republicans by any means. To begin with, Gates himself is certainly no hardliner.

Nevertheless, he has struck a chord at Time Magazine, which just this week devoted its cover story to “The Incredible Shrinking Europe,” a story with a message: life is good in most European countries (partly thanks to 60 years of American protection), but European voices carry little weight on the world stage, they let themselves be manipulated easily (especially by Russia and China) and they lack the resolve to secure their interests in the longer term.

Meaningful

The provocative suggestion made by historian Andrew Bacevich in the (admittedly conservative) journal Foreign Policy is another example. Bacevich argues that, considering the effort it takes to encourage the Europeans to make a meaningful contribution to the mission in Afghanistan, on closer inspection perhaps it is better to actually reduce NATO to an alliance that is again restricted entirely to within the confines of Europe. A measured task suits the Europeans better than being saddled with a global responsibility that is too ambitious. Sarcastic though it sounds, “Let Europe be Europe.” Let Europe keep itself busy with its never-ending integration process — at least it will prevent the old demons from resurfacing.

Sticking his neck out

Of course, it has not come to that yet. These are just shots across the bow. Nevertheless, they express a fundamental American unease with the transatlantic relationship. The Dutch withdrawal from Uruzgan, which came just at the moment when the resident of the White House had stuck his neck out and tried to regain initiative in Afghanistan, fuels that unease. It is therefore receiving more American attention than you might think if you simply regard the Netherlands as a small country trying its best to play with the big boys.

A salient example is the critical editorial that Thursday’s New York Times devoted to the Dutch governmental crisis. The retreat from Uruzgan is an embarrassment to the Netherlands, to NATO and to Washington, according to America’s most influential newspaper, which fears a chain reaction in other European countries, and all while the security of Europe is partly what the mission in Afghanistan is all about. According to the newspaper, “The Netherlands weakens itself and all of its allies.”

In the end, the damage done here is likely to be less harmful than expected. But here in the Netherlands, we should at least stop making ourselves seem smaller than we are. It leads to tunnel vision in the Dutch parliament. It is just as fatal as the (equally) all too familiar opposite tendency in the Netherlands — to bombard the world with excessive pretensions.