Great comments. Lots to gnaw on here. Lear’s assumption that the EU will be able to help carry the hard power load at a later date when the US is consumed by domestic troubles is an interesting thought, but not likely to become a reality. First off, the EU and US have similar long term financial challenges and I doubt Germany, France, etc. will be very excited to pay for their aging citizens and double digit unemployed along with a growing military. Second, Micraig is dead on right about American military spending. As we all know, the US military is beast that soaks up billions every year, but even in our recession, where nearly every American picks the economy/jobs as the issue of utmost concern, there is no groundswell to cut funding for our armed forces. Obama and Gates cut several expensive defense programs, but overall, defense spending went up 2%. American deficits may make our 4% GDP defense average seem unsustainable, but I wouldn’t bet on a drastic reversal of this policy any time soon.

Lastly, and this in the main thrust of the blog piece, I have serious doubts in much of Europe being able to turn back to the clock to a realist world, at least without a catastrophic shock. As Eoinod pointed out, some of those polls numbers did not show a giant divide between how the US and EU see the world, but others, specifically the one that shows that a majority of Europeans believe force is ‘never acceptable’ to use (I’m sorry I cannot find it right now ) show wide gulfs on fundamental world views. I don’t want to exaggerate here, as the US and Europe have much more in common than in contrast and for the most part agree a majority of international issues, but because the alliance between them (especially in NATO) is so crucial to each other’s foreign policy and national security, any conflicts, particularly of the fundamental nature (how they see the world/threats) needs to be addressed.

I would also like to tackle Eoinod’s EU-US ‘Golden Era’ comment.

Last week, I went to a talk by John Reilly, the former aide to Hubert Humphrey and former president of the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, who gave an appraisal of the Obama administration’s first year in foreign policy. Reilly was very sympathetic to Obama and consistently mentioned that his greatest accomplishment so far was getting people around the world to view the US more favorably. Europe was specifically mentioned. I just have never bought into this as being that significant. For the most part, Europeans favor an Obama administration over a Bush/McCain one, but this does not mean their foreign policy decisions or philosophies change to fit American interests. It was always overblown how much Europe disliked, or wouldn’t work with President Bush. After 9-11, even years after, European governments, intelligence agencies, and law enforcement partnered with their US counterparts in unprecedented ways. IT is true that the Iraq war proved to be a glaring breach between the US/UK/Eastern Europe and France/Germany, but this issue did not overwhelm other strategic aspects of the Atlantic alliance.

European governments are for the most part supporting the same US policies and rejecting the same US policies under Obama that they did under Bush. Most European states tentatively support the war in Afghanistan. They are not either all in or all out. This being the case in 2001, 2004, 2010 should mean that they would have been consistent on their Afghan policy decision making. They have. I am not surprised at all that the Obama administration has had trouble getting a greater commitment to the Afghan war than Bush did. In terms of agreeing with agreeing, Obama and most Europeans share a concern for climate change and this was shown in Copenhagen. Obama’s excellent Nobel Prize speech exemplified the shared and unshared interests and philosophies for each side. The applause lines for the Norwegian/European crowd centered on international law, globalization, diplomacy, American restraint and pragmatism. In the US, the applause lines would more likely come from tough talk about American will, perseverance, exceptionalism, and freedom.

A lot of generalities here, but I hope I got my point across. What do you guys think?

And one more thing that Micraig also brought up: Bush bashing here in Europe. Demonizing Bush, just like demonizing Obama, serves no useful purpose in furthering any type of real policy or philosophical debate. Characterizations of Bush as stupid, arrogant, materialistic, and sometimes as the devil himself, may be partly true in some circumstances (except for the Beelezebub one!), but if that’s the entirety of your view, you’ll be missing out on an awful lot. Another negative about these vile descriptions of American or other Western Leaders is that they make them less powerful when actually used on those that deserve them. if Bush is a fascist, than what are Kim Jong Il or Saddam? If Bush is an arrogant egomaniac, than what is Hugo Chavez? If Bush is a radical war monger, than what is Osama bin Laden?