Though
the U.S.-Europe partnership may not be living up to its potential, it
is not worthless, and that relationship continues to be one of the
strongest and most important in the world. Gates is an Atlanticist whose
speech was, as he put it, "in the spirit of solidarity and friendship,
with the understanding that true friends occasionally must speak bluntly
with one another for the sake of those greater interests and values
that bind us together." He wants the Europeans, Germany in particular,
to understand what a tragedy it would be if NATO were to go away.
Most
Europeans don't see their security as being in jeopardy and political
leaders are hard pressed to divert scarce resources away from social
spending -- especially in the current economic climate -- a dynamic that
has weakened NATO but, despite fears to the contrary, not the greater
Transatlantic partnership.
It would obviously have been a great
relief to the U.S. if European governments had shouldered more of the
burden in Afghanistan. This disparity, which has only increased as the
war has dragged on and the European economies suffered, is driving both
Gates' warning and broader fears about the declining relationship. But
it was our fight, not theirs; they were there, in most cases against the
strong wishes of the people who elected them to office, because we
asked. We'd have fought it exactly the same way in their absence. In
that light, every European and Canadian soldier was a bonus.
Libya,
however, is a different story. The Obama administration clearly had
limited interest in entering that fight - Gates himself warned against
it -- and our involvement is due in part to coaxing by our French and
British allies. The hope was to take the lead in the early days,
providing "unique assets" at America's disposal, and then turn the fight
over to the Europeans. But, as Gates' predecessor noted not long after
the ill-fated 2003 invasion of Iraq, you go to war with the army you
have, not the one you wish you had.
The diminished capabilities
of European militaries, spent by nearly a decade in Afghanistan, should
be of no surprise. NATO entered into Libya with no real plan for an end
game beyond hoping the rebels would somehow win or that Qaddafi would
somehow fall. That failure, to be fair, is a collective responsibility,
not the fault of European militaries alone.
But the concern goes
deeper than different defensive priorities. Many Europeans worry that
the United States takes the relationship for granted, and that the Obama
administration in particular puts a much higher priority on the Pacific
and on the emerging BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South
Africa) economies.
New York Times columist Roger Cohen
recently wrote that this is as it should be: "In so far as the United
States is interested in Europe it is interested in what can be done
together in the rest of the world." In Der Spiegel, Roland Nelles and Gregor Peter Schmitz lamented, "we live in a G-20 world instead of one led by a G-2."