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Trans-Atlantic tensions: How a relationship goes sour
Europe is seen as decadent, complacent, lazy and - perhaps most damning of all - increasingly irrelevant. The present downbeat mood in Europe itself seems to confirm these attitudes.
What has Europe done to draw America's scorn and contempt?
The main reason is that Europe has proven to be an untrustworthy ally in America's hour of need.
Most Americans consider the "war on terror" as payback time: After twice saving Europe from itself in world wars, and sheltering it under America's nuclear umbrella during the Cold War with the Soviet Union, Europe's full backing was taken for granted when the United States came under attack.
So lackluster support and growing criticism in Europe of Washington's response to 9/11 were considered as little less than a betrayal.
Responses to 9/11 have been America's strategic litmus test, and most European "allies" are deemed to have failed miserably. Only Britain and Poland proved themselves to be good apples in a rotten barrel.
From the perspective of the Bush administration, Britain and Poland could be trusted because they had not sold their souls to the "liberals in Brussels"; they had not turned into bleeding hearts, but instead had retained a clear moral compass which pointed in America's direction.
Meanwhile, the rest of Europe is fast disappearing from America's strategic radar screen. Americans just can't be bothered anymore with the troubles of Bosnia and Kosovo, especially with Iraq gradually turning into a new Vietnam.
Most Americans seem puzzled by Europe's self-absorbed tinkering with the EU's institutional set-up. From Washington's perspective, Europeans are rearranging their deck chairs while the Titanic of Western civilization is approaching the iceberg of Islamic extremism.
Against this backdrop, America's traditional realists and neoconservatives have struck an unholy alliance by agreeing that Europe is both impotent and irrelevant.
Realist scholars and policy makers (like Henry Kissinger and Donald Rumsfeld) look at the widening gap between America and Europe in military hardware, technology and strategy, and see a decaying continent lacking the political will and means to defend and assert itself in a changing strategic environment. They see Europe as demographically doomed to becoming gray and frail.
Because there is no longer any reason to heed Europe's counsels, both the EU and NATO are being transformed in the new American mind-set into fringe clubs whose support may be welcomed, but whose criticisms safely ignored.
If the realists regret Europe's relative decline, the neocons seem to take a keen pleasure in its troubles. Commentators like William Kristol view the rejection of the EU's constitutional treaty as "a moment of hope for the prospects for a strong, pro-American, pro-liberty, more or less free-market and free-trade, socially and morally reinvigorated Europe."
Underlying the neocons' anti- Europeanism is an awareness that the EU represents a challenge to America's worldview of hard-nosed realpolitik, in which military force determines the balance of power among states.
The EU, by its very existence, opens the possibility of a totally different model that downplays force and realpolitik and upgrades the role of law and trust. The European integration model is proof that the rule of law, institutional arrangements and an elaborate diplomatic circus can tame nationalism and make military might well-nigh irrelevant.
Not only the neocons but also the vast majority of mainstream hard-liners now consider the EU as a provocation, weakening the moral fiber of a whole continent and undermining the realist view in which the United States can play the role of unrivaled hegemon.
All this explains why Washington's anti-Europeanism is at times so vociferous and strident, and why even modest and well-meant European criticism of U.S. foreign policy is felt like a blow to America's moral authority.
Here is a continent that indulges in postmodern complacency, questions America's judgment in the "war on terror" and does not support Israel.
Since the neocon takeover of U.S. policymaking toward Europe, the EU can no longer rely on America's tacit support. U.S. policy makers increasingly question whether further European integration is in America's interest.
Why would the United States want to buttress the EU's economic power if Europe's unspoken aim is to counterbalance Pax Americana and create what President Chirac and his Chinese and Russian colleagues label "a multipolar world"?
More often than not, Washington finds Europe in the opposite camp on issues as diverse as the democratization of the Middle East, reforming the United Nations, the International Criminal Court and market access for genetically modified cereals.
If Europeans are so openly keen to bolster their Union to compete with the United States on all fronts, say both America's realists and neocons, they may eventually get what they ask for - rivalry and, if need be, conflict.
Perhaps it is naïve, but in spite of Europe's long-standing undercurrent of anti-Americanism, Europeans now appear stunned that the United States is reciprocating in kind.
The United States has been one of the midwives of Europe's post-World War II integration process, and has supported every step toward the unification of the continent. Washington's was a "yes-but" approach, cajoling the EU forward as long as it fit America's broader strategic objectives. But at each stage of integration, the United States nudged Europeans along under the premise that what was good for Europe was equally good for America.
Worryingly, this argument is now losing ground, perhaps even more quickly in Washington than in European capitals. During the years of trans-Atlantic "friendly fire," one casualty stands out: mutual trust.
With the ghosts of Vietnam returning to Washington, Europe is increasingly a scapegoat for America's lack of judgment and success. It is one thing to see French and German leaders complaining about American hamfistedness, it is quite another to see their schadenfreude.
The reasons for America's rising anti- Europeanism are numerous and they are here to stay. America has declared itself at war, and is closing itself off from the rest of the world, physically as well as psychologically. It is becoming more difficult to enter the United States now that a kind of siege mentality is taking hold of bureaucrats and the general populace alike. Where Europe is removing borders, Americans are recreating them, in their heads as well as on the ground.
The rising tide of anti-Europeanism in the United States is a clear sign that America's foreign policy is becoming autistic, unwilling to listen to its own friends.
America's international image has never been so dismal, which indicates that Europe's criticism of U.S. foreign policy is not unique but part of a worldwide feeling that the only remaining superpower is getting out of control.
Most Europeans now look at the United States as a good friend who has turned himself away from them, and whose arrogance may hide a deeply felt sense of insecurity, overcompensated by throwing its weight around.
Rising anti-Europeanism indicates the closing of America's mind, and we won't see a festive reopening any time soon.
(Peter van Ham is head of the Global Governance Program at the Netherlands Institute of International Relations ''Clingendael.'' His publications include ''Evolution of the Transatlantic Relationship: Paradise Lost?'')
