A Wider Atlantic?

Internationale Politik (International Politics), June 2001, Berlin

"Is the Atlantic becoming wider?" asks a recent issue of the monthly journal Internationale Politik, Germany’s leading international-affairs publication. Yes, argues the journal’s editor and publisher, Werner Weidenfeld, in his article "Only Cool Interests Remain." Mixing his metaphors somewhat unfelicitously, Weidenfeld sees "non-eruptive tectonic shifts" creeping up on "quiet soles." The former coordinator for German-American cultural relations under the government of Helmut Kohl, Weidenfeld, now a professor at the University of Munich, warns of the dangers of a "culture break" between the United States and Europe. He argues that the trans-Atlantic stock of goodwill, trust, and understanding is nearly depleted and must be replenished.

When he is not writing about tectonic shifts and the fossilization of trans-Atlantic ties, Weidenfeld refers to heat differentials and gaps in sobriety to explain the evolution of U.S.-European affairs. During the era of superpower conflict, everything was warm and fuzzy. Now, Weidenfeld maintains, trans-Atlantic relations are cool, unemotional, sober. Domestic interests prevail, translating into foreign policies based on strict calculations of national interests. The United States enjoys its status as a lone superpower, tries to push some of its burdens onto Europe, and is otherwise focused on the emerging Chinese threat. Europe, meanwhile, is caught in an "emancipation trap," seeking to free itself from American domination without first learning to walk alone in world politics. As a result, Europe can no longer simply drift in America’s slipstream (Weidenfeld’s mixed metaphor) but — absent strategic concepts and competence of its own — remains unable to maintain a steady course without American guidance. The consequence of these developments: "a sober relationship of limited durability" and a growing distance between erstwhile partners who struggle to develop a "partnership of problem solvers."

This assessment of trans-Atlantic malaise has some merit. European-American relations have entered a distinct phase over the last decade, and the arrival of a new administration in Washington always results in new foreign-policy interpretations. Yet Weidenfeld’s analysis suffers from some internal contradictions. For instance, his own descriptions of the state of mutual perceptions during the Cold War make clear that relations were not always so cozy. During the Vietnam-dominated 1960s, Europeans dramatized everything negative in the United States, while in the 1980s, when U.S. President Ronald Reagan seemed bent on confrontation rather than détente, they developed a "sober sense for the possibilities and limitations of trans-Atlantic cooperation." Indeed, political and cultural ambivalence were always present. A new and sudden "culture break" seems less likely than Weidenfeld believes.

The author does not examine specific political-cultural changes in the United States that could lead to a break with Europe (such as the influx of Latin American immigrants, who represent different traditions than did the European inflows of yesteryear). Instead, he argues that the United States became engaged in Europe so that Americans could "defend their own dreams of themselves" by protecting Europeans against the dangers of totalitarianism. With such dangers now defeated, and Berlin a mere geographic location rather than a political symbol, "what American dreams can now be realized in Europe?" None, claims Weidenfeld, which is why he believes times have changed so dramatically.

But have they? Weidenfeld makes no reference to the professed post-Cold War American dream of making Europe whole and free. Another contributor to this issue of Internationale Politik takes up that slack. Volker Rühe, who as Germany’s defense minister in 1993 was the first Western official publicly to propose NATO enlargement to the east, writes about the need to overcome the division of Yalta and reunify Europe. While he is careful in his recommendations — Rühe counsels against including the Baltic states in the next round of enlargement — he leaves no doubt that this task of "historic dimensions" requires close trans-Atlantic cooperation. In the end, it may not be the Atlantic that is becoming wider, but rather the Atlantic community.