America as a European Power: The End of Empire by Integration?

Author(s): John Peterson Source: International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-), Vol. 80, No. 4, The Transatlantic Relationship (Jul., 2004), pp. 613-629 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the Royal Institute of International Affairs Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3569526 Accessed: 10/03/2010 14:03
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Americaas a European power: the end of empireby integration?

JOHN PETERSON

Has the transatlanticalliance reached the end of history? The question may seem facetious or flippant, implicitly connecting Fukuyama's notorious description of the post-Cold War international world, and Kagan's nearly-as-notorious contention that an unbridgeable gulf has opened up between American Martians and European Venusians.' Yet the question is a serious one. In a 'war on terrorism', led by a hegemon with no permanent alliances, is the postwar partnership between Europe and America now a historical artefact? To answer the question, it helps to consider whether a bedrock principle of postwar US foreign policy-the notion of America as a 'European power'remains solid. Is Europe still a special sphere of US interest, for reasons of both global strategy and cultural affinity?2 The principle is rooted in a historical narrative of evolving relations between the United States on the one hand and, on the other, a Europe that was split in two and contained the primary front line of the Cold War, but whose western half as a coherent geopolitical construct, possessing enough political solidarity and responsiveness to American leadership to make the 'West' viable as an alliance. One of the most intriguing accounts of the narrativeis that of the Norwegian historian Geir Lundestad.3 According to Lundestad, the transatlantic alliance became a product of three factors: * * * US political support for European integration, which itself was crucial to the success of what became the European Union (EU); American affinity for the (admittedly naive) idea of constructing a 'United States of Europe', modelled on American federalism; the consistency of US support for European unity, which remained remarkably steady over time.

andthelastman(Londonand New York: HamishHamilton, 1992); FrancisFukuyama,Theendof history order America andEurope in thenewworld andpower: Robert Kagan,Of paradise (New York: Knopf, 2003). There is in any case a clearenough connection between Fukuyama, Kaganand otherswho have politics and distilledthem down to their developed simple thesesabout rapidchange in international soundbites. very essencesin memorable,media-friendly 2 See Richard 74: 2, March-AprilI995, pp. 38-5I. Affairs power', Foreign Holbrooke,'America,a European 3 Geir Lundestad,'Empire' the UnitedStatesandEuropean integration, 1945-97(Oxford: by integration: Oxford UniversityPress,1997).

InternationalAffairs 80, 4

(2004)

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John Peterson Thus, America sought a unified Europe as a central element in a 'negotiated' postwar international order, which itself featured a coherent and purposeful West as a central pillar.4 Admittedly, the western alliance was a scene of frequent quarrelling, but also of genuine negotiation on policy. US power was exercised mainly through persuasion: 'There were a surprising number of instances in which the United States modified its own positions when those efforts at persuasion failed.'5 The essence of Lundestad's argument is that America became and remained a European power mainly by extending its postwar 'empire' through integration and negotiation. In the language of foreign policy analysis, a strong, united Europe became a milieugoal of US foreign policy, or one that aims to shape the broad international order. It was usually prioritized when it clashed with American possession goals, or objectives which furthered specific, material national interests.6 Most of the time, a collectively powerful Europe was viewed as fundamental to the health of the most important US security alliance and, by extension, a democratic international order. Yet three events-the election of George W. Bush, the terrorist attacks of ii September 200I (9/I ) and the Iraqi war-could collectively be viewed as producing deep, lasting ruptures, both in postwar American policy towards rica.7 American behaviour since 9/II, Europe and between Europe and Ame especially during the weeks and months preceding the 2003 Iraq war, has given sustenance to fears that the United States has embraced a new policy of 'disaggregation' of the EU: that is, seeking to maintain America's status as a European power through the use of divide-and-rule tactics, thus allowing the US to dominate (individually much less powerful) EU member states. If Washington could be reasonably sure of the EU's collective support for US policy objectives, a strong Europe would be welcomed. But Iraq showed the EU to be both weak and divided as a collective, and surprisingly supportive of American aims if approached as 25 separate states. From a US perspective the cherry-picking of European allies was a remarkable success, despite overwhelming European public opposition to the Iraq war. What other policy, besides disaggregation, could the US possibly embrace? In the background, according to Kagan, both sides have undergone tidal cultural shifts leading to almost diametrically opposed views of how power is and should be wielded in the pursuit of international order and security. Neither side can persuade (nor, of course, force) the other to accept its view:

4 G. John Ikenberry, wars andtherebuilding institutions, restraint, after Aftervictory: strategic of order major (Princeton,NJ: PrincetonUniversityPress,2000). 5 Council on ForeignRelations, Renewing theAtlantic reportof an independenttaskforce partnership, sponsoredby the CFR (New York: CFR, 2004), p. Io. Given that one of the co-authorsof this report is Henry Kissinger,this claim might seem a controversial one. 6 See ArnoldWolfers, Discord andcollaboration (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UniversityPress, I965). 7 John Petersonand MarkPollack,eds, Europe, Bush(Londonand New York: Routledge, 2003); America, ChaillotPapersno. 68 (Paris: EU G. Lindstrom and B. Schmitt,eds, One yearon: lessonsfrom Iraq, Institutefor SecurityStudies,2004).

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Americaas a European power Europe is turning away from power ... into a self-containedworld of laws and rules and transnational negotiationand cooperation... Meanwhilethe United Statesremains Hobbesianworld where international miredin history,exercisingpower in an anarchic laws and rules are unreliable,and where true securityand the defence and promotion of a liberalorderstill depend on the possessionand use of militarymight.8 This article offers a critical, interpretive analysis of theses and countertheses about where transatlantic relations have been, especially over Iraq, and where they are now going. Its central arguments are that the Bush administration's apparent shift towards a European policy of disaggregation is unproven, and in any event is unlikely to mark a permanent change in US policy towards Europe. All alliances are means to a specified set of ends. Given all the political noise over Iraq, the United States and Europe are surprisingly close to agreement on ends for the international order, even if important differences remain concerning means. The war in Iraq has acted to obscure a significant increase in actual transatlantic policy cooperation, particularly on transnational security issues in the aftermath of 9/I . Apparent conflict on long-term strategy for countering international terrorism-America's penchant for pre-emption vs. Europe's preference for 'draining the swamp', or trying to cut off the roots of international terrorism-is for the most part a phoney war. The Bush administration's infamous US National Security Strategy admits that 'there is little of lasting consequence that the US can accomplish in the world without the sustained cooperation of its allies and friends in ... Europe.'9 On the European side, it is difficult to detect any interest in either a prolonged political rift with the United States or the abandonment of the EU's still very young aspiration to a common foreign and security policy (CFSP). In short, while America and much of Europe disagreed over Iraq, there is little disagreementabout ends, if not means-in the war on terrorism.

Thestoryso far
Scanning the broad landscape of postwar US-European relations, several challenges to Lundestad's empire by integration thesis may seem to emerge. First, fostering an integrated Europe could be viewed as a relatively insignificant, politically cheap US policy objective (in the sense of having few tangible consequences) compared to the far more fundamental goals of ensuring that NATO remained the pre-eminent organization for preserving European security and for US-European political exchanges. Giving political support to what became the EU was thus a second-order concern compared to maintaining NATO's supremacy and American domination within it. Second, support for a US-style United States of Europe was purely rhetorical and confined to a fringe
8 Kagan, Of paradiseand power, p. 3. 9 US State Department, The National Security Strategyof the United States of America (Washington DC: The White House, 2002), p. 25.

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John Peterson of the American political class. When tangible gestures were made to support major steps forward in European integration, they were inspired by ulterior motives: self-interested US objectives on global trade, Central and Eastern Europe, or the Balkans. Third and finally, postwar American support for the European project was not consistently strong. The United States vacillated between ambivalence and outright hostility to European integration, and veered in the latter direction especially when Republican administrations prioritized European security concerns or perceived that US and European economic interests were diverging. All of these objections tend to lose their force if the period of more than half a century after 1945 is considered as a single longue duree.A dominant theme both of major works of historiography on the immediate postwar period and of the memoirs of leading statespersons is that the earliest, crucial steps towards European institution-building would most probably never have taken place without American sanction and even encouragement.'0 No postwar US administration ever took the view for long that a strong NATO was incompatible with a cohesive EEC/EC/EU."I American fondness for the vision of a federal Europe was hardly monopolized by political cranks. It was shared (in chronological order) by William Fulbright, the longest-serving chair (I959-74) of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, by key foreign policy figures within the Kennedy administration, and by Bill Clinton, who began his political career on the staff of Fulbright's Senate Office. Regardless of what came of them, all major US gestures of support for European integration, starting with the Marshall Plan, including Kennedy's Grand Design for a 'concrete Atlantic partnership' and Nixon and Kissinger's 'Year of Europe', proceeding to Bush Sr's TransatlanticDeclaration and culminating in Clinton's New Transatlantic Agenda, implicitly accepted that European unity was a boon to US geopolitical objectives, not a goal to be traded off against them. Finally, whether European unity would always serve US interests was a contested assumption in all postwar US administrations. The Nixon shocks and Reagan-era agitation over 'Fortress Europe' certainly did mark nadirs in USEC relations. However, the historical record shows, consistently, that US policy eventually swung back towards an 'empire by integration' strategy, as evidenced by its acceptance that major integrative projects-the single market, the euro, enlargement-served America's milieu goals.

IO

andthe UnitedStates See Pascaline Winand, Eisenhower, (New York: St Martin's, Kennedy of Europe at thecreation (New York: (Paris: Fayard,I976); Dean Acheson, Present I993);Jean Monnet, Memoires DavidK. E. thebiography aristocrat: Norton, I969); Nelson D. Lankford,ThelastAmerican ofAmbassador vol. I (New York: Little,Brown, I996). Bruce, 1898-1977, The EuropeanEconomic Community (EEC) createdby the I957 Treatyof Rome became the EuropeanCommunity (or, officially,'Communities',EC) following the I986 Single EuropeanAct. The into the 'FirstPillar'of the tri-pillared EC was transformed EuropeanUnion by the I992 Maastricht Treaty,which createdthe 'Second Pillar'for the CFSP and the 'ThirdPillar'forjustice and home affairs
policies.

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Americaas a European power A somewhat different question concerns means, not ends: has Washington ever accepted that America's status as a European power is best served through a progressively more bilateral, Brussels-centred relationship with the EU, as opposed to an alliance based on state-to-state relationships with individual European capitals, or the traditional security alliance centred on NATO? Washington's recent dyspeptic reactions to moves to make the EU a defence and security organization by fleshing out its European security and defence policy (ESDP) are hardly unprecedented historically. Still, the broad, secular trend in the postwar period, especially since 1989, has been in the direction of a more Brussels-orientated, EU-focused American policy towards Europe.'2 A separate objection to the Lundestad thesis might centre on the argument that America's backing for European unity was subject to a law of diminishing returns. As long as the EEC/EC/EU remained too weak to be a serious rival to American power in Europe, encouraging the emergence of a more cohesive Europe was a low-cost exercise promising some (at least) tangible returns on specific projects, such as the democratization of Central Europe. However, after Iraq the Bush administration became convinced that damaging 'theories of rivalries' had infected key European capitals, specifically Berlin and Paris. According to this view, European integration was approaching a threshold where Europe would become capable of challenging American power, in so far as it could deny the legitimacy of US policy objectives and taint them with the label 'unilateralist'-and all with greater effect than in the past. An even more basic protest might be levelled at the empire by integration hypothesis. Was America then, and is it now, a classically 'imperial' power in the sense of a global power that has always dominated its subjects despite any cosmetic appearance of negotiating with them? Few questions in contemporary international relations are subject to as much debate.'3 Of course, much depends on how empire is defined. If any hierarchical system of political relationships featuring one clearly dominant state wielding decisive influence is considered an 'empire', then an imperial America is a reality in the early twenty-first century. If, on the other hand, the dominant power seeks bargains with other powers, enforced by rules and institutions, and operates on the basis of diffuse reciprocity, then, according to Ikenberry, 'this is not empire; it is a US-led democratic political order that has no name or historical antecedent.'I4

12

andAmerica: andrivals in international relations (Boulder,CO and Oxford: John Peterson,Europe partners
Rowman & Littlefield, forthcoming 2005).

13AndrewJ. Bacevich, American therealities andconsequences of US diplomacy empire: (Cambridge,MA and London:Harvard anddemocracy war,terrorism, UniversityPress,2002); BenjaminR. Barber,Fear's empire: (New York and London: empire (Londonand New York: Norton, 2003); MichaelMann, Incoherent thebreakdown order Verso, 2003); EmmanuelTodd, Aftertheempire: (New York: of theAmerican ColumbiaUniversityPress,2003); Niall Ferguson,Colossus: theprice (New York and ofAmerica's empire London:Penguin, 2004); Chalmers of empire: andtheendof the militarism, Johnson, Thesorrows secrecy (New York: Metropolitan,2004). republic 14G. John Ikenberry,'Illusionsof empire:definingthe new Americanorder',Foreign Affairs 83: 2, MarchApril 2004, p. 154.

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John Peterson If this latter view is accepted (and it is rejected by many), the current international order actually does have an antecedent.'5 The postwar international order saw the US extend its 'empire' (loosely defined) to Western Europe by aiding in its reconstruction and encouraging its empowerment through political and economic integration. Postwar America may not be the only historical case of an imperial power seeking to empower, as opposed to dominating, its 'subjects' in a vital sphere of influence. But the United States sustained empowerment for far longer than the classic empires were able to do in their own imperial domains (before embracing decolonization), thus producing a nascent 'US-led democratic political order'. In a Cold War context, it was confined mainly to the North Atlantic area (and parts of Australasia) and existed on a far narrower scale than the democratic international order of today-after all, the number of democracies has doubled globally since the early i98os. Yet the post-Cold War era revealed that the United States had played a long game in Europe and won. Its consistent support for European unity meant that an EU eventually emerged that was powerful enough itself to help propagate and widen a new model, democratic international order, above all by coaxing Central and Eastern Europe to embrace liberal democracy and admitting ten new member states (seven of them formerly members of the Warsaw Pact) to the EU in 2004. Even so, the end of the Cold War could be viewed as marking a deep-seated rupture in transatlantic relations, and one far more important and intractable than the war in Iraq. It is plausible to conclude that the US-European relationship has never been sufficiently modernized from its Cold War incarnation as an essentially one-dimensional security alliance constructed for a static purpose. Despite the ambitions of the 1990 TransatlanticDeclaration and (even more so) the I995 New Transatlantic Agenda, the US and EU have rarely found themselves capable of defining a common agenda, let alone pursuing joint action, on pressing economic and transnational issues, as they equipped themselves to do on most hard security issues during the Cold War.I6 Now, the atrophy of European militaries could be taken to mean that even this avenue for partnership is closed off. Yet arguably, the yawning gap between European military weakness and vast investment in US military power is not, as is often supposed, the main obstacle to transatlanticpartnership. The most intractable problem is how weak and rudderless the European Union remains as a political actor beyond its own backyard, and often within it.17 More than ten years after the unveiling of the
15'Antecedent'in the sense of one circumstance that precedesanotherand from which the latterlogically
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follows. and Pascaline Winand, The two leadingworks on the New Transatlantic Agendaare Eric Philippart PressesInteruniversitaires in US-EU relations (Brussels: eds, Evercloser partnership: policy-making Lang,2ooi) and MarkA. Pollackand GregoryC. Shaffer,eds, Transatlantic Europeennes/Peter in theglobaleconomy (Boulder,CO and Oxford:Rowman & Littlefield,2001). governance I7 John Peterson,'Europe,America,Iraq: Union:annual TheEuropean worst ever and ever-worsening?',
review2004/5,Journal of Common Market Studies 42: 6, pp. I3-30.

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Americaas a European power EU's CFSP, it remained difficult to think of cases where the government of any large EU member state had taken even the slightest political risk to defend the prerogatives of Brussels as a foreign policy power. European divisions during the Iraqi war, with nearly all incoming (in May 2004) Central and Eastern European EU member states backing the Bush administration against the will of France, Germany and others, revealed how immature and unable to speak for Europe the Union remained. It was far too easy to blame all that had gone wrong in transatlantic relations on the aggressive unilateralism of the George W. Bush administration. The EU is often conceived in the academy as a 'postmodern' polity (ironically, even by those convinced that it is tightly controlled by its member states). 8 Yet, in foreign policy at least, it is only now departing from a 'premodern' phase. In other words, according to an optimistic view, it is now on the verge of being able to speak authoritatively for Europe in international affairs,particularly since it has finally begun to be equipped with the resources and institutions, via a new constitutional treaty, to do so.19 This view assumes that future historians will view the EU's 2004 enlargement as a serious step towards modernizing the Union. The new European Union of 25 will accentuate the importance of Brussels as a political capital on matters of foreign policy. Eventually, the new Central and East European EU member states (along with Cyprus and Malta) will learn the habits and norms of seeking European consensus as a first reflex. Despite all its failures, including over Iraq, the EU's CFSP is a 'long game', and there is no sign of any EU state wishing to abandon it.20 According to this view, a critical mass of European governments, post-Iraq, realize that the EU urgently needs renewal. Moreover, the main foreign policy task of the EU, post-enlargement, offers strong prospects for genuine partnership with the United States in terms of actual policy: that is, stabilizing, pacifying and eventually democratizing the Greater Middle East (what Brzezinski calls the 'Global Balkans'21), or the area extending from the Balkans to the Middle East through Central Asia and on to Pakistan. A less optimistic (and probably more plausible) view startsby observing that foreign policy now begins at home. In the Cold War era, foreign policy began abroad: it was a 'matter of state', formulated in response to external events and assessments of external threat. Now, 'foreign policy is the external reflection of domestic politics' and 'foreign policy is of secondary interest until it begins to
I8 JamesCaporaso,'The EuropeanUnion and formsof state:Westphalian, regulatoryor post-modern?',

Market Studies Journal of Common 34: I, March I996, pp. 29-52; Andrew Moravcsik,'Despotismin Brussels? 80: 3, May/June 2001, pp. I I4-22. Misreadingthe EuropeanUnion', Foreign Affairs '9 In mid-2004 the EU appeared close to agreementon a new constitutional treaty,which was likely to include a rangeof institutional reformsin foreign policy, above all a new 'Union ministerof foreign affairs'. 20 EU foreign policy since i September200I',Journal ChristopherHill, 'Rationalizingor regrouping? of Common Market Studies 42: i, March2004, p. I6I. 21 Zbigniew Brzezinski,Thechoice: globaldomination (New York and London:Basic orglobal leadership Books, 2004).

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impinge on domestic issues.'22In short, what happens abroad determines foreign policies far less than what happens at home. Against this backdrop, European governments will have to invest heavily in rhetorical defence of Brussels to secure ratification of a new constitutional treaty, overcome domestic political opposition to it (which will be formidable in some member states), and in the meantime somehow make the EU a more effective global actor. In the circumstances it is easy to be pessimistic about the EU's ability to start punching its weight in international politics. By extension, the most important future determinants of US foreign policy (and, to a considerable extent, transatlanticrelations) are likely to be changes in domestic politics, particularly the political geography of American politics. In political terms, the shift of population and wealth to the American south and inner west, and changes (especially redistricting23) that make Congress less outward-looking and internationalist, may well produce a more populist brand of US politics and a foreign policy that is more aggressively unilateral, at least in rhetorical terms. Yet in practical terms (especially given the large federal deficits of the Bush years) foreign policy resources are likely to stagnate or decline. One likely effect would be to encourage future US administrations to seek to share burdens more systematically to try to stabilize the international order-generally, but particularly with the EU and its member states. The alternative-the US withdrawing from international leadership-is unimaginable until such time as the war on terrorism is 'over', a contingency that is itself unthinkable in the foreseeable future.

Disaggregation?
The Bush administration should not be given more credit than it deserves for thinking strategicallyabout Europe. Even before 9/I I and all that followed, the signature publication previewing the Bush administration's foreign policy priorities, authored by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, barely touched on Europe and never once mentioned the EU.24 Since then, the war on terrorism and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have focused US foreign policy far more on the Greater Middle East (especially), but also on Asia and Latin America, than on Europe per se.
22

Robert Cooper, Thebreaking order andchaos in the21st century of nations: (London:Atlantic,2003), pp. 106-7. The authoris a seniorEU foreignpolicy officialwho is widely creditedwith authoringmuch of the EU's EuropeanSecurityStrategy(see below). 23 Redistricting meansredrawingconstituencyboundaries,usuallywith the objective of producingsafe seatsthat only one partyhas any practical chance of winning. In these circumstances, primaryelections, when candidates campaignfor the votes of partymembersand often try to appealto those on the 'flanks'of their parties,become a more importantdeterminant of election resultsthan generalelections, in which moderatecandidates often have advantages in competingfor 'swing voters'. On the electoral effectsof redistricting, see GaryC. Jacobson,'Terror,terrainand turnout:explainingthe 2002 midterm I 8: I, Spring2003, pp. 1-22. Science elections', Political Quarterly 24 CondoleezzaRice, 'Promotingthe nationalinterest',Foreign 79: I, Jan.-Feb. 2000, pp. 45-62. Affairs The closestRice comes to acknowledgingthe EU's existenceis to confirmthat 'the United Stateshas an interestin shapingthe Europeandefence identity' (p. 54).

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Americaas a European power Nonetheless, America's new European policy of disaggregation might seem a logical extension of what has become known as the Bush doctrine, as outlined in the 2002 US National Security Strategy (NSS).25 To simplify slightly, its essence is the administration's stated intention to strike pre-emptively at perceived security threats, either alone (if necessary) or with ad hoc 'coalitions of the willing' (if convenient). As such, the United States might seek to ensure that it never had to confront an EU with foreign policy structures more robust than existed at the time of the Iraq war in 2003, which themselves were not sufficient to produce a clear EU policy either for or against the war. Holders of this view would consider the Iraq war a defining moment in US policy towards Europe: the end of empire by integration and the beginning of an effort to ensure that Washington could always hand-pick European allies, as it did when it attracted military support from the United Kingdom, and political support from a range of current and future EU member states.26It is obviously risky to assume that all future US actions in the war on terrorism would be able to attracta similar level of European support. It is downright dangerous to encourage a united Europe that might actively seek to deny future American actions a cloak of international legitimacy. In 2003, Iraq was not an 'EU issue'. It might make sense to try to ensure that the same could be said for future US missions in the war on terrorism. Conducted along these lines, America's European policy would become a short game. It would privilege the goal of ensuring that individual European states would always have to choose whether they were 'with or against' the United States in specific missions in the war on terrorism. The question of whether the United States should be more concerned about the prospect of rising European power or spiralling European weakness would be essentially moot.27 All that would matter was whether or not, and with what intensity and resources, individual European states supported America's agenda in the war on terrorism. Yet if American policy prioritizes above all else Europe's contribution to countering international terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), then it makes little sense to cultivate disaggregation. Even given the EU's crisis of purpose over Iraq and its intense internal focus on the constitutional treaty, the Union has been an active, productive and even creative source of policy action on many of the most important non-military issues in the war on terrorism, bundled together under the rubric of homeland security in Washington or justice and home affairs(JHA) in Brussels. The EU has
25 US StateDepartment,TheNationalSecurity Strategy. Americanofficialseven claimedto have done the mathsand worked out that, had the matterbeen put to a vote under the EU's formalrules,a qualifiedmajoritywould have supportedan attackon Iraq.This point was made repeatedlyin interviewsconductedby the authorin Brusselsand Washingtonin November and December 2003. 27 The leadingaccount of Europe'sdecline is, of course, Kagan's.For a contrary(andiconoclastic)view, see CharlesA. Kupchan, Theendof theAmerican era:USforeign policyandthegeopolitics of thetwenty-first (New York: Knopf, 2003). century

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John Peterson employed its still very youngJHA policy-making apparatusto something close to maximum effectiveness to agree measures on politically thorny questions including a European arrest warrant and a common definition of terrorism. It also has managed to strike broadly acceptable compromises, in response to forceful US demands, on a range of difficult issues including airline passenger data, container security in the shipping industry, and money-laundering.28 The bilateral agreement on extradition and mutual legal assistance-a potentially major policy act in the fight against terrorism and international crime-agreed at the Washington US-EU summit in June 2003 would have been entirely unimaginable even a year earlier.29 To be clear, advances in US-EU policy cooperation do not mean that transatlanticrelations do not need to be modernized. The need to revamp the main channel for US-EU exchanges, the New Transatlantic Agenda, is clear. In particular, the EU must adjust to the fact that 'US policy-makers are becoming less interested in Europe per se, and more interested in the assets, both military and non-military, that Europe can provide for dealing with global challenges, especially terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.'30 Still, there is little prospect of the EU becoming a less important institutional vehicle for delivering European non-military assets in the war on terrorism. To illustrate the point, the prominence of the EU role in Afghanistan has not been lost on the Bush administration: the Union has contributed heavily to Afghan reconstruction, giving in fact more than it originally pledged at the 2002 Afghanistan donors' conference held in Tokyo. Meanwhile, the EU has begun to refocus seriously, in foreign policy terms, on its new 'near abroad' after enlargement.3' More broadly, the most crucial difference between the Cold War and post-Cold War international orders may be how the focus of US foreign policy has shifted from Europe to the Greater Middle East, where America may be able to fight and win wars alone, but cannot win the peace without Europe. Logically, a Europe that is both active and cohesive in the region is a far more effective partner. At the same time, support has grown in Washington for the idea of 'trilateral' leadership of the Union, with the UK assuming a leading role alongside the traditional Franco-German alliance. The potential of trilateralismwas illustrated in the aftermath of Iraq by policy initiatives on Iran and defence cooperation.32
'Europe,America,Iraq';Monica Den Boer andJorgMonar, 'I I Septemberand the Union:annual review 2001 /2, to the EU as a securityactor', TheEuropean challengeof globalterrorism Market Studies of Common Journal 39: 6, 2002, pp. 1-28. 29 See US Mission to the EU, 'US, EU sign legal assistance, at extraditiontreaties',25 June 2003, available
WashingtonSummit/ http://www.useu.be/TransAdantic/US-EU%20Summits/June2s50o3 accessed2 May 2004. June2So3USEUSummitExtradition.html; 30 FranBurwell, 'Rethinkingthe transatlantic agenda',unpublished paper,AtlanticCouncil, Washington. 31 See EuropeanCommission,'WiderEurope-neighbourhood: a new framework for relationswith our

28 See Peterson,

easternand southernneighbours',communicationfrom the Commissionto the Council and European

Parliament, COM (2003) 104 final, Brussels, I March 2003.

32 In October 2003, a Europeanmissionconsistingof the British,Frenchand Germanforeign ministers (andlackingany EU representation per se) securedan agreement(albeita fragileone) with Iranto

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Americaas a European power In a sense, in European foreign policy as well as in NATO, coalitions of the as shown by European military deploywilling are becoming the modusoperandi, ments in postwar Afghanistan (by NATO), Congo (with a French-led force operating under an EU mandate) and the Balkans (where NATO is gradually giving way to the EU). The idea that it is counterproductive to hinder their formation if they can solve a security problem has gained ground, particularly as the EU has enlarged to 25 member states. Looking ahead, the view that Europe is disaggregating by itself, sometimes voiced by American EU-watchers during the heat of tensions over Iraq,33 is likely to fade, especially as the new member states are socialized to Brussels decision-making while still remaining advocates of Atlanticism in EU foreign policy. There is no inherent contradiction between an EU (of 25 or more) that is subject to stronger and firmer political direction supplied by its largest member states and an EU that is simultaneously more institutionally coherent in foreign policy (that is, one with a single diplomatic service, an EU minister of foreign affairs, an effective ESDP, etc.). If anything, the weakness of EU foreign policy to date may be attributed mainly to the failure of governments of large member states to invest in the CFSP. The net effect of EU enlargement is likely to be warmer transatlantic relations. Trilateralism may be the surest route to an EU that can truly act, as opposed to react, in foreign policy. Official US support for European integration may have become more measured;34but there are few reasons to believe that America under Bush has embraced a new European policy of disaggregation, and even fewer reasons to think that it should.

Thefutureof 'pre-emption'
It would be difficult to overestimate the consternation provoked in European foreign policy circles by the publication of the Bush administration's National Security Strategy in 2002. In one fell swoop, the US appeared to arrogate to
and allow unrestricted inspectionof its nuclearfacilitiesby suspendits uraniumenrichmentprogramme the International Atomic EnergyAgency. In February 2004, the UK and France-joined soon which would afterwards by Germanyand others-announced the formationof new joint 'battlegroups', in a hardsense for specifictypes of missions(suchas amphibious combine nationalmilitarycapabilities landingsor operationsin jungles or deserts)and be capableof almostimmediatedeployment. 33 Grantreportsan unnamed'seniorfigurein the Bush administration' telling a seminarof US and (held in April 2003 in the middle of the Iraqwar) that 'Europeis no Europeanofficialsand analysts for enlargement has dilutedEurope.'CharlesGrant, longer a geopoliticalconstruct,it is disaggregating, Transatlantic How to bring thetwosidestogether (London:Centre for EuropeanReform, 2003), p. I 3. rift? was tryingto split the EU, the chairof the House subcommitteeon Asked if the Bush administration Doug Bereuter,repliedthat 'the EU has done a good job of doing that itself (quoted Europeanaffairs, in European Voice, 26June-2July 2003, p. I). 34 To illustrate the point, considerthe choice of words of one US diplomat:'We have faiththat a united Europe will by and largepromote policies that are good not only for the EU, but also for the US and the rest of the planet.'See 'US views of Europeand the EU', address by EU ministercounsellorfor Kyle Scott to the Free Universityof BrusselsEuropeanStudiesInstitute,Brussels,20 politicalaffairs at http://www.useu.be/TransAtlantic/Apr2004ScottSpeechUSandEU.html; April 2004, available accessed2 May 2004.

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John Peterson itself the right to judge when and how it would attack perceived threats to American security: 'we will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of self-defence by acting preemptively.'35 The NSS contained no promise of negotiations about the circumstances under which US military power would be used to pre-empt security threats. As such, it seemed to mark the end of a negotiated international order. In fact, a close reading of the NSS reveals that a liberal, even idealist view of the world is its most powerful undertone. Offering perhaps the most perceptive of all analyses of the NSS, Michael Mazarr notes that it is a document overwhelmingly about terrorism: it contains barely any hint that a future security threat might emanate from any source other than terrorists or rogue states.36 It is dominated by two strikingly idealistic and thoroughly liberal themes: first, that the most effective counterterrorism measure is the promotion of freedom and 'human dignity'; second, that new opportunities exist for 'a like-minded group of major powers [to] inaugurate a new era in world politics'. What the NSS reveals most starkly is that the US after 9/I I, at least under George W. Bush, is no longer a status quo power. For example, the NSS clearly marked a radical turn away from containment as a security doctrine.37 Yet the case that it makes for proactive, even pre-emptive international action as the only viable response to the convergence of international terrorism and the proliferation of WMD is at least compelling and forceful, and arguably intellectually coherent. Over time, this view has attracted converts in Europe. Less than a year after the publication of the Bush doctrine, and remarkably soon after the trauma of the Iraqi war, the EU produced the broad outlines of its own European Security Strategy (ESS). Formally authored by the EU's High Representative for the CFSP, Javier Solana (not, crucially, by any national European political figure or official), the ESS was presented in draft form to a summit of EU leaders held in Thessaloniki in June 2003. It then survived, more or less intact, scrutiny by member governments, and was adopted by EU leaders in
December 2003.

Unsurprisingly, compared to its American analogue, the ESS is considerably broader, touching on a range of non-military, transnational threats to security including global warming, Europe's energy dependency and global poverty.
35US StateDepartment,TheNationalSecurity Strategy, p. 6. 36MichaelJ. Mazarr,'George W. Bush, idealist',International 79: 3, May 2003, pp. 503-22 at p. 507. Affairs See e.g. Keir A. Lieberand Robert J. Mazarr's argumentis perhapsless iconoclasticthan it firstappears. electronic Lieber,'The Bush National SecurityStrategy',USforeign of the US journal policyagenda: at http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itps/I202/ijpe/pj7of State7: 4, Dec. 2002, available Department the Bush doctrine',Political Science accessed7 May 2004; RobertJervis, 'Understanding 4lieber.htm; I I8: 3, Fall2003, pp. 365-88. Revealing in this context are severalclosely argued(andalmost Quarterly officials,includingIvo H. Daalderand analyses by formerClinton administration entirelycontrary) unbound DC: BrookingsInstitution,2003); John Newhouse, (Washington JamesM. Lindsay,America order America: theBushassault on world (New York: Knopf, 2003). Imperial 37 RobertJ. Lieber,'The folly of containment',Commentary, April 2003, pp. I5-2I.

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Americaas a European power But its primary themes are terrorism and WMD, which are identified (along with 'regional conflict', 'state failure' and 'organized crime') as the primary 'new threats' to European security. The overwhelming emphasis of the ESS is on the need for more proactive European policies: We should be ready to act before a crisisoccurs. Conflict prevention and threatprevention cannotstarttoo early... Active policiesareneeded to counterthe new dynamic threats.We need to develop a strategicculture that fosters early, rapid, and when robustintervention... We need to be able to act before countriesaroundus necessary, deteriorate, when signs of proliferation are detected, and before humanitarian emergenciesarise.38 Revealingly, an apparently anodyne suggestion in Solana's initial draft-that 'pre-emptive engagement can avoid more serious problems in the future'-was reworded in the final version to become an endorsement of 'preventive' engagement, a sign of Europe's allergy to pre-emption.39 Still, read together, the two security strategies reveal a genuine convergence in views about the nature of new security threats, and considerable harmony on how they should be countered. Ultimately, doctrinal differences between Europe and America about pre-emption are unlikely to be an important barrier to collective western action in response to new threats arising from terrorism, WMD proliferation or failed states. When such threats arise, there are likely to be other, far more serious obstacles to pre-emption. One is a lack of clarity in international law. Most international lawyers agree that pre-emption, or what is sometimes called anticipatory self-defence, could be justified in some circumstances, particularly when a state can demonstrate near-certainty that it is about to be attacked. The legal origins of pre-emption date as far back as I837 and the British attack (on US territory) on the USS Israel's claim to anticipatory self-defence in I967 is often held to be Caroline.4? a valid one. However, here as elsewhere, international law is neither well codified nor authoritative. The closest that the United Nations Charter comes to
38 EuropeanUnion, A secure in a better world: EU Institutefor Europe (Paris: security European strategy Strategic Studies, 2003), pp.II, 17 and I8.

39 One effect of this allergicreactionis furtherto muddy the alreadymurkywaterssurrounding the meaningsof 'pre-emption'and 'prevention'.Pre-emptionis widely viewed as the use of proactiveforce that it faces an imminent attack.In contrast,preventionusually by one statewhen it is a near-certainty means 'fightinga winnablewar now in orderto avoid the riskof war laterunderless favourable De Wijk arguesthat 'althoughcalledpre-emption,the concept mentioned in the [US] circumstances'. NationalSecurity is prevention'.See Rob de Wijk (untitled)in Lindstromand Schmitt,eds, One Strategy yearon, p. 50. 40 In I837 the Britishmoved to cut off US supportfor a revolt in easternCanadaby launchinga raidinto New York and burningan Americanship. Five yearslater,US Secretary of StateDaniel Webster reachedan agreementwith the Britishprohibitingfuturestrikesexcept in casesof 'necessityof selfdefence, instant,overwhelming,leaving no choice of means,and no moment for deliberation'.See Bruce Ackerman,'But what's the legal basisfor pre-emption?',Washington Post,20 Aug. 2002, p. B2, also available at http://www.law.yale.edu/outside/html/Public_Affairs/282/yls_article.htm, accessed7 May 2004; see also AbrahamD. Sofaer,'On the necessityof pre-emption', European of InterJournal national Law I4: 2, April2003, pp. 209-26; William H. Taft IV and Todd F. Buchwald, 'International law and the war in Iraq',American Law97: 3, July 2003, pp. 557-62. of International Journal

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John Peterson specifying pre-emption is in Article 5I, which states that 'nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective selfdefence if any armed attack occurs against a member of the United Nations.' I is far from immune to varying interpretations. Obviously, Article 51 A second, even more formidable barrier to pre-emption is the quality of intelligence needed to assess with confidence when pre-emptive strikes are justified. Leaving aside the question of whether or not any case ever existed for attacking Iraq on grounds of anticipatory self-defence, Iraq's apparent lack of active WMD programmes, and the separate inferences of nearly every national western intelligence service that they existed, showed how much intelligence needs to be multilateralized, with actionable intelligence truly shared between states (and agencies within them), to be effective in the war on terrorism. It is misleading to label Iraq 'one of the worst intelligence failures in America history'.4' The national intelligence service that was most confident in concluding that Iraq had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and was close to a nuclear capability was Germany's. The intelligence failure was global. It will not be the last without a sea-change-on a magnitude that is very difficult to imagine-in the direction of multilateralizing western intelligence. Finally and relatedly, the experience of Iraq effectively precludes international consensus (or even US domestic consensus) in support of further preemptive strikes at any time in the near future. As one Bush administration official puts it, 'we may never have intelligence that's good enough to make pre-emption a viable strategy. Even a 2 per cent failure rate is politically unacceptable.'42 For the moment, pre-emption seems a paper tiger in terms of the threat it poses to international terrorists, rogue states or the transatlantic alliance. In the longer term, proactive, preventive engagement in the war on terrorism is likely to establish itself as the central guiding principle of foreign policy in both the United States and Europe.

Conclusion
It might be argued that there remain very fundamental differences between American and European approaches to the war on terrorism. The American approach is to attack the disease by hitting at its symptoms, primarily with military force. The European approachis more classicallypreventive and holistic. It seeks to 'drain the swamp' in which international terrorism festers, eliminating its root causes: poverty, illiteracy, disease, underdevelopment and so on. This predisposition is dismissed by some, in Kaganite style, as one of necessity rather than choice, and a natural consequence of Europe's military weakness. Yet the extent to which the US has, perhaps by accident as much as design, embraced much the same strategy is striking. It is visible in the Bush administration's policies on the Millennium Challenge Account, Afghanistan, AIDS
4I
42

WilliamDrozdiak(untitled)in Lindstrom and Schmitt,eds, Oneyearon, p. 154. Interview,US National SecurityCouncil, I Dec. 2003.

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Americaas a European power and other infectious diseases,43 and the 'Greater Middle East'. All have been ineptly handled by the Bush administration-witness its use, even abuse, of the UN's Arab human development in justifying its heavy-handed approach to report its blatant partisanship on nearly all issues reforming the Middle East,44 or connected with Israel and the Palestinians. Still, it is surprisingly difficult to label the Bush administration's foreign policy, in word or deed, as either 'realist' or 'neo-conservative'. The war on terrorism has clearly elevated the enforcement of global norms-including no state support for terrorism or the proliferation of WMD-over state sovereignty, itself the sacred cornerstone of realist thinking. It is difficult to be precise about what would constitute a neoconservative foreign policy, and even the Bush administration's harshest critics dismiss the label as inaccurate or irrelevant to actually existing US policy.45 Future historians may well decide that US foreign policy under the Bush administration has been underpinned by two broad principles. One is a conviction that 'a globalizing world of democratic, trading states is no longer the world once portrayed by realists.'46That is to say, an anarchic international world of perpetual conflict between self-interested, aggressive, antagonistic states is avoidable if more states could be encouraged to embrace democracy, open markets and human rights. Another is that, practically speaking, the world is divided between a modern core and a premodem periphery. As such, the West has both a clear interest in exporting freedom, democracy and all that comes with them to the underdeveloped world and a moral responsibility to do so. If this analysisis correct, or even if it is simply an accurate description of core beliefs at the root of the Bush administration's foreign policy, then several conclusions follow. The transatlantic alliance is likely to endure. The 'West' will remain a relatively cohesive ordering device in international politics. The United States will continue to be a European power. There will always be times when the tenor of public diplomacy will obscure commonality of purpose in transatlantic relations. The realization that terrorism and WMD proliferation cannot be deterred only through the use of force often seems not to have penetrated the mindsets of the US public, opinion leaders or the media.47 Support for multilateralism in principle remains low in the United States, and Mazarr is probably right to suggest that 'liberal institutionalism [is] still not credible to most Americans', a point often unappreciated in European foreign policy circles.48 It is thus no wonder that the Bush
43 The emphasishere is on visibilityin termsof statedpolicy, not actualdelivery.For a scathingattackon

US AIDS policy, see Molly Ivansand Lou Dubose, Bushwhacked: W. Bush'sAmerica (New lifein George York: Random House, 2003). 44 United Nations, Arabhuman (UN Development Programme,Regional Bureaufor development report ArabStates,2003). 45 See Daalderand unbound. Lindsay,America 46 Mazarr, 'George W. Bush, idealist',p. 507. 47 Even the Postreactedto the comment of the EuropeanCommission normallysober Washington President,Romano Prodi, that force is not alwaysthe answerto terrorism by insistingthat 'shouldsuch sentimentsprevail,the next US administration-whetherled by PresidentBush or Senator John F. to unilateralism' (I6 March2004, p. A2o). Kerry-may have no alternative 48 Mazarr, 'George W. Bush, idealist',p. 504.

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John Peterson administration has eschewed Clintonite, or 'European', rhetoric about the virtues of multilateralism and international cooperation as solutions to the new international security dilemma. In practical terms, however, the main impact of the war on terrorism on US-European relations has been to promote enhanced policy cooperation. Vastly expanded combined policy efforts, particularlyon internal security, have proceeded almost entirely untouched by political conflict at the highest levels. Meanwhile, the more the United States invests in nation-building in Afghanistan and Iraq, the more it confronts the roots of international terrorism. It is not unreasonable, and even rational, to expect Washington to begin to develop increased interest in, and even admiration for, European policy efforts designed to 'drain the swamp' in Turkey, Iran and elsewhere. Even the US military is responding to the lessons of postwar Iraq, and in ways which will facilitate future policy cooperation with Europe, by making large investments in 'full spectrum force capabilities', extending to peacekeeping, stabilization missions and the training of military police, liaison officers and post-conflict intelligence analysts.49Transatlantic policy cooperation in the Greater Middle East will never be untroubled, but it is likely to become increasingly obvious as a minimum (if insufficient) condition for solving the region's problems. Against this backdrop a new US policy of seeking to 'disaggregate Europe' hardly makes sense, and thus is unlikely. Historically, the EU tends to rise to the occasion when the United States sends a clear signal that it expects unified European positions on specific questions. As has been shown by the Uruguay Round, in the Balkans, and most recently in respect ofjustice and home affairs policy, American pressure is one of the best antidotes to self-serving hypocrisy on the part of European national capitals. The United States has always been an unsung regulator of European unity, in that the pace of integration responds to American policy and rhetoric, especially in terms of EU external policy.50 The impression that America has embraced disaggregation is at least partially a product of the willingness, even eagerness, of the George W. Bush administration to upset the status quo in international politics. Yet its foreign policy objectives have, for the most part, been entirely consistent with America's 'liberal revolutionary tradition' and may even be seen as Wilsonian-idealist.51 Ironically, in this context, even Kagan acknowledged that the United States faced a deep crisis of legitimacy after Iraq.52 The view that America had reached the apex of its international power, and the nadir of its international
49

See New York of William Schneider, Times,I I March2004, p. Ai. Here I also drawon the presentation chairof the US Defense Policy Board,to the German-British Forumconferenceheld in London on 28 Oct. 2003. 50 See Petersonand Pollack,eds, Europe, Bush. America, 5 Mazarr,'George W. Bush, idealist';Robert Kagan,'America's crisisof legitimacy',Foreign 83: 2, Affairs (8 May March-April2004, pp. 65-87. As postwarIraqthreatenedto descendinto chaos, TheEconomist who thought the governmenthad no business 2004, p. 52) reportedthat 'mainstream [US] conservatives invadingIraqin the name of idealism[felt]emboldened.' 52Kagan,'America's crisisof legitimacy'.See alsoPhilip Gordon andJeremyShapiro,Alliesat war: andthesplitoverIraq (New York: McGraw-Hill,2004). Europe America,

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Americaas a European power influence, became almost mainstream.53 In political terms, the United States seemed to need the legitimacy that Europe could provide nearly as much as Europe needed the global public goods-international order, open markets, regional security, etc.-that only the United States could supply. In practical terms, few coalitions of the willing in the war on terrorism appeared to be credible without Europe. The United States thus looked likely to remain a European power, albeit of a rather different, perhaps more chastened, pragmatic, even post-Wilsonian kind.

53 LawrenceSummers,'Europeand Americain the 2ISt century',lecture deliveredat London School of at http://www.president.harvard.edu/speeches/2003/lse.html; Economics, 13 Nov. 2003 (available
accessed 7 May 2004).

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