Charles A. Kupchan

Europe today is home to a rising tide of angry anti-American sentiment. Recent polling by the Pew Research Center indicates that almost two-thirds of the public in France and Germany hold an “unfavorable” opinion of the United States. America’s standing in the world has plummeted under Bush’s watch, and the Atlantic alliance has been stretched to the breaking point.

Although the Iraq war is the most prominent cause, the story starts well before the fall of Baghdad and the chaotic occupation that followed it. The Atlantic alliance was born amid the bloodshed of World War II, when the world’s democracies joined arms to defeat Nazism and fascism. It held fast during the long years of the Cold War, successfully containing the Soviet Union until the communist bloc collapsed of its own accord. On this side of the Atlantic, the task of caring for the West fell to a bipartisan coalition of centrist Republicans and Democrats, cobbled together by FDR during the war. The progressive internationalism that resulted brought a commitment to multilateralism and compromise that legitimized U.S. power through the second half of the 20th century.

The Atlantic alliance first began to weaken after the Cold War, a victim of its own success in ending Europe’s geopolitical division. Absent a common threat, Europe became less willing to follow America’s lead. And with Europe’s major powers at peace, U.S. priorities shifted to Asia and the Middle East. The cracks in the alliance became clear amid its lethargic and tortured efforts to bring peace to the Balkans during the 1990s.

But now, the United States and Europe are not just lapsed partners; they have become open rivals. Some of America’s harshest critics are its traditional democratic allies in Europe. In turn, Washington has lost its enthusiasm for European unity, now resisting what has been a fundamental goal of U.S. foreign policy since the end of World War II. How did it come to this? How could decades of partnership so readily give way to estrangement?

The main source of the friction is the Bush administration’s lasting embrace of a unilateralist approach, which has cost America its legitimacy in the eyes of the world. Unchecked by the moderating influence of institutions and allies, a reassuring restraint in American leadership has given way to an alienating excess.

The bipartisan coalition that for decades underwrote liberal internationalism started to come undone well before Bush took office. Although President Clinton was a committed multilateralist, Republican control of Congress and domestic politics thwarted a series of international pacts that Clinton supported.

The unilateralism intensified dramatically as soon as Bush occupied the White House. The Republican Party’s internationalist wing — the likes of Henry Kissinger, the elder Bush and his former national security advisor, Brent Scowcroft — still wields influence, but no longer power. Soon after taking office, Bush reveled in his rejection of the Kyoto Protocol, the International Criminal Court and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

Although America and Europe were on a collision course before al-Qaida’s attacks on New York and Washington, the angry vulnerability bred by 9/11 made matters much worse. Bush might have capitalized on the outpouring of sympathy in Europe. For the first time in its history, NATO invoked its collective defense clause, with America’s European allies ready to participate in the war in Afghanistan. “Thanks, but no thanks” was the response from Washington.

The resulting pique in Europe only mounted as the Bush administration, satisfied — erroneously — that it had dealt a debilitating blow to the Taliban and al-Qaida, set its sights on Saddam Hussein. Led by France and Germany, the antiwar coalition in Europe contended that an invasion of Iraq would set back, not advance, the fight against terrorism and that it would flame rather than tame Islamic fervor across the Middle East. Although a few European governments — the British, Spanish, Italian and Polish most prominent among them — backed Bush’s decision to invade Iraq, public opinion, even in the countries that supported the U.S., was decidedly opposed to the war.

Since the fall of Hussein, Europe’s pro-war coalition has markedly weakened for a number of reasons. First, Washington’s main justifications for the war quickly evaporated, and, instead, the region is in turmoil and al-Qaida recruitment has jumped. Second, the current violence and chaos in Iraq look much more like occupation than liberation. Finally, the prisoner abuse scandal has provoked outrage across Europe, drying up what little sympathy remained.

Thus far, Spain, deeply shaken by the Madrid bombings, is the only major member of the military coalition in Iraq to head for the exits. But British Prime Minister Tony Blair is fighting for his political life as a result of his relationship with Bush and his support for the war. And Italy’s center-left opposition is now calling for the withdrawal of Italian troops from Iraq, making Berlusconi’s government increasingly unstable.

Poland’s prime minister, a supporter of the war, has already stepped down, and President Alexander Kwasniewski is at pains to demonstrate the war’s benefits to his electorate. Polish troops are dying in Iraq, Polish firms have yet to receive major reconstruction contracts and Bush has repeatedly rebuffed Kwasniewski’s requests that Washington grant Polish tourists visa-free access to the United States.

Bush will arrive in Rome on Friday hoping to resuscitate the Atlantic alliance and get more European help in Iraq — worthy objectives whose accomplishment would certainly shore up his bid for reelection in November. But he will have no such luck. Instead, he will find a Europe that has no intention whatsoever of bailing him out of the quagmire in Iraq.

At least as troubling, the president will find a Europe that has grown not just anti-Bush, but decidedly anti-American. During a recent visit to Europe, I met an anxious American father who has been living in Germany for over a decade. His children attend local public schools. They are now being taunted and isolated at school because they are Americans. Two weeks ago, a friend entered a dance club in Berlin wearing a pin showing the German and U.S. flags side by side. She was turned away by the bouncer, who announced that he was no fan of German-American friendship.

These are sad commentaries on the damage the Bush administration has done and could potentially still do to America’s image abroad. If younger Europeans come of age with anti-American attitudes, the task of rescuing the Atlantic alliance — to whomever it falls — may well be out of reach.

Is this a “mission accomplished”?

What is most troubling about Bush’s victory is that it casts doubt on the reassuring notion that democracy and the marketplace of ideas provide a vigilant check against political excess. Democracy is the most cherished form of government precisely because it holds leaders responsible for their mistakes, removing them from office as punishment.

But the outcome of the U.S. election points to the failure of democracy’s self-correcting potential. Over the course of his first term, Bush has led the country woefully off-course. Instead of holding him accountable, however, Americans just awarded him with a second term.

The centerpiece of Bush’s presidency — the war in Iraq — has been by any measure a fiasco. Iraqis and Americans are dying on a daily basis, with no end in sight. The U.S. military is struggling to meet manpower requirements. Not so the terrorists, who are enjoying a wave of new recruits. Bush claims that he is advancing pluralism and moderation in the Middle East, but such assertions fly in the face of reality. The United States is today dangerously isolated from its traditional allies — the liberal democracies of Europe — with most Europeans incredulous that Americans chose Bush for four more years.

At home, Bush’s record is similarly bleak. America’s debt has exploded, threatening future prosperity. Job growth has been sluggish, economic inequalities have widened, and no progress has been made on reforming healthcare or Social Security.

On all of these fronts, Bush was let off the hook. Deliberative democracy failed to work its wonders.

Sept. 11 provides a partial explanation: American democracy has not been itself since the terrorist attacks. A psychosis of fear has truncated public debate and made it politically dangerous to challenge the president on matters of national security. To his credit, Kerry sought to redress this psychosis, speaking the truth about the Iraq war and its consequences. Nonetheless, Bush’s bravado, as well as the appeal of his social policies to voters in the heartland, withstood Kerry’s best efforts to generate an informed and considered debate about matters of national security.

Armed with his new mandate, Bush’s unilateralist inclinations are likely to intensify, not abate. As a rule, he has campaigned to the center, but governed to the hard right — and he will now face no electoral incentives to embrace either centrism or bipartisanship. Moreover, the main voice of moderation in his Cabinet, Secretary of State Colin Powell, will almost surely not be present in Bush’s second term. The neoconservatives, despite the setback dealt them by Iraq, are likely to continue their dominant influence over Bush’s foreign policy.

This sober assessment does not bode well for transatlantic relations. The problem goes well beyond stark differences over policy issues — Iraq, Iran and the Middle East peace process most prominent among them. Now that the American electorate has tasted four years of Bush and willingly chosen four more, what was anti-Bush sentiment in Europe is likely to grow into anti-American sentiment.

If so, the lapsed partnership could evolve into something much more dangerous — open rivalry. French President Jacques Chirac has already reacted to Bush’s reelection by urging the European Union to check U.S. power. Europe’s effort to act as a counterweight to the United States would surely invite a response in kind from Washington. As it succeeded in doing during the transatlantic rift over Iraq, Washington would try again to divide the E.U., setting pro-American countries like Britain, Italy and Poland against those calling for Europe to distance itself from the United States.

Although it was successful when garnering support for the Iraq war, a divide-and-rule strategy would likely backfire if tried again. European governments that backed Bush continue to pay a heavy political price for having done so. Indeed, some of America’s staunchest allies — the new democracies of central Europe — have made clear that they intend to withdraw their troops from Iraq early in 2005. Should Washington again seek to undermine European unity, it would likely find an angry E.U. ready to stand its ground.

Immediately after Bush’s reelection, Powell indicated the president’s desire to repair relations with European allies. British Prime Minister Tony Blair came to Washington last week to help out — as he did repeatedly over the past four years. But if Bush’s first term is any indication, rhetoric and reality will bear little resemblance to each other: The Bush administration will continue its dismissive attitude toward Europe, and Blair will again have little to show for his loyalty to Washington.

Europe’s response to Bush’s reelection should be two-pronged. First, the member states of the E.U. should step up efforts to forge a deeper union, particularly with respect to attaining greater unity on matters of security policy and acquiring more military capacity. With the United States bogged down in Iraq and the Pentagon planning to withdraw for good America’s main combat troops from Europe, the E.U. had better prepare to take charge of European security. In addition, with Bush emboldened by his popular mandate, the world may well be in need of a more assertive and responsible European voice.

The quagmire in Iraq has made clear even to the Bush team that it cannot run the show on its own. The more unity and military capability the E.U. can bring to the table, the more Washington will adjust its policies to secure European help. The Bush administration may continue to hide in its ideological bunker, but it is now much more sensitive to the need to share burdens with others. Europe should take a pragmatic approach to potential openings, taking advantage of opportunities to work with Washington when available.

Second, Europe’s leaders must resist the temptation to cater to anti-American impulses and instead work to dampen them. If the E.U. comes to define its identity in opposition to the United States, balance-of-power dynamics will surely return to Atlantic relations, undermining one of the greatest accomplishments of the 20th century — a stable zone of peace among the world’s liberal democracies. That outcome must be avoided at all costs.

Looking down the road, patience is probably the best overall strategy — for Europeans and Americans alike. Bush won the election handily, but the Democrats were not far behind. Europeans, along with millions of Americans, would be wise to bide their time, and hope that the moderating and self-correcting effects of deliberative democracy prevail four years hence.