Transatlantic high followed by sober normality

By Manfred Rowold

RICHMOND (DPA): An American political scientist remarked at last week's three-day meeting jointly held by the American Council on Germany and the Atlantic Bridge in Richmond, Virginia, that the Americans were often inclined to take unilateral decisions and then expect their partners on the other side of the Atlantic to back them up.

This comment seemed to come as a friendly gesture towards the German conference participants, since the impression had arisen in the preceding discussion that the main responsibility for a "strategic uncoupling" lay fairly squarely on the far side of the Atlantic.

Events such as this German-American conference, the 19th of its kind, act as a kind of barometer of public and political opinion. They also have the additional advantage of being the sort of meeting where not every word is weighed on the diplomatic scales and where subjects can be broached that may not yet have found their way into political communiques.

On the other hand, they can serve as a forum for projecting problems that may never arise or at least not become as serious as some might fear.

The barometer of transatlantic relations, which had been showing an almost fateful high all through the Cold War, is not necessarily reading critically low levels yet, but it is measuring a sober normality or a normal sobriety.

This mood is characterized by two things: both sides' concentration on domestic politics and greater emphasis on the differences in terms of analyses, interests and political intentions.

This is not only a bilateral problem. For German-American relations suffer at times under the European Union's difficulties in formulating a common policy which would make it a reliable ally for the Americans. On the other hand, the Americans often lack a consistent and logical foreign policy.

The Americans attending the Richmond conference felt that the reasons for this lie not only in the Clinton administration's lack of clear foreign policy concepts, but also on the comparatively large (indeed too large) influence wielded over foreign policy by the U.S. Congress.

In recent years, characterized by cutbacks everywhere, this influence has led, amongst other things, to the closure of 30 foreign missions. It has also been a contributing factor in the gradual mutation of several U.S. diplomats into trade representatives lobbying for American industry abroad.

For economic interests, as the Richmond conference made clear, are of primary concern if a member of Congress devotes any of his precious time to foreign policy matters. If the economic interests of his particular constituency are not at stake, it is very hard for a member of Congress to justify trips abroad to his voters.

Nonetheless: the United States is not turning its back on Europe, it is simply increasingly defining its interests without the Europeans and on the basis of a somewhat different analysis of the present situation. And it will continue to do so until there is greater clarity about what strategic goals in and around Europe both sides still have in common and what the necessary redistribution of tasks and burdens within the transatlantic partnership is going to look like.

Bosnia will be a test case, for the Americans are inclined to be more optimistic in their outlook in order to justify the scheduled withdrawal of their troops next spring, while the Europeans are more pessimistic and would like to keep the Americans involved as long as possible.

The eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) will be another case in point: Washington is prepared to bear 15 percent of the costs, but is regarding the expansion as an export opportunity for its own arms industry at the same time.

However, the Americans' main strategic interest in the "old world" is to contain extremist Islamic regimes and secure the sources of energy in the Middle East.

In this context, some critical questions were asked in Richmond: For example, what are the Germans and Europeans doing about the threat of hostile regimes such as Iran building up their stocks of weapons of mass destruction?

The German court's verdict in the so-called Mykonos trial, in which it accused the Iranian leadership of ordering the assassination of four Kurdish opposition activists in a Berlin restaurant five years ago, was grist to the Americans' mill and their criticism of Bonn's "critical dialog" with Iran.

The Americans also wondered whether the Europeans had the political will to use military power if the need arose. And the question was also raised whether the Germans' still had the right policies on defense and the right kind of army -- doubts had been expressed in the concept of a national defense army and compulsory military service -- and whether they would be capable of being an effective partner to the technologically superior U.S. armed forces.

The problem does not seem to be isolationism, but the political and -- as American military representatives are increasingly pointing out -- technological "uncoupling", though the conference participants maintained this could be prevented if the political will was there.