Is the U.S. Turning Away from Europe?

President Obama makes his first trip to Europe amid growing signs that European leaders may resist his calls for help on resolving the economic crisis, contributing to Afghanistan, and managing detainees from Guantanamo. Just below the surface, however, Europeans are worried that the United States may be lured away from its historic commitment to the trans-Atlantic alliance that defined the 20th century, and instead redirect toward a rising Asia that some say will define the 21st.

Europeans quietly wonder about the depth of President Obama’s commitment to Europe. After all, his first-ever visits to France and Germany took place only last summer. British observers pored over every diplomatic detail of Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s recent visit to Washington for any hint of a slip in closeness (and found several). It did not go unnoticed that the first foreign leader to visit President Obama in the White House was Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso, or that Asia was the destination of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s inaugural trip abroad.

In fact, U.S.-European ties have enduring strengths that will not easily be eroded by the resurgence of Asian nations like China and India. America and Europe have the largest bilateral trade relationship in the global economy. Transatlantic perspectives on climate change are much more closely aligned relative to those of developing Asian nations that face different trade-offs between growth and the environment. Most fundamentally, Europeans and Americans share a set of values grounded in liberal democracy and open societies – values that Asian powers like Japan, India, and Indonesia also embrace, creating the possibility for East-West convergence rather than divergence in coming years.

Americans actually appear more Atlanticist than Europeans in some respects. Support for NATO has been declining in recent years in Europe – but not in the United States. Polling by the German Marshall Fund shows that while American support for NATO has been around 60% since 2002, support in Germany fell sharply from 74% to 62% in 2008 and in Poland from 64% to 51%.

Observers often suggest that an older generation of Europeans may be giving way to a younger generation for whom the Atlantic alliance is less important. This appears to be true in the United Kingdom, where 77% of 55-64 year-olds still says NATO is essential, compared with only 55% of 18-24 year-olds. But support for NATO in France and Germany is actually highest among 35-44 year-olds and trickles downward among those above 65.

The fall in support for NATO in Europe partly reflects concerns about combat. Although France will rejoin the military wing of NATO at the summit, President Obama’s popularity in Europe is not translating into new European troop commitments to Afghanistan. On the contrary: Europeans fear that Washington is “Americanizing” the mission there in ways that could undermine NATO. Americans counter that saving NATO means winning the war in Afghanistan -- and that a division of labor in which Americans do much of the fighting while Europeans contribute to reconstruction and development may be the only way forward.

The NATO summit offers an opportunity to bridge America’s Atlantic and Pacific partnerships. NATO lacks a clear mission in the post-Cold War world, and engagement with Australia and Japan are critical to its mission in Afghanistan. This doesn’t mean NATO should open its membership to the rest of the world, but it makes sense to have key global partners at the table when discussing Afghanistan and other security challenges.

In fact, America does not have a choice between Europe and Asia. From the international financial crisis to climate change, only coalitions spanning North America, Europe, and Asia can contribute to successful solutions. The good news is that unlike during the Cold War, when weak allies in Europe and Asia compelled America to assume unprecedented global commitments, today strong partners in the European Union and Asia mean it is possible to build coalitions capable of tackling these cross-cutting challenges.

Given its global position and interests, the United States is well-placed to serve as a convening power and a bridge between nations across these diverse regions. At the same time, securing a world order where liberal values can flourish will require close cooperation between the United States and Europe in vesting countries like China as responsible stewards of the global commons on which we all depend.

It won’t be easy. The upcoming NATO and G-20 summits, and the debates over Afghanistan and economic stimulus, will test the commitment of leaders from the developed and developing worlds to the kind of liberal internationalism necessary to rekindle the prosperity and peace in which our common values can flourish.