There has been some progress on shared challenges, but there remains a substantive strategic gap regarding fundamental issues.
That the "trans-Atlantic divide" continues is reflected in a recent speech by CIA Director Michael Hayden, in which he predicted a widening gulf between Europe and the United States on how to deal with security threats, including terrorism. While US and European officials agree on the urgency of the terrorism threat, there is a fundamental difference over how best to confront it.
The United States sees the fight against terrorism as a global war. European nations perceive the terrorist threat as a law enforcement problem. "They tend not to view terrorism as we do, as an overwhelming international challenge. Or if they do, we often differ on what would be effective and appropriate ... to counter it," Hayden said.
Bush's trip to Europe, as well as his trip to Japan in July for the G-8 Summit, could be catalysts for consensus with key allies about the nature of the challenges and dangers we face. But that depends on the president initiating a dialogue on what the US and its allies can do together concerning these challenges.
Clearly the dialogue must address terrorism: How can the United States and Europe more closely coordinate and support respective counterterrorism strategies? How can we share intelligence more effectively, so conclusions aren't made on sneaking suspicions but instead on a scientific approach? The United States has strong signal intelligence capabilities, and some European countries have good political intelligence: Are we cross-pollenizing effectively?
Counterterrorism cooperation - including information sharing, joint training, operations, anticorruption programs, and targeting terrorist financing - allow us to succeed without using repressive tactics, because brutality breeds terror, it does not defeat it.
But the dialogue must also address the energy challenge, conspicuously absent from the US-EU Summit agenda at this point. As energy expert Daniel Yergin asked in the Financial Times, "Oil prices at this level take us into a new world - 'break point' - where the question is not only 'how high can the price go?' but also 'what will be the response?"'
While Europeans pay more, Americans and Europeans are experiencing sticker shock at the pump. Now is the time for greater collaboration and coordination on the renewable research agenda, both at a US-EU level and among companies to speed up development of the next generation of biofuels. The United States should discuss with the Europeans the possibility of merging efforts on biofuels or the development of cellulosic ethanol.
Energy creates the potential for competition and conflict, but also for collaboration. After the first oil crisis in the 1970s, the International Energy Agency took steps toward coordinating US-European-Japanese energy policies. It's time to build on that foundation. That will require an America open to such collaboration, and a Europe able to speak with one voice on energy. Merging efforts and resources would signal to oil producers that the free ride on exorbitant oil prices is going to come to an end.
In the coming two years, US alliances with Europe and Japan, key anchors for America's engagement with the world, will celebrate anniversaries. NATO will celebrate its 60th anniversary. The US Japan "Treaty on Mutual Cooperation and Security" will celebrate its 50th year. The signing of NATO's charter unified America and Europe at an uncertain time behind a jointly defined purpose. The US Japan treaty committed the United States to meet an armed attack against Japan, and provided the basis for a former foe to become America's crucial ally in the Far East.
Today, America, Europe and Japan are not only concerned with regional self-defense. Terrorism and energy security challenge global stability. Greater collaboration and coordination on both will infuse confidence at a critical time.
Mark Brzezinski, an international lawyer at McGuireWoods LLP, served on the National Security Council staff in the Clinton administration.
This article first appeared here in the International Herald Tribune of June 2nd and was republished here with the kind authorization of the author.
Related materials from the Atlantic Community:
- Alex Berg: High Hopes for an US-EU led International Climate Change Policy
- Paul Hockenos: Why Hate America?
- Michael T. Klare: The Rise of the "Petro-Superpowers"
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June 5, 2008
Donald Stadler, Self-employed, Platinum Contributor (640)
"Now is the time for greater collaboration and coordination on the renewable research agenda, both at a US-EU level and among companies to speed up development of the next generation of biofuels. The United States should discuss with the Europeans the possibility of merging efforts on biofuels or the development of cellulosic ethanol."
This seems to hint at a vast transatlantic apparatus devoted to researching alternative energy. I think most of our experience with such things at the national level indicate that they do not give value for money and human talent, so why should we suppose that a transnational version would work any better? Given the physical and cultural differences which would be added on this kind of scheme may well be LESS effective.
I suspect that the ultimate answer to solving many of these problems will lie with research projects which aren't visible to us today. Remember the vastly ambitious Human Genome Sequencing Project of the 90's. A maverick researcher came up with a way to automatically sequence genes far more quickly and cheaply, took the idea private when the US NHS refused to finance it, and 'concluded' the project privately by getting there first.
I suspect that such researchers exist in the US and in Europe - but they won't be the ones spending their time in important international conferences or coordinating international efforts; they will be the ones in the labs or (perhaps) lining up private financing for revolutionary ideas.
Better to spend government funds on many small-scale research projects trying out radical ideas. Even if they have a 99% failure rate (as they tend to do) the winners have the potential to transform the scientific and economic landscape.