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Fostering transatlantic relations has been an uphill battle lately. Anti-Americanism is rampant among Europeans, and the American public has basically stopped caring about what Europe has to say. Although the Iraq War resulted in rapprochement at the higher political levels, reminding policy makers of the enormous costs of a falling-out between Europe and the US, it also created mutual suspicion between the American and European public that persists to this day.

Yet this continuing transatlantic rift is certainly not the first of its kind: the Vietnam era and the 1960s saw similarly low approval ratings of American foreign policy among large parts of the European (and American!) population. Back then, the USSR provided a sufficiently strong ideological counter-pressure to convince the European public to return to the fold of American power, and made transatlantic value differences look small by comparison.

Today, the countervailing pressures of the Cold War do not exist anymore, and Americans and Europeans are free to fret about the gulf in values between the two regions. These everyday complaints are then taken as the primary indicator of how sickly the transatlantic relationship is. What is often forgotten, however, is that values are not what lie at the core of this relationship.

We can blame our politicians for making us believe otherwise. The transatlantic relationship was of such benefit that politicians on both sides strived to create a greater connection between America and Europe, one based on the power of identity rather than utility. This worked very well during the Cold War: many leaders must have been sincerely convinced of the sameness of European and American identity when compared with the obvious value differences of the Eastern Bloc. And indeed there are many values that the US and Europe do share: respect for the rule of law, for example, or the firm believe that democracy, if imperfect, is still the most humane system of government possible in these imperfect times.

The problem is that by constructing the transatlantic relationship along identity, along sameness, every little disagreement returns to that most fundamental level of identity, as if this were the only element on which this partnership is based. This is total nonsense. No single realization will improve the transatlantic partnership as much as the admission that now and then, it is okay to disagree. We may share many of the same values and viewpoints, but we do not share them all—and we do not need to. The transatlantic partnership is founded on three things, as is any other international relationship: utility, power, and control.

The immense benefits that both Europe and the US gain from their alliance must return to the center of focus in the public discourse. It is these benefits that led Europe to accept and support a global financial and political system based around American hegemony, and led America to practically single-handedly rebuild Europe post-WWII and provide the security umbrella without which European integration would never have gotten off the ground. But maybe more importantly, without these benefits the Western powers face one certain fate: accelerated US decline and European stagnation. In the end, the question can be put bluntly: do we want our children to live in valued partnership with the American hegemon, or under the shadow of an at best ambivalent Chinese superpower? I know my answer…

Niklas Keller holds an MA in International Relations and Diplomacy from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. Before joining the Atlantic Community in May of 2007, he worked in program management for a number of NGOs and as a Research Assistant for United Nations University, Tokyo.


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