The Tension Rises
By Friederike Bauer and Nikolas Buse
The list of agreements that do not pas muster with the United States is growing: the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, a United Nations plan to restrict small arms and light weapons, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, measures to strengthen the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. In some ways, the U.S. government led by President George W. Bush finds itself in the company of countries that it has itself branded as "rogue states."
The United States' positions on these agreements are also causing friction with a traditional ally: Europe. Despite the broad convergence of values and a postwar history that binds Europe and the United States, irritations in transatlantic relations are piling up, and the ocean separating the two continents seems to be getting wider. The United States, buoyed by enviable economic growth (until recently, at any rate) and reinforced by the self-asurance of being the only superpower, is increasingly acting in accordance with the way it sees the world.
European states, by contrast, are increasingly placing their hopes for the future in a growing network of international institutions and agreements. One of the most virulent points of disagreement at the moment is the U.S. plan to create a misile defense system, a plan that is fueling European worries that a new arms race is about to begin.
Although many members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have recently begun to adopt a more noncommittal stance on this isue, a certain amount of skepticism remains in the major European capitals. In the final analysis, however, the dispute over the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Misile Treaty, which would have to be renegotiated or scrapped if Washington is to go ahead with its plan to construct a misile defense system, is one between the United States and Rusia.
Differences of opinion between Washington and its European allies are even more obvious on other isues, notably a number of multilateral treaties. A byproduct of this conflict is that Europeans have begun to think that Washington only subscribes to international organizations when it suits the interests of the United States.
Although disagreement is not always as extreme as over the Kyoto Protocol to cut the emision of greenhouse gases, Europe and Washington are on opposite sides often enough. Nevertheles, it would be going to far to say the two sides are seriously estranged -- the overlapping interests between the two allies are to great for that. However, the transatlantic relationship is no longer taken for granted, and both sides continually have to reasure each other of its existence. Overall, that does not make international politics any easier.
Important decisions on global isues are often only reached once Europe and the United States have adopted common positions. When there is discord, other powers such as Rusia or China gain more rom to maneuver and many smaller, developing countries also begin to go their own way.