The Hindu : America's changing alliances

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Sep 12, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - News Analysis

America's changing alliances

By C. Raja Mohan

NEW DELHI Sept. 11. It is not just America that changed on September 11. The nature of America's alliances with other major powers has begun to alter significantly since the United States launched its expansive war against terrorism. Nothing illustrates this more than the diminishing of Europe and growing irrelevance of the world's most powerful alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation over the last year.

The day after the bombing of the World Trade Center, the French newspaper, Le Monde, proclaimed on the front page, "We are all Americans now''. Last week, the German Government summoned the American Ambassador to demand an explanation for his critical remarks against Berlin's vocal opposition to America's Iraq policy.

There can be no mistaking the European drift away from the U.S. since September 11. Throughout the twentieth century, Europe has been the principal external preoccupation of the United States. And in the second half of the last century, the NATO and the alliance with Western Europe were the main instruments of America's international policy.

In the post September 11 world, Europe has become more of an irritation rather than an enthusiastic associate in America's new war. Immediately after September 11, NATO, for the first time invoked the article of collective self-defence. Yet, as the American strategy unfolded, the Europeans had little to do, either in Afghanistan or in the broader war on terrorism. They endorsed American resolutions in the U.N., organised Afghan aid conferences, joined the peace-keeping operations in Afghanistan but secured no real voice in decision-making or strategising about the war on terror.

The U.S. was clear that while it welcomed the support of its partners, it was not going to let the politics of coalition-building constrain its own approach. The war against terrorism was going to be an American war. Whatever coalitions the U.S. was interested in would be defined by the mission. The U.S. will not let the coalitions define the political objectives.

The European angst deepened as the U.S. moved towards an uncritical support to Israel in the Middle East and stepped up efforts to oust the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq. Combined with the American rejection of past multilateral treaties and arrangements, the European moaning on American unilateralism reached a crescendo.

Dismissing the European critique on Iraq over the weekend, the U.S. Vice President, Dick Cheney, said Europeans have a difficulty understanding the American security predicament after September 11, because "they haven't the experience we have of 3,000 dead Americans last September 11. They are not as vulnerable as we are, because they are not targeted''.

Mr. Cheney had some thing even more damning to say. He declared that the Europeans "really don't have the capacity to do anything about the threat''. ``They could participate in an international coalition, but left to their own devices, they can't deal with Saddam Hussein,'' he insisted.

Amidst a declining weight of the Europeans in the new war against terrorism, Russia's standing in the world has risen after September 11. Seizing the moment on September 11, President Vladimir Putin of Russia moved decisively to take the initiative to transform Russian relations with the United States.

As a result of his initiative — which involved solid support to the American war, winking at American bases in Central Asia, and a willingness to negotiate rather than confront the U.S. on missile defences and NATO expansion — opened the door for a new and enduring partnership between Washington and Moscow. Shedding the residual baggage of the Cold War, the Bush Administration saw the gains of a new cooperative relationship with Mr. Putin. Washington backed an increased influence for Russia in NATO, made some compromises on the nuclear issue, promised support for its entry into the World Trade Organisation and underlined the prospect of Russia playing a stabilising role in international oil markets.

The new U.S.-Russian relationship is not just about a readjustment in great power relations. It is about burying the last historic divide in the Euro-Atlantic world. The U.S. will continue to argue with Russia (as it does with Europe) on many issues; but there is no longer, to use an old-fashioned phrase, an antagonistic contradiction between America and Russia.

(Concluded)

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