Laurent Cohen-Tanugi. An Alliance At Risk The United States and Europe since September 11. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003.

In a thoughtful, provocative and timely analysis of transatlantic relations, Laurent Cohen-Tanugi reflects on the historical nature of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in which the dates 11/9/1989 and 9/11/2001 figure prominently. One of the book’s main points is that anti-Americanism in Europe and transatlantic rifts pre-date the Bush Administration’s actions in the Iraq conflict. The response to the call to “tear down this wall” and the end of the Cold War changed the fundamental dynamics of the superpower relationship. Europe’s place as “the Continent in the middle” of a nuclear stalemate between Gorbachev’s Soviet Union and Reagan’s United States of America gave way to the demise of the former and the rise of “anti-globalization activism.”

Cohen-Tanugi rightly asserts that the European project, which flourished in the midst of the American military presence on the Continent, became identified with neoliberal policies. These policies unified powerful societal counter forces that perceived a threat to Europe’s social model. Integration through law and the dynamics of a free market without borders became the source of popular discontent, which provides, ironically, the theme around which “a people’s Europe” converges.

This study illustrates the extent to which Europe’s historical evolution has come full circle. After World War II, the concerns most in the minds of the leaders at the time were how to assure Europe’s postwar reconstruction. Solutions were identified in ways that assured the stability of the US’s largest export market. The priority was how to solve the “German problem” in a constructive way, channeling the country’s power away from the destructive nationalist forces that led to the Third Reich. The key objective was how to establish, in the wake of universal conflict, a unified entity that remained a long-term factor to ensure peace and prosperity on the Continent and in the world.

In less than a decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the German national interest, long defined as the other side of the coin of European unity, was articulated with confidence by the Schroeder government in ways that departed from the tradition of Adenauer and Kohl. In the Balkans and throughout the world, the resurgence of nationalism spoke less to “the end of history” than to the egoism inherent in the tradition of Machiavelli, realism. After the Cold War, as we reflect on the post-1945 era, we question once again the extent to which nationalism resurgent competes today with democracy, socialism, liberalism, Christianity and capitalism. Although generations change, nationalism retains its distinctive taste as “the soda water that mixes with all the other drinks and makes them sparkle.” (Reves, The Anatomy of Peace, 1945, p. 186.)

In the 1990s the responses to ethnic conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo/a already revealed the tensions within the Atlantic Alliance as well as the increasing salience of the West’s relations with the Muslim world. These tragedies revealed the degree of interest among leaders in Europe, as well as the limits of their capabilities, to forge an identity and diplomacy independent of, and defined by its opposition to, the United States. This goal is, as Cohen-Tanugi notes, distant from the vision of Jean Monnet and his heirs in European integration. Yet, its relevance to European unity during the Iraq crisis is paramount to our understanding of how deeply the identity of an enlarged European Union is implicated in the future of transatlantic relations. For several of the newer member states in the Union of 25, France and Germany’s leadership in that crisis raised traditional fears. Domination by a minority of two is not the model for leadership in a political system constructed to function according to the rules of consensus and multilateral negotiations.

The Union’s ambitions in common foreign policy and defense are a test, in Cohen-Tanugi’s analysis, of the Union’s ability to distinguish itself from the one remaining superpower. The current wisdom is that Europe is developing its “soft power” as the United States focuses on the use of its military to transform relationships in the Middle East. The Bush Administration’s belief in the power of a universal idea, the triumph of democracy, and the impact of this particular context on its relations with allies are considerable. The implications of the search for solutions to transatlantic crisis must be weighed carefully in the present environment.

Cohen-Tanugi argues that Europe must develop its capabilities and use creativity to heal its internal rift. Always in question is how Europe can develop, in the author’s words, “a responsible diplomacy and a strategic capability commensurate with its responsibilities.” There are tensions historically that explain the persistent difficulties in this area accentuating the divide between opposing camps. The “federalists” support increased integration in European foreign and security policies in contrast to the “sovereignists,” which insist successfully that states jealously retain their prerogatives in sensitive areas. In an era of limited resources and dwindling social benefits, more immediate domestic obstacles exist in the budgetary commitments necessary to create a European armed force, particularly in Germany and France. This is only one of the factors that necessitates coordination with NATO and presupposes over time the more intricate coordination of European defense industries.

As Europe accepts more candidates for accession in the coming decade, the tensions and the obstacles inherent in the aspirations of its institutions and member states are likely to increase. In transatlantic affairs, the implications of the Union’s diversity compete with that which Cohen-Tanugi rightly identifies as the sources of America’s unilateralism and the exorbitant price of its exceptionalism in a networked environment. This volume assesses the ways in which relations between the Continents are evolving in the midst of an era defined by the transition from the Cold War to global war. History may likely recall this time as one marked by the pervasive influence of an idea on US global policy. In a transformative Bush Presidency the insistence on the use of force, which defines the realist approach to politics, has as its goal to construct a new world order. In what Cohen-Tanugi defines as “the challenge of a new internationalism,” America is asked to come to terms with its own universal model of democracy. This worldview has led European leaders to revisit their relationship with the United States and to project alternative scenarios for the future.

Cohen-Tanugi’s query as to the nature of transatlantic relations fifty years from now is inevitably intertwined with the Union’s future enlargements to southeastern Europe, Turkey and the Balkans, as well as its relations with the wider Muslim world. As we reflect on demographics and the influence of geography, it is clear that these are significant indicators of shifts in power balances. The question of Europe’s identity and its meaning for what the author defines as “a more open America” lead us to pause and ask who are among the youngest and most rapidly growing populations in Europe today? If we consider Kosovo/a’s Albanian Muslims in this mix, we must also project that in fifty to one hundred years, Europe’s Muslim population may be a dominant one with all that this implies for the transatlantic and global relations of that time.

This evolution is one to bear in mind concerning the definition of a new Atlanticism, particularly in the context of Cohen-Tanugi’s call for “building a European power on the international stage.” The choice may be less between Europe as America’s potential antagonist and the cost of no Europe, defined as a political non-entity drifting in absentia. The alternative for Europe, and for its transatlantic relationship, is likely to be a much more complicated transition calling its classical notions of power as much as its contemporary response through integration into question once more.

Colette Mazzucelli
New York

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