Posted by Nanne Zwagerman in
Transatlantic Relations on Thursday, September 11. 2008
The German Marshall Fund released its 2008 transatlantic trends poll yesterday, which shows a thaw in transatlantic relations. From the press release:
“Based on common values and shared interests, the survey shows that Americans and Europeans want closer relations,” said Craig Kennedy, president of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. “Whether it’s the result of world events, a new U.S. administration on the horizon, or insecurity on several fronts, a new American president will have the opportunity to not only improve the United States’ standing in the world, but perhaps also to ask more of European leaders.”
However, despite perceived common values and a general interest in the same topics, Europeans generally feel that Europe should act more independently, although the number of Europeans who want closer relations with the US is increasing. Interestingly, though, few Europeans think that Europe should take a 'go it alone' course, with the majority favouring partnership with the US in addressing threats. This could be taken to mean that Europeans want Europe to be more assertive in such a partnership, or simply that the general population hasn't thought this through and exhibits a well-known but surprisingly extreme differential response to differently phrased questions (31% want closer relations, 67% want to address international threats in partnership).
Continue reading "Support for the Transatlantic Partnership on the Rise"
Posted by Editors in
German Politics, US Domestic and Cultural Issues on Monday, September 8. 2008
The Financial Times reports:
Germany's troubled Social Democratic party on Sunday fired the starting shot in a year-long election race by ousting Kurt Beck, its hapless left-leaning chairman, and nominating the centrist Frank-Walter Steinmeier to run for chancellor in September 2009.
Yes, the party leaders decided. Just like that. No primiaries and caucasus. No TV debates and no confetti. How boring. What a difference to the US system!
Dr. Jackson Janes and Dr. Tim Stuchtey with the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies (AICGS) in Washington DC examine the differences between the German and American party systems and how the role of the party in each country shapes the way elections unfold. You can read their Op-Ed in English and in German.
Endnote: AICGS and the University of Birmingham organized a conference on "German Vulnerabilities in a Globalizing World" in March 2008 and now present the essays: German Vulnerabilities of its Energy Security by Frank Umbach, German Welfare Capitalism: Crisis and Transition by Roland Czada, Germany's Foreign Policy under Angela Merkel by Christian Hacke, and The Left Party and Germany's Coalition Conundrums by Dan Hough. Does anybody want to write a guest blog post summarizing and commenting on any of these essays?
Posted by Joerg Wolf in
Transatlantic Relations, US Domestic and Cultural Issues on Saturday, September 6. 2008
Mike Huckabee, who finished second in the Republican presidential primaries, said at the Republican National Convention: John McCain offers specific ideas to respond to a need for change. But let me say there are some things we don't want to change: freedom, security, and the opportunity to prosper. Barack Obama's excellent adventure to Europe... (LAUGHTER) ... took his campaign for change to hundreds of thousands of people who don't even vote or pay taxes here. But let me hasten to say that it's not what he took there that concerns me. It's what he brought back: European ideas that give the government the chance to grab even more of our liberty and destroy our hard-earned livelihood. He's right. Americans should never travel to Europe. The danger of brainwashing is too severe. Europeans are so sinister: They attract American teenager with their small freedoms. And once these Americans return to the US, they reduce freedom and liberty in the heartland. They will join Obama's communist party and take away your guns, domesticate you by providing free health care and make you addicted to Dutch weed, Belgian chocolate, German sauerkraut, Italian cappuccino, and French surrender-monkey cheese so that Europe gets richer and America poorer. Two years ago, I wrote the post "Using the United States to Scare Germans." Perhaps I should write one about "Using Europe to Scare Americans." Related posts in the Atlantic Review: Huckabee: United States Does Integration Better than Europe The Euro-American Religious Divide Europe-bashing has Diminishing Returns Europhobic Wash Times Editorial about the "EUSSR"
Posted by Nanne Zwagerman in
European Issues on Thursday, September 4. 2008
 The 'Heinrich Böll Stiftung' - the political foundation affiliated with the German green party - is having its annual foreign policy conference next week, on September 11th and 12th. It will be a big issue conference, focusing on the question of ideals versus interests in foreign policy. The German greens are one of the broadest green parties that exist, and have a lively internal debate between party leaders on realism versus a more pacifistic foreign politics. It was Joshka Fischer, German Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time, who took the Germans into the Kosovo war back in 1999.
Fischer, now something of a foreign policy star, won't be attending. However, a former MFA of Poland, Adam Daniel Rotfeld, will. Rotfeld is also a former Director of SIPRI. Other speakers include Ahmed Rashid, Steven Weber, and two members of the current leadership of the greens, Renate Künast and Reinhard Bütikofer.
You can find the programme via this page (page in German, programme also available in English)
The Heinrich Böll Stiftung recently moved to a new office in Berlin Mitte, which frankly looks boring, but is very energy-efficient! We hope to give you some details of the view from the inside, next week.
Posted by Joerg Wolf in
Transatlantic Relations on Tuesday, September 2. 2008
 Ms. Zeyno Baran of the Hudson Institute asks in the Wall Street Journal:
Will Turkey Abandon NATO? Will Turkey side with the United States, its NATO ally, and let more U.S. military ships into the Black Sea to assist Georgia? Or will it choose Russia? A Turkish refusal would seriously impair American efforts to support the beleaguered Caucasus republic. Ever since Turkey joined NATO in 1952, it has hoped to never have to make a choice between the alliance and its Russian neighbor to the North. Yet that is precisely the decision before Ankara. If Turkey does not allow the ships through, it will essentially be taking Russia's side. (...)
Continue reading "Will the West Lose Turkey?"
Posted by Joerg Wolf in
Transatlantic Relations, US Domestic and Cultural Issues on Saturday, August 30. 2008
 The Economist has a good cover story about John McCain and explains quite well why Americans might elect him as president. It is a good summary for the average reader, who is not a news junkie.
Such an analysis is missing in the commentary of a Washington correspondent with the German public broadcaster ARD: Anna Engelke fails to understand McCain's appeal. Instead she makes a list of problems for McCain (his age, the bad shape of US economy, high debts and deficit, two wars) and concludes that a skilled politician like Barack Obama has to lead in the polls, if you take a "sober look at it."
She mentions only two reasons why Obama does not have a strong lead in the polls: It might be partly due to his inexperience, but it is primarily due to his black skin. Engelke opines that Obama would win this election "with the utmost probability," if he were white.
Continue reading "Understanding John McCain's Appeal to US Voters"
Posted by Joerg Wolf in
Transatlantic Relations, US Domestic and Cultural Issues, US Foreign Policy on Friday, August 29. 2008
In his nomination speech, the Democratic presidential candidate reiterates his commitment to direct diplomacy with Iran and his hawkish position on Pakistan, which I describe at Atlantic-Community.org. I am also asking whether Obama is an Atlanticist and look forward to your views on Germany's security policy of free-riding.
Posted by Joerg Wolf in
Transatlantic Relations on Wednesday, August 27. 2008
Stratfor describes itself as "the world's leading online publisher of geopolitical intelligence. Our global team of intelligence professionals provides our Members with insights into political, economic, and military developments to reduce risks, to identify opportunities, and to stay aware of happenings around the globe."
These intelligence professionals have learned from their super-secret "sources" that "Russia has offered Germany a security agreement." Oooh, that sounds like a great conspiracy.
Since Germany and Russia are the two big powers on the block and want to keep any other power (like the United States) from their region, it would make sense for Berlin and Moscow to want to forge an agreement to divide up the neighborhood - such as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which had secret protocol dividing the independent countries of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania into either the Nazi or Soviet spheres of influence.
Stratfor has this totally insightful and historically correct analysis:
Continue reading "How Intelligent are Stratfor's "Intelligence Professionals"?"
Posted by Editors in
US Domestic and Cultural Issues, US Foreign Policy on Tuesday, August 26. 2008
Rod Dreher, a Dallas Morning News editorial columnist, writes in RealClearPolitics:
"We are all Georgians now," John McCain said in response to Russia's invasion of the former Soviet republic.
We are? Spare me. You couldn't find one American in a thousand who could locate Georgia on a map, but the Republican hothead who would be president is ready to bind America's sacred honor to the place. And more than our sacred honor, our military might, too. Mr. McCain, a tempestuous Russophobe to the marrow, demanded that the U.S. accelerate efforts to bring Georgia into NATO, thus extending a trip wire for war with Russia to Moscow's southern border. Because, you know, having conquered Iraq and Afghanistan while barely breaking a sweat, we're rested and ready to let an adventurous Caucasus nation led by a nut shown on TV chewing on his cravat drag us into World War III.
He does not like Barack Obama's support for NATO membership for Georgia either and wonders whether the Democrats are "so afraid of being baited by the Republicans as cowards that they sign on to any foolish policy proposed by GOP jingoes?"
Dreher is frustrated with the lack of realism in the political debate:
Dr. Bacevich said, "What neither of these candidates will be able to, I think, accomplish is to persuade us to look ourselves in the mirror, to see the direction in which we are headed." That direction, he went on, is deeper into the hole of debt and foreign entanglements involving an overstretched U.S. military. We prefer to believe the romantic image of ourselves and our country and to deal with the world as we wish it were rather than as it is.
Posted by Kyle Atwell in
European Issues, Transatlantic Relations on Monday, August 25. 2008
Ronald Steel, professor of international relations at the University of Southern California, argues that Russia's strong hand against Georgia signals that, “A Superpower Is Reborn” (NYT):
THE psychodrama playing out in the Caucasus is not the first act of World War III, as some hyperventilating politicians and commentators would like to portray it. Rather, it is the delayed final act of the cold war. And while the Soviet Union lost that epic conflict, Russia won this curtain call in a way that ensures Washington will have to take it far more seriously in the future.
This is not just because, as some foreign-policy “realists” have argued, Moscow has enough troops and oil to force us to take into consideration its supposedly irrational fears. Rather, the conflict in Georgia showed how rational Russia’s concerns over American meddling in its traditional sphere of influence are, and that Washington had better start treating it like the great power it still is.
Continue reading "Is Russia a Superpower? Cold War II?"
Posted by Pat Patterson in
European Issues on Sunday, August 24. 2008
This is a guest blog post by Pat Patterson:
Kenneth R. Weinstein, the CEO of the Hudson Institute, wrote a recent article in The Weekly Standard which argues that the divisions within the EU are greater and institutionalized than the more publicized division between the EU and the US.
Many of the policies, most recently instigated by France, have been resisted because they are seen as solely in French national interest and in most cases are the antithesis of the interests of the EU bureaucracy and Germany: "But suspicions linger in Berlin and elsewhere that Sarkozy's true goal in forming the [Mediterranean] Union was to expand France's sphere of influence at Germany's expense."
Continue reading "European Disunion"
Posted by Editors in
European Issues, Transatlantic Relations on Sunday, August 24. 2008
As part of our media partnership with Blogactiv, we are cross-posting this article by Stanley Crossick, the founding chairman of the European Policy Centre.
 Francis Fukuyama was wrong. We have not been witnessing the end of history, but the return of history.
One reason for this is that we have not learned the lessons of history. But who did not at least think that 1989 had brought to an end four decades of Cold War in Europe and the establishment of a long term Pax Americana?
The US and Europe, led by market-obsessed economists, focused on economic and democratic reform in Russia and anchoring former Soviet countries in first in NATO and then in the European Union. Little attention was paid to Russian sensitivities or western behaviour perceived by Russians to be humiliating. We should have recognised that permanent change had not taken place: historical Russia was on vacation.
Continue reading "The Return of History"
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