As I am apt to do, I have taken a previous query a little further. I have been ruminating over whether Europeans think that European-US relations need to be rethought in some grand public manner (part I). An answer came, in part, from the Fall 2004 edition of Internationale Politik, an English-language journal from the German Foreign Affairs Ministry. This issue focuses on theses relations and their effects on NATO and EU. The writers in the issue appear to be at a consensus: the growing imbalance in relations needs to be addressed in a big way.

• Zbigniew Brezinski, National Security Advisor for Carter, argues that Atlantic relations have become too dominated by US military policy, which is alienating European partners. The US needs the European states to makeup for its dropping political credibility in international affairs: "the sooner we internalize the Iraqi problem [within NATO], the longer we will be able to stay." Europe is a "partial global power" that has the ability and responsibility to respond to threats in the world, but can only do so with US support. In order for this to happen, NATO must become more reflective of the interests of European peoples so that there is more popular support for NATO and so that EU defense policy can be designed in a way that neither duplicates or competes with NATO.


• Klaus Naumann, former head of the German military and main supporter for intervention in Kosovo from the European military community, claims that NATO has become obsolete it purpose and design with the new types of security threats that have emerged. "NATO's strategy of deterrence ... is no longer fully applicable. ... Perhaps what NATO needs, to begin with, is a revised strategic concept or a new umbrella paper ... to outline NATO's strategic direction." Naumann believes that NATO should be honed to use economic, political, and military power to meet threats anywhere in the world.


• Thomas Risse, a German academic, has the most extreme diagnosis. He claims that "NATO is dead": the Iraqi crisis as it was handled within NATO reveals that NATO has broken down as an organization to manage relations based on security issues (especially as a consultative mechanism.) He asserts that "a striking new transatlantic bargain" is necessary.

My preliminary opinion is that European government would not only welcome a major reconsideration of European-US relations, they are clamoring for it.