Read Jim Hoagland's previous columns. Or even the 101st. But it was the word Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine deployed here with insistence and verve on a brief mission of pacification last week.
Differences still exist.
But they have become less and less dramatic, and can be calmed more rapidly. Relations between the two competitively cooperative nations are never as bad, nor as good, as they seem on the surface. Our ambitions to lead have too much in common, just as our cultures have too much in contrast, for there to be eternal peace or eternal hostility. At any given moment, there is room for maneuver, as Vedrine, a skilled and elegant negotiator who has made reducing unnecessary tensions with Washington a top priority, demonstrated here. The answer may have as much to do with Europe as with the United States.