The U.S.-EU controversy about ESDP and the RRF is the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Underlying the current discord are fundamental questions about the nature of the U.S.-European relationship, about American grand strategy, and about NATO itself. Inevitably, the new administration will have to come to grips with the question of whether the alliance in its current form has a future. It is unclear what course the Bush administration will chart for transatlantic relations. Logically, they should welcome ESDP and the RRF, because those EU initiatives offer the most realistic hope for the United States to extricate itself from Kosovo and to avoid such commitments in the future.
American internationalism can exist without an ongoing U.S. military presence in Europe.
Here, the Bush administration should revisit the views of Dwight Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles, leading Republican internationalists who welcomed the prospect of a truly independent Europe rather than feared it, and who regarded the U.S. role in NATO as temporary, not permanent. The Cato Institute Please send comments to webmaster .