U.S. and Europe

The IHT (6 Sep 2010) had an interesting article by Thomas L. Friedman about how America does not have the financial means to support an all encompassing foreign policy. The United States will have to scale back its presence in the world. Obviously some people will welcome this development. However, this will have serious implications for Europe, for example. Friedman quotes Michael Mandelbaum who argues that when the United States no longer is a large presence on the world stage problems will escalate and disorder becomes more prevalent. Hopefully the EU will have an effective foreign policy in place when serious problems arise in the future. This is an important goal should the U.S. be in a situation where it is unable to give assistance to Europe.

The next day the IHT (7 Sep 2010) published another interesting article which relates to the one mentioned above. The article is by Roger Cohen and it discusses how the US is neglecting Europe at the moment. Because the United States is preoccupied dealing with Al Qaeda and the economic problems (to name but a few issues) Europe has not received much attention from the country. However, as Cohen correctly points out, in the long run this might not be good policy. It would be prudent policy if the US gave Europe more attention because in several areas Europe can be a useful ally.