"The U.S. Is No Longer No. 1

Europeans take a bleak new view of their chief ally

Underlying the current tensions between the U.S. and its principal allies is one essential fact that many Americans have difficulty either believing or accepting. This fact is that the world's perception of the U.S.--and particularly Europe's perception--has changed substantially in the past few years. Among Americans, it is still commonplace to regard the U.S. as the world's foremost power, economically, militarily and in almost every other way. Among Western Europeans, however, the view is quite different. As the highly respected French political scientist Raymond Aron sums it up, "The U.S. is no longer No. 1."

Aron's position in Paris--a pro-Western, tradition-minded professor at the Sorbonne and former columnist for the conservative Le Figaro--is significant. This changed view of the U.S. is not the crude anti-Americanism of the postwar years, when walls were defaced with scrawled outcries of YANKEE GO HOME! and leftist crowds repeatedly rioted against the all-powerful U.S. It is instead the increasingly widespread belief, even among many of America's traditional friends, that U.S. strength has declined so much that Washington can no longer be relied upon as the leader of the Western alliance. Says Christoph Bertram, director of London's International Institute for Strategic Studies: "In the past the U.S. has been the undisputed leader, but the U.S. that emerged from the 1970s was no longer always willing to provide this leadership, and even when she tried, she was no longer able to command the respect of her allies."

The original basis of U.S. power in Europe was military power, the strength to hold back a threatening Soviet army that was poised at the Elbe. Until recently, indeed, the chief European anxiety about the U.S. was that Washington might act rashly and blunder into an East-West crisis. Today the worry is that the U.S. has neither the military strength nor the will to keep its commitments in Europe.

Experts may disagree on whether the U.S. still has that strength, but the statistics are not cheering. Against the Warsaw Pact's 1,140,000 troops, NATO has 975,000, of whom 300,000 are American; against the East's 20,000 tanks, the West has 7,000, of which 2,000 are American.

Efforts to remedy these Western deficits have appeared indecisive: the on-again-off-again neutron bomb, the debate over the stationing of middle-range missiles in Western Europe. Some Washington officials accuse the Europeans of timidity, but Europeans are more inclined to see their caution as a prudent response to the changing balance of power. Says France's Aron: "When Jimmy Carter says the U.S. is the world's greatest military power, nobody believes him because it is not true." West Germany's Chancellor Helmut Schmidt has told aides, "If the Americans want to be convincing, they better reinstitute the draft."

Washington similarly blames the Europeans for not giving stronger support on Iran, but many Europeans regard the botched raid on Tehran as symbolic of U.S. decline. Says Jean-Francois Revel, editor of L 'Express and long an admirer of the U.S.: "We Europeans, along with the rest of the world, heard the bell of U.S. military supremacy toll in Iran."

The second basis of U.S. power in Europe was America's overwhelming wealth, but last year the nine nations of the European Community surpassed the U.S. in their combined gross national product ($2,380 billion vs. $2,349 billion). The standard of living in parts of Europe is now at least as high as that of the U.S. The Paris subway gleams, new cars crowd the superhighways, and luxurious glass condominiums sprout from the North Sea to the Aegean. Part of this wealth is spent on U.S. goods --Parisians wear Levi's and eat at McDonald's, and West Germans flock to New York City to buy cheap clothing from the surly natives--but the Europeans also know that their products, their cars and their computers are infiltrating markets that were once American.

The key point is not that Europeans may be richer than Americans but that they are reluctant to follow what they regard as a faltering U.S. leadership. Instead, they are impressed by the U.S. unwillingness or inability to curb its wasteful energy consumption and 'to defend its shrinking currency. "The Americans view the future with less hope than at any time since World War II, and they have every reason for their skepticism," says Dieter Buhl, who writes on U.S. affairs for Hamburg's influential Die Zeit. "Galloping inflation and record interest rates undermine their standard of living, which has been stagnating for years." Should West Germany be more independent of the U.S.? asked one poll. Yes, said 49% about the nation that once fed and still defends them.

What form should this greater independence take? Europeans tend to emphasize that they have many interests different from the U.S.'s, and they want to pursue these interests. Western Europeans are far more dependent on international trade, particularly trade with the Eastern bloc, a hefty $15.8 billion in 1978.

If that makes them reluctant to embargo exports to Moscow because of events in far-off Afghanistan, the Europeans see that as not a betrayal of the Western alliance but simply a matter of self-interest. And if the U.S. demands tough action against Iran because of the hostages, the Europeans see nothing cynical about reminding Washington that Iranian oil helps to fuel Europe.

Enlightened self-interest may seem reasonable, but it has a cutting edge. Asks one prominent French academician: "Would the U.S. have imposed sanctions against Iran if European diplomats had been seized?"

All the Europeans' doubts about U.S. military and economic strength have been magnified by their distrust of Jimmy Carter. In varying degrees they regard him as weak, indecisive, ineffectual, changeable, obsessed with his own reelection campaign and thus thoroughly unreliable. Among the instances most often cited: the alternating threats and retreats on Iran, the uproar over the Soviet combat brigade in Cuba, the renunciation of a U.N. vote on Israel. In all these changes of direction, the Europeans complain, Washington has failed to inform the allies of what was happening. West Germany's Schmidt recalls that he has repeatedly sought to find out Washington's plans only to "read about it in the newspapers." Says one high-level British policymaker: "Consultation by the Americans with their European allies has been at its lowest ebb since Suez." Another British expert cites the desultory 20-minute meeting that Carter granted to British Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington on his last visit to Washington, "sandwiched between a group of Arkansas mothers and the Nicaraguan Ambassador."

The prospect of change in November is scarcely reassuring, however. Indeed, the fact that the race has narrowed down to Carter and Ronald Reagan raises new European concerns about the U.S. leadership. "When these are the choices offered in a nation of 200 million, you know that something is seriously wrong," says one strongly pro-American senior diplomat in Bonn. "What's even worse, we can do nothing about it."

Many of these European criticisms are unfair or exaggerated, or both. They are often derived from stereotypes and prejudices. Just as Europeans have been fascinated with America ever since the days of Tocqueville and Mrs. Trollope, so they have long enjoyed jeering and scolding. But whether the European criticisms are right or wrong--and most Americans would judge them essentially wrong (see ESSAY)--the changed European perception is an international fact of life, one that is already altering European policies and will alter them still more in years to come.

The Europeans' desire for independence in the pursuit of their own interests is not in itself catastrophic. Neither, certainly, is the desire for greater consultations on both sides of the Atlantic. But the fragmentation of the alliance does contain the danger of the process now known by the cliche Finlandization, a process in which the shell of economic prosperity disguises an increasing inability to resist Soviet pressures.

The more prescient Europeans are fully aware of that danger. Britain's former Prime Minister Edward Heath called last week for "a more effective military, economic and diplomatic division of labor" between Europe and the U.S. Said Heath: "If the allies fail to rise to the challenge, the result will be to push the U.S. toward isolation and the Europeans toward accommodation with the Soviet Union."

Accommodation is an enigmatic term. Despite Afghanistan and the current argument over medium-range missiles, most Europeans genuinely want East-West detente, not a revival of the cold war. To this end, they will understandably pursue trade, cultural exchanges and diplomatic dialogues. But to the extent that accommodation means a series of small settlements on Soviet terms, the Europeans acquire a new kind of uneasiness. "Which is better?" asks Hamburg Publisher Gerd Bucerius. "To be allied with a mistake-prone America or to find oneself confronted by the Soviets without any alliance." To Bucerius, and he is far from alone, the question answers itself. -

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