"The" Obama Effect

That, without the quotation marks, was the name of the conference I participated in this past week. It was held at the Roosevelt Study Center in Middelburg (Dutch province of Zeeland). The purpose of the conference was to look at the past, present, and future of the transatlantic relationship and see if the election of Barack Obama has had an impact on this old but evolving alliance. The organizers had brought in three excellent keynote speakers. On the opening night, NATO head of policy planning, Jamie Shea, gave us a detailed and sophisticated view of the current state of West-West relations. One the one hand, the Obama administration has not awarded a very high priority to the old continent in its foreign policy. See for example the cancellation of Obama's attendance at an EU-U.S. summit earlier this year, or his absence last year from the anniversary ceremonies of the start of World War II in Europe or the fall of the Berlin Wall. On the other hand, his administration has done much to send reassuring messages to Europe's fringes, as in the anxieties in Eastern and Central Europe about Russia, European concerns about the Balkans, and the place of Turkey in Europe. Both sides in the partnership, Shea suggested, need to worry about their own sins of (mostly) omission that threaten the long-term health of the alliance. The U.S. needs to get its financial and economic house in order to stem the spreading sense that it is a great power in decline, less and less able to act effectively around the world. It also would help if U.S. politics was less divisive ("poison politics"). The Europeans, in turn, should think hard about the way they're falling further and further below agreed-upon NATO defense spending targets. Soft power doesn't count for anything in Washington, only hard power gets you credibility. Europe, Shea warned, needs to recognize that the decline of U.S. interest in Europe is real. It would also be nice if "Europe" managed to act a little more in unison in foreign policy, also, or especially, outside the transatlantic relationship. If a multi-polar world is the future, and multilateralism its essential tool, the EU could do a lot more in developing its own ties to rising powers such as India and China.

The second keynote speaker, Scott Lucas, of the University of Birmingham, provided an alternative vision, one he also promotes through his website, EAWorldView. To take one major argument from his talk: Europe should worry much less about whether its policies please Washington. The U.S. would be much better served with an independently acting Europe telling Washington what its interests are. The U.S., meanwhile, should break with its tradition of military interventionism, especially in its struggle against Islamic terror groups, because it is counter-productive. Perhaps the main phrase from Lucas' talk came at the beginning: we (the U.S.-led West) needs to recognize the power of the regional and the local. That is where solutions to large problems can be found, not in Western interventionist capabilities.

The third keynote speaker was Marcel Wissenburg, a political theorist at Nijmegen University, who drew on recent work to discuss the differences between European ("Eastern") and U.S. approaches to environmental issues, especially the failed attempts to get the U.S. to sign on to international climate agreements. It is all about "culture," broadly defined. Americans just won't go for the thing that works so well in the "East," namely international agreements setting clear targets that countries should meet through targeted, government-mandated regulation. Pointing to the success of Governor Schwarzenegger in California and the 2007 Supreme Court ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA (authorizing the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions), Wissenburg argued that the way forward for the U.S. is to go back to basic principles, such as "health" and move toward policy from there. By implication this would probably mean that there's no future for global climate agreements, but given also the attitude of for example China and India (not to mention Europe's own inability to meet agreed-upon targets) we already knew that.

So what is the Obama effect on transatlantic relations? Ties will be more business-like, and Europe will have to pull its own weight a good deal more, both in maintaining the relationship and in developing its own independent role. It would help if ordinary Europeans became a little less obsessed with their own lives and societies and developed a broader view of global affairs and what is required, also in military terms, to keep things from getting out of control. The U.S., meanwhile, should get a hold of itself, its politics, so that it gets back in a position from where it can take some sensible steps to repair the basis for its global power (which we still very much need). However much one might want to criticize the president, the burden to make that happen mostly rests with others; ultimately, it rests with the American people. It would help if more of them actively showed how the current hysteria does not represent them.

Catch-Up Posting

There were a couple of moments the past two weeks when I had reason to post, but you do have to take the time, and I didn't (that's a better explanation than: "no time," because "no time" really means "no priority"). I really do believe I usually had better, or at least more pressing things to do. And I'm afraid that includes taking advantage of the very nice fall weather last Saturday for one more team ride in shorts and short sleeves (Portengensebrug, Harmelen, Montfoort, Oudewater, Haastrecht, Reeuwijk/Gouda, Bodegraven, Woerden, Kanis, Breukelen for a total of 67 miles).

But I did do an-op ed two weeks ago arguing that the Dutch parliament should consider sending police and military trainers to Afghanistan because we're entering a crucial phase of the struggle there, given President Obama's time table. There are other signs that things remain in flux and that Western interests are at stake: the terror plot responsible for the increased number of U.S. drone attacks in the border area with Pakistan; discussions between certain Taliban and the Karzai government; military stalemate. I went out on a limb and said that the situation is not hopeless, and that in any case muddling through is preferable to total chaos there. Of course, one of the big ifs for a turn for the better in the region--Pakistan's cooperation in this campaign--has appeared even more problematic since I submitted my piece, thanks to Lahore's closure of the Khyber Pass supply route and the subsequent attacks on Western convoys. A classic case of a weak but indispensable ally having plenty of options not only to squeeze lots of money out of you, but also of jerking you around at will. Still, if the Dutch care about their own security, about continuing the good work they've done in Afghanistan since 2006, and about a successful Obama presidency, they should send the trainers. It is true that Western military presence, "occupation," is a prime motivator for extremists, but now that we're there, it matters how we leave. This summer, the Dutch left Afghanistan in a lousy way; the least they can do is try to pitch in during what promises to be a crucial stage of the Afghanistan saga.

Then there was news to report on the "weird cycling contraptions" front. Last time, I reported on being passed by a regular-looking guy in street clothes on a hybrid kind-of bike, making me look like a big slouch (even though I was riding to work at probably 18-19 m/h on my old Trek, wearing an old team kit, and carrying a back-pack). Had to be an electric bike. I resolved next time to jump on the wheel, even though it would look funny. Well, this week I've had two opportunities. Leaving Amsterdam last Monday there was somebody behind me who, out on the open road by the Amsterdam Rijnkanaal actually came around. Hybrid bike, one saddle bag, backpack, but also dressed in cycling clothes he just went a little too fast given his appearance. Again, a very strong rider (would probably have to be some kind of racer) could move a bike like that at that speed, but they're few and far between, and if they were that kind of rider, they would not be riding to work like that. Of course, the moment he passed me I could see his battery back hanging off the seat tube. He turned out to be going my way for almost ten miles, and for most of that distance I had nice, quiet, and clean pacemaker at a speed somewhere in the low 20s. Just before we went our separate ways I pulled up alongside and asked if he had indeed some electrical assistance. He did. Keeping up wasn't difficult at all, but in Muiden, crossing the big bridge in the center, he ran the light, while I stopped and pressed the button to get the green. Green came quickly, but meanwhile he'd gotten about a 100m gap. It did take some effort to close that again, and it must have looked weird: this "real"cyclist digging deep to get on the wheel of this upright hybrid rider. Yesterday morning I had to make a similar effort to get on the wheel of what may well have been the same guy as the one who prompted my post two weeks ago. The sight of us riding together must have been even weirder. On the way in, riding the nice wide and empty two mile stretch of asphalt near IJburg (visible here toward the left, alongside the green part) suddenly he blew by me again: hybrid bike, street clothes, upright position. It took me a second or two to make up my mind, but then I decided to take a closer look. This was hard, as by then he'd taken a 50m lead. But I got on the wheel, and before the Nescio bridge, my turn off, I was also able to confirm that his bike was a Trek. I didn't get to talk to this guy, but I'm convinced that he too had his electrical device turned on, in part because there was the same, very slight whirring sound you don't hear on regular bikes. But even more important was that this picture really didn't fit. Cyclists looking this way just don't go at these speeds. There's an artist--I'll get the name and a link when I get home tonight--who has these human figures that quickly make you do a double-take because something isn't right. On closer inspection you see that one of several body parts are just a little too big, or small. Watching these guys on their electric bikes come by is a similarly disorienting experience. However, once you're on their wheel, they provide very nice drafting opportunities.