Brussels' growing array of think tanks, representative offices, as well as lobbyists, public affairs and communications groups - all are focusing with increasing intensity on the American presidential race. With the Republican race pretty much a foregone conclusion, the current excitement is over the Democratic primaries and Senator Barack Obama's seeming non-stop winning streak.
Serious observers of the American scene schedule events entitled "The Primaries, U.S. Foreign Policy, and the E.U." (co-sponsored by the Friedrich Nauman Stiftung fur die Freiheit and the Transatlantic Institute). At this and other similar conclaves, Europeans and Americans connected with Brussels' unique collection of international institutions (NATO, EU, etc.) try to frame the debate in the most neutral terms possible. The "European Theatre" conference, co-sponsored by the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies (AICGS, of Johns Hopkins University) and the German Marshall Fund of the US, is the first of a series of issue-oriented debates which will culminate in a "Memo to the (Next) President of the United States."
But as even-handed as the speakers at these conclaves try to be, the name Barack Obama keeps cropping up. As in, "even a President Obama would..." or "in an Obama Administration... ." For good measure, there are occasional references to John McCain and Hillary Clinton, but it's almost in the realm of tokenism. The money - if Brussels policy wonks were betting people - would be on Obama. Some of this is hortatory - many are truly concerned about a continuation of Bush policies under a Clinton or McCain presidency - while much of it is fascination with the promise of a man who, let's be honest, is still much of an unknown - but intriguing - quantity.
Some of the more serious observers warn fellow Europeans not to expect night-and-day changes. They remind audiences that all three top candidates are more outward-looking and multilateralist than Bush. But that "even a President Obama" should not be expected to abandon American exceptionalism, and has not ruled out a unilateral approach in certain circumstances (his threat to intervene in Pakistan has not been forgotten). Several warned against expectations of a "New Dawn" on January 20, 2009. Indeed, many expect that a new, more multilateralist American president may ask more of Europeans, used to getting off cheaply during the Bush years. The Bush administration simply didn't expect much of its allies, and went down its own road, using the US national credit card. With massive American deficits aggravated by Iraq war spending, a new president should stress burden sharing anew.
NATO - the preeminent institution linking the United States to Europe (though not the only one: the US is a major player in OECD, EBRD, OSCE, and other Europe-based institutions) - has been facing existential threat ever since the real one - the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact - dissolved in the early '90s. The current crisis is over the first out-of-area NATO operation, Afghanistan. The next US president will have been in office all of two months when NATO heads of state meet at the Bucharest Summit in April 2009. Whether it's "Day One" Clinton, Vietnam Vet McCain, or "On-the-job-training" Obama, a new American president will be... new. Will Canada have pulled out of its Afghanistan commitment after Parliamentary frustration over disproportionate casualties? Will France have re-entered the NATO military command and launched a stronger "European Pillar" of NATO under President Sarkozy? The next US president may very well be in a reactive, place-holding mode, until he or she can catch up with fast-moving events among key allies.
Important as these matters are, European-American relations are not restricted to NATO and narrowly-defined defense issues. A new American administration would do well to engage with Europeans on issues of mutual concern, like energy security. Though Europe has had to fight the Bush administration's denial of climate change for most of its eight years in power, and has generally been ahead of the US in developing alternative sources of energy production, there is real concern about Europe's dependence on Russian natural gas. This highly asymmetrical relationship in EU-Russia trade is one where Europe's goal of "security of supply" should mesh with (one hopes) a new American president's similar concerns about American dependence on imported - especially Middle Eastern - crude oil.
Likewise, with the French EU Presidency winding up just as American elections will determine the next US president, Sarkozy's dream of a "Mediterranean Union" may be better defined, if not yet a reality. Europe has legitimate concerns about growing immigration pressures from riparian states and beyond, coupled with concerns about inroads of radical Islam among immigrant populations already resident in Europe. A new US president will have a stake in these issues, and may want to modify what many Mediterranean and sub-Saharan African countries see as a Bush tendency to "militarize" US engagement with the continent (i.e., the establishment of AFRICOM, the US military's new Africa Command). At the same time, the shared US and European need for "security of supply" should mean convergence in attempts to maintain access to African petrochemical resources, under pressure from growing Chinese demand.
Much will be on the plate of the new American president, and he (or she) will find an eager dinner partner in Europe.