Leaders of Old World Show New Confidence

As President Clinton neared the end of his weeklong European swing Monday, one fact about the U.S. relationship with the Old World stood out: The mood and outlook of America’s closest allies have been dramatically altered by the war in Kosovo.

This new spirit is characterized by a heightened sense of responsibility for the security of their continent. While West Europeans in the past have gone through similar, albeit short-lived, periods of trying to shoulder more of their own defense burden, two factors set the current situation apart:

For the first time, Europe’s leaders actually seem determined to follow words with actions. In Kosovo, they are furnishing 85% of the 50,000-strong NATO-led peacekeeping force and are likely to provide the lion’s share of longer-term development aid for the region.

Also, for the first time, this attitude among Europeans contains few visible strands of anti-Americanism.

Taken together, these factors provide the kind of political environment American policymakers have sought for years, one in which their European allies are ready to do more but do it together with the United States within the framework of the transatlantic partnership.

Analysts believe that what is happening today is radically different from previous European efforts, such as the brief attempt by France and Germany during the mid-1980s to revive the long-dormant defense organization, the West European Union.

That bid, triggered mainly by European nervousness over President Reagan’s foreign policy, quickly foundered because of the hard realities of the Cold War. Europe simply needed the United States too much in order to counter the Soviet threat to the east.

Today’s outlook also differs from the euphoria of the immediate post-Cold War period and the conviction it gave Europeans that they could now deal with security problems on their own.

It was a mood captured in the summer of 1991 by Luxembourg’s foreign minister, Jacques Poos, the European Community envoy, as he jetted to Belgrade to try to defuse the crisis that led to the breakup of Yugoslavia.

The time had come, he declared, for Europe to deal with its own problems.

But when diplomacy collapsed and the Balkans sank into war, Europe’s confidence went with it. The only response Europeans could agree on was to turn to the Americans for help.

The war in Kosovo shocked European leaders by exposing just how far their countries lag behind the United States, especially in terms of air power and military technology. But the experience seems to have injected both a new political will among them and a desire to work with America rather than try to go it alone.

“The war [in Kosovo] has been a defining moment for Europe,” said Elizabeth Pond, a respected American journalist-academic whose recent book, “The Rebirth of Europe,” charts a political revitalization of the Old World since the Cold War ended a decade ago. “It was felt in the gut.”

The reasons for this are not hard to find.

A new generation of political leaders has emerged in Europe, one whose instinctive outrage at moral injustice and willingness to fight for causes it believes in were instilled during the Vietnam era and in protests against the deployment of American cruise and Pershing nuclear missiles in the 1980s.

The passion and determination of men like British Prime Minister Tony Blair, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and his foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, as they struggled to end the latest Balkan carnage reflected a heightened political will in Europe.

Although half a generation older, French President Jacques Chirac also has been part of this phenomenon. Pond noted just how differently Western Europe’s new leaders reacted to Kosovo than to previous crises.

“In Bosnia, it was a feeling of, ‘We’ve got to wall it off so it doesn’t affect us.’ In Kosovo, the reaction is more emotional, more passionate,” she said. “They are saying, ‘We can’t allow this kind of thing to happen in Europe in this day and age.’ ”

But there are two other strands that contribute to the continent’s new sense of determination. One is the arrival for the first time in the post-World War II era of democratic Germany as a major player in a military conflict.

For Germany, the war in Kosovo represents one more step in a long journey toward normalcy in military affairs. During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, it contributed money but no forces. Four years later, it took part in the first NATO-led peacekeeping mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina, with its troops providing support from neighboring Croatia. It deployed forces in Bosnia itself two years ago as part of the Stabilization Force, known as SFOR, that followed.

In Kosovo, German combat planes took part in NATO’s air campaign, and its ground forces control one of the five post-war military sectors in the Serbian province.

New strides in recent years to deepen European unity also have brought new confidence. The achievement of an 11-nation currency union might have little connection with the continent’s security, but it provided an enormous psychological boost for those committed to the idea of a united Europe.

More directly, European Union leaders earlier this month approved a plan to create a common foreign and security policy over the next 18 months and named NATO’s current secretary general, Javier Solana, to run it.

The policy will enable the EU to order and run humanitarian and peacemaking missions, using a European chain of command in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, when the U.S. does not take part.

“We are not setting up an EU army, but we want the ability to resolve conflicts in Europe,” German Deputy Foreign Minister Guenter Verheugen said.

As much in tone as in content, Schroeder seemed to capture this new European outlook Sunday during the final moments of the Group of 8 summit in Cologne when he stressed the importance of making the mini-Marshall Plan for the region, the South Eastern Europe Stability Pact, work.

He spent several minutes--and some emotion--telling reporters how the leaders agreed that the process of picking a director for the plan could not fall victim to political horse-trading--a process that historically has produced mediocrity in the name of compromise.

“This must succeed,” he said.