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2020-04-30 Europe
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In a Crisis, a Fumbling America Confirms Europe's Worst Fears
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This is a really strange article with a bunch of weird takes on America. I thought it was worth posting here, sorry if it's not appropriate.
| War on the Rocks is the op-ed side about policy and national security for general readership of the Siamese twins produced by and for the University of Texas. Texas National Security Review is their scholarly publication. |
[WarOnTheRocks] Europeans have been watching America’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic with alarm.
| F-24: Europeans have been watching America’s response to X with alarm. |
Last week’s news that the United States plans to freeze funding for the World Health Organization was seen as yet another piece of evidence that the United States is shedding its traditional, global leadership role.
| That role being Uncle Sugar paying for whatever it is, then stepping forward to take the blame. |
In over one hundred interviews, emails, and texts with policymakers, analysts, and colleagues across the European continent, we have found universal shock and disappointment over both America’s failure to lead in this crisis and its systemic failures at home.
Dear Dr. Mohan,
We were talking about the situation over lunch, and we simply cannot understand why the latest cowboy your commoners elected is saying such judgmental things about us. Please take him firmly in hand or we will have to put our leader at a different table for the banquet at the next conference.
Yours most regretfully, |
The COVID-19 crisis is raising questions about American power, reliability, and trustworthiness that stand to shape the future of the transatlantic relationship for years to come.
The leadership role is what the world doesn't like about America. Who asked us to be chief oppressor? Did someone take a vote?
| Remember how President Obama sent the US Air Force to execute the plans concocted by Britain, France, and Italy when they decided Libya’s Khadaffy was no longer acceptable? That is what President Trump is refusing to provide. |
However, as the center of the pandemic shifts from Europe to the United States, there have been aspects of America’s response that Europeans have found to be both deeply disheartening and alarming.
Irrespective of who sits in the Oval Office, Europeans tend to look to the United States in a crisis because of its unique and longstanding ability to bring the world together. In 2014, it was the United States that pulled nations together to combat Ebola. In 2001, under President George W. Bush, it was the United States that led U.N. efforts to create a global fund to combat AIDS. In this crisis, however, the United States has been, as one Italian analyst told us, "MIA."
Europe is free to craft its own solutions, free of interference. I don't know why this is a bad thing.
The Trump administration failed to call for emergency meetings of the G7, the G20, or any other international grouping. When the foreign ministers of the G7 did finally convene, the United States prevented them from issuing a statement because of its insistence that the virus be labeled the "Wuhan virus." The United States is consumed with a war of words when it could be harmonizing global travel restrictions, coordinating a global economic response, or working with partners and allies on a vaccine. Similarly, criticism of the World Health Organization for believing in and actively promoting Chinese disinformation is fair, but Trump’s solution — threatening to withdraw from the organization altogether — doesn’t help anyone. The real vacuum of global leadership — by both the United States and China — means the process of recovery will be harder and longer for everyone. At a moment when America should have created coalitions with Europe and other partners in the Indo-Pacific, it retreated.
Bullying them would have just created more resentment. It's never the solution. The next paragraph is worth taking apart in detail.
Beyond the Trump administration’s abdication of global leadership, Europeans have been disturbed to discover that their supposed close relationship with the United States counts for little.
They never thought themselves our friends.
As tens of thousands of Italians died from the disease and Rome pleaded for help in early March, Washington stayed silent. China, seeing an opportunity to burnish its tarnished reputation born out of its initial handling of the virus, immediately sent assistance. While European papers widely covered China’s "mask diplomacy," the United States captured headlines for allegedly diverting masks meant for Europe.
If China wants to waste its money sending aid to wealthy countries, let it do so. Why should we?
Although the US company in question later denied these reports, the damage was done, leading a German politician to accuse the United States of "modern piracy."
All so effortlessly they switch right back to the old rhetoric of despising us. A few paragraphs ago they were shocked and disappointed.
It is important to note that Europe isn’t looking at offers of Chinese help without a critical eye. Reports of faulty testing kits and masks sold to Italy,Spain, the Netherlands, and elsehwhere(sic) have damaged China’s credibility. The European Union’s top diplomat even called out China’s "politics of generosity" as a ploy to gain influence in Europe.
We tried politics of generosity and got nowhere, China shouldn't expect any gratitude.
But, while China is present on the scene with planeloads of equipment and teams of doctors , the United States is completely absent or, worse, seen as acting only in self-interest.
Europeans can act in self-interest but we can't.
Rumors that the White House tried to secure exclusive rights to a vaccine being developed by a German company has only further damaged America’s reputation.
That was fake news. I'm not surprised European media didn't print retractions and they still believe it.
Adding insult to injury, the United States criticized Spain for buying faulty testing equipment from China without offering an alternative or even a little sympathy. Finally, the Trump administration’s callous decision to double down on steel and aluminum tariffs in the middle of a global pandemic has left Europeans to conclude that the distinction between ally and adversary is quite small. That lesson has rattled even the staunchest European supporters of the United States, including conservatives in Poland who worry what these failings say about U.S. security guarantees.
We just established that generosity gains no thanks from Europe. Does this person not know she is contradicting herself?
As Europeans have monitored their own disparate approaches to grappling with the virus within their borders, they have also looked across the Atlantic to see how American doctors, governors, scientists, and hospitals are tackling the virus.
Why? America is a backwards country of hillbillies.
While many Europeans have complimented individual governors, they have been shocked to see the inadequacies of the American system laid bare.
This is the real howler right here. How can they be shocked? Europe maintains a cottage industry of denigrating, mocking, and generally highlighting every inadequacy of America. Now they're suddenly surprised? I'm not buying it.
Needless to say, the images of nurses wearing garbage bags and of field hospitals being set up in Central Park have, as one E.U. official diplomatically said to us, "dimmed the appeal of the U.S.-model."
They have been quite loud about how much they despise the US model. Again, pretending to be shocked.
The stark inequalities across American society, the limited safety net for the millions of Americans out of work, and the disproportionate way in which the crisis has impacted African-Americans are altering European views of American power and strength.
There it is *again*. It just effortlessly slipped back into the European sneering without any recognition of doing so.
As Le Monde described in one of its headlines, "America has never seemed so fragile."
You know what's missing from this piece? You've noticed it, haven't you? There is absolutely no discussion of the American people or what they want. Not a word.
| Of the two authors, Julianne Smith is a Europe policy specialist and was a senior policy advisor for the Obama administration. Garima Mohan is an Indian who took advanced degrees in London and Berlin, where she has settled. |
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