WASHINGTON – When it began last March, the Syrian revolution appeared to be a textbook example for a peaceful uprising by a people united against state brutality. For weeks, videos documented the determination of the mostly youthful protesters, chanting their demands for freedom and political participation only to be faced with bullets, arrests, torture, and execution.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad reacted with a series of gestures whose insincerity was swiftly revealed. A few hundred prisoners were released while thousands more were arrested, with many dying in custody. The decades-old state of emergency was lifted but the regime, in the name of a “security solution,” went on ruthlessly crushing the protests.

Publicly, the Syrian government asserts that “foreign powers” are instigating an insurgency in Syria to punish it for its support of what it calls the anti-Israel “resistance.” In private meetings with non-Sunni regional leaders, the regime promotes the notion that this is also a conflict between a “hegemonic Sunnism” (about three-fourths of Syrians are Sunni) and historically persecuted minorities. But support for the revolution cuts across all socio-economic strata and ethnic or religious groups. Conversely, the Assad regime has resorted to the Alawi community (approximately one-eighth of the population) as a primary pool for support; still, it neither encompasses this community in its totality, nor is limited to it.

The Syrian revolutionaries’ commitment to nonviolence was premised on expectations that they would be able to divide the security apparatus through insubordination and defections and that the world community would act to stop the massacres. Neither expectation was realized.

The revolutionaries have underestimated the ability of the regime to leverage ethnic and religious community cleavages. Recruits from the Alawi community are playing a key role in the repression. Defections are happening, but remain at about 10 percent of the military. The defectors, with no unified leadership, are unable to defeat the regime, but are used by it as proof of being engaged in combating “armed gangs.”

Even more dramatically, the international community was unable to provide the revolutionaries the support they needed. Most observers remain wary as to the implications of regime change in Syria, and indeed the revolutionaries have yet to offer a convincing post-Assad scenario to alleviate these concerns (including those of the regime’s internal constituencies). The Arab League was able to overcome substantial differences between its members on ways to manage the Syrian crisis, but as a result provided a watered-down plan that failed to satisfy the revolutionaries, and was still rejected by the regime. Meanwhile, the transatlantic alliance, the sole plausible agency for decisive support, is hamstrung by the economic crisis and a sharp decline in public tolerance for military interventions. Many strategists compare the case for Western intervention in Syria unfavorably with Libya: the latter, they argue, was “low-risk and high-reward,” whereas the former is precisely the reverse. Finally, Assad continues to be of significant value for both Iran and Russia.

All this has emboldened the Syrian regime; it is asserting that it will regain its international standing once its “security solution” is complete. Yet, with all its lethal superiority, it has been unable to achieve military victory. It has, however, managed to seriously undermine the revolutionaries’ initial commitment to nonviolence and inclusiveness. Against the protestations of many militants, the Syrian revolution has in large part become an armed uprising. This in turn allows the regime to “expose” the revolution as a violent sectarian insurgency, in order to justify resorting to even harsher measures, including arguably engineering violent sectarianism. The Assad regime’s actions may not secure its survival, but they will ensure the unraveling of Syria as a nation-state, with deadly repercussions across the region.

Russia and China’s veto of the latest UN Security Council resolution amounts to a green light for the escalation of the Syrian regime’s homicidal campaign — or, in the words of Qatar’s foreign minister, “a license to kill.”

The only way to stop Syria from sliding into an abyss now is for the transatlantic alliance to assert moral and political leadership. The Arab League’s original plan — that Assad should delegate his authority to a deputy ­­— had succeeded in trimming the demands of the rebels to yet another token action, but still ran afoul of concerted opposition by Russia and China. The League should now be encouraged to propose a bolder, more principled plan to serve as a baseline.

Obviously, it would be preferable to see this conflict addressed at the highest levels of the United Nations, but given the entrenched positions of Moscow and Beijing, that is unlikely. However, the Arab League’s position would also provide a mandate on its own for the transatlantic alliance to investigate next steps. It would also be worth preserving silence as to which steps are would be categorically excluded since the Syrian regime’s killing machine has been reinvigorated by statements of restraint from Washington.

The Assad family’s decades-long stranglehold on power has been largely based on a fear-instilling aura of power. The Syrian revolutionaries have broken through the wall of fear. Their ultimate success depends on denying the regime the ability to re-erect it. They will not be able to succeed without Western help. 

Hassan Mneimneh is a Senior Transatlantic Fellow with the German Marshall Fund in Washington, DC.

Image by Syria Press. 

PARIS–President Barack Obama’s announcement last June of an accelerated U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan reopened debates in many European countries over when their soldiers should return from that unpopular war. French President Nicolas Sarkozy followed a few days later with an announcement that French troops would be reduced “in a proportional manner and in a calendar comparable to the withdrawal of American reinforcements.” Now, the tables have turned. With last week’s announcement, it was France that reset the transition calendar, arguing that progress in the transition allowed for the withdrawal of 1,000 French troops by the end of 2012. Although many U.S., Afghan, and NATO observers were initially critical, the Obama administration announced only a few days later that the United States also planned to end its combat mission in Afghanistan by mid-2013 and shift primarily to advising Afghan forces.

Both Sarkozy’s and Obama’s calls for a speedier NATO exit from Afghanistan reflect the depth of war fatigue in the West, the unpopularity of the Afghan war, and the relentless budgetary and political pressures leaders face to bring their troops home early. As Obama put it in his June 2011 speech on Afghanistan, “it is time to focus on nation building here at home,” a sentiment shared by many in Europe. The French military engagement in Afghanistan has always been perceived in France as a “war of solidarity” without clearly defined strategic objectives, aimed at repairing U.S.-French relations after France’s refusal to participate in the coalition against Iraq in 2003. Coming just three months before the election, Sarkozy’s announcement reflects a compromise between the Lisbon NATO consensus and his presidential campaign rival Francois Hollande’s promise of ending the French military presence in Afghanistan by the end of 2012. But in fact, both dates are unrealistic considering the unpreparedness of the Afghan security forces to lead coalition forces and the overreliance of the Afghan government on external assistance.

Indeed, the argument that progress has been made in Afghanistan is disputable. Today, in the province of Kapisa, Afghan representatives recognize that their security forces are not ready to assume the responsibilities of the coalition. Growing anti-Western sentiments, stemming from a serious trust deficit between Afghans and coalition forces and combined with the operational unpreparedness of Afghan forces, a weak central government, and the Taliban’s high morale, raise serious questions about the post-2014 role of the United States and its allies. A series of recent incidents in which Afghan troops have turned on their Western allies confirms the failure of the counterinsurgency and “winning hearts and minds” tactics deployed in Afghanistan over the last few years, as well as the flaws in the training mission in the absence of a legitimate central authority.

The coalition’s decade of military engagement in Afghanistan is a story of constant oscillation between three strategies that were never really connected. After a phase of “Americanization” of the Afghan war through the surge, and a phase of “internationalization” with the increase in coalition members’ contributions and assistance, “Afghanization” or the “transition” phase involving the training of local security forces has become the central pillar of the coalition’s exit strategy. But when the strategy becomes about exiting, the strategy of the weak prevails in setting the international calendar and the narrative. In fact, as both the French and American decisions illustrate, the gradual foreign troop reductions have mostly been in response to forces other than security progress in Afghanistan.

Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer is Director of the Paris office of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. 

BRUSSELS—Full details of the Obama administration’s new look in defense spending, force posture, and strategy are not yet out. But enough has been revealed  to venture some thoughts on the logic of the new approach and the longer-term implications for the United States and transatlantic partners.

The shift to a “one war, spoil and manage” strategy contrasts sharply with a decade of costly and inconclusive engagement in irregular warfare in Afghanistan and Iraq. Enormous efforts were undertaken to adapt the U.S. way of war and to focus it on counterterrorism and counterinsurgency, with the unfortunate effect of eroding the United States’ capacity to address more serious and potentially more demanding long-term challenges, above all in Asia. Today, much of the U.S. strategic community has come to believe that a disproportionate amount of effort has been devoted to meeting nonexistential threats to the national interest and international security. A strategy re-emphasizing core risks, and conventional rather than irregular warfare, simply makes sense against a backdrop of stark resource constraints.

The need to meet serious conventional contingencies with smaller ground forces could spell a renaissance in nuclear strategy. There are precedents for this in the Cold War experience, when the expense and difficulty of forward defense in Europe compelled a reliance on nuclear forces and nuclear deterrence to fill the gap at reasonable cost. Of course, we are unlikely to see a return to a doctrine of massive retaliation to meet security challenges in Asia, a more competitive relationship with Russia, or an aggressive Iran. But the mix of conventional and nuclear deterrence in U.S. strategy could well change as forces are realigned and forward-deployed forces, in particular, become more exposed to ballistic missile attack, perhaps nuclear-armed. Under these conditions, planners may be tempted to reinforce the nuclear dimension. Not quite a trip-wire strategy, but perhaps a bit closer than many U.S. allies would prefer.

Many will be tempted to interpret the Obama administration’s new strategy as a shift away from European defense—and perhaps more important, European defense partnerships—in the face of more pressing challenges in Asia. This interpretation is too dramatic. In reality, the shift away from European defense per se has been underway for two decades. This is not just a question of land forces. The U.S. Sixth Fleet has not kept an aircraft carrier battle group in the Mediterranean for many years. Residual U.S. forces in and around Europe are kept there to enable the United States to meet contingencies elsewhere, across the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, and the Middle East. Maintaining a capacity to reinforce Europe’s crisis response capabilities on the European periphery, as in Libya, will continue to depend, above all, on mainly bilateral base access and over-flight arrangements. If anything, transatlantic partners will now have an even greater stake in solidifying these strategic ties. The locus of strategic risk may be shifting; the logic of cooperation endures.

Dr. Ian O. Lesser is the Executive Director of the German Marshall Fund’s Transatlantic Center in Brussels.

BERLIN — When President Barack Obama unveiled a new national defense strategy last week, which confirmed the United States’ intent to play a sustained role in shaping a rising Asia, he noted that “the tide of war is receding.” This observation will have done little to reassure a skeptical Beijing that the strategy is aimed at managing, as opposed to containing, the rise of China. Beijing will note with ire its bracketing, in one part of the strategic review, with Iran: a country with whom the United States has had no diplomatic relations for three decades and with whom the risk of conflict (even if by proxy), remains all too real. Nor will it be pleased by the U.S. commitment to “invest in a long-term strategic partnership with India,” a country whose potential Beijing would prefer to see checked. Seen from Beijing, the administration’s repeated assurances that the United States does not view China as an adversary will be even harder to believe now.

Nevertheless, as Beijing waits to discover the full details of the U.S. realignment and to calibrate its reaction accordingly, a few ironies are already clear. Firstly, despite the fanfare with which the announcement was made, it should be no surprise that Washington plans to pay close attention to Asia. In fact, the realignment reinforces an underlying trend of increased U.S. engagement with the Asia-Pacific region, which has been quietly gathering momentum since the 1990s. The wars that followed the 9/11 attacks may have constrained some of this focus, but the ultimate direction of U.S. defense policy has been clear for a while. Likewise, the intention to cultivate India as a long-term strategic partner has roots stretching back across administrations long before Obama’s tenure.

Secondly, the perception of increasingly “assertive” behavior by China in recent years has played its part in crystallizing a stronger U.S. response. The danger is that this in turn bolsters the position of hard-liners in Beijing, including elements of the military, thereby further increasing their influence in foreign and security policymaking. Thirdly, China’s bracketing with Iran as nations pursuing asymmetric means to counter U.S. power projection capabilities is likely to encourage Beijing to mistakenly identify common cause with Tehran. Indeed, a Global Times editorial the day after Obama’s announcement argued, “The U.S. strategic adjustment highlights Iran’s importance to China. Iran’s existence and its stance form a strong check against the U.S.” And finally, as Washington complains about the pursuit of these asymmetric measures, its increased presence in the region is likely to make such activities even more attractive. China will continue to pour resources into access denial, focus on the development of longer-range capabilities, and continue their advances in electronic and cyber warfare.

Yet, for the United States to retain its primacy in Asia whilst ensuring the rise of China within a rules-based international environment, there is no alternative other than pouring more resources into Asia. Ultimately, anyone judging China’s strategic intentions purely by observing the nature of its military build-up would not likely be persuaded by Beijing’s commitment to rise peacefully. For the many U.S. allies and partners in Asia struggling to manage the security implications of their burgeoning trade relations with China, this demonstration of U.S. commitment to the region provides significant reassurance. At the same time, the strategy will also generate tensions with U.S. partners in Asia. More will be demanded of them, which will have financial implications and might require deft political handling domestically. Equally, as South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo has been quick to point out, the United States’ decreased appetite for boots on the ground does not sit easily with a military strategy that presently envisions the deployment of 690,000 American soldiers on the Korean Peninsula in the event of war.

In the struggle to manage the consequences of China’s rise, U.S. military might and strategy will be crucial, but these will not be the only tools required. While a more coherent diplomatic strategy for Asia appears to be emerging with, for example, U.S. participation in the East Asian Summit, U.S. trade policy in Asia remains woefully underdeveloped, the administration’s recent push on the Trans-Pacific Partnership notwithstanding. Ultimately, as intriguing as the consequences of this strategy may be for the broader region, for the moment at least, the Pentagon review remains just a paper. Even once key details are made clear, a lot can happen on the road between intent and reality.

Sarah Raine is a Non-Resident Transatlantic Fellow with the Asia Program of the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Berlin

PARIS—The Obama administration’s new defense strategy should come as no surprise to observers in France and across Europe. The question of rebalancing American military involvement between Europe and the Asia-Pacific has been a recurring theme of transatlantic relations and of U.S. policy debates since at least the 1950s. In large part, it reflects the historical evolution of U.S. perceptions of the transatlantic relationship, from what the United States should do for Europe to what it should do with Europe. In the context of economic austerity, this evolution assumes an even more urgent quality.

There are certainly legitimate reasons for concern. The stationing of U.S. troops in Europe is not only a key component of deterring potential aggression against U.S. allies, it also significantly enhances its power projection capabilities by locating U.S. forces closer to hotspots in the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe’s eastern periphery. A recessed U.S. posture in Europe will have direct implications for the military’s ability to respond to future conflicts or strategic surprises. In the lead-up to intervening in Libya, confusion related to the United States’ role illustrated the increasing and dangerous ambiguity that underscores U.S.-European strategic relations. Whereas the United States “transferred” the command and control of the Libya mission to its European allies, Europeans had been counting on U.S. leadership to conduct the military operations.

At the same time, closer strategic cooperation between the United States and Europe has become even more vital in an unpredictable environment being transformed by the emergence of new powers and threats. In Obama’s words, U.S. rebalancing should “create new opportunities for burden-sharing.” Indeed, the key questions induced by an increasingly Asia-oriented U.S. foreign policy do not concern the United States’ military posture in Europe itself, but rather whether Europe is ready to take responsibility for hard security matters in and around Europe, and across the world. France’s chief of the defense staff, Admiral Edouard Guillaud, recently noted that while “Europe is disarming, the world is rearming,” a trend that could impact Europe’s future in terms of its power projection and influence in world politics.

Burden sharing need not entail a geographical division of labor between Americans and Europeans, whereby the United States focuses on Asia and the Middle East, while Europeans concentrate on their near and Mediterranean neighborhoods. Under certain circumstances, the United States will need European support, as in Afghanistan or sub-Saharan Africa. In others, the EU will need U.S. support and unique capabilities, as in Libya. Defining clear modalities of transatlantic cooperation would help avoid future Libya-like scenarios.

It is as yet unclear whether Europe is ready for all this. While the United States would wish for Europe to develop a more coherent military capacity, Europe is actually evolving in the opposite direction. At the present juncture, virtually no European country has the will or the means to assume these responsibilities. European decision-makers may have welcomed Obama’s commitment to draw to a close the perceived over-militarization of the post-9/11 era, but the Libyan campaign showed that hard power still matters in the 21^st century. Ad hoc coalitions are a short-term solution, Franco-British defense cooperation suffers from ideological divergences, and Germany is occupied dealing with the Euro crisis. NATO can therefore be expected to continue to enhance interoperability and coalition building, rather than acting as the core transatlantic security alliance.

What may appear a pragmatic and natural shift in U.S. geostrategic priorities to Asia and the Middle East means fewer resources for the traditional transatlantic alliance. But this does not entail a post-American Europe or less U.S. interest in the transatlantic partnership. On the contrary, the Obama administration has, in a way, renewed its defense commitments to Europe and acknowledged the continuing strategic importance of Europe in terms of ongoing security challenges and unresolved conflicts.

Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer is Director of the German Marshall Fund’s Paris office.

WARSAW—The new strategic defense guidance from the Obama administration aims to refocus the U.S. defense posture on the increasingly competitive security environment emerging in the Pacific. It also (despite the Pentagon’s protestations to the contrary) appears to put an end to the era of large-scale counterinsurgency and stability operations. Last but not least, it implies a strategic shift away from Europe. It thus brings the United States and Europe to a decisive point in their relationship: they will need to reframe the division of labor in the security dimension of the transatlantic alliance.

The Obama administration’s planned $489 billion defense cuts over ten years means that any buildup of U.S. capacity in Asia will have to be offset in part through further reductions in the U.S. presence in Europe. Cuts may even be double that if Congress fails to reverse massive automatic budget reductions by 2013. Moreover, under the “one war, one spoiling action” formula espoused by the 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance, the United States’ role in NATO may shift from that of ultimate European security provider to more of an enabler of European defense.

The implications for Europe are significant. Simply put: if the United States is engaged in a conflict on the other side of the globe, a contingency that could develop in or near Europe would require Europe to be ready to respond first. The “burden-sharing” debate has thus been redefined. Of course, the United States retains a strategic interest in Europe, Eurasia, and the Middle East. But it will have to come to a much more explicit understanding with Europe about respective regional interests: where do they intersect/diverge? Is it possible, and if so under what circumstances to generate a credible sense of shared responsibility? And what assets and capabilities can Europe bring to the table — particularly if U.S. assets are needed elsewhere? The United States might opt for issue-based cooperation with individual countries or with regional groupings within the NATO framework. This could balance near-term the tilt of U.S. strategy towards Asia and create a pathway for the United States and Europe to maximize their shrinking capabilities on the continent and preserve the mutuality of their defense commitments. But will that be enough security for Europe? Does the European Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CSDP) have an answer to this question? And is anyone even asking that question in Brussels or national capitals?

One thing is clear at any rate: At a time when 40 cents of every dollar Washington spends is borrowed, Europe can no longer expect that the United States will remain its sole security provider. As long as the EU does not provide persuasive assets and capabilities that justify the as yet-elusive pursuit of an EU-NATO partnership, security cooperation under the NATO umbrella is the more realistic way to maintain transatlantic security relations. Admittedly, that would mean a partial renationalization of security, but it would offer real capabilities by willing players. An example of the latter is the recent Franco-British military cooperation treaty, which provides not only for nuclear sharing, but also for the creation of a joint strike force and the joint use of aircraft carriers. Central Europe might see similar arrangements, e.g. including Germany, Poland, Scandinavia, the Baltics, and Romania. Combined with NATO’s deterrent capability, European forces thus configured could really pull their weight — until such time when CSDP can actually be made to work.

Andrew A. Michta is Senior Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and Director of the GMF Warsaw Office.

BUCHAREST—The landslide victory of former speaker of the Parliament Yevgeny Shevchuk in the December 25 Transnistrian presidential elections came as a surprise to observers in Moldova, Russia, and the West. Shevchuk, who won 74 percent of the vote in the run-off, overcame the challenges of the Moscow-backed candidate Anatoly Kaminski and the incumbent of 20 years, Igor Smirnov, who lost in the first round. Transnistria’s new leader is widely seen as representative of a younger generation, having proposed constitutional reform in 2009 to limit presidential powers. Shevchuk had focused his campaign on fighting corruption and nepotism, which resonated well in a region where people are struggling to overcome economic hardship and where the leadership was often accused of embezzling funds meant for humanitarian purposes. His first order of business after being sworn in as president was to dismiss over 80 state officials, including the heads of government and law enforcement agencies, appointed by Smirnov.

The coming to power of a reform-minded leader represents a long-awaited change in Transnistria, and marks a period of newfound optimism, not just for this disputed region, but also for neighboring Moldova. Although the Moldovan government did not recognize the legality of these elections, its officials are now hopeful of a more constructive dialogue. Moscow also welcomed the shift of power, having lately seen Smirnov as an obstacle to finding a solution to the protracted but frozen Transnistrian conflict. Although Shevchuk was not the Kremlin’s number one pick, he was nevertheless reassured that Transnistria can continue to rely on Russia’s friendly assistance and cooperation.

Shevchuk is also believed to be on good terms with officials in Kiev and is seen as a more progressive figure in Brussels. He was one of the few Transnistrian officials whose five-year travel ban to member states of the European Union was lifted at the beginning of 2008. He is also described by former EU Special Representative to Moldova Kalman Mizsei as a modernizer, and someone who should be welcomed by the European Union.

The election of Shevchuk sets the stage for a new dynamic in the region. Although he shares his predecessor’s stance on Transnistrian sovereignty, there are already clear signals that relations between Transnistria and Moldova will gradually improve. In his inaugural speech, Shevchuk promised to establish good neighborly relations with Moldova and Ukraine and to ensure the free movement of people across the frontier. He also noted that Transnistria needed to modernize and better integrate with regional economies, which would be impossible without better relations with Moldova. It now remains to be seen whether Shevchuk will follow up his rhetoric with concrete actions.

Change will not come quickly, and it is highly unlikely that Transnistria will reunite with Moldova in the near future. But with another round of talks scheduled for February, and with a more reform-minded leadership in Transnistria, Moldova might finally have a serious interlocutor in its efforts at finding a solution to this long-standing conflict.

Dinu Toderascu is Program Officer with the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Bucharest.

EU Climate Action Commissioner Connie Hedegaard and Indian environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan at the center of the “huddle” on the last night of the COP17 negotiations in Durban, South Africa; Todd Stern, US Special Envoy for Climate Change, looks on. Photo: IISD

The enduring image from last week’s UN conference on climate change in Durban, South Africa, was of negotiators “huddling” in full view on the plenary floor to come up with the form of words that allowed the final deal to be reached. The negotiators are in shirtsleeves, visibly tied at the end of talks that had run 36 hours past the deadline, and surrounded by hundreds of observers straining to hear the back-and-forth. At the center are the two protagonists (obscured in this picture): Connie Hedegaard, the EU Commissioner for Climate Action, and Jayanthi Natarajan, the Indian Environment Minister. Todd Stern, the U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change, is offering suggestions and Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, South Africa’s foreign minister and host-president of the conference, is looking on. She made the extraordinary decision to interrupt the plenary negotiations and invite the main players to take ten minutes to come up with an acceptable wording on the legal form of a new treaty, to be negotiated by 2015. The ten minutes stretched to almost an hour but resulted in the breakthrough that carried the conference to a conclusion.

The picture stands in contrast to the iconic photograph from the talks in Copenhagen two years ago. Those negotiations took place in an even brighter glare of international attention because an unprecedented number of heads of state and government attended. The main outcome of the Copenhagen conference was hammered out in an impromptu summit of the leaders of the United States, Brazil, South Africa, India, and China; the EU was not in the room and was acutely embarrassed by its absence and by its failure to achieve a deal on emission reductions that was sufficiently ambitious.

United States President Barack Obama sits with South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma, Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and other world leaders during a multilateral meeting at the Bella Center in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 18 December 2009. The European Union was not in the room. Photo: Jewel Samad

These pictures present contrasting images that are both informative and incomplete. In fact, Europe had much greater influence in Copenhagen than many of the media appreciated at the time – the final outcome of the Copenhagen conference contained much of what the EU had been pushing for. Its exclusion from the room was not deliberate but due to happenstance in the chaos of that final evening. Nevertheless, the denting of Europe’s pride was real, and EU negotiators, led by Hedegaard, invested every ounce of diplomatic capital they possessed to position themselves for a stronger, EU-led outcome in Durban. And the strategy paid off: The agreement in Durban marks the EU’s return to its accustomed place at the front of international leadership on climate diplomacy. It is also a welcome rapprochement between Europe and the United States on climate change.

At the outset of the talks there was a fear that divisions between Europe and the United States on climate policy could sour transatlantic relations. The EU combines ambitious domestic targets with calls for strong international cooperation and has made no secret of its frustration with the lack of U.S. reciprocal action. The 2001 withdrawal of the United States under President George W. Bush from the Kyoto Protocol (which the United States never ratified) was one of the low points of transatlantic relations last decade. The Obama administration is more favorably disposed toward action on climate change but it is constrained by the lack of domestic political support for strong measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The EU and the United States went into the talks with different agendas and expectations. Europe wanted to win agreement on a new international treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, the only international agreement with teeth, whose provisions only run until the end of 2012. The United States approached this issue from what it regarded as a pragmatic position, which is that international treaties are really only a reflection of what countries are doing anyway and the emphasis should be on encouraging national policies. Nevertheless, the United States was not opposed to talking about future commitments, as long as big emerging economies like China and India were included. But the U.S. priority was to focus agreement on the creation of a Green Climate Fund and the other issues on the agenda since the Copenhagen conference in 2009.

At the beginning of the conference there were some predictions that China could seek to isolate the United States by keeping the conversation on the future of the Kyoto Protocol. But the U.S. delegation surprised many observers by lending its support, in the Thursday of the second week of talks, to the EU demand for a “roadmap” that would lead to a new international treaty. For all the expectations that these talks would not bring any progress on a central EU demand, the United States decided that it was not, this time, going to be the country seen as blocking progress. That role fell instead to India, which (with some historical justice) complained bitterly that it was being bound to constrain its emissions thanks to the profligacy of the developed countries. But India eventually acquiesced to a form of words (“a protocol, legal instrument, or an agreed outcome with legal force applicable to all Parties”) suggested by Stern in the late-night huddle.

Even if the “Durban Platform” is not as ambitious as it would have liked or as the science of climate change requires, the EU successfully pressed the need for some kind of continuing international legal process that applies to all countries. This is the most important long-term result of the Durban outcome: the fracturing of the long-standing and artificial divide between “developed” and “developing” nations that obliges only the developed countries to reduce their emissions.

But the United States helped effect this outcome. By ceding to the EU the role of climate champion, the United States allowed this outcome to happen simply by not standing in its way. By the same token, however, the United States insisted on, and won, the point that developing countries must be included in any global approach. On both tracks, the Obama administration managed to avoid drawing fire from the conservative opposition back home, which sees political opportunity in anything that implies constraining U.S. economic growth or diminishing its competiveness with China. The EU negotiators know the Obama administration’s political constraints well and are sympathetic to them.

The result was a victory for the EU in its insistence for a renewed international recognition of the urgency of climate change. It is probably correct to say that a “legally binding” treaty on climate change is never more than a reflection of what is happening anyway. But the EU feared, rightly, that a commitment to do nothing before 2020 – which was the effective Indian and Chinese position – would have sent a disastrous signal to the world. In the mere fact of forcing an international recognition of a new regime by 2015 (which is tomorrow by the glacial pace of international talks), the EU vindicated its position on the talks in opposition to those who thought that such gestures were irrelevant.

WASHINGTON – Immigration and integration continue to be issues of paramount public concern in both the United States and Europe, and yet so rarely do we hear a transatlantic view on the common challenges faced by countries dealing with diverse immigrant populations. It is crucial to understand the views of the public on these key topics. Today marks the release of the fourth annual Transatlantic Trends: Immigration survey (TTI), which this year polled residents in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. While the survey sheds light on the internal debates in each country, there are also trends across countries and transatlantic dynamics that TTI alone captures.

View country-specific findings

In 2011, one of the biggest stories in international affairs, the so-called Arab Spring, posed the specter of a direct migration challenge for countries in Europe, though in practice most migration stayed within the region and did not reach European soil. Some politicians warned of an “invasion” of migrants from the countries in North Africa and the Middle East going through political upheaval. Italy complained of a lack of European burden-sharing on the flows of migrants, with pressures most evident on the island of Lampedusa. French President Nicolas Sarkozy objected to Italy’s admission practices, and temporarily cut off entrance from Italy to avoid receiving unwanted migrants.

Given the rhetoric in 2011 surrounding that migration “crisis,” the continued popularity of populist parties in many European countries, the intensification of the economic crisis and euro crisis in Europe, and continued pro-enforcement discourse in the United States, we expected to see a decline of public support for immigration. Instead, TTI shows a remarkable absence of change in views since 2010. As in previous years, about half the transatlantic public saw immigration as more of a problem than an opportunity, and, equally, about half thought there are “too many” immigrants in their countries. Publics were increasingly unhappy with their governments’ management of immigration, however, with highest discontentment in Italy where 83 percent of respondents reported their government is doing a poor job managing immigration.

The role of the European Union in migration concerns is fundamental to understanding these dynamics. The survey shows evidence of growing support for a strong European Union role in immigration issues, which has been a source of ongoing struggle on the path toward full cooperation and harmonization. On the issue of migration resulting from the Arab Spring, strong majorities in all European countries agreed that the European Union rather than the country of first arrival should be responsible. On the more general question of whether the European Union should have the power to determine countries’ national immigrant admissions numbers, support went up since 2010 in every country polled. Overall, 42 percent of Europeans polled agreed that the EU should decide national immigrant admissions numbers. The highest support was in Italy (60 percent) and Spain (51 percent). Even the U.K., where only 18 percent of respondents supported EU responsibility, showed a large increase from 12 percent in 2010.

Parallel to discussions and dynamics in Europe, on the other side of the Atlantic, Americans also continued to struggle with issues surrounding governance and the appropriate level of government to address immigration. Debates rage on regarding the role of states and localities in immigration enforcement. The most recent initiative in Alabama to step up immigration enforcement is only the latest in a string of state-level moves.

TTI shows signs that the U.S. public is not necessarily in favor of state-level control, and actually prefers centralized control of immigration. Fifty-four percent of U.S. respondents thought that the federal government, rather than state and local authorities, should have primary responsibility for enforcing immigration law. The public is also quite moderate in its views regarding the rights of undocumented children and youths. The public supported, at 65 percent, the provisions of the DREAM Act, which would legalize undocumented youths who successfully enter university or the U.S. military. Even a majority of Republicans surveyed, 55 percent, supported the provisions of the DREAM Act, indicating widespread bipartisan support. On another issue of hot public debate, the preservation of the Constitutional right of automatic citizenship for all people born in U.S. territory regardless of the immigration status of their parents, a majority of Americans, 53 percent, support the preservation of that right. These rather moderate views held by the U.S. public are often invisible in the extreme political discourse focused on the border fence and pro-enforcement measures.

Europe and the United States are facing many common challenges as policymakers seek to manage the consequences of the economic crisis and continue to become increasingly diverse, immigration-receiving states. It is crucial that we take a look at public opinion on these complex issues, to illuminate current debates, and inform policymakers as they design policies and build political will to move forward on issues of critical social, economic, and political importance.

Hamutal Bernstein is a Program Officer with the Immigration and Integration Program of the German Marshall Fund in Washington, DC.

NEW YORK – They came, they met, and they bargained in Brussels, and after yet another European Summit, member states agreed to be more like Germany—more conservative and disciplined about spending, deficits, and debt.

Yet the euro endgame remains far from clear.  Agreeing to fiscal discipline is one thing but implementing such provisions will be quite another in nations already in the grips of grinding austerity that has crushed workers incomes, lengthened jobless lines, and squeezed real growth.  The financial markets, meanwhile, remain nervous about the future of the eurozone, unsure and unconvinced that Europe has finally got it right and that the pact hammered out last week will end the region’s sovereign debt crisis.

Skepticism is warranted because European leaders have failed to address the region’s most pressing problem:  the lack of real economic growth.  In the near-term, enforced austerity will only make Europe’s unfolding recession deeper and more painful, and exacerbate the sovereign debt crisis in Greece, Italy, Ireland, and other debt-laden countries.  This backdrop suggests more market volatility, rising social instability, and incessant political haggling among eurozone members, all of which will make for a trying 2012 for two American constituents desperate to see Europe get its act together — the White House and corporate America.

The Obama administration fears that a prolonged recession in Europe will ultimately lap up to American shores and tip the U.S. economy into recession during an election year.  The odds of this happening are slim given decent underlying consumption levels in the United States, rising capital expenditures, and robust U.S. exports to the emerging markets.  The White House, in other words, has other things working in its favor that could negate, at least in the near-term, the effects of a European recession on the broader U.S. economy.

The outlook for corporate American is a little dicier.

Why?  Because over the past 50 years, no other region of the world has attracted as much U.S. foreign direct investment (FDI) than Europe, with the latter accounting for 56% of total U.S. global FDI stock in 2010. America’s global footprint is largest among the wheezing economies of Europe versus the spry and vigorous economies of Asia, South America, and Africa.  To this point, America’s investment stock in Ireland–$190 billion on an historic cost basis—is more than three times larger than the comparable figure for China.  In other words, notwithstanding the fact that the entire population of Ireland, some 4.5 million people, would not even rank as a large city in China, the one-time Celtic Tiger is more important to U.S. firms than the 1.2 billion folks that reside in the Middle Kingdom.  Meanwhile, U.S. investment in Spain is double the U.S. investment position in India; ditto for Sweden and South Korea, where U.S. investment in the former ($58 billion in 2010) is nearly double the stake in the latter ($30 billion).

All of the above runs counter to the common narrative that it’s cheap labor and loose regulations that entice U.S. firms to decamp the United States.  Not really.

Cheap labor is nice but it’s large, wealthy, and well-integrated foreign markets that make U.S. multinationals salivate.  And as Europe recovered from the trauma of WWII, becoming larger, wealthier, and more economically integrated, the more U.S. firms sent and sank capital across the pond.  Over the 1950s, Europe attracted only one-fifth of total U.S. FDI outflows; then, American firms were motivated by natural resources not markets, making Canada and Latin America the primary destination of U.S. FDI.

The emphasis of U.S. multinationals, however, shifted in the 1960s.  The hunt was on for new consumers, and the wealthier, the better for U.S. firms, a strategic objective that triggered the U.S. corporate migration to Europe.  Of cumulative U.S. investment outflows over the 1960s, roughly 40% went to Europe.  Thereafter, the share of capital flowing to Europe steadily climbed, with Europe easily accounting for over half of total U.S. investment in each of the last four decades.  Hence what’s good for Europe is good for corporate America. By the same token, when things go bad in Europe, U.S. multinationals are hardly immune.

The question now is whether Europe’s ongoing financial crisis and its aftershocks will prove to be a tipping point for corporate America.  A prolonged recession in Europe, juxtaposed against political instability in Europe and dwindling transatlantic policy coordination between the EU and the United States, could trigger a fundamental rethink among U.S. companies as to Europe’s place in the their global networks.  The upshot—a structural shift in U.S. foreign investment, with less flow to Europe and more capital destined for the high-growth regions of Asia and South America.  Such a trend would undermine the vitality of the transatlantic economy, producing losers on both sides of the Atlantic.

Time is short.  Thus far, transatlantic policymakers have squandered the opportunity to use the financial crises of 2008 and 2011 to craft policies that promote greater transatlantic integration.  It is not too late, however, for U.S. and European leaders to re-define and re-invigorate bilateral commercial ties.  Doing so, in fact, would help boost economic prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic.

Joe Quinlan is a Transatlantic Fellow with the German Marshall Fund’s Economic Policy Program.