Our transatlantic Homeland

A “system of transparency” from Riga to Honolulu? By introducing "catastrophic terrorism", 9/11 confined isolationism to the past and transformed America. Now Europe must follow suit:

1.	The urgency gap
2.	Europe is a target
3.	Isolated/insulated
4.	Not a Trans-Atlantic split
5.	Reagan as the model
6.	Not too much America but too little Europe
7.	The transformation is total
8.	Blair’s whisper
9.	The drive-wheel and the brake
10.	This is the beginning

The urgency gap

What impression did you bring home with you from your trip to Europe about the attitude here towards the War on Terror?

DANIEL HAMILTON DH: Well, if you look at most polling data, Europeans and Americans generally seem to share the view that they face common threats. The notion that we are drifting apart on certain basic perceptions is not borne out. The difference, however, is the urgency with which Europeans or Americans feel one has to deal with these threats.

In the United States, this is the top priority; it is changing the way we are organising not only our foreign policy but much of our domestic policy. In Europe, one has the sense that this is conceived to be a threat, but it is not something that would totally turn upside down politics in Europe.

So because of that we then look for different instruments of policy, I think, and there we to some differences: the United States is looking for new ways of doing things with great pressure and urgency, whereas the Europeans agree that things need to be done but with less urgency and with a bit more consideration maybe in examining instruments of policy, rather than sort of jumping to the next you know, "revolution". So we end up with some problems in that area.

You mention the Americans reorganising themselves in both foreign and domestic policy. The combination of the two levels - the fact of Homeland Security; the terror alerts and the rest of it, how important is that in terms of shaping peoples' attitudes towards the War on Terror and the Bush-administration's foreign policy?

DH: My simple analogy is 9/11. I contrast simply what I call Europe's 9/11 - which, according to European calenders was the 9th of November 1989, with our 9/11, September 11th. Europe's 9/11 is still shaking the European continent: it is the consequence of the end of the division of Europe. It is what preoccupies European leaders every day - enlargement of Europe; the deepening; all of the things you have to consider when adding 10 new members to the EU, 7 new members to NATO over the next year. It is a historic opportunity, obviously - it is a huge agenda; it's one to which Americans have contributed and want to see succeed. But it is a very pre-occupying effort: when one comes from outside of Europe to Europe, one sees that it is what everybody talks about. It doesn't have the sense that the rest of the world is as important, these days, to that project.

The American effort is influenced by, you know, a catastrophic attack on our country for the first time since the war of 1812. It has totally changed America's mindset: how it thinks about its role in the world, its vulnerability. It is changing our institutions in ways that I think are not appreciated in Europe: the Bush administration is some of that - some of this is new, some of this, from a European viewpoint is not new, you know. We don't have an interior ministry in this country, we've never had one. And in most European countries, that's a normal ministry. Our interior ministry takes care of our national parks! And so the Homeland Security Department, I guess in 'the European perspective', can be seen partially as our effort to build now, after 200 years, an interior ministry according to the European model.

So some of that is not new: some of it is us doing what European countries do every day. But there are elements that are quite new and of course those are where the elements of discussion need to be.

FIRST PAGE

"You've done fine work under difficult and urgent circumstances, and on behalf of a grateful nation, I thank you all for what you do for the security and safety of our fellow citizens." George W. Bush speaks to the employees of The Department of Homeland Security, Washington D.C. October 1st 2003 (Photo: The White House, Tina Hager).



	Dr. Daniel Hamilton is Richard von Weizsäcker Professor at and Director of The Center for Transatlantic Relations at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University. He is also the Executive Director of the American Consortium on EU Studies (ACES). He has held posts such as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs; Special Coordinator for Northern Europe, Special Coordinator for Southeast European Stabilization and Associate Director of the Policy Planning Staff under both Madeleine Albright and Warren Christopher. From 1982-90 he was Deputy Director at The Aspen Institute in Berlin. He has served as a consultant to ABC News/Nightline, the RAND Corporation and the National Geographic Society among others and written articles in magazines and newspapers including Foreign Policy, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Quarterly, Japan Times, International Herald Tribune, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Die Zeit og Der Spiegel. And he has written two books - "Beyond Bonn: America and the Berlin Republic" (1994) and "After the Revolution" (1990). Links:
	- Center for Transatlantic Relations
	- American Consortium on European Union Studies

Illustrationsfoto: The White House (Tina Hager)

Portrætfoto: American Institute for Contemporary German Studies, The Johns Hopkins University

ark og ulands