DO CORPSES MEND?

How will these bruises mend? (Judy Dempsey, JUNE 27, 2005, International Herald Tribune)

The decades-long special relationship between Washington and Berlin was punctured during the run-up to the U.S.-led attack on Iraq when Schröder used his opposition to American policy in his campaign to be re-elected in October 2002.

Even after his election victory, Schröder kept up the rhetoric. Together with France and Russia, Germany formed the antiwar camp in Europe, causing some of the sharpest tensions and disagreements inside Europe and in the trans-Atlantic relationship for many years.

"Schröder had put himself in a corner over Iraq," said Kamp. "Bush does not forget easily."

But one man who has spent years trying to redefine and rescue the relationship between Washington and Berlin, says the tensions between both countries go well beyond personalities. They are about a fundamental shift in how the two countries perceive each other.

"It is always easy to see the relationship in terms of personalities," Karsten Voigt, Germany's special U.S. envoy said in an interview. "But the reality is that the German-American relationship is today a relationship operating in a different strategic environment."

"What we are living through is the birth pains of a new type of Atlanticism. In the old one, Germany was at the center of a global crisis which was the Cold War. We would have always been part of the action. Now we are in the center of an area of stability. Early on, we were a consumer of security. Now we are asked to be an exporter of security. We have to decide. We have global values but limited interests and limited military capabilities."

As part of this changing definition of Atlanticism, Voigt says the United States cannot afford to take its allies for granted.

They don't matter anymore but can't be taken for granted?

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 27, 2005 8:23 AM