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  'They're Not Getting any Warmer': Merkel Faces Difficult Talks in Washington

'They're Not Getting any Warmer' Merkel Faces Difficult Talks in Washington

By SPIEGEL Staff

Part 3: 'We Need Your Help'

The purpose of the other component, the so-called "air game" -- influencing the masses via television, radio and the Internet -- is to disseminate the message. This explains why Obama is so fond of live public appearances, like the one in Buchenwald.

His speeches have recently begun appearing on Facebook, Twitter and various government Web sites. The speech in Cairo, in which Obama issued a message of friendship to the Islamic world, was disseminated around the world in 13 languages. In this strategy, other nations become the setting for Obama's messages.

Although he was speaking in Cairo, his words were addressed to Muslims around the world. And when he visited Buchenwald, his message was not meant for the Germans, but for Jews around the world.

When interacting with his fellow politicians, Obama shows little patience for the complicated rituals of good behavior. According to Thomas Klau from the think tank the European Council on Foreign Relations, the US president is no longer interested in taking part in the "bilateral political and emotional theater with individual European Union leaders, who, in the world of the early 21st century, are moving down to the middle rank of the global hierarchy."

From the American point of view, Germany has no more to offer the 44th president than it did the 43rd president. While the United States is increasing its ground force in Afghanistan by 21,000 soldiers, the German government has only approved an additional 300 troops. None of them will set foot in the hotly contested regions of southern and western Afghanistan, while others stationed there are paying a high price in terms of casualties.

DER SPIEGEL

Graphic: Afghanistan

On Friday, Richard Holbrooke, Obama's envoy to what the US administration has dubbed the world's most dangerous region, made a surprise appearance at the Alfred Herrhausen Society's conference in Washington.

He told the audience about the dramatic situation in the region, especially in Pakistan, and made an emotional appeal to the Europeans to help their US ally. The Americans, he said, have a strategy, but they currently lack the resources to implement it. The United States would normally pay one third of the costs for such international missions, he explained, but in this case they are paying well over half. "We need your help, we need your support and we need your full commitment," he said.

The most tragic aspect of how Europe is dealing with the United States is perhaps the fact that the continent is not successfully making the transition from being the world's problem zone to being a leading global power. During the Cold War, the world's fault lines passed straight through Germany and Berlin, which explained the US's great interest in Europe.

Now China, a rising major power, is pushing itself into the foreground -- to the detriment of Europe, which threatens to become increasingly weak.

When Benjamin Schreer, deputy director of the Berlin branch of the non-profit Aspen Institute, was in Washington recently, he was confronted with anxious questions: Is Europe in the process of disintegrating? What is the significance of the success of extremist parties in the recent European Parliament elections?

The Europeans are still important to the United States, as evidenced by Obama's three visits to the continent in the last 12 months. The Americans value the role played by European reconstruction aid in the bid to establish a stable Palestinian state. They need European troops and aid workers to bring peace to Afghanistan. And, finally, they need the EU's support if Iran's nuclear program is to be contained with sanctions and diplomacy.

But some members of the German cabinet in Berlin have bluntly concluded that, on all of these issues, the Europeans are not seen as real partners with whom joint strategies are developed and decisions made. Instead, the Germans and their neighbors play a role more akin to privileged partners. Washington may listen to them, but it makes its decisions on its own. It doesn't consult the Europeans again until -- at the earliest -- it is time to implement those decisions.

And the Americans want to see results. "Obama is currently making an effort to show an interest in Europe," says Schreer. "But if that doesn't produce results, he'll look for other partners."

RALF BESTE, WOLFGANG REUTER, GREGOR PETER SCHMITZ, CHRISTIAN SCHWÄGERL, GABOR STEINGART

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

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