A Nation Torn Apart
By The Honorable John C. Kornblum

September 11, 2004. Now it is suddenly three years later. The necessary stages of grief and mourning are over. The anger and sorrow. The feeling of violation. The political debate. The special commission with its extensive and surprisingly readable report. The insider books and their revelations of weakness and dissembling. The charges and countercharges as to who was to blame. Endless Homeland Security alerts.

The intelligence community will be reorganized. The president admits mistakes. Rumsfeld all but disappears from public view. Even the design for new buildings at the World Trade Center site has been debated and changed and finally accepted.

Students of trauma know that the effects of such experiences can last years, even decades. All of a sudden there is a presidential election campaign, which reopens old and new wounds. The point is dramatized even more by the fact that the Republican convention is being held in New York.

As George Bush focuses on an image of toughness, John Kerry once again learns that ghosts from the past, the great American trauma of Viet Nam, are still amazingly alive. The debate is almost surreal. A candidate who volunteered for war fights to defend his subsequent anti-war views. The rich man's son, who didn't even serve out his time in a safe place in the reserves, manages to portray himself as the champion of strength.

For the first time since Viet Nam, foreign policy is the centerpiece of an election campaign. Both Bush and Kerry are trying to judge the political and psychological effects of the trauma. Each is seeking to harness it to help to be elected president. Little else seems to matter. The most dramatic issue of the moment is Iraq. But the trauma of 9/11 takes the center stage.

America's friends become even more nervous. The candidates look like two children playing with matches in a hay-filled barn. The rest of the world says, "Wait a minute, you are too important for the rest of us. You can't simply withdraw to your own patriotic games. We want leadership, not flag-waving."

John Kerry seeks to harness the world's dissatisfaction. He complains that America's prestige has never been lower. He promises to go immediately to the UN and line up support. But the message falls flat. He fails to convince that working with others will make things better. Especially after last year's brutal battle in the UN, the terms "Europe and multilateralism" are often equated with weakness. America is Mars, the Europeans are Venus.

The Republicans seem to have a better sense of the mood in the country. "George Bush will never seek a permission slip to defend the American people," thunders Vice President Cheney. A turncoat Democratic Senator from Georgia, Zell Miller, drives the point home brutally. "Kerry would let Paris decide when America needs defending. I want Bush to decide." Some people believe Bush may even be helped by the disarray in Iraq. It helps him appear strong in the face of foreign, terrorist threats.

This election campaign will soon be over. Neither of the candidates will have an easy time as president. 9/11 is only the tip of an iceberg. The passing of Ronald Reagan this summer was an especially emotional occasion because it provided a brief moment of nostalgia for a simpler world at a time of growing crises in virtually every part of American life.

Experts differ on the extent to which American society is severely polarized. But one thing seems clear. There is hardly an aspect of American life that is not undergoing radical change. Citizens from all walks of life see their hopes for the future being threatened by abrupt upheavals. 9/11 is not the cause of many of these problems. But it is the transforming event that suddenly brought everything into focus.

Fear is growing. It is caused by a growing sense of threat to our way of life and to the future of our children. 9/11 has focused this fear on threats from abroad. Other topics such as jobs or health care are submerged by the debate over how the United States should react to the many crises it faces around the world. But these other concerns remain in the subconscious. Anger at the rest of the world is amplified by doubts about oneself.

After 150 years of isolation, America seemed after World War II to overcome its mistrust of foreign engagements to become the center of international cooperation. Now the country seems to be struggling anew with its contradictory feelings about the rest of the world. Are we proud of our cultural roots in other countries or do we reject the old societies that we, or our forefathers, left for the new world? Do we work with others to spread democracy or do we limit ourselves to defending only what we hold dear?

America went through a similar crisis after Viet Nam and Watergate. The result that time was to reject America's crusading role in favor of human rights and multilateral cooperation, as embodied in the presidency of Jimmy Carter, a president nearly as disliked by Europeans as George Bush is today. He was criticized for being too religious and too weak. "That damned preacher in the White House," as Helmut Schmidt once called him.

But the Carter philosophy was a reaction to internal failure rather than foreign attack. Viet Nam was condemned as a misguided attempt to contain communism. Watergate was political dirty tricks gone too far. Rather than blaming the rest of the world for their problems many Americans looked abroad for guidance. Carter learned the hard way that a too compromising America was just as unnerving to our friends as an America whose behavior was too aggressive.

Given the high level of anxiety, the election campaign is likely to become tougher and probably dirtier. Great amounts of money will be spent to influence the small number of voters who need convincing if either side is to win. The well-known American pollster John Zogby has called the 2004 campaign an "Armageddon election." That is, each side believes that the United States will experience an Armageddon if the other wins.

This means, in the words of a senior Bush administration official that "little of what is said over the next two months will have much to do with the way the United States is to be governed for the next four years." This official suggested that the rest of the world simply close its ears to American campaign rhetoric until after the election.

Despite this sage advice, this is an especially appropriate time to develop a practical agenda for improved transatlantic cooperation, regardless of who wins the election.

If my analysis is correct, the most important factor for better U.S.-European relations will in fact not be the name of the person in the White House. It will be the extent to which Europeans understand the strains affecting the mood and behavior of the United States. So far, Europeans have shown only limited understanding for this important factor. It will be important to address the United States as a powerful friend in need of cooperation rather than as a hegemonial "hyper puissance" determined to suppress friends and adversaries alike.

The task may be easier than it now seems. If Bush is successful in convincing the electorate that his leadership should be validated, he will still face the immense tasks of terrorism, Iraq and the Middle East. Oil prices, nuclear proliferation, AIDS, climate change etc. are all issues that affect interests on both sides of the Atlantic.

Kerry will be even more in need of support. He will enter office carrying a large mortgage. He has argued that international cooperation will bring results on many pressing issues, especially Iraq. He says the UN will provide a foundation for peace in Iraq and elsewhere. He argues that the United States should use NATO and work with the EU as full partners. Europeans, and especially Germany and France, will have to prove that this is true. Expectations will be high, opportunities for quick results scarce.

The world in twelve months will be a much better place if America's partners use this period of election cacophony to work carefully but confidentially on an agenda of practical suggestions for improved cooperation for discussion with a new Administration soon after it takes office. Real ideas for real commitments will have more effect than most Europeans would ever imagine.

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The Honorable John Christian Kornblum, Chairman, Lazard & Co. GmbH, is the former U.S. Ambassador to Germany and an AICGS Trustee.
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A German version of this article appeared in Der Tagesspiegel Berlin, September 11, 2004, page 21 and Tagesspiegel online here.
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The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) alone. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies.