The proverbial glass is either half-full or half empty depending upon your prejudices. Yet either way it does not really matter. Europe’s future is being forged by decisions now being taken in Europe, but also elsewhere around the globe.  Europe faces challenges and choices it can in part shape and influence, but it will also be confronted with the consequences of decisions being made among those emerging forces in other continents. The question Europe has to face is: can there be a consensus on how to see and respond to those challenges.

The evolution of Europe out of the ashes of 1945 is a good story − better than the first half of the last century. It is one that involved a decisive transatlantic dimension along with an increasingly global impact. Yet, it is an unfinished story that will continue to spread beyond Europe’s borders as it develops.

Europe has become more than the sum of its parts – a fact that is not only to be measured in economic terms. Almost five hundred million Europeans trading with each other does make up one of the world’s largest trading blocs. However, it is also represents a political bloc of twenty-seven nations engaged in a complex project, one that sees many more countries knocking at the door for membership. The process of qualifying for membership is as important as membership itself. Both dimensions − process and project − are dynamic. The story of these past few decades has been one of decisions. These decisions have steered ever more Europeans in the direction of sharing their challenges and choices with the consequences of continually expanding a web of interdependence. Up until 1990, that web was defined by the divisions of the Cold war. After 1990, more Europeans became part of the web.

In less than seventy years, Europe has gone through multiple transformations in learning how to define and how to manage that web. While not all those opportunities were successful along the way, there was a widespread shared assumption that the process was moving forward toward a more integrated European future. That involved creating new, multi-level institutions and structures which have become a defining dimension of Europe’s project involving all facets of European life, be it regulations and subsidies, travel and food supplies, or taxes and governance.  Apart from decisions to expand membership, the introduction of the euro was one of the more critical major milestones along the way, and it has certainly been one of the most complicated.

Dr. Kupchan is a Professor of International Affairs at Georgetown University and a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He also recently authored a book entitled No One’s World: The West, the Rising Rest, and the Coming Global Turn.

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The Old Alliance is history: Lacking political vision, the Europeans have no choice but to seek protection under the wings of the United States

NATO’s new strategic concept is less than six months old, but it is already risks being overtaken by events. The joint NATO operation with the Arab League in Libya is symbolic of a dramatic truth which is confronting Alliance Foreign Ministers as they meet in Berlin this week:

The world as we have known it is coming apart at the seams. Two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, it is time finally to bid farewell to our tidy post-war Atlantic community and replace it with an Atlanticism reset to a global scale.

Some will argue that the Atlantic community is no longer relevant in a multipolar world. Others will contend that NATO should not be a global organization. But neither of these arguments touches the core of the problem.

Today’s new political and economic geography is based primarily on the ingenuity and resources which emerged from Western society; in particular the growing web of high-speed information and logistics networks, which has knitted global societies together in new an exciting ways. And there are no obvious candidates to assume our central role.

China and India lost their global roles in the nineteenth century as they failed to adapt to the industrial revolution. This time they are taking full advantage of the twenty-first century methods, while Russia is not. A similar challenge now faces the West: Learning to adapt our behavior to the task of maintaining our advantage in the twenty-first century.

Here is where a new Atlantic equation will be essential. Post-Cold War America has immense resources and an uncanny ability to exert influence by projecting its values across time and space. Americans create networks in spaces not evident to most other nations – Facebook is only the most recent of many examples. But it does not have the patience for managing international balances of power. It needs confident European partners at its side.

Europeans seem slow to understand that their societies cannot flourish if their vision of unity is not redefined on a global plane. Although European companies are rapidly expanding across the world, they are short of tools for influencing a globally integrated world. Germany is brilliant at building global logistics networks, but lacks strategic vision. The EU’s only political roadmap is a twenty-page treaty which outlines its internal bureaucracy.

In coming years, pressures of global markets will likely lead European nations to scale back hopes for an independent political role and increasingly to seek cover within the U.S. global perspective. There is no other option.

However, Europeans are very adept at integrating diverse elements into modern network systems. A new sort of pragmatic European identity could be a cornerstone of the new Atlanticism.

Those who have followed events in the Arab world during the past few weeks must have been impressed by one fact: Are the Americans the only ones who can talk seriously about how to help the Libyans? Regardless of the many changes taking place in the world, the global balance remains amazingly dependent on American engagement.

And let’s be honest; it’s going to stay that way. America’s influence is not based solely on the talents of its leadership, or even on its power, but on a sort of spontaneous combustion which arises from within its national life. The unique mixture of peoples and cultures which makes up American society somehow repeatedly defines new directions. The most recent example? Barack Hussein Obama himself.

Somehow the contradictions, the disorganization, and the narcissism of Arthur Holitscher’s “irritating country” contribute repeatedly to the establishment of new sorts of channels, which serve as mechanisms for the renewed application of American influence. Through a unique mixture of American hard and soft power, both friends and opponents of America are drawn together almost randomly and subjected to American influence.

And here is the dilemma. For many foreigners, America’s unique personality remains impenetrable. In times of crisis, conventional judgments about the United States become increasingly inexact.

American is like a cubist painting by Picasso. We can see the outlines of the figures, but the details remain hidden from us. That should not be surprising. The end of the Cold War has robbed the United States of a good part of its identity. The task of managing a complicated “multipolar world” makes Americans feel increasingly insecure.

The confusion is heightened by the fact that massive economic and technological change has contributed to a dramatic restructuring of domestic life in America. The social costs of such a relentless and ruthless system are high. But it is one of the peculiarities of American psychology that such a difficult situation prompts more patriotism and nationalism instead of less. Foreigners are surprised by the growth of conservative ideas even in a time of economic weakness. The sense of loss which results from the disappearance of old values is apparently more important for many people than saving the economy. Foreign policy will not be spared these pressures.

Here is where a sea change is under way. America’s role in defending against fascism and communism after World War II overcame to a considerable extent traditional suspicion of the rest of the world. But today there are no longer any major building projects which can serve to engage American energy. Since the world fails to provide a mirror for our goals and ideals, we are steadily drawn to the traditional American fear of foreign engagements. Rather than being the focus of American designs for a better future, the world increasingly is becoming a collection of threats.