The United States, Europe, and the Threat of Radical Islam: Different Means of Engagement

Peter Lawler argues in the preceding article that Americans' confidence in and commitment to a set of national values makes them more willing to accept the costs of war. Certainly the U.S. response to September 11 attests to its readiness to use military force. Europe on the other hand, chastened by two world wars, is more averse to military action. But the United States and Europe face a common threat in radical Islam, and addressing that threat requires cooperation. Given their entangled fates, it is worth examining more carefully why the United States is quicker than its allies to use military force and whether, ultimately, war serves their common interest.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama identified Afghanistan as the critical theater in the U.S. fight against al-Qaeda and promised to deploy two additional brigades there.¹ Obama authorized larger troop increases—totaling 22,000—during his first months in office, but violence in Afghanistan increased over the ensuing months, prompting Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, to request an additional 30,000 to 40,000 troops. During the lengthy strategy review that followed, many commentators recalled Obama's campaign commitment to Afghanistan and demanded he immediately accept the general's recommendation.²

While the administration solicited insight from an array of sources, the public voice was curiously absent from the debate. Opposition to the war in Afghanistan increased during the summer and fall of 2009, and by mid-September, 43 percent of Americans polled thought the United States should withdraw its forces immediately.³ Congressional Democrats too voiced their legitimate concerns over escalating a violent and costly war. Despite this anti-war sentiment, especially among Obama's political base, the one option the administration did not consider was ending the conflict. Instead, President Obama endorsed the recommendation made by the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan three months earlier. While leaders certainly should not craft policy to appease public opinion, a legitimate wartime government must consider the extent to which the population is behind the fight.

The continuity with the policies the U.S. had pursued since 2001 was hard to ignore. The tone had changed and the theater shifted from Iraq to Afghanistan. But once again, a U.S. president chose to send tens of thousands of soldiers to a distant battlefield to combat radical Islam. At the same time, the Obama administration ramped up un-manned drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Again, the United States favored a military response to what is fundamentally a political challenge.

Afghanistan, Obama assured the American people, was the war of necessity. The underlying assumption—that war, somewhere, was necessary—remained unspoken. On the campaign trail, this rhetoric served Obama well. His commitment to the war in Afghanistan helped shore up the support of independents skeptical of the national security bona fides of a Democratic senator with no military background. Herein lies a fundamental reality of American politics: Democrats are still perceived as the party of weakness in national security. This perception, which took hold after the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, has apparently survived the Bush years and the political upheaval of 2008. Gallup polls at the end of 2009 asking which party can better protect the country gave Republicans a healthy edge.⁴ The tenacity of this view points to a failure among Democrats to articulate a distinct vision of foreign policy. By default it often seems war is still our answer.

Europe, as Peter Lawler points out, has generally been averse to a military response to the threat of radical Islam. But before criticizing Europe for not pulling its weight on the battlefield, Americans might consider the source of European leaders' reluctance to play a larger military role in Afghanistan—public opinion. The war remains extremely unpopular in most of Europe, and domestic political considerations have greatly constrained decision-making with respect to Afghanistan. When Obama called in December 2009 for more NATO troops to complement the American escalation, the response from Europe was underwhelming.

Although it eschews military...