Victor Davis Hanson suggests it's time to review our alliances and military basing in "Old Europe." I agree.

The stuff of diplomacy is, of course, reason, circumspection — and stasis. But a nation's alliances must also take into consideration a strong element of emotion and spirit — and no accord can endure that ignores popular opinion entirely in favor of strategic Realpolitik. A few days of French denunciations, weeks of lectures about "the German Way," or months of anti-Semitic attacks are one thing, but a year and a half of such sustained hostility following upon the greatest attack on American soil in our history finally has had a sobering effect on the American people. Our citizens in their disgust with continental Europeans are far ahead of the diplomats — who seem shackled by a Cold War world of bases, expeditionary troops, and grand old alliances. Far from being inflammatory or reflecting the angst of the "neo-cons," Mr. Rumsfeld, in his matter-of-fact use of "Old Europe," was astutely reflecting grassroots public opinion.



Much of the harshest criticism of the United States comes from our friends in Western Europe — not those in Poland, the Czech Republic, or Bulgaria. It is not just specific disagreements over particular actions, but rather a deductive anger that seeks out, or indeed creates, issues over which to vent. Forget questions of ingratitude — that France was the 1940s-version of a surrendered Kuwait likewise reborn as a result of American courage and resolve, or that the now-grand city of Berlin arises only because the old one was saved from Russian tanks.

Much of the problem, as so many have observed, is the dividend of a postmodern and ultimately anti-democratic European Union — one now seemingly free from foreign invasion — whose nature became clearer only in the months following September 11. In addition, spite arises over the global reach of the United States coupled with the diminished, though cynical, world roles of countries like France, Germany, and Russia — which have a sorry collective track record of unilateral action in Africa, selling contraband to Saddam, and flattening Muslim cities such as Grozny.