Old articles share something with wardrobes in dark basements: when opened skeletons leap out. Revived in the present, the smartness of long ago is likely to unmask a fool. Everybody with a “past” has errors on his record that are covered up by the dust time deposits. Embarrassingly, in the Fifties this writer refused to believe the Sino-Soviet split. As the past is apt to disqualify those whose record is revived, one should avoid old publications. (Exceptions are the Jane Fondas whose credibility does not suffer from the support of systems dedicated to mass murder.) Ignoring his own advice, this writer exhumed a forgotten text. Its main virtue is that, at the time, no one wanted to publish it. Times have changed but the fundamentals of the piece are unaffected. Once spiked as extreme, it is now mainstream and so it can serve as the core of the essay.

We are blessed by being able to forget our past’s defining episodes. Perusing the notes from a moment when the future to come was still evolving as the present, is apt to dampen ones self-confidence. This makes it dangerous to dig in boxes housing old 3x5 cards and yellowed drafts. While hunting a document, as usual in such endeavors, forgotten items turned up. If these fossils are manuscripts, one asks, “Gee, did I write this?” Sometimes such texts appear to be naïve. In other instances, however, you wonder, how come that long ago you used to be so much smarter than now.

Instead of the needed document, a manuscript emerged. Perusing it triggered a recall. The unearthed text dates back to the late seventies when everybody rejected it. Understandably so, as its then beyond-the-pail thesis was that, inexorably, the USA and (Western) Europe are “drifting apart”.

Decades later, the original speculation is a fact. Before commenting on the implications, you need to access the abbreviated original. Do remember that the errors (such as not foreseeing Thatcher) are to be blamed on reality! Self-servingly, you are made to concentrate on what proved to be, after the facts rolled in, correct.

“We should become aware of NATO’s crisis of and the correspondingly disturbed relationship between the US and Western Europe. One can only quarrel regarding the issues to be named as the discord’s causes.

What are Europe’s complaints? First ranked are the proposed means to defend it by weapons the enemy disapproves of – mainly missiles and nukes of the theater variety. Then comes the argument over the extent of the strategic security zone around Europe. Europeans resist American interpretations of geopolitical considerations that might involve NATO in areas outside the turf of its members. An example is the Persian Gulf. Washington sees free access as a precondition of the economic independence of Europe, and opines that this implies a Middle Eastern role for NATO. Paramount among the differences is the general direction of US foreign policy. Here American assertiveness is interpreted as bellicosity. Europeans are inclined to view US resistance to the extension of Soviet influence beyond of Europe as “brinkmanship”.

It is reasonable to reckon that concessions to Moscow would alleviate European apprehensions. For instance, the USA could accept Soviet pre-conditions for the resumption of negotiations on armament limitation and she might tone down her presentations while avoiding the mentioning of “Moscow” and “aggression” on the same page. Controversial weapons in the defense-area might be jettisoned and the insistence on the inspected control of armaments might also be abandoned. An effective palliative would be if future elections would remove the Reagan-threat.

Before acting, America should listen to an influential minority here. There might be little within the realm of America’s negotiable interests that could dampen Europe’s reservations. The critique of whatever the US does or fails to do is symptomatic of something that all too many prefer to overlook.

Not only are problems and their solutions evaluated from divergent value perspectives, even the identification of the issues diverges. The fact is that America and Europe are growing apart. America is a society of pervasive change and acts as a trendsetter. As such, it creates the impression that the challenge of modernity is of her making. Thereby a rallying point emerges for those who fear the future. In the US it is easy to lose sight of the fact that rapid change is not universally welcome. Furthermore, while imitated, America is copied primarily in the realm of the superficial. Thus, while America’s present is the future, this future runs deeper than the trappings observable abroad might suggest. Ergo, beyond a time lag, the discrepancy in the consciousness and attitudes goes further than meets the eye.

This US-Europe lag has an aspect that is at the core of the alliance’s crisis. Since the Thirties America has followed the “Zeitgeist’s” left-of-center trend. Currently attitudes that break with passé shibboleths are maturing in America and are about to become politically effective there. America’s chosen future might not correlate with Europe’s preferences. There is little likelihood that Europe will follow the US’ reorientation. Europe is McGovern-country and those it elects are his surrogates.

Thus, in the critical area in which the national interests are measured on the scale of world-views and culture, Europe’s and America’s ways bifurcate. The points of reference of judgments are losing their common denominator. This expresses fundamentals and thus it is unlikely that changing US policy in the detail will satisfy Europe. The imaginable adjustments fall short of what America’s detractors demand. Their total is something that the US cannot concede because she would be surrendering not details but basics. The gamut of what America comes to perceive as the national interest should not be negotiated away in order to save NATO.

Lest we forget, alliances demand compromises and so they carry a price. However, their benefits must outweigh their costs. Stable partnerships further the interests of all sovereign parties and are not an end in themselves. Thus, an alliance that requires the sacrifice of uncompensated fundamentals is dead as soon as this is registered. That point might still be far off. Yet, the time for thinking aloud about the US disengaging from commitments such as defending Europe without the Europeans is nearing. The guiding principle here must not be isolationism but the courage for unilateralism. Caveat: Those at the head of the column are alone.”

An updating of the piece rejected for departing from what good manners bolstered by convention regarded as self evident, is called for. More than a quarter century ago, when the West faced the hard-to-deny Soviet threat, the impressions of the observer were similar to what the more confusing present suggests.

The inference seems to be that, the questioning of a trend sanctified by the accepted wisdom of the moment can be unacceptable. This makes denial the most popular varsity sport of them all. Accepted truth might command a majority of those voting but this, in itself, does not make it true. A flat earth can be legislated but that will still leave the planet’s shape unaltered.

First, let us take foreign policy’s dilemma. The “trigger happy” US run by a “cowboy” might understandably wish to escape the burden that the perceived image creates. This proved and is proving to be difficult: the current congressional majority (it always starts from scratch) is likely to learn this. To some detractors of the US, everything, short of surrender is “saber rattling.” Therefore, these critics cannot be appeased by the concessions they demand without jeopardizing American security. The motivation of these circles is not to go from a debate-based solution to security. Much rather they hope to buy, by paying tribute, the privilege of being left alone due to the expected good will of a bribed enemy. So Washington’s dilemma is whether to make existentially perilous concessions to save an alliance with the unwilling.

Second stands the matter of a life style and the order connected to it. With this a theme is opened that might be more important than the political disagreements discussed. Today the hunch of three decades ago appears to be a component of the present. The Kondratiev-curve representing modernization is undergoing one of its periodic leaps. Experience reveals that some of those, whose accustomed and expected life is disturbed by the process, see only the threatening aspects of the challenge. In doing so they ignore the inordinate opportunity for advancement being extended to a widening circle of people released to rise from poverty. In this process – indeed, it deserves the adjective “revolutionary” – the USA is identified as the trendsetter. Accordingly, she is blamed for causing the trend she merely rides in the manner astute surfers pick that “great wave” while it swells far from the shore. Globalization’s enemies are foes of the modern economy and in many cases of any advancement that comes about without giving them the power to “regulate” it. Evident is that much of this element is not recruited only among the traditionalists who crave security more than they welcome opportunity. Equally apparent is that “globalization’s” – popularly that means “Americanization” – most active foes come from two further, theoretically opposing camps. These are the eternal “Left” and the Islamic radicals.