When President George H.W. Bush first outlined the strategy in Germany in Mainz in May 1989, no one could anticipate the speed of change. It was the irony of destiny that Bush, known for being a man who cherished continuity, had to handle the greatest transformation of societies in modern times. Yet, continuity is discernible in the strategy in two ways.

First, the idea of a “Europe whole and free” was firmly nested into the transatlantic bargain, as ithad looked since the foundation of the alliance. The transatlantic deal rested on two legs: U.S. military support for Europe on one hand, and European attempts towards unity and integration, on the other.

Second, the strategy was embedded in a grander scheme of a “new world order,” heavily based on values, following a Wilsonian tradition in American foreign policy.

In this chapter, I argue that the strategy was partially successful, mainly due to the first trace of continuity—American support for European unity. As for the scheme of a “new world order,” it tended to overemphasize the novelty of world politics, and the universal appeal of Western values. Accordingly, the U.S. failed to use its unipolar moment to prepare for an adapted leadership in a world of rising rivals, which in turn contributed to a halt in the process towards fulfilling the vision of a “Europe whole and free.”

The Unipolar Moment

After the end of the Cold War, the United States had its unipolar moment when it completely dominated the international system. While the Soviet Union claimed that both sides had won the Cold War, there was clearly just one winner, who took all. As Vladimir Putin recognized in his 2007 speech at the Munich Security Conference while complaining about American dominance in the world, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, even the Russians preferred “the American way”: democracy, freedom, and openness.[1]

Globally, President Bush outlined a “new world order” to which “Europe whole and free” constituted a regional expression. Rather than acknowledging that U.S. dominance was dependent on the defeat and weakness of its rival, the “new world order” built on a Wilsonian tradition and borrowed heavily from the 18th-century philosopher Immanuel Kant and his notion that on a basic level, the interests of all peoples are one and the same. Once peoples were exposed to the superior values of democracy, freedom, and the rule of law, these values would prevail. States were able to conduct moral and rational behaviour. A linear development of civilisation could, in the end, lead to “perpetual peace.” Francis Fukuyama successfully captured this line of thought in 1989 when he argued that the world was witnessing “the end of history.”[2]

Most of the Central and Eastern European states that just had regained their freedom took a less idealistic stance, or at least, combined idealism with a big slice of realism. For them, it was clear that they were facing less the end of history than a historical moment in which Russia was weakened to the extent that it could not prevent their Western orientation. However, there was no doubt that Russia would rise again. In order to survive this potential threat, they needed to join forces with allies. Hence, the knocking on the door to NATO and the EU became increasingly louder during the 1990s. This cyclical thinking of history was supported by realists such as James Schlesinger, who warned of a world order in the making similar to that prior to 1939, “marked by power politics, national rivalries, and ethnic tensions.”[3]

Nevertheless, the “Europe whole and free” strategy left antagonistic threats aside. If there were a threat, it rather came from the inside, where, as proponents of NATO enlargement put it in an article in Foreign Affairs in September/October 1993, “the Soviet collapse has left behind significant and unbalanced military forces and weapons inventories among nations experiencing a wave of instability and conflict generated by virulent nationalism.”

Guaranteeing a peaceful process towards democracy and market economy in Central and Eastern Europe was a priority, for which the United States needed its allies and sustained Western unity. The strategy saw an expanded role for the U.S. in Europe, from containment to engagement.

The Need for a Strong U.S.-EU Partnership

After the Cold War, for the first time in history, the European continent was dominated by a non-Eurasian state, namely the U.S., which had reached the status of a hegemon. Inevitably, as Zbigniew Brzezinski argued in The Grand Chessboard (1998), the hegemon would be challenged by rivals trying to shift the balance of power in their favour. Brzezinski, therefore, outlined a strategy that would serve to prolong the unipolar moment of the United States, a term coined by Charles Krauthammer in Foreign Affairs in 1990/91, in order for the values it promoted to become rooted as they spread across the globe and lay a solid foundation for a cooperative community worldwide. To this end, Brzezinski supported NATO and EU enlargement. He also argued in favour of solid U.S. support for a stronger EU. By encouraging European unity and integration, democracy could spread eastwards. The European influence in NATO should increase so that in 20 years’ time, the EU and NATO would be more of equal partners, even if this, as Brzezinski carefully emphasized, would imply some American sacrifices. Overall though, in order to maintain its prominent position, the U.S. needed to share more leadership with Europe.

The idea of an alliance of equals was not new. It had its roots in Kennedy’s Grand Design (1962) and Kissinger’s Year of Europe (1973), both unsuccessful attempts to move towards a more balanced relationship. Brzezinski was supported by David Gompert, Stephen Larabee and others, who in America and Europe: A Partnership for a New Era (1998) argued for Europe to start lifting its gaze above the European continent, stop worrying that the United States would leave, and instead show willingness to act as a global leader together with the U.S. Means to this end were a transatlantic trade agreement, a reformed NATO and continued EU integration and enlargement.

However, a strategy of shared leadership that included security and defence was not picked up by any U.S. administration following the end of the Cold War. Despite ambitious initiatives such as the U.S.-EU New Transatlantic Agenda in 1995, attempts by Europe to strengthen its role were continuously met with scepticism from Washington. As Sophie Vanhoonacker points out in assessing the first Bush administration’s response to the development of a European security identity, the Bush administration was “so obsessed with safeguarding its own predominant role on the European security scene” that the issue of how the U.S. could make it attractive for Europeans to launch their security initiatives within the framework of the Alliance was neglected.[4]

The Rise of Rivals

With the “Europe whole and free” strategy, President Bush succeeded in maintaining U.S. engagement for Europe. Unified Germany remained in NATO without embarrassing the Soviet Union, a strategy was launched for the alliance that adapted it to new risks, and the foundation was laid for a range of arms-control treaties, such as the CFE treaty and Open Skies, which decreased tensions on the continent.

The Clinton administration built on this momentum. In 1994, the signing of the Budapest Memorandum gave security assurances from Russia, the UK and the U.S. to Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine, which in return gave up their nuclear weapons. To solidify the pan-European foundation of common values, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), enshrined in the Helsinki Final Act, was transformed into an “Organisation” of the same name (OSCE). The allies also opened NATO’s door. On 12 March 1999, Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic joined the Alliance, despite severe initial resistance both in Washington and European capitals, given the risk that this would increase tensions with Russia and destabilise security in Europe. To handle Russian concerns, NATO signed the NATO-Russia Founding Act, which acknowledged Russia’s special status. Russia also became a member of the G8 in 1997.

In 2004, during President Bush’s presidency, the so-called “big bang” enlargement opened the doors to both NATO and the EU for a big group of East Central European and Baltic states—seven new allies and 10 new EU Member States. The accessions had been preceded by extensive processes in both organisations, especially in the EU due to its broad policy scope, in promoting reform towards democracy, a market economy, and the rule of law in the candidate states to prepare them for membership. EU enlargement continued in 2007 and 2013 while NATO took on new allies in 2009 and 2017.

Nonetheless, Europe today is contested both from the outside by rising rivals and from the inside by populist and nationalist forces. New dividing lines are developing; “West” and “East” are back in the vocabulary of international affairs. Trust has once again given way to tension, also across the Atlantic. President Trump is sceptical of European integration and ambivalent about the U.S. commitment to NATO. The EU has closed its doors due to enlargement fatigue, and NATO is struggling with its promise of keeping its door open to Georgia and Ukraine, each of which lacks control of its territory due to Russian aggression.

What went wrong with the American strategy for Europe? A major shortfall was that it underestimated rivals to the hegemon and their cyclical motion towards revenge and competition. Failure to adapt American leadership to new circumstances allowed for vacuums, into which rivals successfully entered.

In Russia, energy, and especially rising oil prices, helped boost the economy to such an extent that in 2005-2006, Moscow could pay off its loan to the IMF and the Paris club of creditors early. President Putin received considerable credit for the era of relative prosperity between 1999 and 2008 when average real GDP growth grew 6.9% annually, average real wages rose by 10.5%, and real disposable income went up by 7.9%.[5] In 2012, Russia joined the WTO.

While the economy thrived, democracy was suppressed. The so-called “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine in November 2004, a public uprising due to election manipulation, caused nervousness in the Kremlin mainly by its risk of spreading to Moscow. In April 2005, Putin, in his state of the nation address, expressed his view that “the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century. As for the Russian nation, it became a genuine drama.” He promised to be tough on popular uprisings inspired by surrounding countries.[6]

At this time, Putin also started to articulate the idea of areas of primary Russian interests. At the Munich Conference in February 2007, Putin called the enlargement of NATO “a serious provocation” that imposed “new dividing lines and walls on us.”[7] The Russian war on Georgia in August 2008 was initiated half a year after NATO’s announcement at the Bucharest Summit in 2008 that Georgia and Ukraine would one day become members.

The weak Western response to the Russian aggression sent a signal to the Kremlin that far-reaching violations of international rules would not have major consequences. President Obama’s reset of Russian relations in 2009 had some success in certain policy areas during its first years but did not solve the broader need for a strong and coherent U.S.-EU posture on Russian attempts to assert a sphere of influence in neighbouring countries. Russian military aggression against Ukraine in 2014 came after public uprisings in Kyiv and EU-Ukraine rapprochement of Ukraine through negotiations on an Association Agreement.

On a broader scale, Russia conducted disinformation campaigns and used economic and social tools to challenge societal cohesion and institutional trust in a range of countries that used to belong to the Soviet sphere. Overall, the Russian strategy was to ensure that these countries could not be used against Russia by preventing them from being “whole and free.”

As for China, it never embarked on the same road as Russia in accepting the liberal agenda of the U.S. as a foundation for a “new world order” after the end of the Cold War. When the Clinton administration tried to make economic ties conditional on modifications within the Chinese system, China answered that relations with the U.S. could only be conducted on a geostrategic basis, as described by Henry Kissinger in his book World Order in 2014. The Chinese offensive towards Europe came quite recently and should be assessed in light of the “new era” that China entered in 2017 in order to become a global superpower by 2050.

For quite some time, China’s growing economic power, and its clever Belt and Road Initiative, was the focus of European attention. Lately, however, Chinese infrastructure and technology investments in Europe have been highlighted from national security perspectives by EU Member States. The so-called “17+1” format, initiated by China involving 17 Central and Eastern European states, has introduced a political platform that could spur cooperation but also risks fragmentation on the continent.

In 2017, yet another dimension of Chinese engagement in Europe was illustrated as China and Russia for the first time conducted a joint military exercise in the Baltic Sea. The Arctic is one area in which China drastically has increased its presence in recent years. For the U.S., the rise of China as a competitor on the global scene is nowadays defined as a major threat to national security. The European approach is more nuanced, but there is an increasing awareness and discussion on Chinese interests and motives in Europe beyond economic growth. Hence, there is a window of opportunity for the U.S. and the EU to align in their response to Chinese rivalry to diminish the risk of fragmentation in Europe.

Conclusion

When the “Europe whole and free” strategy was initiated in 1989, it was not clear whether the world had entered a novel, unprecedented stage, or if history would repeat itself. Was the U.S. powerful because of the strength and supremacy of its values and that it could act accordingly? Or was its supreme power a systemic effect, creating a hegemon that needed to act benevolently in order to prolong its unipolar moment? In retrospective, it seems as if the Bush administration and its successors leaned more towards a linear rather than cyclical approach, thereby underestimating the rise of rivals and failing the opportunity to partner with Europe in regional and global leadership in order to prolong its power posture.

The potential for human betterment is an important part of U.S. foreign policy, but as Kissinger pointed out in World Order in 2014, “to be effective, these aspirational aspects of policy must be paired with an unsentimental analysis of underlying factors, including the cultural and geopolitical configuration of other regions and the dedication and resourcefulness of adversaries opposing American interests and values.”

Given the new geopolitical landscape, is “Europe whole and free” still a valid American strategy? Is there any chance of it being successfully implemented ahead or is it too late?

Surely, the task has become more difficult and the stakes higher, but it is possible if the strategy is adopted to account for a Europe that once again is contested space. The supremacy of Western values is not enough to win that battle. It must be matched with a unified approach from the

U.S. and the EU, committed leadership, and a willingness to raise the costs if necessary, for instance with regard to economic sanctions, investments in physical and digital infrastructure, a tougher stance on money laundering and continued open-door policies.

Is the strategy still relevant? Yes, European unity and freedom still matter to the U.S.

The unipolar moment is gone. In a world of rising competition among the great powers, the U.S. and the EU need each other more than ever. Ultimately, the contest is between the free world and authoritarian, corrupt, state-led capitalism. Hence, the Trump administration must overcome its resentment towards European integration and seek joint leadership with the EU to push the agenda forward. The EU must boost its self-esteem, take on a larger load in its neighbourhood, and fulfil its potential as a global actor while continuing to address tendencies among its Member States to divert from the EU’s core values.

As a vision, with its promise of liberty and human betterment, “Europe whole and free” is still attractive. The long list of countries that seek closer cooperation, including future membership, with the EU and NATO underlines the importance of keeping doors open and constantly seeking new ways of maintaining dialogue and close ties to those nations that strive towards democracy, a market economy, and the rule of law.

[1] 1. V. Putin, “Speech and the Following Discussion at the Munich Conference on Security Policy,” 10 February 2007, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/24034, accessed 25 April 2019.

[2] 2. F. Fukuyama, “The End of History?” The National Interest, no. 16, 1989, pp. 3–18,www.jstor.org/stable/24027184.

[3] 3. J. Schlesinger, “New Instabilities, New Priorities,” Foreign Policy, no. 85, 1991, pp. 3–24, doi:10.2307/1148740, p. 4.

[4] 4. S. Vanhoonacker, The Bush Administration (1989–1993) and the Development of a European Security Identity, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001, p. 133.

[5] 5. M. Johnston, “The Post-Soviet Union Russian Economy,” Investopedia, 15 October 2018, www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/012116/russianeconomy-collapse-soviet-union.asp, accessed 25 April 2019.

[6] 6. K. Sanders, “Did Vladimir Putin call the breakup of the USSR ‘the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century’?,” Politifact, 6 March 2014, www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/mar/06/john-bolton/didvladimir-putin-call-breakup-ussr-greatest-geop/, accessed 25 April 2019.

[7] 7. V. Putin, “Speech and the Following Discussion…,” op. cit.