The Americas

With the US presidential election now over, bipartisan cooperation will be required to solve the country's domestic challenges. Yet how will the president tackle both existing and emerging foreign and security policy priorities? And what does an Obama 2.0 mean for the EU?

Two important and relatively novel features of American international leadership, both of which are intimately connected with the Obama administration, are at stake in the November presidential election in the United States. One relates to the general kind of leadership that the world, and specifically Europe, has come to expect from Washington on matters of international importance. The other has to do with the specific contributions of the current US administration to the debate on the most effective way to address the current international economic crisis.

The long-anticipated statement that American and European officials have been talking about for months has finally emerged. Announced on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) on July 12, 2012, the statement puts an end to the political toing and froing that both sides of the Atlantic have been engaged in for the past several months. What should come next are concrete actions. 

he latest wave of European military spending cuts is swelling the ranks of Americans who believe that Europeans are not contributing enough to global security. But this assessment is too harsh. It is true that Europeans spend less on defence than their American counterparts. They have also been less willing to use force in recent years. But the US itself is reassessing the merit of its military interventions over the last decade.