] Today, however, we are motivated by different dates. "Our
] defining date is now 1989 and yours is 2001," said Mr.
] Bildt. Every European prime minister wakes up in the
] morning thinking about how to share sovereignty, as
] Europe takes advantage of the collapse of communism to
] consolidate economically, politically and militarily into
] one big family. And the U.S. president wakes up thinking
] about where the next terror attack might come from and
] how to respond -- most likely alone. "While we
] talk of peace, they talk of security," says Mr. Bildt.
] "While we talk of sharing sovereignty, they talk about
] exercising sovereign power. When we talk about a region,
] they talk about the world. No longer united primarily by
] a common threat, we have also failed to develop a common
] vision for where we want to go on many of the global
] issues confronting us."
]
] Just as we once had U.S.-Soviet summits to ease the
] tensions of the cold war, maybe it's time for a
] U.S.-French-German summit to ease the tensions of the
] post-cold war. Leaders of all three nations have behaved
] badly and have weakened the West, even if they have not
] ended it. It's time to chart a new Atlantic alliance, but
] not one that is based on nostalgia for 1945 -- one
] that really bridges the differences between 1989 and
] 2001.

The End of the West?