The Economist published a special edition called The World in 2003 containing their aggregated punditry & predictions for the new year.   Of particular note was a 2 column article by Chris Patten, the European Commissioner for External Affairs (whom many would christen a chief Euro-weenie).    Patten is attempting to respond to the numerous, influential articles over the past year on the US/European divide -- many of which have been dutifully noted and commented upon in the blogosphere -- such as Robert Kaplan, Fukuyama, Philip Bobbitt, and Robert Kagan's now seminal piece on military power disecrepencies as the root cause of the rift.

There are quite a few influential screeds which Patten doesn't mention such as last years' "Why We Fight" exchange, Karl Zinsmeister, and a rising favorite of Bloggers -- Victor Davis Hanson.

Patten writes:

The noisy debate about the alleged political widening of the Atlantic -- a concept that itself assumes a perfect symmetry in the past between American and European ambitions, values, and pruposes -- has been irrigated on the American side by a flood of quasi-academic journalism and genuine scholarship

...It is difficult to find much by way of European response...

How true, how true.   While the Blogosphere (at least the portions of it I spend most of my time on) tends to be dominated by American exceptionalists, I have never been able to find sophisticated responses to any of the American arguments.   Patten seems to be most chastened by Kagan's description:

According to the apologists of raw military power the cold-war struggle ... was won decisevely by America and its inadequate European allies... Hobbesian man lurks in the shadows of a dangerous jungle.  Only the use of military power can preserve civilisation... We should never forget the lessons of Munich, and should ignore those of Vietnam. 

Wow.   If you wanna go after the military with an emotional heartstring, Vietnam is just waiting there to be used.   It's only fair, I supposed, we Americans are pretty quick to point at Kosovo.

Patten argues that the military power meme is inadequate today for 3 reasons:

1. In the cold war example, while the US contributed the military, it also helped craft a variety of transnational institutions such as GATT, NATO, etc. which "represented a more wholesom vision than that of bruising national or ideological conflict ... [that] secured a moral legitimacy for America and its allies"
2. America's power isn't just military but also economic and cultural.   These other forms of power play important roles in places like China.   Patten argues that Europeans presumably will play significant roles in this type of "soft power"
3. Peace / security requires it -- "you simply cannont provide citizens with peace and prosperity without working with others."   Most problems in our transational world -- terrorism, drugs, etc. -- freely flow across borders and require cooperation to stop

Ok Mr Patten, but is that the best you can do?   These arguments are incredibly paper tiger-ish and avoid any (all?) of the core arguments laid out in the critics of Atlanticism.   Virulent America-firsters like Pat Buchanan might be addressed by these mom & apple pie statements about our need for cooperation BUT more moderate individuals such as Kaplan, Fukuyama, and Kagan never argue against multilateralism en toto.   They are merely arguing about the particular, Tranzi style of emergent behavior with it's focus on divisive group politics.

An unimpressive effort on Patten's part.