Based on his reading of the “Transatlantic Trends 2004” poll results, Daniel Twining, director of the German Marshall Fund and former foreign policy adviser to Senator John McCain, concludes that, “when it comes to America’s role in the world, Democrats are hard to distinguish from Europeans” (Weekly Standard, Sept. 20; subscription only)

The America of many Democratic voters is distinctly European in its preference for multilateral solutions, its desire to see the rise of a new European superpower, and its ambivalence on the legitimacy of using military force. The other America–that of many Republican voters–welcomes allied support but favors acting alone when we must, supports using military force to protect vital interests with or without multilateral approval, wants the United States to remain the only superpower, and believes strongly that military power is a force for justice and peace.

Europeans may be right to hope that a Kerry administration would take a more deferential approach to America’s allies and would resort to force less readily absent international consensus. But would the American people be better served if America’s power to fight terrorism, end dictatorship, and enhance freedom were harnessed to a worldview in the White House that was, in a word, European? And is the way to repair transatlantic relations really to elect a president whose base would appear to feel right at home within the European Union?

This last is not an exaggeration. Our poll found that the opinions of Democratic voters on a range of issues closely resemble opinions across Europe. Democrats (62 percent) are even more likely than Europeans (40 percent) to express strong disapproval of President Bush’s foreign policy (the countries polled include the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and Slovakia). Because Democrats presumably blame Bush for the state of transatlantic relations, they are more determined to support strong European leadership in the world, perhaps as an antidote to American power. Democrats believe with greater intensity than Republicans that strong E.U. leadership is very desirable. Similarly, far more Democrats (67 percent) than Republicans (48 percent) believe that the U.S.-European partnership should become closer. But this is an unrequited love: Only 33 percent of Europeans feel the same. Democrats want to move closer to Europe at a time when a majority of Europeans want to act more independently.

So.  Democrats to Europeans:  “love us as we love you, sweet Mother Europe, for we, too, are educated and luxuriate in nuance.” Europe to Americans:  “go choke on a Big Mac, you obese Yankee morons.”

[…] Overall, most Americans would bypass the U.N. to protect U.S. vital interests. Most Democrats would not. Eighty-four percent of Republicans and 59 percent of independents but only 40 percent of Democrats say that bypassing the U.N. is justified when vital interests are at stake. Democrats are even less willing to bypass the U.N. than Europeans, and far less likely to support acting without a U.N. mandate than the publics in Britain, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, and Slovakia, where more sensible majorities would not wait for U.N. approval. When John Kerry says that he would never give the U.N. a veto over American policy, he speaks for himself and a hawkish Democratic elite–but not for most Democratic voters.

Democrats (81 percent) are also more likely than Europeans (71 percent) to view the U.N. favorably. Most Republicans (56 percent) do not. Democratic support for the U.N. has increased in the past two years, their support for Kofi Annan and Co. rising in league with their anger over Bush policies.

Like many Europeans, Democrats believe that we should never go to war, as in Iraq, without the U.N.’s blessing. Eighty-one percent of Democrats and 82 percent of Europeans (but only 26 percent of Republicans) believe a U.N. mandate would be essential for an Iraq-type operation in the future. In equal numbers, Democrats (80 percent) and Europeans (80 percent) do not believe the war in Iraq was worth the costs; 77 percent of Republicans believe it was. Mentioning that the war in Iraq “liberated the Iraqi people” actually diminishes Democratic support for the war by 3 percentage points, even as it raises independent support for the war and decreases European opposition to the war.

[…] Despite most Democrats’ opposition on troops in Iraq, our poll demonstrates that the legitimacy afforded by U.N. approval would trump Democratic–and European–opponents’ doubts about the mission. A U.N. mandate for a multinational force in Iraq causes Democratic support for our troops to jump from 35 percent to 66 percent. In the European countries whose governments most oppose U.S. policy in Iraq, public support for contributing soldiers to a U.N. force jumps to 63 percent in France, 66 percent in Spain, and 57 percent in Germany. For Democrats, as for those French, German, and Spanish voters whose governments continue to oppose us on Iraq, the U.N.’s blessing magically dissolves our differences […]

Should President Bush be reelected, the challenge for Europeans will be to help reform existing institutions or create new mechanisms of cooperation that can reconcile Americans’ determination to act boldly abroad with Europeans’ determination to influence the shape of the world order Americans aspire to build. The good news for Europeans is that Republicans still want to be good partners, despite our differences: 79 percent agree on the importance of acting closely with allies on national security issues, 72 percent believe that strong E.U. leadership in the world is desirable, and 63 percent believe that the United States and Europe share enough common values to cooperate. Republicans are actually more likely than Democrats to believe that Europe is more important to U.S. interests than Asia. And on Iraq and Afghanistan, Republicans are likely to appreciate deeply the continued support of many European countries for their troops stationed there. There is indeed a strong basis for transatlantic cooperation in a second Bush administration, despite our differences.

Ironically, if John Kerry wins, Europe’s task may be harder. Should Kerry govern by the preferences of his base, rather than following the better instincts of the Democratic foreign policy elite, the challenge for Europe will not be to restrain an American Leviathan on the march, but to fill the vacuum left by an America in retreat–from Iraq, among other places–through a greater European willingness to act internationally when a U.S. administration that is less comfortable wielding American power will not. Europeans and a new Democratic administration would have to reconcile their high regard for multilateralism and their mutual ambivalence about the uses of military power with their solemn obligation to act assertively against international terrorists–who would likely be emboldened by the Western democracies’ reluctance to deploy such power decisively against self-declared enemies.

Given these realities, it is hard to be confident that the world would enjoy higher levels of security, stability, and freedom were President Bush to be defeated in November. Perhaps a Democratic restoration would yield a world that might seem more harmonious and peaceful, and we would for a time relish the illusion of comity and stability. With warm transatlantic relations restored and American power politely held in check, we likely would go abroad less frequently in search of monsters to destroy, and maybe, for a time, they would not come looking for us.

Perhaps the United States and Europe would again see eye to eye on the international challenges of the day, valuing consensus over the allied divisions brought about by the war in Iraq, and opting to exercise together the softer forms of power and influence, rather than wielding the hard power that has caused so much transatlantic tension over the past few years. Perhaps we would, as John Kerry has said, wage a “more sensitive” war on terrorism, and it would help us all to get along.

But would we really be safer?

I’ll answer that:  no.

And whoever doesn’t recognize such by now should be mocked repeatedly until s/he is too ashamed to vote. The European model for handling international affairs is a long-term suicide pact, something that would become painfully evident to throngs of leftist dreamers were the US ever to pull its military protection.  Utopian fantasies, in which socialistic power sharing and multilateral consensus trump sovereignty and self-interest, diminish the threat of international terrorism and ignore the more fundamental human impulse toward self-preservation through strength and skepticism.

At least in the world I live in it does—a world where terrorists find polite paper agreements between soft western nations unpersuasive as a deterrent to violent jihad and a long-term ambition to spread fundamentalist Islam across the globe.