Allies diverge on vision for world

BERLIN -- The Atlantic alliance between the United States and Europe, the most successful international bonding of all time, is breaking down amid starkly differing visions of a changing world and both sides' proper place in it.

The alliance, a mesh of military, economic, cultural and historic ties, was born in the ashes of World War II, the coupling of a young superpower and old nation-states devastated by conflict. The alliance produced the Marshall Plan and NATO, fought and won the Cold War and created the most prosperous and peaceful assembly of democracies in history. Its dramatic erosion, which is not a priority in a Washington fixated on terrorism, has become an obsession in Europe.

No total rupture is likely, nor are former friends about to become foes. Economic ties, both trade and investment, will stay strong. NATO, the institutional cornerstone of the alliance, probably will survive, but in a reduced and less military role.

The alliance's trend is not toward hostility but toward irrelevance, with the United States, by far its dominant member, dealing with threats beyond Europe and less interested in what the Europeans think and do. The Europeans, for their part, are preoccupied with their own continent and offended by what they see as American unilateralism.

For both sides, the Atlantic alliance has been the anchor of foreign policy since World War II. So for both, its fraying means a basic shift in the way they deal with the world.