Thursday 22 January 2009

Chalk One Up For The Awkward Squad

In a recent post (see post) we reflected that the group who will prove troublesome to President Obama is already taking form. One of the problems that President Obama faces is the ability to galvanise the European nations to follow an American agenda. It was put to me recently that "Europe is no longer willing to have its wars declared in Washington".

Whilst Europe would broadly support the objectives of the President, when it actually comes to committing troops, it is a different story. Germany is well known for not being willing to commit more troops to Afghanistan. It now appears that France is unwilling to commit further troops to Afghanistan (see report).

This causes a problem for the new President because it keeps the US committed to an expensive overseas engagement at a time when America might like to scale back its commitment. Perhaps the honeymoon is coming to an end?

No comments: