REALPOLITIK:

Will someone explain to me why America expects European concurrence in any of our affairs militarily or otherwise? Any European history dilettante knows that balancing power between states has been the modus operandi in the foreign affairs of their nation-states dating back to the Middle Ages. One waits in vain if he expects them to walk away from 700 years of habit. Often this old world realpolitik was entirely defensible. America is the world’s sole superpower today, and thus will the Europeans see themselves as the counterweight to our strength. While to us this posture looks absurd, to them it is merely instinct.