Europeans experienced the first half of the twentieth century as a time of unprecedented
savagery. In their minds, the culprit was nationalism, or more precisely, the unilateral pursuit
of national interest. Multilateralism, the creation of multinational institutions and a
multinational mode of thought, is the European's response to their own history.
The United States
has a very different history and a very different set of fears and has no historical reason for
fearing its own nationalism. It has reason to fear inaction. The American need to deal with
Islamic radicalism collides with the European fear that the shattering of multilateralism will
once again release the demons of nationalism.
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