In the March/April issue of the global edition of the Foreign Policy, Andrew Bacevich, professor of international relations at Boston University, argued for the retreat of the United States from NATO. His article “Let Europe be Europe-Why the US must withdraw from NATO” could easily become the Manifesto or the flag ship of a larger intellectual trend that is gradually gaining traction in some circles of the U.S. foreign policy community: the retrenchment school. Its core message (in a time of overextended resources) is: come home America! In the latest issue of FP Romania (the May/June issue), Ivan Krastev, an Eastern European thinker, gave the reply.

“Europe is too thickly planted with kingdoms to be long at peace”-wrote Thomas Paine some two centuries ago. Since then many things have changed. Speaking in the National Defense University Secretary Gates expressed the opposite fear. In his view “demilitarization of Europe-where large swaths of the general public and political class are averse to military force and the risks going with it-has gone from a blessing in the 20th century to an impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace in the 21st”. In short Europe is planted with too many pacifist democracies to sustain a necessary war.

This is the context in which the US started to re-conceptualize its relations with Europe. The shift of power, the impact of the global economic crisis/causing fear of overstretch/ and Washington’s bitterness about Europe’s unwillingness or inability to assist Americans in Afghanistan made many ready to ask tough questions and to come with radical answers. American diplomats will never say it but in reality the US is not an European power any more. It is an illusion that the US’s involvement in Europe can be similar in its scale and content to the role the Washington played in the days of the Cold war or in the last