Obama trip

Joseph Nye is one of the world's most influential foreign policy scholars. He is currently Distinguished Service Professor at Harvard University and previously served as Dean of the Kennedy School. Nye is credited with coining the terms and theory of soft and smart power. He also served as Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Clinton administration from 1994 to 1995. Nye is the author of numerous books on international relations, the latest being "The Future of Power" (2011).

Next week President Obama will travel to Poland, Britain, Ireland and France almost exactly two years after his first trip to Europe as president in May 2009. How has the transatlantic relationship evolved during the first two years of the Obama presidency?

I think it remains strong. It's true that the United States has been very much distracted by the Middle East and Asia in a sense that if you ask what takes the most attention. But if one looks at questions like who are we closest to in terms of friendships and investments and deep interests it remains Europe.

You have been a member of the US foreign policy elite for quite some time. How is Europe being perceived these day's in political Washington and how has the view of Europe evolved over the past few years?

I think there is less attention paid to Europe, but in some ways that may be a blessing in disguise. Hillary Clinton's inbox fills up with things that are related to the Middle East, but not because we like the Middle East, but because there are problems there. So in that sense if you looked at the foreign policy establishment's attention, say a decade ago or even five years ago, one would have seen a fair amount of attention paid to Europe. There's less attention, but that doesn't mean Europe is less important, that means that Europe is less urgent.

A major complaint from every US administration has been that Europe doesn't speak with one voice on foreign policy issues and therefore punches far below its weight on non-economic global issues. From an American perspective, have the changes in the EU's foreign policy management made a difference or is the Libya case for Washington once again proof that the EU is an economic giant, but a military dwarf?

I think that the new common diplomatic service for Europe is still getting its feet on the ground. So I don't think that American officials would say they feel a great difference as a result of this. But I think Americans do welcome the fact that Britain, France and others took the lead in terms of the actions in Libya. So it may not have been an action by the European Union formally, but it was an action by Europeans. And I think that was welcome.

Atlanticists on both sides of the pond regularly and repeatedly complain that the European-American relationship is not as close and stable as it was earlier and that both the US and Europe tend to focus more on finding new partnerships in Asia than on improving the old ties across the Atlantic. Are they right and is this a danger for the future?

Yes and No. In my new book "The future of power" I argue that there are two huge power shifts going on in the world. One is a shift of the economy from West to East and the other is a shift away from all governments West or East to non-governmental actors. And in the first shift, the movement from West to East, it's natural for both Europeans and Americans to pay more attention to Asian markets.

But on the second shift which involves transnational actions which include everything from financial flows to terrorism to climate change to pandemics the US and Europe must cooperate together. It's also worth remembering that when Europe acts as an entity as it can do in the economic area, Europe's economy is still larger than that of the United States and of course China.

What would you tell Europeans and the EU they should do to improve their leverage on non-economic issues?

Increasing the capacity to work with the Americans which the new arrangements eventually help is one thing. The other is to invest in capacities. If there is too much of a cut in overseas development budgets that diminishes Europe's capacity. So there are things that Europe can do to make sure that it has the resources to be the partner that the United States needs.

Many political analysts believe that the rise of China and the other BRIC countries means that transatlantic unity alone is not enough any longer to achieve desired results on the world stage. Do you agree with that assessment and where does this leave the European-American relationship?

The rise of countries like China, India and Brazil means that we have to include them in the decision processes and that's exactly what's happened with the expansion from the G8 to the G20. So Europeans and Americans both are going to have to work with these new emerging or rising powers.

But it's still worth remembering that the Americans and the Europeans have more power than these other countries. One shouldn't confuse change at the margin with change in the total. So in that sense, yes we need to help bring them into the system. But it also is true that the Europeans and the Americans still have the most capacity.

Interview: Michael Knigge
Editor: Rob Mudge