The Hollow Alliance

FOR DECADES, THE TRANSATLANTIC PARTNERSHIP has been crucial to international security and the stability of the global economy. Through organizations like NATO, U.S. and European leaders have worked together to advance democracy, liberty, rule of law and the market-based values that have helped lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty around the world. There has never been a greater alliance of capable and like-minded partners.

But today that alliance is weaker and less influential than at any other time since the 1930s. Americans and Europeans are distracted by challenges at home. Anger at government and public anxiety over the impact of globalization are on the rise. Emerging powers in Asia and elsewhere are asserting new values, and the U.S. and Europe are increasingly at odds over how best to adapt to a changing world.

Neither side seems to realize that an alliance that has been the backbone of the postwar era is crumbling. Europe is preoccupied with internal challenges like the migrant crisis, the upcoming referendum on Britain’s membership in the E.U. and ongoing disputes with Russia. In the U.S. presidential campaign, the transatlantic relationship has been less