The Great Cooling?

Yesterday, I posted on NATO's drawn down in Afghanistan and touched on potential knock-on effects potentially as severe as a US-initiated demise of the alliance and withdrawal of the majority of US troops from Europe.

Today, I noticed this piece in the NYTimes on the increasing disinterest toward Europe in US policy circles:

While the report broke no new ground, it was the first formal confirmation of what European leaders have been saying for months and an indication that Ms. Ashton considers regaining influence in Washington a priority. “Europe is no longer the main strategic preoccupation of U.S. foreign policy,” the document says. “The U.S. is increasingly looking to new partners to address old and new problems.”

 As the US engages more heavily with new strategic partners and expends more resources in building and securing those relationships, some sort of disengagement in Europe seems inevitable. The exact form and how radical the change will be is, in my mind, something that the Europeans can influence in their favor. But leaders and almost certainly the societies they govern may balk at the rising costs of that influence in terms of greater defense spending and fuller active participation in missions.  I think they'll also increasingly find less inclination in Washington to shrug off failures to deliver.