I first heard the news that Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, had succeeded in persuading a remarkable majority of Americans to let him and his family move to the White House on the way back to Rome from a short journey through Jordan. Sitting in a half-empty café in Amman international airport, I watched a giant TV screen broadcast over and over again muted pictures from Chicago and elsewhere of tens of thousands of people cheering joyfully. As the BBC started running the title “Barack Obama elected 44th US president”, I exchanged knowing looks with the small but composite audience around me (half a dozen people coming from Europe, the Middle East and other, more faraway places). None of us spoke a word, but it was clear that we were all thinking the same thing: it happened. Still struggling with a lingering sense of incredulity that a leftist, African-American intellectual with an academic background had just become the most influential person on the planet, I caught myself indulging in the fantasy that all that’s wrong in US-European relations could now be fixed. Then a comment from a bystander abruptly cut off my daydreaming: “Well, all the talking will finally stop now”.

I paused. Dealing with transatlantic relations on a daily basis, I am aware that the origin of most problems besetting the US-European partnership are not exclusively linked with the character and personal convictions of George W. Bush, even though his style and choices have contributed to feeding a great deal of ill-will and mistrust of the US in Europe. Personally, I tend to share the opinion that the Bush administration’s foreign policy was also a radical attempt to adjust to the strategically changed post-Cold War (and post-9/11) international scenario. Unrivalled military might, a thriving, innovation-based economy, a global cultural outreach, along with a very typical sense of American exceptionalism, apparently convinced the Bush administration that it was in the vital interest of the nation to secure America’s global ascendancy and organise the international relations system in a strongly US-centric way. International agreements and institutions, including the alliance with the Europeans, were consequently downgraded from a set of rules (however imperfect and often painfully ineffective) designed to accommodate the interests of a plurality to an instrument which the US would make use of at will, at its convenience.

It was a lack of far-sightedness that let the Bush administration get ensnared by unilateral temptations. It thought the time was ripe for the US to leap from world primacy to global supremacy, even though evidence to the contrary was sporadically but solidly emerging: the economic interdependence brought about by globalisation; the rise of new powers; and the need to resort to alliances and partnerships to tackle asymmetrical threats linked to terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. If anything, Bush’s policies added contingent to structural factors, starting with the ‘war of choice’ in Iraq, thus further reining in the US' room for manoeuvre. The global financial crisis (and the related, incipient recession), with the United States at its core, seems to have deflated American enthusiasm for monologues on the international stage, perhaps permanently. Like in a Greek tragedy, Nemesis followed Hubris. The ‘unipolar moment’, if it ever existed, is gone.

I cannot say whether Mr. Obama shares this analytical grid, but certainly he has criticised a lot of what his predecessor did, including his demeaning of the bond of solidarity with the Europeans. It is therefore understandable that many in Europe have great expectations for the transatlantic partnership under the incoming Obama administration, and there is certainly strong goodwill and a willingness to mend fences across the Atlantic. But do the conditions for a complete re-launch of the relationship actually exist? If yes, what are they?

President Obama faces a number of gargantuan tasks. The ongoing financial crisis has systemic roots and fixing it is likely to drain a good part of his energies. Almost as daunting are the international challenges: managing two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (the latter with dangerous extensions into Pakistan), handling the nuclear standoff with Iran, injecting new life into the moribund Mideast peace process, re-framing the fight against terrorism so as to invigorate rather than alienate international consensus. The rise of China, India and others, as well as Russia’s new assertiveness, foreshadow a return to 19th century-like power politics (a process to which the Bush administration regrettably contributed). The stalemate in the Doha round on trade liberalisation does not bode well either. And no, the planet won’t stop warming just to give us time to cope with this mess.

The Europeans can contribute substantially to such issues as climate change, Iran, the Mideast peace process, and the fight against terrorism. They are however almost absent from Iraq, divided on Russia (on which they largely depend for their energy supplies), as oscillating as the Americans between free-trade and protectionist tendencies, and apparently unprepared to develop a China strategy that is not dominated by commercial issues. As for Afghanistan, there is no shared vision on how it should look like once the westerners leave nor agreement on the appropriate level of military commitment. Finally, the future role of NATO is a question mark for all allies. Goodwill may not be enough to re-launch cooperation. What to do then?

The first step is to realise that it will not be possible to accommodate everything. But lacks of understanding should not embitter relations. The Europeans should promote the idea that it is in the American interest to refrain from adopting measures that could be divisive within the European Union. Afghanistan will probably be taken as the litmus test for the actual recovery of transatlantic cooperation. However understandable, this would be a mistake. The situation in Afghanistan is such that it is now much more likely to foment divisions than to produce unity. The transatlantic agenda should not be taken hostage by the war against the Taliban, because the task confronting the US and Europe is broader and more long-term than Afghanistan’s future.

They need to accept the reality of an emerging multipolar world and manage their relative decline together (Europeans can be of help in this regard, as they have been going through the process for most of the last century). The relative decline is both a danger and an opportunity. A danger because it is potentially destabilising. The increase in world powers engenders competition in areas where no undisputed leadership exists – as is the case in the former Soviet space, where Russia is trying to reverse pro-west trends, or in Africa, where China is gradually replacing European influence. If the US and Europe, counting on their still massive resources, were to stick to their declining power, interstate competition could degenerate into open rivalry. But if they resist this temptation and opt for a ‘soft landing’ instead, they could grab an historic opportunity. The new non western-centric age now looming could be ushered in without the birth pangs of an historical discontinuity crisis (as was World War I, and not even definitively). Rather, it could turn into a cooperative redistribution of influence and responsibility that would greatly enhance the world's capacity to tackle the millennial challenge of climate change, address economic downturns more quickly and effectively, and reduce the risks of major interstate clashes and their destabilising side-effects on critical regions.

Paradoxically, the United States and Europe should stop thinking ‘transatlantic’ to handle the process properly. The Europeans, in particular, would be deluding themselves if they were to be satisfied with convincing the Americans to “stop the minuet and start the tango”, as is still often heard. What’s needed is a carefully prepared choreography involving more than just two performers, including all emerging powers and the main international organisations. The transatlantic partners need to think ‘global’ and, in most (though not all) cases, ‘multilateral’.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the economy, which is increasingly unlike the 20th century western-centric structure and more and more resembles a network of interdependent actors. The financial meltdown has apparently forced upon minds in the US and Europe that broader participation in the management of global economic problems is not only more respectful of emerging countries’ rights, but is also the only working solution to the crisis: it is the G20, not the outdated G8, that is in charge of devising a response. The step forward for the US and Europe is to live up to their promises to reform the international financial institutions accordingly, as it is their responsibility to fight dangerous protectionist instincts. Equally evident is the need for a sustained multilateral action to tackle climate change, by definition a global challenge.

Multilateral solutions are also necessary to guarantee international security. The United Nations' discouraging record in keeping and enforcing peace could improve if its most influential members, which the US and European countries certainly are, showed more commitment to re-building its authority. The UN is still a valuable instrument for harnessing the excesses of power politics – arguably the most effective in the long-run. The emphasis should be put not so much on making the UN a highly effective organisation (which, I admit, is beyond human power), as on enhancing its potential to generate consensus and thereby legitimacy. The same goes for specific security issues, such as nuclear non-proliferation: there are no alternatives to universal compliance with internationally recognised standards.

In a relationship, not all problems can be solved (nor are those that can be generally wholly solved). To carry on, couples have to share higher goals than those on which they are at odds. For the United States and Europe, such a goal is to establish a connection between their relative international decline and the strengthening of the multilateral system. In such a system, the influence of individual states or groups of like-minded countries, which the US and Europe often happen to be, would hinge more on persuasion than on military might or economic leverage (although these would not disappear). US and European political, economic, and cultural resources might be less effective now for imposing their will on recalcitrant actors, but they are nonetheless priceless assets for building long-term, trust-based relationships with third countries. They ought not to be wasted for the sake of defending America’s or Europe’s backyards. Is that a change we can believe in?

Riccardo Alcaro is researcher at the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) of Rome and European Foreign and Security Policy Studies Fellow.