In the period after World War II, the United States arguably looked past Europe toward the Eastern bloc more than actually involving herself with the issues facing Europe, with the forces that would bring Europe to its present state of semi-unification and developing autonomy in a regional sense. While the U.S. may have seemed closely involved in the affairs of Europe through special alliances such as NATO and the United Nations, much of the interest displayed in Europe was really a desire to check the communists rather than to develop Europe or understand European internal concerns. Much of the time, as a result, the United States was resented as much as admired. Over that same history, of course, the U.S has become more and more enmeshed in the affairs of Asia and the Pacific Rim. In American politics, the Democrats in recent years have been criticized for ignoring certain groups, such as blacks, on the assumption that they have nowhere else to go. This is often how Europe has been treated as well, with the assumption that Europe really has nowhere else to turn but to the United States. Where Europe has turned to a great degree is inward, and this new European isolationism is apparent now in reluctance among U.N. members to become enmeshed in the slightest degree in the troubles in Bosnia.
Walter Laqueur in his book Europe in Our Time identifies the present era as one of growing optimism in Europe, and it is true that the inward-turning of Europe has been fueled by and accompanied by a growing optimism over economic issues especially, but also for some by the hope of achieving a politically unified Europe for the first time in history. Laqueur sees the postwar era as one with a Europe divided, and the period of optimism into which Europe has now moved is a period of unification. The European Community is in the process of reshaping itself, redefining itself as a community in a way that has never been true before. Tensio...