Research

Vice President Biden is on his way to Belgium and Spain today, and he’s calling the Obama administration’s relationship with Europe “the most successful alliance in history.” But a close look at the Obama-Biden Adminstration reveals this “new era” of diplomacy has only worsened relations with European allies across the continent, as exemplified by Obama’s insult to our Eastern European allies with his decision to gut an important missile defense program in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Under Obama, citizens in Britain “are talking about the end of the special relationship’ with America and worrying that Obama has no great regard for the British.” Obama’s seemingly endless dithering on Afghanistan angered French and German officials who waited in the dark to see Obama’s decision. And for the first time in years, President Obama refused to attend the annual European Summit, a summit President Bush managed to attend every year during his presidency.

As Reginald Dale, director of the Transatlantic Media Network at CSIS notes, President Obama “doesn't quite get the point of Europe. He's constantly treating the European leaders with disdain, in a sort of haughty manner." The fact is that Vice President Biden is praising an alliance his administration has done so much to undermine.