US Democratic presidential hopeful, Barack Obama, waves as he arrives to make a speech in front of the Victory Column in Berlin on July 24, 2008. Obama warned America could not quell violence in Afghanistan alone, and called on Europe for more troops and funding to defeat the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. MICHAEL GOTTSCHALK/AFP/Getty Images
Josh Rogin, Bloomberg: Europe's Convinced U.S. Won't Solve Its Problems
Europe is facing a convergence of the worst crises since World War II, and the overwhelming consensus among officials and experts here is that the U.S. no longer has the will or the ability to play an influential role in solving them.
At the Munich Security Conference, the prime topics are the refugee crisis, the Syrian conflict, Russian aggression and the potential dissolution of the European Union's very structure. Top European leaders repeatedly lamented that 2015 saw all of Europe’s problems deepen, and unanimously predicted that in 2016 they would get even worse.
“The question of war and peace has returned to the continent,” German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told the audience, indirectly referring to Russian military interventions. “We had thought that peace had returned to Europe for good."
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WNU Editor: And I recall how just a few years ago Europe was heralding the election of President Obama as a new era in U.S. - European relations. What a difference a few years can make.