Professor, not wishing to be picky, but could you please in the future use the possessive "its" where appropriate instead of the contracive "it's"? It's a pet peeve, many thanks.

Is everyone looking forward to 2008 when they can say goodbye to Bush and be happy to be our friends again?

Lord, yes.

I suspect the dynamic behind (2) is that the post-Bush era has begun, at least among the long-term players in the transatlantic relationship.

By contrast, the post-Putin era has not begun. Hence (3). And indeed, the unsettled constitutional arrangements in the Russian Federation mean that jockeying and uncertainty will likely increase until such a time as the succession is clear.

It is not clear that (4) has to be an either-or proposition.

You say, "The $64,000 question is whether China's rise will cause the Americans and Europeans to compete for Beijing's favor or force greater coordination between the US and EU."

I think it is obvious that a variety of anticapitalist forces in the U.S. will make it harder to do business with China (exporting labor & enviromental standards, e.g.), while the powers that be in Europe will trade with China without regard to anything other than making a buck, er, Euro. Thus, there will be competition between Europe and the U.S. to supply China with their technology and buy its goods. Europe will win this.

"Is everyone looking forward to 2008 when they can say goodbye to Bush and be happy to be our friends again? "

Right, and all the other countries will set aside their own narrow self interest in join with the US around the campfire and sign Kumbaya.

Because, really, they all want to join with us and help us fight radical Islam and work with us economically to knock down trade barriers.

But that Bush and the neocons are preventing this global Arcadia from happening.

Once they're gone, we'll all live happily ever after.

Why are you pitching China in such an adversarial role? Why can't the US and China co-exist and and even mutually benefit each other, greatly, regardless of what the EU will or will not do? Sounds like there was a lot of anti-oriental prejudice going on in that room.

My blog doesn't seem to be showing up on the trackback. I wrote that items 3) and 4) are related. China's relationship with the United States and Western Europe is highly dependent on its relationship with Russia. The Sino-Russian relationship is sensitive for the same reason the U.S.-Canada relationship would be if the Canadians were even vaguely threatening. So the Sino Soviet split is what prompted Mao (interrupted by cultural revolution) to turn to the United States, resulting in the Nixon visit. First Tiananmen, and then Clinton sending an aircraft carrier through the Taiwan Straits meant a realignment, and rapprochement between China and Russia. But it's a delicate relationship, and it sounds like the Russians might be overstepping.

I didn't take item 4 to be treating China as an adversary. The question is the relationship between the U.S. and Europe. "The West" was never a great category of analysis, but it's historically meant something in that Europe and U.S. have engaged in broadly similar actions toward China (with important exceptions, to be sure). The post suggests that the idea of "the West" is growing even less relevant.

Why are you pitching China in such an adversarial role? Why can't the US and China co-exist and and even mutually benefit each other, greatly, regardless of what the EU will or will not do? Sounds like there was a lot of anti-oriental prejudice going on in that room.

Realizing that a growing power in the world will have its own interests that will often not align with either ours or Europe's and speculating what that might do the latter relationship is "prejudice"?

Sounds more like pulling one's head of the sand and facing facts to me.