I think in the decades following WW11 Europe [excluding the UK] has probably had its fill of conflict-irrespective of the causes. They no longer, on the whole, see Military action as its first, or for that matter, last response. This perhaps polarises them with American foreign policy response [i do not feel American has always chose the right course of action] but, America has not always chose the wrong course of action. Europe [parts of] has basically lost the stomach for a fight, and see the route of diplomacy as the path most beneficial.
Paul
Summed up nicely. The Cold War created two different perspectives...
1) For Europeans, the internal discipline as well as the external protection provided by America's presence and power permitted security and the spread of wealth across social class lines, but also nurtured a blithe attitude toward both distant troubles and ther suffering of neighbors behind thye Iron curtain. This translated into the determined will to ignore the crumbling Yugoslavia and the human carnage of Bosnia and then Kosovo in the 1990s.
2) For Americans, the party never stopped after World War II and our military found itself on more distant lands than ever before. But even with this, the huge expansion of American wealth and power led Americans right back into a sense of detachment from the world. Despite Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, and all small events in between, much of America had traveled back into a sense of isolationalism.
Then came 9/11. All of a sudden Americans were faced with the world again. We had to learn the same old lesson as before. We had to once again learn that the sickness of the world will eventually reach us if we do not stay ever vigilant across the sea. We got comfortable with the predictability of the Cold War. And when the Berlin Wall came down we got sleepy. We refused to pay attention to the next growing religious threat. On 9/11, we finally acknowledged that Marx, not God, is dead. Europe lags in grasping that the Age of Frivolity is over. But it will learn the hard way soon enough. Perhaps by then America will have no stomach left to "fight." Maybe our bare minimum with guarantees of rear duty will head across the ocean. Could anybody dare even criticize that after the show of support in Afghanistan?
But your response didn't reflect on how Europeans fancy their criticisms towards the U.S. They don't simply wag a finger and hypocritically state, "bad." They normally pull from their own past and compare...
- Gitmo = Gulag.
- A handful of waterboarding cases = Nazi Party.
- Muslims slaughtering Muslims in Iraq = Holocaust.
This sort of criticism has more to do with internal soothing than true criticism.