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When the 44th American president was elected, there was a strong feeling of expectation among many Europeans, eager to repair some of the transatlantic disagreements of the Bush era and establish a close multifaceted (multilateral, multipolar) relationship with the first postmodern American statesman. In the first two years of the administration, the expectations had been largely unfulfilled. Some formerly new Europeans suspected indifference at best and betrayal at worst in the administration’s about-face on missile defense in Europe and in its single-minded focus on the reset of relations with Russia, to the exclusion, perceived or real, of the concerns of its partners in Central and Eastern Europe. Some formerly old Europeans felt snubbed by President Obama having taken a rain check on the last year’s EU-US summit. The president’s own European experience was not much happier. His appeals to the NATO European allies for a more robust contribution to the operation in Afghanistan went largely unanswered. At the 2009 IOC meeting in Copenhagen, he singularly failed in his efforts to secure the 2016 Summer Olympics for his adopted hometown of Chicago. He chose to avoid, perhaps wisely, another shipwreck of the 2010 Climate Change conference a year later. Some influential American analysts were even inclined to write off Europe and the Atlantic alliance altogether.

Several recent developments caused a change in the mood of the pundits and decisionmakers on both sides of the Atlantic. The slightly brighter picture in Afghanistan has underlined the fact that there is still a lot we can do together if we set our minds to it. The Arab Spring has brought home the realization, surprising to some, that there are people in other parts of the world who aspire to the same values as we and who hope for our support in their struggle to achieve freedom and decent life. And finally, the closure on Osama bin Laden reminded us that there are still, unfashionable as the term may sound, enemies out there who see us jointly rather than separately as a target.

It may have therefore not been an accident that a newly successful and popular president arrived in Europe last week to a newly enthusiastic reception. It was not, with all due respect, only his cool that made the Europeans warm up to him. The message, in Dublin, London, Deauville, and Warsaw was consistently the same: We are the closest, indispensable partners in the momentous endeavor of maintaining a civilization based on the same interests and the same values. In reaffirming the “essential” partnership between the US and the UK, in launching the Joint Strategy Board of the two countries, in heaping praise on NATO in his speech to the British Parliament, in showing determination to support the democratic movements in North Africa and the Middle East at the G8 summit in France, or in announcing a new US air base in Poland, the president convincingly showed his appreciation of the Atlantic bond. Even the mild amusement caused by his toasting his way through “God Save the Queen”at the state banquet in the Buckingham Palace could not obscure the fact that this was a very good week for President Obama, a good week for the United States, and a good week for Europe.