There is nothing too earth shattering in the first Wikileaks cable from the United States Mission at the United Nations. The cable, which is dated December 2009, gives a run-down of how the United States and Europe are productively working together at the United Nations to achieve common priorities. Unlike some previous US Ambassador’s, it is clear that Susan Rice views the EU as allies, not adversaries. Accordingly, the EU’s support was leveraged to achieve American priorities; and often times, the United States lent it support to EU priorities.
This little nugget, toward the end of the cable, offers some insight into how this kind of diplomacy actually works.
Comment: Despite initial concerns that European delegations would soon come to view new U.S. flexibility (which generally reinforces their own positions) as a natural state of affairs, they did not during the first months of UNGA64 “pocket” our flexibility and seek more. This dynamic is not yet played out, though, and so we should be prepared to counter any EU presumption that U.S. positions are necessarily crafted to align with EU preferences. When we do so align, we should seek EU reciprocity, either in terms of shifting an EU negotiating position or in terms of EU support in persuading G-77 members to back our common transatlantic positions.
H/t to Colum Lynch.