The United States needs to work more multilaterally, while Europe should understand the US does not always need its consent.
Yet it masks subtler changes in Mr Bush's foreign-policy thinking that America's allies may find more congenial.For one thing, Mr Bush has chosen (for the moment) to work through the UN on Iraq, giving substance to his stated preference for pre-empting multilaterally.
They may also distract governments from efforts to free trade multilaterally.
The need to govern Iraq after a war (multilaterally or otherwise) will make America especially keen not to alienate its people, or to destroy parts of the infrastructure upon which civilians rely.
But beyond matters of clear self-defence, it would "almost always" be in its interest to use force multilaterally.
How can Cambodia have so little to show for over a decade of reconstruction and development, costing roughly $400m a year in international aid?The answer as in so many multilaterally rebuilt places is bad governance.
Ethiopia can expect a similar amount from the European Union, multilaterally and through bilateral arrangements with Britain and others.
And they may pioneer new ideas which can later be taken up multilaterally: the Australia-New Zealand free-trade agreement, for example, deals with competition policy, which the World Trade Organisation has not yet touched.But they may well contain provisions that interfere with free trade rather than promoting it.
And it has the continent's most effective army.When the new rulers took over in 1994, they pledged themselves to act multilaterally; some said, privately, that they did not want South Africa to throw its weight around, because of its past record of beating up its neighbours.
While concentrating on trying to keep the peace in fewer treacherous places, it has tried to act more multilaterally.
And Asia as a whole needs agreements to help prevent every collision at sea from becoming a trial of strength.America and China should try to work multilaterally.
