I guess most European nations, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, etc., (with the honorable exception of Britain and a few others), have played a very unfair game to NATO and the United States and Britain.
On the one hand, they enjoy the benefits of belonging to the most powerful military alliance on earth, on the other hand they can get away with denying their support when they are called upon, even their strategic vote at the security council at the UN, and they also get away with sometimes supporting and sometimes just change their mind just because a new political party got to power (like Zapatero when he pulled out the spanish troops from Iraq).
May be the Europeans are simply spoiled, and then they want the world to take them seriously.
By the way, thanks to Dissident Frog for this great blog.