LONDON: While President Bush was giving an address earlier this month describing the war on terrorism as "not a figure of speech" but "an inescapable calling of our generation," the official in charge of overseeing Europe's counter-terrorism efforts was offering a far different assessment.

"Europe is not at war," Javier Solana, foreign policy chief for the European Union, told a German newspaper. "We have to energetically oppose terrorism, but we mustn't change the way we live."

Between those two declarations lies a gap that reflects the different modern histories, cultures and approaches to terrorism of the United States and Europe, according to politicians and analysts on the continent.

The Madrid train bombings that killed 190 rush-hour commuters on March 11 - the first major attack on European soil believed to have been carried out by Muslim extremists connected to the Al Qaeda network - has compelled European nations to reassess how they fight terrorism.

At a summit that ended on Friday, EU leaders announced several measures designed to increase cooperation among their police forces and intelligence services. But the attacks have not led to a fundamental shift in Europe's approach.

"The Europeans are simply not as shocked by terrorism as Americans were," said Michael Clarke, director of the International Policy Institute at King's College London.

"March 11 in Madrid was a wake-up call to Europe, whereas Sept 11 to America was the beginning of a new kind of war. So we say we've got to do more of the same, only a bit more vigorously, which is a very European reaction. But for the United States, Sept 11 meant not just new policies but a new way of thinking about the world."

Nor have the Madrid attacks led to an increase in transatlantic unity against terrorism. Instead, analysts said, the attacks have reinforced familiar themes and old grievances with the Bush administration, especially the belief that the US-led war in Iraq has given terrorists a new base and a new cause to rally behind.

"What Bush calls the war against terrorism is the war which Bush chose to wage in Iraq," said Francois Heisbourg, director of the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris. "And that war has become massively unpopular in Europe. People see it here as aggravating terrorism, not fighting it."

Interviews and polling research suggest that voters who ousted the pro-American government of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar after the Madrid bombings did so at least in part because they believed Spain's participation in the Iraq war had provoked the attacks.

Polls in Britain and Italy, whose governments have also been high-profile supporters of the war, suggest voters there fear their countries have also joined Al Qaeda's hit list.

Unlike during the Cold War, when most of Western Europe shared with the United States the same sense of danger from nuclear attack, many Europeans see terrorism as a selective threat - and believe they can opt out by distancing themselves from Washington.

During a visit to Lisbon on Wednesday, British Prime Minister Tony Blair acknowledged that the Madrid bombings had exacerbated the divergence between the United States and Europe.

But he urged other European leaders not to allow these differences to derail the fight against terrorism. "It would indeed be a ghastly victory for the people who committed the carnage of the innocent in Madrid, if in addition to the destruction and death, they also caused us to turn in recrimination on each other," he said.

Analysts trace some of the differences between the United States and Europe to the ways they view recent history. For Europeans, the seminal date is November 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell and Europe began the process of reunification with the former Soviet bloc.

The end of the Cold War and European reunification has been the enduring narrative of the past 16 years, one that has promised peace and prosperity.

But for the United States, that narrative has been supplanted by the Sept 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon and a new global campaign that some Americans liken to a new world war. European leaders insist they are prepared to use force to combat terrorism. -Dawn/The LAT-WP News Service (c) The Washington Post.