If there is a consistent thread to Senator Kerry’s constantly shifting Iraq policy, it’s that Bush didn’t do enough to create a real coalition to do the fighting. If elected, Mr. Kerry pledges to rectify that oversight.

But that involves several very large assumptions, beginning with the question of whether the foremost absentees from the Iraq conflict, France and Germany, would in fact report for duty. Secondly, what could these two countries bring to the party even if they were so inclined? The answer: not a lot.

The harsh fact is that the European military establishment, never very large to begin with, is a 90-pound weakling. America, despite years of cutbacks beginning in the wake of the Cold War, plunked down nearly $400 billion last year to support its military. That’s about 3.7% of gross domestic product, only about half the amount spent at the height of the Cold War. The European Union, by contrast, spends less than 2% percent of its GDP on the military.

France spent a grand total of about $40 billion in 2002, according to NATO figures. Germany spent about $37 billion. The United Kingdom, though Prime Minister Blair has proved to be a stalwart friend, came up with about $37 billion. Canada is off the charts at a mere $10 billion, and shrinking fast.

In Bosnia, where the French and Germans did collaborate in the sort of coalition Kerry favors, America had to deliver an embarrassing 85% of the missile strikes because of the primitive condition of the European air forces.

Why is Europe so weak? The trend, it’s worth noting, began well before the end of the Cold War. Increasingly, Europe opted for the free-rider approach, happy to let American taxpayers shoulder the major share of the burden. But Europe’s continuing power-slide strongly suggests that there may be an even more fundamental reason for its weakness: the debilitating effect of the vast European welfare state.

Europeans like to look down their noises at what they see as America’s “cowboy capitalism.” They prefer a system with generous economic and health benefits. And once somebody has a job, employers are all but forbidden to fire them or lay them off.

But the costs are substantial. Adults have less incentive to find work. And employers are understandably reluctant to hire new workers in the first place. In addition to the indirect costs, the average direct tax burden in Europe is about 40%, compared to 30% – federal and state – in America. Thus, while America was generating tens of millions of jobs in the 1980s and 1990s, Europe was virtually stagnant.

There’s a lot of moaning stateside about President Bush’s jobless recovery. But the unemployment rate in America is still only 5.4%, or less than it was in 1996 when President Clinton was running for re-election. In Europe, the average unemployment rate is nearly 10%.

And lest you think that Europe’s military stinginess and high tax rates at least keep deficits down, you should know that most European countries are running substantially in the red. Indeed, both France and Germany have failed to meet European Union requirements – which they themselves wrote – to keep deficits under 3% of GDP. The American deficit is 3.7% of GDP.

Mr. Kerry says the Bush administration offended our allies by “dissing” them on such matters as the Kyoto global warming accords, which Mr. Bush opposes. No wonder France and Germany aren’t willing to pitch in, he says.

But the European fondness for carbon dioxide controls is easily explained by the fact that they would impose the biggest penalty on the American economy – a $200 billion a year drag on domestic output, by some estimates. For a variety of reasons, including the fact that France relies heavily on nuclear power, Europe would take much less of a hit, leaving it relatively more competitive with the cowboys on the other side of the Atlantic.

Think of Kyoto as Europe’s weapon of mass destruction, aimed at an already-struggling American heartland.

A broader European coalition to help out in Iraq? Don’t count on it. There isn’t much that France and Germany could contribute, beyond some marginal peacekeeping forces, even if they wanted to. And they are likely to remain unwilling to do so even if Mr. Kerry is elected.

Mr. Bray is a Detroit News columnist.