It’s not clear what to make of the immediate international response to the increased airport security precautions just announced by the US. The 14 countries whose citizens were singled out for intensive screening don’t seem to be cooperating; that may not be such a big surprise. But most European countries are not exactly bounding to comply either:

Airline passengers bound for the United States faced a hodgepodge of security measures across the world yesterday, but most European airports did not appear to be following a new US demand for increased screening of passengers from 14 countries.

US officials in Washington said the new security measures would be implemented yesterday but there were few visible changes on the ground in Europe, which sends thousands of passengers on hundreds of daily flights to the United States.

In addition, few if any changes in airline procedures were reported in the 14 countries named by the United States as security risks, although officials in Saudi Arabia said extra security personnel had been placed at the airport.

No changes were seen yesterday at international airports in Syria, Algeria, Libya, or Lebanon, four other countries on the list.

“Everything is the same, there is no extra security,’’ an aviation official in Lebanon said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
[...]
Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport was using 15 full-body scanners on flights to the United States and Dutch officials announced yesterday they will buy 60 more scanners. In Oslo, US-bound passengers had to show their passports and boarding passes twice at the gate, get their carry-ons searched and go through full body pat-downs.

Yet other European nations were still studying the new US rules. In Britain, a spokesman for the Department of Transportation said he was still trying to decipher its practical implications. He would not give his name due to the sensitivity of the subject. His comments were echoed by officials in Germany, France, and Switzerland, who said no new measures had been taken since airport security was increased after the failed Detroit plot.

French airport officials said the changes will not be implemented until they are ordered by the French government. In Spain, US-bound passengers from countries on the new watch list were not being singled out for body frisks, a security official admitted, speaking on condition on anonymity in line with agency rules.

There is perhaps a note of nationalistic surliness in that French response, an attitude of who-do-they-think-they-are-anyway. But, for the other European countries, it’s not clear whether they are just being slow to respond or reluctant to comply.

There has been a sense in Europe before that the US perhaps overreacts to such terrorist attempts, both in terms of our emotional reaction and the measures we feel impelled to take in response. There is not much point in speculating at this stage whether some such notion is driving European leaden-footed-ness. But if this turns out to be the case, I’ll have more to say on the subject.