Washington ? Ego is a potent force in international politics at any time. But this is a moment when the personal chemistry and sense of trust that can underpin or undermine the meshing of national interests and priorities are particularly important for President Bush and his colleagues in the world leadership club.

Just how angry Bush is with Germany’s Gerhard Schroeder, or how long Britain’s Tony Blair and France’s Jacques Chirac will keep up their new and bitter public feud, will probably not change national destinies. The ego factor will be submerged in issues of war and peace, NATO’s expansion and the faltering of Germany’s economy during Bush’s trip to Central Europe and Russia this week.

But the increasingly tangled personal ties between these leaders ” modern politicians who have come to power more on the strength of personality than on ideology ” reflect their times as well as their temperaments. Selective unilateralism is not a uniquely American phenomenon today. It is a policy choice Europeans are making too, as the fragmentation of the internationalist consensus that prevailed during the Cold War accelerates.

Bush, an instinctual politician, makes quick judgments and then sticks with them. His feeling that he could trust Vladimir Putin after a single meeting led to a fresh start in U.S.-Russia relations. His lingering resentment at Schroeder also illustrates the importance Bush attaches to personal contact and to personal promises.

Schroeder is said not to have yet grasped the depth or cause of Bush’s sense of betrayal. “He doesn’t get it” is the mantra voiced by officials in Berlin and in Washington, who give differing accounts of who pledged what to whom about consultations on Iraq and on the German chancellor’s attacks on Bush’s foreign policy, which became the centerpiece of his successful re-election campaign last September.

But it was Schroeder’s thinly disguised appeals to, and blessing of, a unique German nationalism ” “a German way” ” that elevated what could have been handled as a personal problem between politicians to a matter of international concern.

Although his spat with Bush got all the headlines, Schroeder won by playing on the Germans’ frustrations with both their American and European partners. His campaign rhetoric encouraged the notions that the Americans were too heavy-handed, and the Europeans ungrateful for the sacrifices Germany had made in bankrolling European integration, German reunification and the removal of the Soviet army from Eastern Europe. He even said Germany would not necessarily abide by U.N. resolutions on Iraq.

Since the election, he has not retreated from this unilateralist bent. Schroeder snubbed Chirac by going to London on his first trip abroad after the election rather than to Paris, as tradition would have required. The point the German was making was that Blair had supported Schroeder while Chirac backed his opponent, Edmund Stoiber.

Then Schroeder wheeled around to embarrass and perplex Blair by agreeing with Chirac to impose on the European Union a German-French deal on agricultural subsidies. When Blair voiced outrage over this bilateral unilateralism, Chirac angrily canceled their semiannual leadership meeting, and the term “European unity” seemed to be turning to its historical status as oxymoron.

Bush left Washington on Tuesday for the NATO summit in Prague and the latest meeting of the Putin-Bush mutual admiration society in St. Petersburg carrying two proposals that may help revive a sense of strategic unity. The expansion of NATO into the Baltics and Balkans should give Europe and America a new common purpose.

So should Bush’s decision to drop the Clinton-era practice of hammering NATO’s European members to match U.S. defense spending on a wide variety of 50-odd alliance “capabilities.” Instead, the Bush White House wants to bring those European countries willing to project military power globally into an elite NATO rapid reaction force, while letting other alliance members pursue half-a-dozen “niche capabilities” such as heavy air transport or intelligence.

This streamlined NATO reaction force of up to 20,000 soldiers using U.S. logistical support is more appropriate for the war on terrorism than are the land-based now obsolete NATO defenses of the Cold War, which centered on Germany. Nations that pursue power projection ” Britain and France come to mind ” can play that role through NATO. Other countries can contribute expertise and equipment to defend against chemical or biological attacks on an alliance-wide basis.

This approach pushes Europeans to make some choices about defense strategy and spending that have been repeatedly postponed, especially in Germany. It should be treated in Europe as a welcome exercise in American leadership that is not driven by unilateralist tactics or goals. That in turn should help the alliance’s leaders get back to finding ways to shore each other up rather than tear each other down.

” Jim Hoagland is a columnist for Washington Post Writers Group.