I hope that I don't sound like a neocon, but one reason why Europe's social model does not get the respect it deserves is that its economic sucess is counterbalanced by its military weakness.  The US spends 4% of GDP on defense, Britain and France spend about 3%, and the rest of Europe averages less than 2%.  In the area of research and development, the US is even further ahead.  Unfortunately, a lot of Americans decided that Europeans were unable or unwilling to contribute their fair share towards the common defense.

Beyond monetary issues, the EU has not been able to develop a unified position even on regional issues.  The collapse of Yugoslavia, for example, was a crisis that could have, and should have been handled by European countries themselves.  
While Britain and Frannce have run sucessful military campaigns in recent years (in Africa and the Faukland Islands), most other countries don't have the ability to project force beyond their own borders.

It is a sad fact that we live in a violent world.  Maybe our European allies will consider spending an additional 1%, or even 1/2% of GDP on defense.  The neocons probably won't like it, but we liberal Americans would appreciate having a partner that we can rely on.