Celareon
04-11-2004, 03:04 PM
For those that take the time to read this, I hope you find it at the very least, interesting. With all the friction between Europeans and Americans on this board, hopefully this will help.
Does the West still exist? For the past two years, the United States has been at war, but attempts to elevate America’s foe to a new common enemy has been largely divisive. Islamic fundamentalism, international terrorism and WMDs have not had the same unifying effect as yesterday’s soviet threat because Europe and the United States have increasingly differed on how to confront them.
America has adopted the foreign policy most akin to Germany in the late-nineteenth-century, placing dramatic displays of military might at the heart of its strategy. Europeans have behaved more like early-twentieth-century American idealists, advocating measured and principled foreign interventions. Even though Europeans and Americans have different interests, values and sensibilities, both sides still need one another and must work toward a new plan of action to tackle today’s issues.
It seems as if the United States has lost its cultural inferiority complex, the best universities in the world-the places where the brightest students from China, Japan, even Germany, want to go-are now in the United States. Today, in the eyes of many Americans, Europe is neither a subject nor an object of history; it has become a theme park, a museum, a charming place to visit and above all a growing source of irritation.
If the United States has not become an empire in the way that France and Britain were a century ago, an American imperial project of sorts has emerged, focused on the Middle East, and this project has become irksome to Europeans.
During the soviet years, both Europe and the US supported the Status quo against a revisionist Soviet Union, and now the US west is revisionist, while Europe’s west remained mired in introspection and is mistrustful of change.
It is as if, divided over its institutional and geographic future, Europe feels that it must exist as an alternative to the United States-a different and better west, seen in recent anti-war demonstrations the emergence of a European society that chooses to define itself negatively against the United States. Unlike anti-American sentiments in the past, this breed of anti-Americanism is not so much a reaction to what the United States does as a reaction to what it represents.
When French President Jacques Chirac spectacularly opposed the war in Iraq, while clearly not speaking in the name of most European governments, he was in tune with European public opinion.
It is all too easy for Washington to view Europe with indifference, yet the United States still badly needs Europe-although not for the reasons it thinks. Washington seems to view Europe as being somewhere between its deputy sheriff and its cleaning lady. “America fights, Europe funds, the UN feeds,” the thinking goes.
The United States needs Europe-and not just for its intelligence networks, sophisticated judicial systems, humanitarian efforts or police. Europe is the best protection the US has against its inner evils-its isolationism, its ignorance of the way others feel and think.
One of the first of these lessons –a particularly pertinent one for American administrators in Iraq-is that no power should ever define what is good for others without those people being involved.
Europe needs the United States at least as much. Europe should never solely rely on the US military machine, and it must have a credible military instrument it if wants to be taken seriously by Washington. But the not-so-secret dream of the French government to counterbalance US military power would be a nightmare for a majority of the governments in the new Europe of 25 member states.
It is unfortunate the popular anti-Americanism has been encouraged by some European Governments; as if the most conservative, ideological, religious, and nationalist elements of the Bush administration’s thinking were the only ideas found in the United States. The truth is that for many Europeans, America is still a land of opportunity, excellence and economic dynamism. A more balanced assessment, rather than today’s overwhelming negative caricature, is essential in constructing the new transatlantic partnership.
In building a new model of cooperation, Europe should learn from the United States’ ambition, and the United States form Europe’s modesty. Responsible revisionism-a better alternative to imperial revisionism-can only be achieved if Americans and Europeans start working and planning together.
The worst case-scenario would be for America’s west to turn into an oversized Prussia-bullying, brooding, and obsessed with military might-and Europe’s west into an oversized Switzerland-selfish and parochial, wrapped in neutrality. To avert this result, positive rather than negative, definition of transatlantic identity must be invoked by leaders on both continents. To this end, both sides together must lead the way in reforming the UN, so that it becomes an institution with teeth, genuinely respected by the international community.
In conclusion, both sides must make a determined effort to transcend their natural prejudices, overcoming petty inferiority or superiority complexes. Europeans must accept the United States’ unique international status and Americans must rediscover the virtues of modesty and self-restraint. Let us hope that the bitter rivalry witnessed in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, will go down as a temporary emotional rupture, rather than as the end of a constructive transatlantic partnership.
The previous “essay” was a hasty summary of an article I interpreted written by Dominique Moisi, senior adviser to the Institut Francais des Relations Internationales.
Discuss.
Does the West still exist? For the past two years, the United States has been at war, but attempts to elevate America’s foe to a new common enemy has been largely divisive. Islamic fundamentalism, international terrorism and WMDs have not had the same unifying effect as yesterday’s soviet threat because Europe and the United States have increasingly differed on how to confront them.
America has adopted the foreign policy most akin to Germany in the late-nineteenth-century, placing dramatic displays of military might at the heart of its strategy. Europeans have behaved more like early-twentieth-century American idealists, advocating measured and principled foreign interventions. Even though Europeans and Americans have different interests, values and sensibilities, both sides still need one another and must work toward a new plan of action to tackle today’s issues.
It seems as if the United States has lost its cultural inferiority complex, the best universities in the world-the places where the brightest students from China, Japan, even Germany, want to go-are now in the United States. Today, in the eyes of many Americans, Europe is neither a subject nor an object of history; it has become a theme park, a museum, a charming place to visit and above all a growing source of irritation.
If the United States has not become an empire in the way that France and Britain were a century ago, an American imperial project of sorts has emerged, focused on the Middle East, and this project has become irksome to Europeans.
During the soviet years, both Europe and the US supported the Status quo against a revisionist Soviet Union, and now the US west is revisionist, while Europe’s west remained mired in introspection and is mistrustful of change.
It is as if, divided over its institutional and geographic future, Europe feels that it must exist as an alternative to the United States-a different and better west, seen in recent anti-war demonstrations the emergence of a European society that chooses to define itself negatively against the United States. Unlike anti-American sentiments in the past, this breed of anti-Americanism is not so much a reaction to what the United States does as a reaction to what it represents.
When French President Jacques Chirac spectacularly opposed the war in Iraq, while clearly not speaking in the name of most European governments, he was in tune with European public opinion.
It is all too easy for Washington to view Europe with indifference, yet the United States still badly needs Europe-although not for the reasons it thinks. Washington seems to view Europe as being somewhere between its deputy sheriff and its cleaning lady. “America fights, Europe funds, the UN feeds,” the thinking goes.
The United States needs Europe-and not just for its intelligence networks, sophisticated judicial systems, humanitarian efforts or police. Europe is the best protection the US has against its inner evils-its isolationism, its ignorance of the way others feel and think.
One of the first of these lessons –a particularly pertinent one for American administrators in Iraq-is that no power should ever define what is good for others without those people being involved.
Europe needs the United States at least as much. Europe should never solely rely on the US military machine, and it must have a credible military instrument it if wants to be taken seriously by Washington. But the not-so-secret dream of the French government to counterbalance US military power would be a nightmare for a majority of the governments in the new Europe of 25 member states.
It is unfortunate the popular anti-Americanism has been encouraged by some European Governments; as if the most conservative, ideological, religious, and nationalist elements of the Bush administration’s thinking were the only ideas found in the United States. The truth is that for many Europeans, America is still a land of opportunity, excellence and economic dynamism. A more balanced assessment, rather than today’s overwhelming negative caricature, is essential in constructing the new transatlantic partnership.
In building a new model of cooperation, Europe should learn from the United States’ ambition, and the United States form Europe’s modesty. Responsible revisionism-a better alternative to imperial revisionism-can only be achieved if Americans and Europeans start working and planning together.
The worst case-scenario would be for America’s west to turn into an oversized Prussia-bullying, brooding, and obsessed with military might-and Europe’s west into an oversized Switzerland-selfish and parochial, wrapped in neutrality. To avert this result, positive rather than negative, definition of transatlantic identity must be invoked by leaders on both continents. To this end, both sides together must lead the way in reforming the UN, so that it becomes an institution with teeth, genuinely respected by the international community.
In conclusion, both sides must make a determined effort to transcend their natural prejudices, overcoming petty inferiority or superiority complexes. Europeans must accept the United States’ unique international status and Americans must rediscover the virtues of modesty and self-restraint. Let us hope that the bitter rivalry witnessed in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, will go down as a temporary emotional rupture, rather than as the end of a constructive transatlantic partnership.
The previous “essay” was a hasty summary of an article I interpreted written by Dominique Moisi, senior adviser to the Institut Francais des Relations Internationales.
Discuss.