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Old Europe Cannot Be a Counterweight to the American Imperium (Paul Kennedy, Summer 2003, New Perspectives Quarterly)

My basic problem with the Derrida-Habermas proclamation is neither their concern about unrestrained American power, nor their real hope that Europe should have greater unity, identity and common policies. My problem is that their document isn't practical enough; that is to say, the authors hardly ever indicate what an alternative (European) superpower would do if it existed and, more importantly, what should be done-apart from constitutional "deepening" measures-to get there. The American plans for a Middle East may be floundering right now, but at least they have a "road map." The way to a powerful Europe is not even sketched out. It is an aspiration, not a policy. [...]

But the real issue raised by the Derrida-Habermas appeal is the extent to which the movement should be defined by the mass anti-White House protests that burst out on February, and are seen as historic and symbolic (in fact, the title of their article reads, in English, February 15th, or What Binds Europeans Together). For if the real aim is to create a deliberate counterweight to the United States, the policy is unlikely to succeed-it will lose Britain and Spain, possibly Italy and the Netherlands, and certainly most of the Central and East European states. And here is another obvious problem. The fact that this call for a "core Europe" comes from a French and a German scholar-a sort of philosophical echo of the Chirac and Shroeder criticisms of the White House-will not only amuse or irritate the Americans, but it also will seem to other Europeans like a rehash of the de Gaulle-Adenauer axis, which was not popular outside of Paris and Bonn. All the rather thoughtless assertions by their successors today that France and Germany have a special, elevated and "core" role, with the other European states following, just gives ammunition to the anti-federal critics within Europe itself. To add that this Franco-German biumverate will lead the charge against America will make the discontents all that stronger.

Moreover, all this misses the point. The fact is that, whether Europe is to become an effective counterweight to a unilateralist America in the years to come, or an amiable and near-equal world partner, it really has to make some tough practical decisions, and achieve tough practical policies, in order to move ahead. Constitutional decisions, like creating the office of a single foreign minister, go part of the way, but that is almost like the icing on the cake if Europe itself is not made stronger.

So, here, for consideration, are a half-dozen nettles that might be grasped in order to make Europe stronger, to raise her in the eyes of the world, and to contribute to the greater sense of European identity which professors Derrida and Habermas yearn for: [...]

But, here's the rub, and why the Derrida-Habermas and Chirac-Schroeder strategies look doubtful. The resistance to these tough reform fields is deepest, not in the so-called "new Europe" and pro-American countries like Britain, Spain and Poland but precisely in the "old" or "core Europe" countries like France, Belgium and Germany.

Mr. Kennedy had the bad fortune to write a very fine book about why we should not have been fighting the Cold War at the very moment Ronald Reagan was ending it successfully. The basic truth of his thesis was therefore lost in the obvious inaccuracy of his prediction that America would decline. What's most interesting in this essay is that it's basically a plea for Europe to breakout of its decline, in fact to re-engage itself in many of the behaviors that Mr. Kennedy in that earlier book argued end up leading to decline--large military expenditures, entangling alliances, etc.. The other "nettles" essentially consist of a set of free market reforms. He's basically saying that Europe, in order to counter-balance America, needs to become more like America. But, even setting aside the complete improbability of their doing so, one wonders why--if they somehow were to Americanize--these two similar powers seek to balance one another instead of work together to achieve precisely the things America, nearly alone, is doing today? Posted by Orrin Judd at July 29, 2003 5:50 PM