DIPLOMACY WITH ATTITUDE

The Last Word: The attitude problem (Bret Stephens, Jerusalem Post, August 13th, 2004)

In the United States, the gap between policies and attitudes is not often noticed. Partly, this has to do with the depth of American democracy: In the US, attitudes translate into policy far more quickly and frequently than they do elsewhere in the world. It also has to do with America's capacity to translate attitudes into meaningful policies. If, for instance, America feels strongly enough about human-rights abuses in China, it can take measures – trade sanctions, arms sales to Taiwan, etc. – which the Chinese are bound to feel keenly.

For the better part of past 50 years, neither the French nor Europeans generally have had this luxury. The average Belgian may feel quite strongly about human-rights abuses in China. But the chances that his attitude will translate into some kind of meaningful policy are effectively zero.

The result is what one might call attitude inflation, which in turn arises from the de-linking of attitude from policy. That is, if you don't actually have to do something about your attitudes you're likelier to have more of them, and they are bound to be both more extravagant and more unrealistic. People who are in no position to end world hunger and bring about peace in the Middle East can endlessly carry on about ending world hunger and bringing peace to the Middle East. Doing so means only that they're declaring themselves the sorts of folk who deplore hunger and war. But statesmen who must actually wrestle with issues of cost, capacity, local difficulties and unintended consequences tend to have more realistic, and therefore restrained, attitudes.[...]

This smacks of hypocrisy. Indeed, it would be hypocrisy, if it could be said that France actually had a policy toward Israel – a lever with which it could realistically and meaningfully affect events here. But France has no such lever, and the EU doesn't either. What it has is attitude masquerading as policy. Thus the votes at the UN, the menace of a Belgian court, the hortatory threats of sanction in the European Parliament. The attitude is as hostile as the threat is hollow. If France or the EU actually had to conduct a policy, as they did in 1956, they would eventually detect a certain commonality of interests.

This is why the world does not have much to fear from a European super-state (though Europeans might), should it ever come about. Power usually means responsibility. And as the example of France shows, when it comes to the things over which they have power, they exercise it responsibly. In the meantime, we'll have to put up with attitude. We've survived worse.

He might have added that this explains why the citizens of powerless countries feel free to criticize nations with the capacity to actually do something. As their own governments can do nothing, they are free to demand abstract purity and perfection from those which can without any thought of cost or sacrifice. This is one of the most compelling arguments why excessive concern with the support of “traditional allies” and multilateral approval is misplaced.

Posted by Peter Burnet at August 13, 2004 8:52 AM