September 2, 2004
THE NAKED EMPEROR
Why Europe must have the Bomb (Stephen Haseler, The Spectator, September 4th, 2004)
The new world ushered in by America’s limits will be a world of great powers. And, already, as the dust settles on the Middle East imbroglio, we can see the contours of this new great power politics. According to population and economic growth projections, by mid-century the US will be one power among equals, perhaps ‘primus inter pares’, perhaps not. It will need to adjust to a world of blocs and to multiple superpowers of which the most prominent will be China, India, South Asia and Europe (and maybe even a revitalised Japan).But what of the short-run? The next ten years? The stark truth here — and it is as unpalatable to the neoconservatives in Washington as it is to those in Whitehall — is that the only new power able to come close to rivalling and balancing the US in the world is Europe. Even now Europe has the dimensions to rival the US. With a population of over 450 million (100 million or so more than the US), the world’s largest single market and economy (now, since the fall of the dollar, almost 20 per cent larger), and with the euro firmly established, Europe has already become a civilian superpower. And it also possesses that intangible virtue of economic stability (the obverse side of its alleged ‘sclerosis’) compared to a US prone to stock market gyrations, debt, deficits and dependence on febrile Asian money.
Washington’s hawks are of course right to mock Europe’s superpower pretensions while the Continent’s military spending remains so low — at about a half of the Pentagon’s budget, and falling. Europe will need to spend more, particularly on intelligence. Much more. Although Europe can get a much bigger ‘bang’ for its existing ‘buck’ by pooling its resources and finally developing a proper procurement strategy, its politicians need to start a serious campaign to secure public support for defence. The war on terror may help here. And as long as European military operations are placed in a European context, the pacifist tendencies in Germany can be held in check. Europe needs a militarily strong Germany. And — let’s not be bashful about it — Europe needs the Bomb. Talks between the EU’s two nuclear powers are still shrouded in mystery, but both Paris and London need to work out a nuclear strategy.
But does Europe have the will not just to spend more on defence but to become a superpower — to take on the grime and the glory of global responsibility? Are Europe’s leaders willing to play, rather than posture, on the world stage? Do they have the bottle to stand up to Washington? And should Washington falter or retrench, to fill the power vacuum? [...]
Franco-German ‘Core Europe’ — ‘Charlemagna’ — is back in business. Germany now sides with France (not Washington) on security issues. Although Franco-Germany virtually amounts to a superpower itself, the idea is for this ‘core’ to act as a magnet for others. Spain has slipped out of the American orbit and joined already, and Italy will too when the Berlusconi era ends. The even bigger idea — the one that truly creates the European superpower — is to turn this Franco-German duo into a troika — with Paris and Berlin being joined by London in running the new Europe’s diplomacy (as in the three powers’ Iran initiative) and, ultimately, its defence.
One of the more intriguing aspects of the surge in U.S. power and influence since the end of the cold war is the number of intellectuals who make a good living arguing that she is in decline and that powerful rivals are coming on strong to challenge her. If one posits the inevitability of this as an opening premise that speaks for itself, the road to indulge freely in all kinds of delicious fantasies is opened. In this one, we are asked to believe a continent that can’t agree on its membership or its currency, speaks dozens of languages, has a declining population, is economically ossified and has no military is on the cusp of putting the U.S. in its place, whatever Mr. Haseler thinks that would mean.
Even if, for the sake of argument, Europe can overcome its current fractiousness and record relatively healthy economic results in the near term, why in the world would it want to pursue the course urged here? How could twenty-seven states embroiled in parmanent bureaucratic posturing and jelously cooperate in maintaining a foreign policy and a sizeable, modern military? Didn't Bosnia prove they can't? What threats or enemies do Europeans fear besides one another? Hasn’t the thrust of “Charlemagna’s” position been that there are really no threats that sanctions and a few stiff Security Council Resolutions can’t check? Frankly, one can sympathize with the French leftist workers who would refuse to see their pensions cut in the name of this pipedream.(A militarily strong Germany?)
The European project has brought a lot of good things to Europe, but its survival seems to depend entirely on its elites indulging in non-stop self-admiration and self-congratulation, promoting historical fantasies and insisting, as an article of faith, that the momentum towards further growth, integration and influence is unstoppable–even when their own populations manage to stop it in its tracks. In this regard it is somewhat like a Marxist regime that survives on the lie that it is moving upwards towards a more perfect and idyllic state. If it must distort history and indoctrinate citizens, then is what it must do for the greater good of all. If it must make a bogeyman out of the U.S., tant mieux. Their greatest fear is that their populations will abandon the dream and the whole foundation will collapse.
Europe’s decline would probably not benefit anyone, but its chance of maintaining a leading influence in future global affairs has little to do with the bomb or German military might. Its best shot is probably to fuel anti-Americanism at home and abroad and convince as many uninformed Americans as possible to buy into this silliness.
I'm hearing an old Tom Lehrer song in my head: "MLF Lullaby" (about a circa-1964 proposal to give West Germany the Bomb).
Sleep, baby, sleep, in peace may you slumber,
No danger lurks, your sleep to encumber.
We've got the missiles, peace to determine,
And one of the fingers on the button will be German.
Spain "slipped out of the American orbit" because a plurality of voters decided after a terrorist attack that if we appeased the attackers by disassociating ourselves with the United States, they'd leave us alone. How do you get from that to the idea that if the European Union nations stress their possession of "The Bomb" that their leaders and/or voters will have any political will to actually use it in the wake of a catestophic terror strike on one of their nations?
Odds are the victimized nation would be ready to retaliate, but the others would simply tut-tut after the initial shock had worn off and do nothing more than wait for the U.S. to take care of the situation, as with the mess in the Balkans in the 1990s.
Posted by: John at September 2, 2004 6:29 PM"civilian superpower" - ?
Posted by: BJW at September 2, 2004 7:17 PMBut that's not the best part Mike. The bridge goes:
"Once all the Germans were warlike and mean,
but that couldn't happen again.
We taught them a lesson in 1918,
and they've hardly bothered us since then."
I haven't figured out how to do italics.
Posted by: Jeff at September 2, 2004 7:40 PMActually, BJW, that is another theme that keeps popping up. The U.S. is so embarassingly far ahead of everyone in military strength that the only thing left for the chattering classes to do is to disdain military power as just one of many indices of influence and not nearly as important as other "soft" powers. These types tend to write about international relations as if they were analagous to running for Homecoming Queen.
Posted by: Peter B at September 2, 2004 7:42 PMYou yak about your "soft power" of diplomacy, your Moral Superiority, your Pacifism, your Obvious Advantages over such simplissme cowboys.
This simplissme cowboy, too utterly stupid to understand the Moral Superiority of Such Great Intellect, puts his gun to your head and pulls the trigger.
Who wins now?
Posted by: Ken at September 2, 2004 8:57 PM> The U.S. is so embarassingly far ahead of everyone in military strength
Who's embarrased? Certainly no American of Jacksonian leanings is.
Posted by: at September 3, 2004 5:23 AMThe Colonel Blimp bunch over at the Spectator sure like fuzzy math don't they?
The US spends $450 billion a year on defense, the rest of the world spends about $405 billion. The nation with the second largest defense expenditure is Japan at $60 billion. Anyone who thinks that Europe can do anything more efficiently than the US just isn't living in the real world.
This article read like it was written by someone who has spent entirely too much time in Amsterdam hash bars. What makes him think that anyone in Italy or Holland, much less Poland or the Czech Republic wants to be part of an empire run from Germany? Been there, done that. What makes him think that the nations of Eastern Europe which are trying to recuperate from centuries of feudal, Fascist and Communist oppression have the same economic policy as the sclerotic no-growth states of 'Old Europe?' The EU has been held together by an elaborate network of subsidies to preferred economic groups, like the farmers of Upper Bavaria. How much in taxes are impoverished Slovakian coal miners and Romanian oil workers going to want to pay to subsidize Hans and Franz so they can keep their cable TV and their vacations on the Turkish Riviera?
The current relative weakness of the dollar vs the Euro is the result of different monetary policies. If the exchange rate were the same and we had a tight money policy, I'd be worried. The fastest growing economy in old Europe is Germany at a rousing 1.6% annually. In the immortal words of Derrick Coleman, 'Whoop-de-dam-do!' The notion that anybody would want to invest in 'Europe' rather than some European developing economies or the US because of its 'stability' is laughable, but the Colonel Blimps, who still think Britain has an empire, believe it.
The only kind of unity that makes any sense for Europe is a customs union or Free Trade Zone. Anything else has no future.
The notion that there has to be a counterweight to American power is so old Europe it's Paleolithic. We are not an imperialist power seeking to impose its will on every corner of the globe, unlike the 19th century Brits and the 20th century Germans and Russians. We want to be at peace with everyone, and to be trading partners with everyone. Had a bunch of animals not decided to fly planes into the WTC, we would not be at war today. Had Saddam not sponsored terrorist attacks all over the planet, we would not have deposed him in Iraq. Americans know history. We have seen how Europe, a place which is today little more than a cemetery with a few good restaurants and museums, in its egomania, arrogance and rapaciousness, has started two world wars, and created countless problems throughout the world that require us to unravel or to at least minimize.
Let me say this in a way that even this drug-addled Limey can understand 'Europe, GET STUFFED!'
Posted by: Bart at September 3, 2004 8:11 AMEurope has been arguing about force levels for over a hundred years, but the context changed around 1990.
No chance of large-scale combat at home.
So, what to do? It seems obvious that panzer divisions and submarines are not needed any more.
The only call for military is force projection, altho' it's not so easy to decide on what scale.
Europe has done pretty well in emphasizing 'paras,' just the sort of thing it wants if it does want to do force projection. Not nearly so well with logistical backing for them.
And the end of colonialism has meant the end of distant bases.
Orrin was disparaging yesterday about the Royal Navy. The navy is, in fact, powerful, compared to anybody but the US, but its force projection capability is pretty much restricted to the West Indies and the western Mediterranean and west Africa, for lack of bases.
Nukes are hardly in the picture. Who'd they be used against?
It does strike me a strange, though, to present this kind of dilemma as a failure of policy. Unless your policy is prowar, the difficulty of deciding whether you want any military at all would seem to be the greatest triumph of policy in all history.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at September 3, 2004 2:10 PM"For the first time since 1947, and the era of global American leadership, two major allies were defying the leader of the West and getting clean away with it. Not only were they refusing to come on board but they were actually campaigning against the US around the globe. Europes most powerful leaders minus Tony Blair were asserting what should be an obvious truth: that the Continent has its own interests to protect, and that these interests will not always coincide with Washingtons."
Sure, now that they face no threat from the Soviet Union, they can show what 'stuff' they are made of. Are they really willing to piss away our good will just for the opportunity to prove to themselves that they have cojones? It is a strange kind of courage they are showing, standing up to Washington so as not to compromise their appeasement of the Arab 'street'.
Posted by: Robert Duquette at September 3, 2004 11:00 PM