IP: Is Europe irrelevant?

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: "Hiawatha Bray" <watha () monitortan com>
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 10:48:00 -0500
To: <farber () cis upenn edu>
Subject: Is Europe irrelevant?

This piece is written by an American, but it appears in the Times, and it
forms a rather stark contrast to the European perspective.
 
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,482-212409,00.html
 
Opinion 

 
February 19, 2002

Bush turns away from the weaklings of Europe
irwin stelzer

Europeans and Americans are now living on different planets, a prominent
Washington pundit with impeccable conservative credentials and clear lines
into the Bush White House told me at a recent dinner party for a small group
of Administration members and their confidants. He had just returned from an
international meeting of foreign policy experts in Munich, the Wehrkunde
conference, impressed by the huge gap that now exists between the world view
of Europe¹s policymakers and their American counterparts. This came as no
surprise to the Administration folks at my dinner party: they are quite
simply unable to comprehend the reaction of their supposed allies in Europe
to the President¹s State of the Union message, and to the direction he has
laid out for America in the near and long-term future. To the Bush team, the
War on Terror is a defining moment in history, and they are proud to be
involved in what they see as a battle that will prove decisive for the
future of the world's democracies. The World Trade Centre and the Pentagon
were Pearl Harbor, multiplied in importance by the fact that Hawaii is a
nice place, but it isn¹t the heart of the US financial industry or the nerve
centre of the military. The consensus in Washington ‹ both among the people
who influence American policy and those who make it ‹ is that Europe is
irrelevant to the world today. Because it will not spend what is necessary
to matter as a military power, its views on issues that involve the use of
such power are of no consequence to America. Even the most casual follower
of foreign affairs rattled off the fact that the increase in America¹s
defence spending is almost half again as large as the total budget of
Europe¹s biggest defence spender, the UK. Complaints about ³unilateralism²
are dismissed as whingeing by those unwilling to belly up to the bar and buy
a round of drinks, to put in polite terms the unprintable reaction of some
of my guests. Some in Washington are arguing that there is an unfortunate
coincidence of timing: the War on Terror has made clear Europe¹s impotence
at precisely the time that it has demonstrated America¹s overwhelming
technological advantages. At least, that¹s how an increasingly
self-confident White House team sees things. The military weakness of Europe
is only one factor that is causing the EU to be seen as irrelevant.
Administration officials are convinced that Europe is completely
inward-looking, obsessed with tweaking the various bureaucratic institutions
that are known here as ³Brussels². They contrast this with outwardlooking
America. While Europe fusses over Macedonia and the problems of French
farmers, America is developing new, innovative long-run policies towards
countries that really matter in the 21st century ‹ China, Russia, India. The
EU¹s idea of confronting tyranny is being mocked as continued insistence on
a failed and futile policy of ³constructive engagement², and hurling insults
at the US. America¹s idea is different. The President, backed by his entire
team, including the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, beloved of EU policy
elites as a counter-balance to the bellicose Secretary of Defence Donald
Rumsfeld, is determined to unseat threatening regimes or force them to
change their behaviour, by force if necessary. In short, those who matter
here are convinced of two things: the important business of the world will
be done by America, which will not let any coalition dictate its mission;
and Europe is largely irrelevant to our efforts to make America safe from
further harm. There is more. Several Administration economists are convinced
that Europe is doomed to economic weakness ‹ low growth and high
unemployment. Its military irrelevance will be matched by its economic
irrelevance as the century wears on. Germany, refusing to reform its labour
markets, will cope with double-digit unemployment for years to come.
France¹s dirigisme will require that it continues to press for protectionist
measures. The one-size-fits-all interest rate, combined with the Growth and
Stability Pact¹s restrictions on deficit spending, mean protracted periods
of no-growth or, worse still, recession. So think those economists who
matter in today's Washington. Their views on monetary union are even
stronger. And negative. One told us that he doesn¹t understand why the
European elites don¹t see in the collapse of Argentina a warning. Fixed
exchange rates don¹t work when labour can¹t move freely among nations in the
fixed-rate area, he argues. All America can do, he concludes, is wait for
the strains on the euro to become intolerable, and then politely refrain
from saying ³I told you so². So why should America bother arguing against
the inevitable, especially when the Europeans have made it clear that they
see their emerging superstate as an international counterweight to what they
call the US hyperpower. And that they see President Bush as being in the
despised tradition of Ronald Reagan ‹ an untutored and dangerous cowboy with
an itchy trigger finger ‹ ³simplistic² and ³absurd², according to the French
Foreign Minister, Hubert Védrine; engaged in an effort to ³legitimise old
enmities", according to Germany¹s Deputy Foreign Minister, Ludger Vollmer;
³absolutist², according to the European Commissioner Chris Patten; concerned
only with influencing America¹s November congressional elections, according
to Jack Straw. Make no mistake ‹ those words are widely reported in the
allegedly parochial American press. And they matter. Americans, accustomed
to saying what they mean and, in the case of this President¹s team, proud of
meaning what they say, take seriously the rhetoric of Europe¹s politicians,
and refuse to excuse them merely as talk aimed at domestic audiences. It
will come as small comfort to those Europeans interested in maintaining
cordial relations with the United States that there is some sympathy for the
European predicament. One of my colleagues summed it up by saying that he
can understand Europe¹s frustration, it once having been a great centre of
Western culture and power, now reduced to irrelevance. And he meant it in a
kindly way. The good news for Britain is that it is seen as an exception, a
sort of non-European country. Tony Blair¹s instant and complete support for
America after September 11 has won his country a special place in American
hearts. No matter that the tangible help he can offer is of marginal
consequence. Or that Jack Straw¹s sneering remarks about the President¹s
State of the Union speech, and his suggestion that prisoners at Camp X-Ray
are being mistreated, have produced sufficient annoyance to prompt a
rebuttal from the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice. American
policymakers, who a short time ago wouldn¹t have known Jack Straw from any
other left-wing British politician with a penchant for anti-Israel forays
into Middle Eastern policy, are now sufficiently tuned into British politics
to be looking forward to the reshuffle that will see him replaced with
someone more sympathetic to the Prime Minister¹s broader vision of the need
for a sustained effort against terrorists and the regimes that support them.
Republican politicians well know that Mr Blair is being accused of
neglecting the home front in order to concentrate on foreign policy. After
all, they are obsessed with the memory that such a combination cost the
President¹s father the 1992 elections. Blair¹s American friends say that his
critics would do well to consider that the goodwill he is building in
America, and the IOUs he is accumulating from Bush and the American people,
will stand Britain in good stead some day. And that he is listened to by the
President in a way that is the envy of those European leaders who specialise
in ridiculing Bush. America¹s special relationship with Britain is often
contrasted with its ambiguous relationship with France. The story making the
rounds is a reminder of Lyndon Johnson¹s response to then-President Charles
de Gaulle¹s demand that America remove its soldiers from French soil. At
Johnson¹s instruction, his Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, inquired whether
the demand applied to those buried in military cemeteries in France. Michael
Barone, one of Washington¹s leading pundits, says that Rusk once told this
story to a young Donald Rumsfeld. No one doubts that the Defence Secretary
remembers it. Contribute to the Debate via
comment () thetimes co uk


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