Posted on 02/14/2003 11:29:00 AM PST by HumanaeVitae
Tout se complique.
The strident obstructionism of France and Germany, and their attempt to lead an insurrection within NATO against the use of Western force against Saddam Hussein, even to the point of violating the treaty commitments of the alliance to the security of its own members (in this case, Turkey)--this is a genuinely momentous turn of events that should not be understood merely as a comedy of national character.
The petulance of these European states seems farcical, but in fact it is the expression of a profound historical transformation. It is not clear that the Europeans are entirely cognizant of this transformation, but it is essential, if the United States is to manage its global responsibilities effectively, that Americans be cognizant of it. For it is not the strategic impertinence of Europe that we are beholding, it is the strategic obsolescence of Europe.
Dissolve now to the mists of time, that is, to 1945. World War II, which left the fate of Europe in the hands of the United States and the Soviet Union, seemed to have pushed Europe away from the world-historical center to the world-historical periphery. For the next four decades, however, the marginality of Europe, its decline into relative powerlessness and ardent nostalgia, was obscured by the harsh suspense of the cold war. The division of Europe kept the continent at the front lines of the most significant global fact of the age: the contest, philosophical and political, between the United States and the Soviet Union. And so the Western European countries retained their importance as the countries of NATO, just as the Eastern European countries retained their importance (but so, so unhappily) as the countries of the Warsaw Pact. Throughout the cold war, the European sensation of being smack in the middle of the most dangerous and decisive conflict on earth was not at all illusion.
When that conflict ended, the self-importance of Europe finally became an illusion, a psycho-strategic disorder. The kicking and screaming of France and Germany in recent weeks is the direct consequence of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the termination of the cold war. In these new circumstances, Europe is rather lacking in strategic ontology. Indeed, Europe has gladly acquiesced in its withdrawal from grand historical action, exchanging the burdens of military power for the blandishments of a continent-wide embourgeoisement, for what Robert Kagan has rightly called a "post-historical paradise." A European way of life was preferred to a European presence in the world. In this sense, the European Union represents the antithesis of NATO, and the retort to it. Meanwhile, new powers and new threats, new allies and new enemies, were emerging in regions very far away from the Louvre.
There was one place, though, where time stood still. That place was Turtle Bay. The United Nations continued for half a century to confer special authority upon the states that possessed special authority at its founding. The "permanent membership" status of France on the Security Council is not so much an outrage as an anachronism. Maintaining the diplomacy of the 1940s in perpetuity is rather like maintaining the technology of the 1940s in perpetuity; but the United Nations does not still use rotary telephones. The protest of Jacques Chirac against the contemporary world order is the protest of a rotary telephone. (The notion that his protest is based on principle is too ridiculous to consider.) He is teaching his country and his continent to deny reality, which is never a wise teaching.
No, not his entire continent. There are some European states, some NATO members, who understand the justice of the American campaign and the necessity of American leadership. If Americans are from Mars, some Europeans are from Vilnius. And Spain and Italy have demonstrated that even old Europeans know how to exist in the present. But then there is Belgium, which roars that the weapons inspectors in Iraq must be given more time. There was once a great French poet whose cherished term for mediocrity was l'esprit Belge. This week l'esprit Belge is running wild in geopolitics. Never mind. The bruised ego of Europe is less dangerous to the world than the hidden arsenal of Saddam Hussein. And our cultural affinity for Europe has outlived our strategic affinity for Europe. The American sense of the world is right and clear: nation-building in Kabul and Baghdad, vacation-building in Paris and Berlin. The world really has changed.
the Editors
Next time don't do all italics. It's hard to read.
NATO is as worthless as the U.N. It's time to kick them to the curb.
All Gaul, divided into three parts, is Italic ...
Yup. I'd close down the UN in NY and raze the building, and pull all our guys outta Europe. Let those bastards fend for themselves.
We're expected to do what's good for Europe even if it directly impacts America's interests. The whole situation is totally ridiculous. Without us, NATO is nothing. We should withdraw and let Europe crash and burn. To hell with them, if they can't step up and do what's right in a case as blatantly obvious as Iraq, we need to just cut them loose.
I'm not at all impressed with most of the countries that have pledged their supposed support, either. If they're not allocating troops and war machines, their words ring hollow and they're just as worthless as Belgium, France, and Germany. Our decades old campaign to buy friends is worse than worthless, it's downright counterproductive and should be ended immediately. /rant off
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