The resentments of old Europe

A few years ago, as I waited for a plane in Phoenix airport, I fell into conversation with a woman from Tucson. She greeted my statement that I had just flown on a plane from Britain with a level of astonishment that would not have been out of place if I had said it was a spaceship from Pluto. ‘And what is the weather like there?’ she asked, wide-eyed with curiosity. ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘it’s pretty wet, but that’s what comes of living on an island at the edge of the ocean.’

‘Britain is an island!’ she exclaimed. ‘Hey, John,’ she shouted to her husband, ‘did you know the Brits all live on an island?’

Such encounters feed all our prejudices about America. They stand accused of being insular, unsophisticated and ignorant of the rest of the world. In many European eyes, these grave deficiencies make it all the more annoying that they have nevertheless become by far the richest and most powerful nation on our planet. To be seen as stupid invites contempt, and to be powerful produces respect, but to be known as both at the same time creates a particularly intense form of jealousy and resentment.

Such are the feelings of many on this side of the Atlantic towards America’s assertion of its power. Bush is more dangerous than Saddam, they chant. Americans have killed more people than the Iraqis. The US seeks world domination and an oil monopoly. If none of these things is true, then the Americans just don’t understand us in the rest of the world. And allied to the heated chants of demonstrators is the cold power-play of the Elysée Palace, freely confessed to by French ministers in private, determined to take the opportunity to scotch Anglo-American leadership in world affairs.

But what is the true nature of America? Is the US really more dangerous to world peace than a mass-murdering, genocidal dictator who has invaded his neighbours, used chemical weapons, stowed away hundreds of tons of anthrax and tortured tens of thousands to death? Is it now an imperialist nation?

I have been lucky enough to travel across most of the states of America. I have sat with old men on their porches in Tennessee, and ridden with young wranglers in Montana in the mountains of the Great Divide. As a politician, I have visited schools in New York, retirement homes in Florida and technology firms in San Diego. And I have to say that it would be hard to come across a nation of people less imperialist by culture, temperament and inclination. America was forged in the first place by the families of Protestant settlers who had a work ethic, a strong sense of right and wrong, and a hostility to governmental power and royal authority. They went to a new land in order to be away from wars, taxes and kings. Their attitudes, reinforced by the waves of dispossessed people who have joined them in succeeding centuries, remain the central characteristics of America today. Americans are still by nature disrespectful of authority, deeply democratic by instinct, very conscious of their freedom, and particularly happy to live in a vast and beautiful land which is free from external threats.

Such people are difficult to rouse to war. If Americans are insular — and many of them are — they cannot be imperialist at the same time. In British and French eyes, their sin over much of the last century has been isolationism: ‘too proud to fight’, as Woodrow Wilson said. Americans have always hated joining in other people’s conflicts. Only unrestricted submarine attacks off their west coast brought them into the first world war, and only a direct attack on American soil in Pearl Harbor brought them into the second, even Churchill’s brilliant eloquence having made little progress with them until then. Once roused, however, they have responded with a mixture of determination, loyalty and generosity that no other nation has ever matched. Without America, France would have lived in a dark age of dictatorship for decades. Without America, Germans could not have rescued themselves from a racist ideology. And without America, Europe’s only alternative to Nazi tyranny would have been communist tyranny. American troops left behind them an independent and democratic Japan, and brought Europe the Marshall Plan — both supreme acts of enlightenment in foreign policy. They share with Britain, but not with other European powers, the distinction of leaving democracy and freedom in their wake wherever they can.

That very freedom now gives millions the right to protest. South Koreans now resent the US troops without whom their society could not have survived. The French, it seems, have never got over the indignity of having to be rescued. And as the responsibilities of being a superpower in a Cold War required Americans to intervene in a wider range of conflicts, such resentment can be found anywhere on earth.

But now Americans are roused once again. They suffered on 11 September an attack on their own soil more devastating to human life than Pearl Harbor itself. Europeans sympathised, but they did so in the manner of sympathising with a friend who has suffered a bereavement. Americans actually experienced the bereavement. Pre-emptive warfare is their response, and if it had been Canary Wharf or the Eiffel Tower that had been reduced to dust, such a policy would be cheered to the echo. Those Europeans, including British people, who attack American policy have not seen thousands of their own citizens killed before their eyes in a single act. And they are not prepared to do anything about it themselves.

This surely is the crucial point. Americans are not warlike people, but they will now go after rogue states and terrorists because, if they don’t, no one else will. All over the world, America takes on responsibilities because others shirk them. They got involved in Kosovo because Europeans had neither the means nor the ability to sort it out. They pursue a ‘one-sided’ policy on Israel because without it the Jews would be driven into the sea. They need a huge increase in military spending partly because France, Germany and others are not prepared to spend a penny more themselves.

What the present crisis underlines is that Western Europe is losing its influence. In the coming decades, the greatest growth of manufacturing will be in China, the fastest growth of population in the Middle East and India, and the strongest enterprise culture and greatest military power will remain in America. The sound we can hear from Paris and Berlin is not the march of ever closer union, but the rage of ever closer impotence. Once again, when the world gets dangerous, it is the Americans, British and Australians who respond. The vacuum left by others leaves us no choice. And if America leads us yet again in destroying another murdering despot, I will join the woman in Tucson who has no knowledge of where I live, in saying, ‘God Bless America.’

They share with Britain, but not with other European powers, the distinction of leaving democracy and freedom in their wake wherever they can.

This article ought to be read and re-read all across America. And I might add that this line ought to be expanded to include the other English-speaking nations, which have, until the recent decline of Canada, been excellent partners.

And who decides who is a "rogue state" and who is not? Do we, as the only superpower?

No, we as a sovereign nation with the right of self-defense. If our war on rogue states that threaten our safety happens to make other nations safer as well, so much the better.

Whom do you think should decide? China? Iran? France?

Well said. People who want to deny the obvious always revert to relativistic "Who decides?" style arguments, as if a rogue state can't exist independent of perceptions of its rogueishness. Invading multiple neighbours, developing WMDs and gassing your own people make you a rogue state even if no one else in the world sees it that way.

And who decides who is a "rogue state" and who is not? Do we, as the only superpower? Sounds strange to me, I have to admit.

Of course we rely on our own judgment. Whose judgment should we rely upon? Perhaps that of Zimbabwe, Iraq, and North Korea, and the other enlightened members of the U.N.?

Now we are going to be prosecutor, judge and hangman at the same time without anyone else having a say in this? This does contradict our constitution, if I remember the clear separation of Judiciary and Executive correctly from my government classes.

Did you flunk your high school government course or something? The article talked about what the U.S. should do as a nation. It said nothing about which branches or government should be involved on those decisions, and your reference to the "Judiciary" and "Executive" makes no sense. The U.S. Constitution says nothing about the substance of the foreign policy conducted by the U.S.

Well stated by Mr. Hague... One thing he neglects here, at least somewhat: It was also American determination, investment and might that won the Cold War in the face of great opposition by much of Europe, thanks to the enlightened leadership of Ronald Reagan. Yes, PM Thatcher certainly also deserves credit, but it was Reagan's leadership backed up by US investment in defense spending that broke the back of the Soviets and ended the spread and advance of Communism in Europe, Asia, South America, and Africa. How many people now live in relative freedom and budding (sometimes stumbling) democracies because of this victory? Again, this victory came despite the active opposition by much of Europe (Germany, France, etc. protesting the arms build-up that won the Cold War).

Now think of what has happened since the tumbling of the Berlin Wall and the victory in the Cold War: "Old Europe" has essentially dis-invested in its military entirely, relying almost completely on the US Defense shield. France and Germany depend on US leadership in Serbia-Kosovo to solve this regional problem (no strategic interest for the US other than better stability in Europe) which the UN ignored. Terrorists represent a threat throughout the civilized world and the worst attack ever hits US soil: Europe grieves for the USA for about 6 months but when it is time to confront the sympathizers and supporters of terrorism, they use every trick in the book to tie-down the US in their diplomatic charade of the UN.

At some point, Atlas (the US) is going to "shrug" and let the likes of France and Germany sink into the abyss that they seem to yearn for. I wonder if they will ever wake up in time to avoid that disaster.

And who decides who is a "rogue state" and who is not? Do we, as the only superpower? Sounds strange to me, I have to admit.

Of course we rely on our own judgment. Whose judgment should we rely upon? Perhaps that of Zimbabwe, Iraq, and North Korea, and the other enlightened members of the U.N.?

strangely put...but I have to agree with you.

Despite all the liberal whining in the world, issues such as this are not relative. A nation that funnels money to murdering thugs who target innocent civilians for the purpose of enabling just such activity is a rogue state.

A nation that creates nuclear weapons and then sells them on the black market to any interested party that comes along is a rogue state.

In short any nation dedicated to pursueing policies of blatent and undeniable evil are rogue states. It doesnt take a rocket scientist to see it...though it might take a frenchmen to be blind to it.

Not strange at all. It seems the logical extension of self defense.

Consider. We are the target of choice of any number of ill-meaning types. Why? Because of our friends and our culture.

We are a living refutation of the policies and cultures of most of those who despise us. We are a living 'I told you so.' It must be annoying to be, for example, France. Desiring power that they no longer merit by force of arms or philosophy. Will people fight and die for the French welfare state? Their most effective force is the Foreign Legion. Telling, is it not?

So. Here we stand. Under assault from all sides, with few friends and allies, and many detractors.

To move to the metaphor, we are the citizen on the block, threatened with mob violence. We turn to our neighbors, and to what we have been told is the lawful authority. We find them, for the most part, either doing business with the godfathers of that mob, or happily planning their own criminal enterprises.

Above this lawful authority, there is nothing. So. What must we do?

I must admit that I agree with the initial post, and with danneskjold. Will we decide who is a rogue state? Yes. Because, out of fear or prurient interest, NO ONE ELSE will do so.

And if they threaten us, well... they have been warned. If they don't believe the warning, so be it.

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William Hague says the present crisis is confirming the virtues of Anglo-American attitudes