Although I have significant disagreements with this article, I nonetheless found it thought-provoking. Although its 20 pages, you can probably skim some sections to get the main points.
In a nutshell: Kagan views the current Atlantic divide as in large part the national dissasociation between mid-tier powers and great powers. Mid-tiers seek rules based systems, great powers seek to act unilaterally. In the end, the US should show greater commitment to international rules, and Europe should so great commitment to enforcing those rules with military power. http://www.policyreview.org/JUN02/kagan_print.html JDG Here is my analysis: 1) Was disappointed that Kagan treated Europe's process of unification into the European Union as unique, and drew no parallels to the formation of the United States - which at the time included a great deal of both religious diversity (Puritans in New England, Catholics in Maryland, Quakers in Pennsylvania, Protestants everywhere else) and ethnic diversity (Dutch in New York, Swedes in the mid-atlantic, Germans in PA - in fact, the US Congress fell one vote shy of making German the national language.) Indeed, the US in large part is the culmination of the transition from ethnic-based nationalism (frex, France is the land of the French, Germany is the land of the Germans, the US, however, is *not* the land of the US'ins) to idea-based nationalism (US nationalism resides around the Consitution, the Declaration of Independence, and other ideals, etc.) - a transition that the Europeans are just beginning. Moreover, Kagan declares without comment - until about ten pages later anyways - that the European Union was designed as a counterweight to US hegemony, without acknowledging the much more complex picture that the US actually pushed the formation of the UN. If having the German lion lie down with the French lamb is a major "European" triumph of rules, it is a triumph with US fingerprints over it. Moreover, many Americans, including myself, still view a strong and united Europe as being in the US national interest (despite the best efforts of the French to shake that belief recently.) 2) I am not at all convinced that, as Kagan asserts, the end of the Cold War made the US more prone to "toss its weight around the world." I haven't done the analysis, but what about Grenada, Nicaragua, and all the silent battles fought by US special ops during the Cold War throughout the developing world? Indeed, completely neglected by Kagan is that an unwilling US practically had to be dragged into the Balkan conflict by the Europeans, after the Europeans realized that they lacked the military might to solve this problem on their own. I guess, in the end, the end of the Cold War to 9/11 provides too small of a sample to draw firm conclusions either way about the rold of a hyperpower in a unipolar world, without perceived strategic threats. 3) Europe, or more specifically, France - can hardly be described as being pacifistic over militaristic. If the US is going to be called militaristic for intervening in the Balkans, Haiti, and Somalia - then France must similarily be credited for its interventions in Cote d'Ivoire, the Central African Republic, and any other of its former colonies. Indeed, an analysis of French foreign policy without mention of the Gaullist view that American cultural and military hegemony is France's primary long-term strategic threat just seems inadequate. Kagan sometimes comes tantalizingly close to tackling this, only to come up empty - but, a primary source of the Atlantic divide he is analyzing is the inherent irrationality of a French worldview that views the US to be a greater strategic threat to French interests than Hussein, bin Laden, or China. Although Kagan admits that the US has a conscience and an idealistic streak, France doesn't see it. Indeed, although Kagan talks of the US's indispensible role in defending Western Civilization, his oversight causes him to miss out on the paradox of France considering the very protector of its civilization - the US - to be its greater threat. 4) Kagan's central proposition in describing his worldview seems to be that mid-tier powers favor rules, and big-time-powers, quote, "fear rules that may constrain them...." The problem with this analysis is that he only barely touches upon the role of low-powers in this worldview. If the mid-tiers live in the "idealism" world of rules and agreements, and (in Kagan's view) the big-powers reside in a Hobbesian world (in Kagan's view) "simply because they can (and fear constraint", then certainly the low-powers also live in the Hobbesian world. Clearly, there is no evidence that Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Islamic Fundamentalist Iran, Kim Jong Il's DPRK, nor Al-Qaeda/Taliban Afghanistan have any interest in operating in a system of international rules. Indeed, the DPRK clearly views the European-style international rules system as a way to have their cake and eat it too, having in 1994 agreed to be bribed in exchange for not building nukes under this system, and instead took the bribes of the "idealism" system and then very Hobbesian-like built their nukes anyways. The closest that Kagan gets to this is noting that in a three-tiered world, the low-powers target the top-dogs, and the mid-tiers are basically on the sidelines. Threats like Al Qaeda, Hussein, etc. are only going to attack Europe as an afterthought. Their primary energies, however, will be directed towards the US as they were when the WTC was bombed the first time, when US embassies were blown up in Africa, when Khobar Towers were bombed in Saudi Arabia, when the USS Cole was bombed, and when incredible effort and coordination were directed towards simultaneously hijacking four planes and flying them into prominent US buildings. Meanwhile, non-US targets, such as Bali and a synagogue filled with German tourists in Tunisia, are targeted as afterthoughts, clearly with a smaller degree of coordination and planning. Thus, the big powers, ie the US, exist in Hobbesian world not just by choice and fear of constraint - but because the US's strategic enemies are operating in a Hobbesian world against us. Now, Kagan recognizes that the US has a conscience and is *willing* (perhaps having formerly been a mid-tier oursleves) to create a system of international rules and to be constrained. The US went to the United Nations regarding Iraq not once, but many, many, times in a concerted diplomatic effort. Indeed, despite the fact that US intentions towards Iraq after President Bush's axis-of-evil speech in January 2002, the US did not rush into war with any real unilateralism - hostilities did not commense until one year and two months after that speech. Indeed, this is even though the letter of UN Resolutions 678 and 1441 clearly authorized the US to use force in this case against . Clearly, the US is willing to be constrained. So, with this more-or-less alignment between US and European interests in building an international system of rules and constrains, why the Atlantic divide? I think that the problem is that the US doubts the commitment of the mid-tiers (Europe) to make the idealist system work. Its clear that in the world, there exist a number of low-powers who simply aren't going to operate under the idealist system unless it is forced upon them. I think that the US genuinely doubts the commitment of Europe to do this - especially since Europe faces much less of the risk from a failure of this system than the US. The rumoured comment of the French foreign minister that France's veto would be a, quote, "knife in the back of the US" certainly don't help things in convincing the US that such a system will work for both the big-power's (US's) and mid-tier's (Europe's) mutual interest. I do think that Kagan's prescription of Europe trying to at least build a token capability to project military power is a good one. Indeed, Europe can multiply the usefullness of their military power to the US through specialization. For example, Europe having basically directly aided the Iraq campaign through the back-door of assuming the US's peacekeeping responsibilities in the Balkans and in Afghanistan could continue to focus upon specialization in peacekeeping duties. This could create a happy partnership, as big-powers (the US) have a natural specialization in offensive capabilites and the mid-tiers (Europe) have a natural interest in pursuing rules-based peackeeping and peace-making. Indeed, under such an arrangement, the UK would continue to fit neatly into its role as the "Atlantic Bridge" between the US and Europe, being able to contribute to both the US's offensive efforts (British special forces are basically the best in the world) and to Europe's peacekeeping. As for what the US can do, I have always thought that not making the assault on Afghanistan a NATO operation was mistake - although, in fairness, many European countries were highly reluctant to invoke Article VII - and recalling the time period, I remember little evidence that Europeans wanted Afghanistan to be a NATO operation. I personally agree that Afghanistan would have been the perfect occasion for NATO to operate outside the North Atlantic region for the first time, and perhaps, for the first time, to make NATO a truly global alliance by perhaps inviting Australia to membership. With that being said, a great many Europeans would have been opposed to that (to say nothing of the rest of the non-European world, which would probably have been furious, to say the least.) Thus, while the view that the US should have brough NATO (ie, France) into Afghanistan, and thus made them partners in the War on Terrorism, I do not consider it a given that Europe/NATO would have agreed to this (although, how quickly we forget that NATO flew air patrols in the US while our air force was engaged in Afghanistan) and moreover, I don't think that having the French in Afghanistan would have resolved the French paradox, and ultimately, I consider the French paradox to be at the heart of the Atlantic divide. After all, virtually every other European government supported the US in Iraq except France, Belgium (largely at France's urging), and Germany. Germany's opposition, however, was the result of the Social Democrats eeking out a narrow victory over the CDU - and the CDU is on record as saying that they would have voted for the US resolution. As it is, the Social Democrat government has an approval rating of, get this, 25% in Germany. Thus, were it not for France's incomprehensible view that the US is France's greatest strategic threat, it is entirely possible that we would not be terribly preoccupied with the Atlantic divide at all. As for solutions as to how to resolve the French paradox? Well, I'm open to suggestions.... sigh. JDG ===== ----------------------------------------------------------------------- John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tonight I have a message for the brave and oppressed people of Iraq: Your enemy is not surrounding your country � your enemy is ruling your country. And the day he and his regime are removed from power will be the day of your liberation." -George W. Bush 1/29/03 __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Platinum - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, live on your desktop! http://platinum.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
