As events now unfold swiftly and unpredictably, it’s worth, I think, taking a step back and reading books on our current predicament. One I’ve found particularly helpful is Bob Kagan’s “Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order.” The thesis of this slim tome is now quite familiar. What Kagan argues is that in the post-war period, the Western European powers, particularly Germany and France, have constructed a post-modern political settlement. By pooling sovereignty, substituting gradualist economic and social integration for warfare, and all but gutting their militaries, they have grown used to a certain way of dealing with international problems. They recoil from the use of force in almost any circumstances. And their military weakness has led them to try to wield their power through international institutions, like the U.N. and the E.U., that depend on soft rather than hard power. In contrast, after the Cold War, the U.S. has become militarily supreme, dominant in hard power in unprecedented fashion, as well as economically open and dynamic. Put these two trends together and add an intractable problem like Iraq and you have an almost predetermined clash: unavoidable, profound, and to be repeated.
AND TODAY’S DIVIDE: But what makes Kagan’s argument more than just smart is that he sees through this construct how the current international clash is therefore the result of deep tectonic changes, not of some burst of anti-Americanism, or the presidency of George W. Bush, or the alleged neocon cabal now running the country. He points out how under the Clinton administration, for example, the same deep tensions were evident in Bosnia and Kosovo (far less geo-strategically significant matters than Iraq). He notes that Clinton never envisaged actually implementing Kyoto and had deep qualms about the International Criminal Court. And these differences between Albright and Vedrine or Powell and de Villepin were not just philosophical; they reflected the natural interests of strong military powers and weak ones respectively. What 9/11 did was present a genuine international crisis of security in the context of this deep schism. I don’t see how it will be resolved – after Iraq or at any time in the near future. And until you’ve absorbed this dynamic, it seems to me that the blame game regarding individuals can get overblown. Of course, Kagan’s ultimate sympathies lie with the U.S., as do mine. But that’s not because it wouldn’t be lovely to live in paradise – but because at the edges of the Elysian fields are weeds and jungles, and someone has to police them. Europe’s paradise, in the last resort, is only possible because of U.S. power in the Second World War and the Cold War. So Europe should get out of the way of the police action or join in. We’re not policing the Belgians. We’re dealing with crazies like Kim Jong Il or Osama bin Laden. Neither is likely to join the euro any time soon.
The Dish 