rumbleph1$h Posted August 21, 2005 Share Posted August 21, 2005 Another great essay IMO: More Continental Drift? The rationale behind a new world order by Victor Davis Hanson The American Enterprise August 18, 2005 The new chasm between Europe and the United States seems to widen still ? even as transatlantic diplomats assure us that it has narrowed ? despite a common heritage and a supposedly shared goal of global democracy, free markets, and defeating terrorists. Europeans sell arms to autocratic China that will threaten democratic Taiwan. They legitimize the terrorists of Hamas and Hezbollah, and mostly caricature the American efforts at democratizing the Middle East. All this follows the past appeasement of Yasser Arafat, strife over the Kyoto protocols and the International Criminal Court, and the use of the United Nations to hamstring the United States in the war that followed 9/11. What is behind this divide? Is it that the U.S. is militarily strong while the wealthy Europeans have made themselves essentially impotent ? classic ingredients for deep-seated envy? Or did the close of the Cold War bring an end to the shared purposes that used to paper over the cracks of innate cultural differences? Americans tend to wish for less government and more personal freedom. They are more religious, aggressive, and acquisitive. Europeans instead prefer statism and an enforced equality of result. Far more of them are irreligious, pacifist, and more interested in leisure than in national progress and personal wealth. Now that they have no fear of the Soviet army, they have little need for us ? or so they think. Proponents of the old transatlantic alliance shrug and say things will improve. Some allege that George Bush's cowboyism is to blame for the current rift. With a bit more astute diplomacy and softer voices ? or someone like a French-speaking John Kerry as President ? we could get along as well as in the past. Really? Euro-U.S. relations may have returned to civility and even shared commitment after the recent attacks in London, but our real closeness is probably over. NATO is comatose ? a Potemkin alliance without a mission. It has devolved into Americans trying to shame affluent Europeans into buying a few more planes to add to their dreadfully feeble fighting forces ? which lack any reflection of the vast wealth and population of Europe. The shaky European Union is as much driven by anti-Americanism as by pro-Europeanism. Only with unity comes the hope to rebuff effectively the United States. In response, it is far more likely that Americans will envision Germany and France less as friends than as rivals. Since our own European ancestors tamed the frontier in order to craft a nation that would in many ways be an antithesis to their home continent, this is not a big stretch. Careful reading of American history does not suggest a natural U.S. partnership with Europe. Rather, our past shows frequent antipathy, punctuated several times by violent hostilities: most recently in 1898, 1914, and 1941. Apart from the special British-American companionship, solidarity between the U.S. and continental Europe was more likely a Cold War exception, not the rule. For 50 years the United States stayed engaged with Europe specifically to ensure that intercontinental squabbles would never again devour American blood. The Soviet Union served as a sort of ancient Persia ? an enemy colossus that kept feuding Greek city-states friendly for a while, until the common threat faded and their innate suspicion returned. The United States is rapidly becoming a universal nation. Continuing immigration, our democratic society, our ethnic and racial assimilation, our common popular culture, our meritocracy, and shared material dreams have created equal and unified Americans out of nearly all the tribes and races of the globe. Europe, for all its socialist pretenses, is a much more stratified and narrow society, plagued with unassimilated minorities. It is hard to imagine a Colin Powell, Alberto Gonzales, or Condoleezza Rice running the key ministries of France, Italy, or Belgium. For four out of ten Americans today, their physical and spiritual origins have nothing to do with Europe ? they are offspring of Asia, Latin America, or Africa. Demographic and immigration realities mean that our ostensible blood link with Europe will continue to thin. Like it or not, more Americans are coming to know and care less about Europe ? and more about China, Korea, Mexico, India, and the Philippines. The teaching of French, German, and Italian is sliding, while Spanish and Chinese rise. Red-state/Blue-state tension in America reflects a similar divergence between America and Europe. As the United States becomes more conservative, it increasingly sees Europe as a fringe San Francisco or Massachusetts, not a mainstream Grand Rapids or Ohio. Europe's rhetorical intrusions into our recent Presidential election confirmed that Europeans more often embrace agendas that bother Americans ? pacifism, radical secularism, utopian environmentalism, blind support for the U.N., socialized health care, government steering of the economy, redefinition of marriage, strident abortion rights, and open euthanasia. We are fooled somewhat by Europe's trade surpluses, the strong euro, and rich entitlements. But under that surface lurks high unemployment, weak growth, and demographic crises that threaten to unhinge the Continental socialist utopia. As recent E.U. plebiscites suggest, the future will bring great strains as Europe's already heavily taxed northwest transfers huge amounts of capital to subsidize the integration of more religious, nationalistic Europeans far closer to potential harm on the Islamic and Asian frontier. Will a Belgian or Dane really feel national kinship with a distant Bulgarian, Ukrainian, or Turk in the years ahead? The differences between American and European material wealth are now marked and growing ? Americans increasingly enjoy larger homes, more cars, more appliances, cheaper food and energy, more advanced health care, and more disposable income. A recent European visitor to my farm, a member of the professional and affluent class, was stunned when I showed him the new suburban houses and multiple cars of first-generation immigrants from Mexico living nearby ? in the poorest section of one of the poorest inland counties of rural California. "They seem wealthier than I am!" he exclaimed. In a global sense they really are, even without the subsidized train tickets, day-care payments, and a government-guaranteed six-week vacation. Some transatlanticists will grant these endemic problems, but assure us that Europe's problems will be self-correcting, that more conservative reformers will eventually retake power and mimic the Reagan and Thatcher revolutions to prune back government largesse and encourage renewed self-reliance ? noting in additions that we have the same enemy in Isalmic fascism. Nothing in Europe's history, however, suggests that a moderate response to the current maladies is likely. Popular frustration over Islamic terrorism and unassimilated minorities may grow, and Europeans could become tired of appeasing extremist mullahs and terrorists and begin looking for principled opposition based on real military power. A few politicians may warn of the dangers of a future Europe with only one worker for one pensioner, of a self-absorbed society where children, religious fraternity, and hard work are seen as retrograde, or caricatured as American. But it is just as likely that any European counter-reaction will be unproductive. Instead of calling for more American-style assimilation and intermarriage, critics could prescribe strict isolation of Islamic minorities. Re-arming could make Europe even more hostile, rather than promoting Western unity. The longer work hours, reduced welfare subsidies, increased transparency, and economic flexibility needed by Europe might be received by the masses not as necessary medicine, but as foul concoctions forced down their throats by the hated American competition. What can the United States do to mitigate the forthcoming estrangement? Several things: * Withdraw as many American troops from the Continent as is not injurious to the global responsibilities of the United States. That will remind the Europeans that anti-American rhetoric has consequences, and that the pathology of the present teenager-parent relationship must end for both our sakes. * Allow dissident Europeans to enjoy fast-track immigration to the United States. Welcoming folks from Europe who wish to join the American experience will send a powerful reminder to European elites that there were reasons their own people left their shores in the first place. Special warm immigration considerations for Europeans should replace the military alliances that used to knit us together. * Quietly cultivate friendships with eastern European countries, and encourage stronger relations with countries and governments that have signaled shared interests with the U.S., like Britain, Denmark, Holland, and Italy, who all have reason to be wary of the French-German axis. At the same time, rely more on our already cordial ties with Japan, Taiwan, India, and Australia ? whose democratic societies, confident populations, and legitimate fears of a European-rearmed China equal our own. * We must keep Europe in mind in all questions of U.N. reform. The European Union deserves one collective U.N. veto befitting its new transcontinental nationhood, not multiple votes as at present. India and Japan should assume their rightful places at the Security Council table next to the single European vote. And we should press for a General Assembly composed only of elected governments, rather than the present mix of democracies and rogue regimes that often look to Europe for tolerance, subsidies, and trendy anti-Americanism. * Finally, we must seek out pragmatic Europeans who are tired of business as usual, and wish to reform their union in ways that will promote American affinity. They are out there, but overwhelmed at home, and ignored by American liberals in our universities, corporations, the State Department, and elsewhere. Through government programs, think tanks, military links, shared business interests, and grass-root exchanges we must make direct connections with the many millions of Europeans who share American ideals, but have no way of expressing them on a continent dominated by a small class of haughty elites. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R-Flex Posted August 21, 2005 Share Posted August 21, 2005 It is EXACTLY that arrogance that the writer exuberates that alienates Europeans and Americans. Smug references to envy is not a way to woo allies, and blindly calling them all socialists who appease terrorists is neither. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starcom826 Posted August 21, 2005 Share Posted August 21, 2005 (edited) And it is exactly that attitude that makes the rift grow further. Honestly, he's pretty much got the right idea although it contains a little bit of heated language. The decline of EU-US relations has everything to do with European increased resentment and moves towards self-sufficiency. Look at France. It bullies Eastern European countries friendly to the U.S. with regards to the EU. It bans English words. It takes advantage of free trade with the U.S. but its government buys out large portions of companies just at the hint of an American buy out. It is about time we used smug references, because Europe acts like enemies but tries to talk like friends. A person who puts on a nice face when you meet face to face but talks trash about you behind your back is not a friend. A person who comes to help you when it would benefit him but runs with his tails between his legs when it would not is not a friend. A person who takes advantage of your economic position but won't extend the same courtesy in return is no friend. A person who wants to sell weapons to your enemies (for example China) is not a friend. Western Europe is neither friend nor ally, and hiding behind sugar-coated words is not going to change that. This is what happens when you save the continent and rebuild it without asking for anything in return (Don't give me that "it was so long ago" crap, the A-bomb and Israel issues which matter so much to these people are from the same time frame). His economic outlook is wrong though, because our trade deficit is a very real problem. Globalism is bad for all people involved (not companies). This is the first time we have a growing economy with a reverse in compensation (fringe + monetary) for the employed. 1) Yes. We need to tell them that if they want to be friends, they have to act like friends. Although this teenager-parent thing is rather ridciulous. Edit: missed the second one 2) Sure why not. 3) Yes. 3) UN reform is necessary, but currently the EU is not strong enough (I mean the institution not its member states) to warrant only one council member. If Europe continues its pace of integration, then when they do become in effect one nation-state, then at that time they should be relegated to 1 Security Council Member to be replaced by nations in other geographic regions. 4) Well yes, but we don't hear from them often, and I think they're pretty much ignored by everyone, if only because we can't even hear them. Edited August 21, 2005 by Starcom826 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R-Flex Posted August 22, 2005 Share Posted August 22, 2005 And it is exactly that attitude that makes the rift grow further So, when the right-wing American writer writes about how Europeans are envious of Americans, it's not arrogant at all, right? Europeans have no right to comment about that other than, "Yes, master," because somehow they are all wrong when it comes to the failing diplomacy? But I forget: America is a perfect and gracious ally, while Europe is a selfish, advantageous continent that enjoys toying with Americans. Right, Americans have always done what the Europeans wanted. :rolleyes: Yes, there is a growing rift. But I do not see how Europeans are the ones who are wrong. I do not see how their political opinions make them wrong. I see how right-wing Americans are frustrated when they don't get their way, and inevitably blame the 'socialists' of Europe. Of course, everyone there is a socialist, I forgot! Although you may ignore it, both continents are very similar. Western Europe is neither friend nor ally What is this, more "You are with us or against us" crap? If you are too proud to consider them allies, what allies do you have? 'Nouveau Europe?' You can ignore it, but Europeans and Americans are friends. A person who takes advantage of your economic position but won't extend the same courtesy in return is no friend Hmm, last time I checked, the Americans were illegally abusing NAFTA to gain a favourable economic situation over Canada. Are Americans friends to Canada? This is what happens when you save the continent and rebuild it without asking for anything in return Oh, World War II? When America didn't care about the fate of Europe to fascist domination until America itself was attacked? Pitying them from afar isn't a very diplomatic gesture to your greatest allies. (I applaud the eventual effort, however, don't start with history lessons to me.) Oh, and don't give me that "it was so long ago" crap (as you so eagerly quoted). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hupp Posted August 22, 2005 Share Posted August 22, 2005 (edited) WWII, the U.S gov't sent arms and cash with an unlimited amount to the allies.*caugh* lend lease act *caugh* Reasons why we didnot join WWII right away. #1 FDR knew we didn't have the support at home to go wage a war that was view as a European problem. But The world was alot more seperated then, it wasn't the global community it is today. #2 The U.S was weary of alliances, as they were what sparked and caused WWI #3 We just were getting out of the great depression and were isolationists. They wanted nothing to do with other peoples problems after we just got out of our greatest economic crash/problem to date. #4 We were not a world power, no where near it. We had no were the amount of enlisted and trained troops to go fight two wars. off-reason reason: why should they, it was Europe who appeased him, their mistake, their problem and that was the attitude of americans. you'd think they would of learned from that stance, don't appease dictators or hostile countries but alas... Edited August 22, 2005 by SlammedGST Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starcom826 Posted August 22, 2005 Share Posted August 22, 2005 So, when the right-wing American writer writes about how Europeans are envious of Americans, it's not arrogant at all, right? Europeans have no right to comment about that other than, "Yes, master," because somehow they are all wrong when it comes to the failing diplomacy? But I forget: America is a perfect and gracious ally, while Europe is a selfish, advantageous continent that enjoys toying with Americans. Right, Americans have always done what the Europeans wanted. :rolleyes: Oh sure, its arrogant, but its true to a degree. Where this "Yes master" crap comes from I have no idea, because while America is not a perfect and gracious ally, at least we generally try to be one. And Western Europe at least is a selfish and advantageous region that does enjoy toying with Americans. And no Americans have not always done what the Europeans want because that usually means screwing ourselves, backstabbing Israel, or fighting one of their invading neighbors. Yes, there is a growing rift. But I do not see how Europeans are the ones who are wrong. I do not see how their political opinions make them wrong. I see how right-wing Americans are frustrated when they don't get their way, and inevitably blame the 'socialists' of Europe. Of course, everyone there is a socialist, I forgot! Although you may ignore it, both continents are very similar. More typical blame everything on the U.S, because apparently Western Europe can do no wrong. I don't care about left wing/right wing, because they usually tend to be crazy, but that doesn't mean "Oh this guy is right wing, I'll just write him off and ignore it because everything he says is wrong." Their political opinions do not make them wrong. Their actions of trying to stifle us at every turn, and accusing us of crap that they themselves practice all the time. And while our continents may be similar to a degree, they are Socialist Democracies. They are much more socialist than we are, which isn't necessarily bad, but you assume I mean it as an extremely derogative term. For example, France has a mandatory 35 hour max work week. There is no such thing here. Europe in generally has a much more state centered approach to things, and that makes it more socialist. What is this, more "You are with us or against us" crap? If you are too proud to consider them allies, what allies do you have? 'Nouveau Europe?' You can ignore it, but Europeans and Americans are friends. It is not you are with us or against us. For them, its usually "we're against you" or "we're REALLY against you." I am very practical and don't really care for far fetched ideals. If you don't treat me like a friend, I won't consider you one. Western Europe, and especially France repeatedly tries to forestall us on any kind of U.S. overseas action of any kind. I'm not saying you're with us or against us. I'm saying if you're against us, we're not going to pretend that you're with us. Hmm, last time I checked, the Americans were illegally abusing NAFTA to gain a favourable economic situation over Canada. Are Americans friends to Canada? Besides the fact that I dislike NAFTA and free trade, practically every country illegally abuses it, and believe it or not, against America too. Again, France comes to mind, and I'm talking about Western Europe here, not Canada. My qualms are with Europe, and I will not hesitate to say that many things need to be fixed in America too. Oh, World War II? When America didn't care about the fate of Europe to fascist domination until America itself was attacked? Pitying them from afar isn't a very diplomatic gesture to your greatest allies. (I applaud the eventual effort, however, don't start with history lessons to me.) Oh, and don't give me that "it was so long ago" crap (as you so eagerly quoted). Oh, you mean the same way Europe is sitting away from afar while a dictator not unlike Hitler was in Iraq? Hey, we're over there fighting, but they're just sitting there pitying us from afar. I'll use their same arguement against them then. America did not have to aid at all. It did not have to sacrifice its citizens and resources to repell Hitler. It did so as a FRIEND, in a distinctly European war. Even after the war was over, it gave away enormous amounts of its wealth to bring Europe where it is today. It did not benefit America to do any of this, but it did it anyways. Look at the current war. I don't see the Europeans doing anything, even after the war itself is over. Especially with their states, media, and educational institutions telling them that America sucks essentially, they aren't very friend like. And they've created this rift because of reasons that don't affect them at all. Usually, you only increase tensions with a nation because they affront you. The Western European nations are increasing tensions with us because of our dealings that have nothing to do with them (mostly). You call America arrogant, which it definately is to a degree, but so are Canadians, and most definately so are Western Europeans. You act as if only Americans are arrogant. And this growing arrogance in Western Europe which walks hand in hand with anti-Americanism is exactly why the rift is so large. But if it continues to hate us, imbue its hatred of us in its citizens, I don't see why we should continually try to appease them into pretending like they like us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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