Power and Weakness

[cato2]

Power and Weakness
By Robert Kagan

It is time to stop pretending that Europeans and Americans share a common view of the world, or even that they occupy the same world. On the all-important question of power — the efficacy of power, the morality of power, the desirability of power — American and European perspectives are diverging. Europe is turning away from power, or to put it a little differently, it is moving beyond power into a self-contained world of laws and rules and transnational negotiation and cooperation. It is entering a post-historical paradise of peace and relative prosperity, the realization of Kant’s “Perpetual Peace.” The United States, meanwhile, remains mired in history, exercising power in the anarchic Hobbesian world where international laws and rules are unreliable and where true security and the defense and promotion of a liberal order still depend on the possession and use of military might. That is why on major strategic and international questions today, Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus: They agree on little and understand one another less and less. And this state of affairs is not transitory — the product of one American election or one catastrophic event. The reasons for the transatlantic divide are deep, long in development, and likely to endure. When it comes to setting national priorities, determining threats, defining challenges, and fashioning and implementing foreign and defense policies, the United States and Europe have parted ways.

Continued....Click Here

[Bluehawk]

That is quite a remarkable essay...

I'd say it is possibly more about stereotypes derived from mutual generalizations, than it is about caraciture however... which, of course, makes any conclusions drawn all the more dangerous.

Although most Americans have not experienced the frequency and intensity of violently oppressive military occupation that Europeans (and others) have, we have gone through our own share of extreme organized violence. Perhaps, however, it is the accompanying occupations which have, if at all, created some kind of instinctive difference between non-native Americans and indigenous Europeans?

Some, such as myself, might be inclined to find favor in parts of the essay's apparent assertions when taking a hard look at the difference between how Europe is viewing the present-day visit of our President and diplomatic corps to Russia and the Balkans, and how that visit is being characterized by our current State Department.

Finally, I would take exception to any attempt, such as was briefly made in the essay, to cast Secretary Rumsfeld in the light of a war-mongering "ugly American." I regard his service in the current office as exemplary, and as a standard many nations now and in the past would be, or should have been, feeling very fortunate to know in such times as these are.

One would, especially Europeans, perhaps like to think Europe has achieved some higher grade of civilization than Americans have or are capable of. Yet, one cannot help but recall the astounding horror of two very lengthy and recent wars they brought upon themselves, the world and us not all that long ago... against which they can, at best, offer only a provisional guarantee ruling out further repetitions. European history is crammed with violence over periods of millenia, and as such is perhaps not all that different from any other race of humans.

[Caldric]

That was a good post Wingpiper. I may not agree with all of it but it was well thought out and honest.

There are some things the Europeans need to understand. In fact it should be obvious or it is too me anyway. Perhaps I am wrong and the 300 million Euro's are correct. I doubt it though...

Anyway the issue I am talking about is historical and has had a major impact on the United States, in short Europe was/is a the major cause of our current stance on military and foreign policy. Although as you state they want to believe they are a higher civilization then the rest of the world and most importantly us this is a fairy tale and they have a huge debt to the current world we live in. However, the impact of WWI and WWII on the United States is staggering. Before the wars the United States was a fairly peaceful nation, we had a limited to very small military, although it was buoyed by long tradition on the same lines of European military it was not one of aggression or of aggressive stance. We had our internal fights and we fought with our Southern neighbors from time to time. The United States however only had limited use for using force against foreign powers. The majority of Americans prior to WWI wanted nothing to do with European bloodbaths or their political wars. We got drug into it anyway, in 1939 80%, I believe it was, of Americans according to a Gallup Poll did not want anything to do with the second war brewing in Europe. Again at the outbreak of WWII we had a very small limited defensive military, we relied on our Navy for our main defense.

In 1939 we had about 400 tanks and most of these were light calvary cars. We did have a few medium sized tanks but not many. We had something less than a 200,000 man military in all branches. We were not a military society by any stretch of the imagination, our defense expenditure was small or even tiny compared to our national economy. By 1946 we had over 14 million manpower military (most never deployed) tens of thousands of tanks and aircraft and a navy that dwarfed almost all other navies combined on the planet. We had also produced the most deadly weapon in history and used it, twice. We had created by events that over swept the world a militant minded society. Since then our military has never been less then 2 million or so and at times several million. Since WWII we have maintained an aggressive foreign policy all across the globe backed up by a massive military machine.

This is simplistic really but in the end Europe can blame (partially) their own stupidity and ignorance for the current world we live in. When I say that I think of the big nations of Europe, no need to name them.

Also another reason we are at this impasse we have found ourselves today is because of the huge vacuum left after WWII throughout the world, not all of it bad though. The UK and France were economically devastated, Germany was devastated in whole, Italy was in the same boat. The USSR although they were also devastated on all fronts they unlike Western Europe could still force their way in the world. Having the largest and most experienced land Army the world had ever seen had a great deal to do with that. But their ideas of how the world should be and ours clashed almost instantly at the end of WWII. It started before the end actually. This left a world that had been dominated by Europe for centuries wide open. It caused untold number of civil wars and revolutions with many small nations such as Korea and Vietnam clashing ideologically. Asia went up in flames almost over night, in China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos et al. The Middle East many parts throwing off the yoke from Europe gained new power and with it new reasons to fight each other and everyone else. It was almost as though the whole world threw off the chains of Europe and centuries of hostility broke open. There were only two powers in the world that could try to force some ideology on them. One of those power crumbled 15 years ago and left the second vacuum which we find ourselves today.

Since most other nations involved in the world strife are gone now we were left out in the clear alone looking like a huge target for all the worlds woes. Some of it is justified, our actions since WWII have not always been clean or in the best interest of the world, actually some have been down right selfish.

What Bush is doing today should have been done 15 years ago. Starting with his father and carried on with what I consider the stagnant and dumbfounded Clinton administration, at least on foreign policy. Now 15 years later what would have been seen as the natural course for the United States is seen as an aggressive and warmongering course. 15 years is a long time for people to forget the communist enterprise wars or the huge lines drawn all over the globe. The literal slavery of billions of people under the USSR and every startup nation in the 3rd world is long forgotten. Today people do not remember these things, all they see is a United States middling in affairs they should not be. There is some truth to that but there is a great deal more misconception. Of course you will notice that nations who have a hard time forgetting do not think that way, such as the Ukraine, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland and several others who were not on the fringe of what I consider WWIII but in the heart of it. They do not forget so easily. Of course we are no angles and we still have a hard time shaking off the way we did things 3 decades ago which has no place in todays world. Of course such huge changes take time to come about, our foreign policy is slow to change, perhaps we are gun shy and like an old hunting dog do not want to change how we hunt so far into our years.

However the last administration sat on its hands taking self congratulations for things past administrations had been doing and let slip a great chance to change the world and perhaps change it so we were not in the situation we find ourselves.

In the end without 2 European wars of massive scale who knows where the United States would be today. Perhaps on Mars? Who knows, perhaps Japan would never have struck Pearl Harbor without the war raging in Europe? Perhaps thry would have went back to the table with us over China and made agreements? Perhaps the new way of doing foreign policy that the United States was experimenting with would have worked. Which was using economic power to change a national stance, they call it economic sanctions today. That is how the United States was handling Japan in 1930's and 1940.

Perhaps, what if, maybe. All theoretical and very little of it practical. However what did happen has happened and Europe can not sit back and try to wash their hands of the current world and blame it all on anyone but themselves. No they did not do it all but they own a huge junk of this mud pie and should dig in with the rest of us to make it better. But now they appear to be shop keepers who will sell out for economic interest and just blame it on the warmongering nation across the ocean when it goes bad.

Well that is my ranting "blog" for today.

[Bluehawk]

Without enough time, at this moment, to render a complete response, I would only say that I agree with much of what you posted, Caldric.

My view, briefly, would be that what the Administration is doing in Iraq and Afghanistan should have been done long ago, but that what they are appearing to begin doing, again, with Russia is likely, potentially, to make things as bad as they have ever gotten... which is why I was, am and will remain dead set against the appointment of Ms. Rice as Secretary of State. She is, and now they are, operating on an academic model of Russian politics that has never ever been tenable since the Mongols invaded.

This is an excellent thread, thanks for putting it out there.

[JohnRN]

Guys, check out the book I posted in the "PIC version of American History" thread. It's the first post on page 2.

[DocDiggs]

Originally Posted by Wingwiper

Without enough time, at this moment, to render a complete response, I would only say that I agree with much of what you posted, Caldric.

My view, briefly, would be that what the Administration is doing in Iraq and Afghanistan should have been done long ago, but that what they are appearing to begin doing, again, with Russia is likely, potentially, to make things as bad as they have ever gotten... which is why I was, am and will remain dead set against the appointment of Ms. Rice as Secretary of State. She is, and now they are, operating on an academic model of Russian politics that has never ever been tenable since the Mongols invaded.

This is an excellent thread, thanks for putting it out there.

As this article appeared to go on and on and on, I finally printed out all 21 pages for a more leisurely and analytical reading. My initial reaction is that it is well thought out and expresses a great deal that seems valid. Just from reading the first 4-5 pages so far however, it may be somewhat limited in scope and perhaps a bit simplistic. It is an essay though, and not a book.
If it were a book I'm sure it would be more complete and inclusive. My initial sense is that while The Enlightenment is a justifiable argument, or reason for some of the changes discussed. The Reformation with all it's ramifications, IMO, may be just as valid as a cause or at least a contributing factor to some of the situations talked about here.

Despite the great variety of peoples, national origins, cultures, and so on in our country, we still, perhaps in many instances not realized, remain essentially influenced by our Puritan ancestors and their innate philosophies, both religious and secular. The interesting thing is that while those of UK ancestry are becoming a smaller and smaller minority, their ethical/moral structure essentially remains as a powerful remnant in American society. I have to believe that this is a strong part...thought not the only part...of the American construct. I also believe that this is what directs much of American attitudes and approach to other nations that do not have our particular or perhaps peculiar, mindset.

Again...these are initial reactions and when I have the time to complete reading the entire essay, my thoughts may be altered.