The American-European Dialogue

[Attalus]

A Dialogue
BY Victor Davis Hanson, who, btw, is British



Are we friends, allies, or neither?



Europeans: Your proposed "adventure" in Iraq not only poses all sorts of practical problems for us, your allies, but also challenges the very reason d'etre of international accords. All these protocols, to the chagrin of the world, you have, in essence, violated time and again — whether at Durban, the ICC, or your rejection of an entire series of U.N. mandates.











Americans: We gave up the idea a long time ago that our sworn-treaty allies would remember Argonne, the Bulge, the Berlin Airlift, or the specter of the Warsaw Pact. And we cannot think of too many times the tragedy of people dying prompted real risks on your part or any of your other organizations. Instead, just look at the present nature of the U.N. There are few liberal republics on the Security Council. Libya is the proposed head of a Commission on Human Rights, and the body has a poor collective record of stopping atrocity from Bosnia to Rwanda — all coupled with shrill denunciation of the only democracy in the Middle East.

Europeans: One might say that the U.N. is at times both impotent and hypocritical without undermining its very charter or condoning, as it were, unilateral action that destabilizes international equilibrium. There is a complexity here that seems to escape you — or at least some of you.

Americans: So show us where and how we have destabilized anything — unless you believe that Kuwait, Panama, Grenada, and Kosovo are better places before than after the use of American force. Please demonstrate to us how theoretically outlawing racism at Durban or keeping obsolete agreements with a defunct Soviet Union helps world peace and security. In reference to your own behavior, we wouldn't allow an ex-Communist thug in Cuba to butcher 200,000 with impunity for eight years, before asking you to come over here to stop the bloodletting, a few hours from Miami. Perhaps you would say that our differing ideas of right and wrong — arising from our different histories and national characters — explain our present estrangement.

Europeans: No doubt. But surely unilateralism and feelings of exceptionalism don't help the relationship. But the issue is not theatrics of the American kind, but how to resolve difference.

Americans: You could be more multi- and we less uni- if you chose to defend yourselves and our mutual interests. You have more people and capital than we do. Yet you spend less than a third of our own outlays on defense. Is it idealism or plain old weakness that has turned you into knee-jerk supporters of dubious international accords bandied about by some really awful states?

Europeans: That is currently a popular, but simplistic American slur against us. We are closer to problems over here and have seen firsthand the wages of nationalism and its incumbent terrors. If we arm, you say we are returning to the world of Napoleon and Hitler; if we don't, we are seen as weak or cowardly. And what you call self-centered social programs at the expense of defense we feel is an evolutionary process — a European way — that looks first to mediation rather than crude force. And our preference for dialogue requires an informed, humane, and educated citizenry as part of the equation. Navel rings and Big Macs don't produce the type of sophisticated citizen who looks askance at simpleminded brute force.

Americans: NATO seems pretty brutal to us. Or at least you preferred it should be that "way" in the past with your continent facing Russian tanks. Perhaps you will embrace those views again should al Qaeda as promised obliterate the Vatican and you find your planes and carriers inadequate to sustain extended operations abroad against the network of your enemies. Maybe the "European way" will guarantee the world a steady supply of oil, corral North Korea and Iran, convince the Russians to integrate with the West, ensure that European states don't go nuclear, or demonstrate to the Germans and Japanese that there is no reason to rearm.

Europeans: Again, we tend to avoid hypotheticals and simplistic answers, but strive to use our economic and cultural power in more subtle ways to influence — but not to repel — moderates and neutrals. It is a holistic process. And it must be careful, judicious, and nuanced. Could you accept that the new anti-Americanism — quite a global phenomenon actually — is more than just your fondness for imperial overreach, but reflects a worldwide worry that America also has a habit of spreading an intrusive and often-crass culture?

Americans: Can you people at least decide whether as Leftists you object to our military power or as rightists you find our democratic culture reflective of a mongrel nation — one that subverts your ingrained hierarchy and accepted protocol? So what are you guys anyway, Marxists or reactionary snobs — or both? In fact, we are a revolutionary society of precisely the type Europeans on the barricade once demonstrated for — before returning in failure to their lounges.

Europeans: We have heard it all before. We need not bring up stereotypes of the past when our present differences can be bridged with more American understanding of our own predicaments and less cowboyism on your part.

Americans: We sort of like John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. Cowboy is an interesting choice of words. We hear such rhetoric often and it is instructive because it emphasizes our quite differing pasts. With the marshal a three-day-ride away on the frontier perhaps we do define justice by deeds rather than words — Kosovo is a good example. As a castoff people, we were supposed to fail, rather than create this enormously successful country. In that sense, as you would agree, we are a complete repudiation of Europe's allegiance to ancestry, pedigree, inherited capital, and class.

Europeans: Manifest Destiny, E pluribus unum, "your tired and poor" — we know it all well, the fons et origo of the world's blessings and so on. Recall that we are talking of tactics among friends in dealing rationally with common enemies, not philosophical issues of Locke versus Rousseau that have no relevance in the present crises other than to inflame and incite. What we need is joint consultation to tackle these growing problems in the Middle East and to pose a united front, along with the United Nations, in changing the behavior, albeit incrementally, of Iraq.

Americans: We wish it were only a matter of tactics or increments when 3,000 of our own were blown apart and a lunatic seems intent on acquiring gas and nukes. From your own past rhetoric it seems that you would prefer us to remove a democratically elected Sharon rather than a murderous tyrant like Hussein. And you seem less bothered by EU money in the hands of West Bank bombers than American aid supporting elected government.

Europeans: Don't put words in our mouths. You don't know what we will do in the end, although you seem to demand open-ended commitments in lieu of ongoing joint consultations. Beware of European public opinion that such mischaracterization and rhetoric incite. Have you looked lately at America's standing in our EU polls?

Americans: Yes, we are almost as disliked over there as you are over here — but not quite. In fact, if your elites are way out in front of your own people, our own policy-makers have not caught up with American public opinion. Your real problem is not that you are angry with us, but that Americans are finally becoming very angry with you. One Le Monde or Guardian rant may escape our notice in Billings or El Paso — but not a hundred each month. You talk to the wrong people in America — the very few in our media, universities, and government who worry that Boston and New York are not quite Paris and London. Most of us others could care less that Kansas City and San Jose are not quite Boston and New York. So be careful of getting what you wish for.

Europeans: Is that a threat as it were? Or simply more of the veiled bullying that this administration seems so comfortable with? Our bases, moral support, and covert help are, in fact, essential for your projection of power in this war against terror — though predictably underscored by both Washington and your popular press.

Americans: Maybe, but take note about the present "adventure." Should you chose to stay home and ridicule — though, of course, enjoying the benefits of a scattered al Qaeda and the demise of a killer-regime in Iraq — you will find your, not our, NATO an artifact, a nuanced organization that issues lectures and impotent mandates while innocents die under its nose, rather than sending out planes and divisions — something, in other words, very much like the United Nations.

Europeans: So that is the choice? Or, as you say, "My way or the highway"? Is that the sort of justice and sophistication we are now to expect from hyperpuissance?

Americans: We seem not to be talking of justice, when the world seems to care little about the presence of a madman who has a preference for extermination or thinks blowing up women and children by intent in Israel is the same as hunting down their killers. It is high time to confess that alliances are not theoretical constructs anyway. We think you are more ready to express NATO support for a Spanish frigate on a barren Moroccan island than to invoke Article V after 9/11. But as we said earlier, our problem is not enduring the coffeehouse fillips of French intellectuals, but trying to convince skeptical families in Indiana and Arizona why we must defend your soil with our lives and money over a decade after the cold war, when you seem so obviously displeased with us.

Europeans: If you insist on such reductionist thinking, at least don't confuse deliberate choices with intrinsic inability. That we have decided not to put our teen-agers on carriers and to divert their tuition money to F-18s does not mean that we lack either the resources or ability to arm as you.

Americans: Well you may be right. After all, your own Napoleon said that will is three-to-one over the materiel when war starts. So if the diplomacy of the EU is ever ignored by your less mature enemies, perhaps in the future European courage, rather than carriers and jets, will still see you through.

Europeans: Eh? What do you mean by this "you" rather than "us"?

A really interesting read. Both sides see their view as reasonable and just and yet it feels to me that the European debator has forgotten a lot of history. I can also see that if politicians take the view that the american debator did, that the USA could just say "screw ya all" and go its own way, much the way we were going in the 1930's, becoming more and more isolationistic. I actually look forward to see what kinds of responses this thread gets.

Good Post Attalus!

[ 09-10-2002, 04:35 PM: Message edited by: MagiK ]

[Thoran]

Fascinating read... I'm going to have to think about this one a while.

[Davros]

For all the "reasonableness" portrayed by the debators, the article has a distinct American slant. No, I am not talking about the arguments presented - I ma talking at the most simplistic level, which is portrayed visually in the length of the reponses at each turn. People read with their eyes, and their eyes couldn't help but weigh the argument in American favour.

From a quick scan, I would estimate that an additional 2-3 lines per paragraph were denoted to the pro American case, and only in I think 2 out of 11 reponses did the European response match or exceed the American case in length. While the words all sounded reasonable, this structure seemed to be deliberatly aimed at subliminal weakening of the opposition. I think that a lot of people who read the debate will feel an added "triteness" factor in the European case as a result.

One wonders at the thoughts of the author - if his intent was objectivity, why did he work to heavily bias the structure. I challenge the view that this was happenstance on his / her part.

[Morgeruat]

good post, very thought provoking

[The Hierophant]

Very nice, but it's all been done before.
See Herodotus, History of the Pelopponesian War. Written ca. 400 BC. Practically the exact two contrasting stances taken between Athens and Sparta concerning conflicting spheres of influence. Also see the Mytilinean debate, again, two stances: militant pre-emptive strikes against Mytilinea or light-handed diplomacy.

Bottom line, despite all their constant wrangling, criticisms and chest-banging both Athens and Sparta were wiped out as super-powers 70 years later, never to rise to power again.

To hell with this obsession with war, dominance and 'allegiance'. I'm just getting sick and f**king tired of all this war-talk. Hurry up and bring on the apocolypse you f**king madmen! Get it over with!

Flame away all you want, I don't give a shit.

---a one-hour later afterthought--- I apologize for my language and any blanket-denunciations and unfair generalizations I made in this post. It wasn't incredibly well-thought out and was fueled mainly by the emotions of a particularly rough day [img]smile.gif[/img] Rather than edit out what I originally typed and create confusion and discontinuity (it's what i genuinely felt at the time of posting anyway so I might as well leave it there) I'll merely add this apology at the end. Thank you.

[ 09-11-2002, 03:02 AM: Message edited by: The Hierophant ]

Originally posted by The Hierophant: Very nice, but it's all been done before. See Herodotus, History of the Pelopponesian War. Written ca. 400 BC. Practically the exact two contrasting stances taken between Athens and Sparta concerning conflicting spheres of influence. Also see the Mytilinean debate, again, two stances: militant pre-emptive strikes against Mytilinea or light-handed diplomacy. Bottom line, despite all their constant wrangling, criticisms and chest-banging both Athens and Sparta were wiped out as super-powers 70 years later, never to rise to power again. To hell with this obsession with war, dominance and 'allegiance'. I'm just getting sick and f**king tired of all this war-talk. Hurry up and bring on the apocolypse you f**king madmen! Get it over with!

Well put, Hierophant. We go 'round the circle once again, nobody gains, nobody wins.

Originally posted by The Hierophant: Very nice, but it's all been done before. See Herodotus, History of the Pelopponesian War. Written ca. 400 BC. Practically the exact two contrasting stances taken between Athens and Sparta concerning conflicting spheres of influence. Also see the Mytilinean debate, again, two stances: militant pre-emptive strikes against Mytilinea or light-handed diplomacy. Bottom line, despite all their constant wrangling, criticisms and chest-banging both Athens and Sparta were wiped out as super-powers 70 years later, never to rise to power again. To hell with this obsession with war, dominance and 'allegiance'. I'm just getting sick and f**king tired of all this war-talk. Hurry up and bring on the apocolypse you f**king madmen! Get it over with! Flame away all you want, I don't give a shit. ---a one-hour later afterthought--- I apologize for my language and any blanket-denunciations and unfair generalizations I made in this post. It wasn't incredibly well-thought out and was fueled mainly by the emotions of a particularly rough day [img]smile.gif[/img] Rather than edit out what I originally typed and create confusion and discontinuity (it's what i genuinely felt at the time of posting anyway so I might as well leave it there) I'll merely add this apology at the end. Thank you.

I hope you never have to be involved in a war. There are good reasons to go to war though.

I think that every time a freedom is won and every time a despot overthrown shows that there are gains and wins. I think what you are looking for are "permanent" solutions and not even the stars themselves nor the planet you live on are permanent.

[Azred]

I say it all depends upon the person with whom you are dealing. Sometimes diplomacy works (Carter did a good job with the Egypt/Isreal accord, for example) but other times it doesn't (Chamberlain with Hitler). Try diplomacy first; if the other party doesn't honor the agreement, then you cannot trust them again with diplomacy.