From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Sun Nov 24 2002 - 18:25:41 MST
On Sun, Nov 24, 2002 at 09:14:34AM -0800, Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
>
> And so I am forced to ask -- *where* is Europe in all of this?
> How bad would it have to get before Europe would bring itself
> to the table as a really active participant?
OK, here is a brief analysis of my understanding of the situation (as an
European and part-time pundit).
Europe is extremely concerned about terrorism - make no mistake, people
are jittery over here and doing what they can to deal with the terrorism
issue (with the usual overreactions and infringements on the open
society, albeit with a bit less edge than in the US). European
governments would love to deal with terrorism, and did agree on giving
the US some quite amazing (legally speaking) freedoms in pursuing the
guilty.
But the problem from an European political perspective is the US. There
were the normal amount of antiamericanism around before 911, and for a
while it hung in the balance: the attacks were so extreme, so
unprecedented that even many people who reflexively claim they hate the
US kept silent or even seemed to reconsider: yes, the US is capitalist
and uncultured, but it is not the taliban. Many otherwise neutral people
becaume quite sympathetic to the US. This really could have become the
democratic West against terrorism.
But then the US government botched their diplomacy. I cannot stress this
enough: the Bush administration has wasted an enormous amount of
goodwill and diplomatic capital. While certainly other governments have
messed up (like the German, with those unsuitable comments about Bush)
the US has systematically alienated Europe through its unilateralist
line. This is something Bush began before 911, but it became extremely
noticeable afterwards: the US does something, and demands that everybody
agree to it. This is extremely different from the accepted approach in
Europe, where at least some honest consensus-seeking beforehand is
regarded as the right thing to do. That the US gov also has withdrawn
from many agreements and undermined international law and procedure to
an unprecendented degree is also a sore point. The exceptions from the
international criminal council really looked like the US government
wanted to be above military agreements.
This behavior has made the public and political opinion in Europe swing
towards the view that the US is not acting in the interest of everybody,
but just itself. The view is by no means universal, but it has been
given increased weight and fuels the old antiamerican feelings
(impassioned by the hopeless Israel-Palestina mess). So if the US is
acting (and over-reacting) in its own interests, why should Europe give
it extra support? Here is of course the lure of complacency, since this
is a neat rationalisation for not risking any citizens on overseas
warfare, but also the realisation that the US can to a large extend wage
this kind of extremely costly war, and if they already are and there are
reasons to think this is even slightly immoral then one can stay out of
it. The relations between the US and the European nations seem to be as
bad as they have *ever* been.
The current Iraq mess is a good example: the European powers are tired
of just agreeing to whatever the US government says, and want to force
their kind of consensus building on any joing attack on Iraq. It is
really a matter of soverignity rather than misplaced faith in Saddam.
So, what would be needed to get Europe as an active participant? Most
likely a *joint* effort, where plans were actually decided by the
involved powers and not just sent from Washington. But this has become
harder to achieve since both sides have lost trust in each other - the
US government sees Europe as dragging its feet and leaving the heavy
work for them, the European governments see US as an autocratic power
that cannot be trusted.
If Paris were to be nuked tomorrow, European governments would likely
scramble to smash whoever did it. But it is not obvious if they would do
it together or in sync with the US.
All in all, it shows the cost of not relying even on smaller allies.
People often do stupid things to prove their independence; governments
often go much further.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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