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Charles Kupchan: A Reply to Andrew Moravcsik
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I agree with Andy that the EU, despite the constitutional crisis, has scored several successes of late. To his list, I would add the EU's ability to hang together on Iran and take the lead in searching for a diplomatic solution. Not only are the EU 3 generally moving in lock-stop, but they have been pro-active and creative.
However, I think it is both inaccurate and dangerous to dismiss the EU's current troubles as just another passing moment of reflection. That view encourages complacency about Europe -- both in Europe and in the US -- a complacency that is not warranted. A distinct re-nationalization of political life is occurring across Europe, manifesting itself in an anti-EU, populist politics. Enlargement, economic stagnation, coping with Muslim immigrants, the passing of the World War II generation, profound political weakness across Europe's major players -- this is a perfect storm of sorts.
Just about every European I talk to these days -- including die-hard federalists who have been constructing Europe for decades -- is deeply worried. They insist that this moment of uncertainty is indeed more unsettling than any that have come before. If they are worried, then it seems those of us who observe from these shores should be worried as well.
At a moment when the United States is experiencing singular political weakness at home and abroad, it is especially disconcerting that the other main center of liberal democracy is stumbling as well.
Charles Kupchan is a professor at Georgetown University and a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of The End of the American Era.
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If they are worried, then it seems those of us who observe from these shores should be worried as well.
I am not worried.
Europe really has only one direction open to it.
It is too long along the evolutionary pathway of Union to crawl back into the pond and give up its legs and lungs.
Europe's main problem is that it is a committee of sovereigns where it really matters. History has shown that for a society to be great, it must empower great leaders. A rotating institutional executive is not the way to do that.
France learned that lesson until DeGaul. The US learned the lesson quickly and established a strong Presidency under Washington.
Failure to solve this problem can lead to either vascilation, like France's Third Republic and the Wiemar Republic or tyranny ala the Third Reich.
Its second, equally important problem is the United States. It must either absorb/be absorbed by the US or disengage. If it makes the governmental change required, this will lead to a bipolar NATO, which cannot maintain itself.
It will be hard to do what is necessary, which is unification, because currently, by treaty, the American President is King of the World. This is why so many in Europe demonstrated against unilateral action by Bush. No one in Europe elected him to anything, yet he is by international law commander of the Alliance when it is deployed. When Europe was in ashes this was appropriate. It is no longer so.
See my link to the possiblilities of Allied Government for more information.
I share your concern. There is a slow dislocation of all the ties that held the western world together, not always for "freedom and democracy" but nonetheless served as a refuge for enlightment ideals. The shareholder mentality in collusion with the industrial-military complex rules in Washington and there is no force in Europe pushing for a strengthing of a democratic Europe.
There is no long term planning, contrary to endless public speeches. The US used to be a model, that seems to be passing.
There is a sense that our way of life since the industrial revolution is coming to an end, that nothing is done to prepare what is coming next.
Europe, as the US is obsessed with its interests while world problems are like rising water that may drown us as each one plays power politics.
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