This pacification of Europe is quite likely to prove irreversible. Yet even if reigniting an affinity for war among the people of, say, Germany and France were possible, why would any sane person even try? Why not allow Europeans to busy themselves with their never-ending European unification project? It keeps them out of mischief. ... Afghanistan provides the most important leading indicator of where Washington's attempt to nurture a muscle-flexing new NATO is heading; it is the decisive test of whether the alliance can handle large-scale, out-of-area missions. And after eight years, the results have been disappointing. Complaints about the courage and commitment of NATO soldiers have been few. Complaints about their limited numbers and the inadequacy of their kit have been legion. An immense complicating factor has been the tendency of national governments to impose restrictions on where and how their forces are permitted to operate. The result has been dysfunction. ... Like Nixon setting out for Beijing, like Sadat flying to Jerusalem, like Reagan deciding that Gorbachev was cut from a different cloth, the United States should dare to do the unthinkable: allow NATO to devolve into a European organization, directed by Europeans to serve European needs, upholding the safety and well-being of a Europe that is whole and free -- and more than able to manage its own affairs.
...
Afghanistan provides the most important leading indicator of where Washington's attempt to nurture a muscle-flexing new NATO is heading; it is the decisive test of whether the alliance can handle large-scale, out-of-area missions. And after eight years, the results have been disappointing. Complaints about the courage and commitment of NATO soldiers have been few. Complaints about their limited numbers and the inadequacy of their kit have been legion. An immense complicating factor has been the tendency of national governments to impose restrictions on where and how their forces are permitted to operate. The result has been dysfunction.
Like Nixon setting out for Beijing, like Sadat flying to Jerusalem, like Reagan deciding that Gorbachev was cut from a different cloth, the United States should dare to do the unthinkable: allow NATO to devolve into a European organization, directed by Europeans to serve European needs, upholding the safety and well-being of a Europe that is whole and free -- and more than able to manage its own affairs.
The E.U. underwhelms on other big issues. "When it comes to pressing international problems like Afghanistan, Pakistan or North Korea, the E.U. is either largely invisible or absent," wrote Grant in his essay, provocatively titled "Is Europe Doomed to Fail as a Power?" Lucio Caracciolo, editor of Limes, one of Italy's leading foreign policy magazines, says the problem is a Cold War hangover. The post-World War II period was a golden age for Western Europe, a time of reconstruction under the U.S. security umbrella, he argues. When it ended, Europe went into shock. "We're in denial," Caracciolo says. "We see that the Americans are not interested -- to put it mildly -- in our interests, and we put our head in the sand." Europe "happily decides," Caracciolo says, that Afghanistan, Iran, are American affairs. "Any major crisis is something that is analyzed abroad. We are not up to the responsibilities of the time."
If only Europe actually decided that Afghanistan & Iran are American affairs... The population thinks so, but the leadership don't (or do think it, but think they can't avoid to be involved in US affairs, because the US is our friend) and try to follow US policy by stealth - and thus we get schizophrenia.
This is yet another episode of the "Americans are from Mars, Europeans are from Venus" debate, except that European leadership is stuck somewhere in the void in-between... In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
If NATO has a future, it will find that future back where the alliance began: in Europe. NATO's founding mission of guaranteeing the security of European democracies has lost none of its relevance. Although the Soviet threat has vanished, Russia remains. And Russia, even if no longer a military superpower, does not exactly qualify as a status quo country. The Kremlin nurses grudges and complaints, not least of them stemming from NATO's own steady expansion eastward. So let NATO attend to this new (or residual) Russian problem. Present-day Europeans -- even Europeans with a pronounced aversion to war -- are fully capable of mounting the defenses necessary to deflect a much reduced Eastern threat. So why not have the citizens of France and Germany guarantee the territorial integrity of Poland and Lithuania, instead of fruitlessly demanding that Europeans take on responsibilities on the other side of the world that they can't and won't?
If NATO has a future, it will find that future back where the alliance began: in Europe. NATO's founding mission of guaranteeing the security of European democracies has lost none of its relevance. Although the Soviet threat has vanished, Russia remains. And Russia, even if no longer a military superpower, does not exactly qualify as a status quo country. The Kremlin nurses grudges and complaints, not least of them stemming from NATO's own steady expansion eastward.
So let NATO attend to this new (or residual) Russian problem. Present-day Europeans -- even Europeans with a pronounced aversion to war -- are fully capable of mounting the defenses necessary to deflect a much reduced Eastern threat. So why not have the citizens of France and Germany guarantee the territorial integrity of Poland and Lithuania, instead of fruitlessly demanding that Europeans take on responsibilities on the other side of the world that they can't and won't?
Bah. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Afghanistan provides the most important leading indicator... And after eight years, the results have been disappointing.
