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 magine,
for a moment, what we would be reading if last week's Euro-American
Summit had been held not in Sweden but in the USA and that, after
the departure of the European leaders, American cops had shot three
anti-globalization demonstrators, wounding one seriously.
"Executioner Bush" would be the headline from Stockholm to Palermo
— with acres of newsprint devoted to editorial lamentations
over America's descent into Wild West barbarism.
Sweden's prime minister, Goran Persson, who last week described
the European Union as "one of the few institutions we can develop
as a balance to U.S. world domination," would doubtless be pointing
out how this fascist repression underscored the need for some counterweight
to a bullying Uncle Sam.
And the American media would solemnly add their two euros' worth
with such reflections as "Bush-from Lightweight to Heavy" or "Is
he the Ugliest American?" But since the demonstrators were shot
by politically correct Swedish policemen, nobody seems to have noticed.
Certainly there has been no suggestion that shooting demonstrators
may indicate a lack of civilization in Europe. And no one has argued
that perhaps Europe needs a permanent U.S. presence to restrain
its recurrent tendency to violent barbarism. Given the course of
European history, however, that may well be the case. And whether
coincidence or not, a permanent U.S. presence in Europe may be exactly
what emerged from Mr. Bush's successful European trip — despite
the desire of numerous European Persson to build up the EU as a
rival superpower.
Without backing down from any major U.S. position from Kyoto to
capital punishment, Mr. Bush offered to consult with the allies
on every point from Kyoto to capital punishment — drawing the
sting of the charge that the Bush foreign policy was one of "global
unilateralism." He won the qualified support of Italy, Britain,
Spain, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic for missile defense
(President Vaclav Havel even suggested that missile defense was
a moral obligation for a fundamentally defensive alliance like NATO.)
And, most significant of all, he declared that it was U.S. policy
to expand NATO and the EU as far and as fast as possible —
in a speech in Poland that won enthusiastic applause throughout
central and eastern Europe.
Mr. Bush's main public argument for expanding both NATO and the
EU is that this will extend Europe's zone of stability and prosperity.
And the success of the first round of NATO expansion in doing just
that shows how reasonable that is.
But there is a more direct American interest underlying the expansion
of NATO and the EU. It will bring into both organizations countries
that — like Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic — are
strong believers in a permanent American presence in Europe and
devout skeptics about the ambition of Europe to be a rival superpower.
And since Britain, Italy, Spain, and some other EU-members are already
America's natural allies on these points, the expansion of NATO
and the EU could tilt both organizations significantly towards the
U.S.
Mr. Persson would then find that the EU will be less able to provide
a counterweight to "U.S. dominance" since there would be an effective
pro-American counterweight inside the EU to Mr. Persson and those
who think like him.
Such a prospect alarms not just the advocates of a European superstate,
however. NATO (though not EU) expansion also discomfits the Russians
who claim to see it as a threat to themselves. That argument is
nonsense, of course; far from threatening Russia, NATO has actually
stabilized its previously unsettled Western periphery and, by "keeping
the Germans down" in Lord Ismay's formulation, guaranteed that Germany
will never launch a revanchist onslaught on the country. What NATO
expansion threatens is Russia's false sense of itself as a great
imperial power and its foreign policy, rooted in that nostalgic
imperialism, of building a "Common European House" with the EU that
would exclude the U.S. Thus, the Russians want Baltic membership
of the EU precisely because they hope that the EU, with its own
Euro-army, will replace NATO as the main vehicle of European security
policy. President Bush's speech in Poland, which stressed a united
Europe allied with America in NATO, was a direct and necessary warning
to both Euro-nationalists and Russian chauvinists that the U.S.
was in Europe to stay.
Hence the importance of Mr. Bush's olive branch to Vladimir Putin
two days later in Slovenia. For Russia cannot be treated as a power
of no substance even if its opposition to NATO expansion must be
rejected. Russia occupies a strategically central area of the world;
it has immense natural resources; its population is large, able
and well-educated; it retains an arsenal of nuclear missiles dangerous
to the U.S.; and for all these reasons it sensibilities must be
taken into account. If it is to be persuaded to abandon its great
power chauvinism and its self-destructive flirtations with China
and rogue states, it must be offered a respected place alongside
the U.S. in the Western structure of power. Mr. Bush's suggestion
that Russia might follow eastern Europe into NATO at some unspecified
point in the future was exactly the enticement needed. It flattered
Russian great power pretensions; it made NATO expansion seem even
less of a threat than it is (i.e., no threat at all); it offered
protection against any Chinese expansion into Siberia; it trumped
any prospect of an EU-Russian partnership with the much more desirable
U.S.-Russia partnership; and it laid down the strategic background
for an agreement on a missile defense umbrella sheltering both present
and future members of NATO.
After all, Saddam Hussein and Iran are next door to Russia and Europe.
So ultimately a missile defense is a more valuable protection for
them than for the U.S. Whatever their present criticisms, both Europeans
and Russians will want a share of that defense once it is a going
concern. Their current resistance to it is in part a perverse reflection
of their great-power ambitions. Both Russia and the Franco-German
core of the Euro-bloc fear that missile defense would reveal that
America is so far ahead scientifically, militarily, and economically
that they might take several generations to catch up. So their medium-term
interest in defense against missile attacks by rogue states is at
variance with their long-term ambition to be a rival and/or counterweight
to the U.S.
Much therefore depends on whether or not the U.S. encourages or
frustrates this ambition. And here Mr. Bush faltered slightly. Having
won so many other points, he diplomatically conceded support for
the EU's plans to establish a European Rapid Reaction Force (or
the beginnings of a European Army.) He hedged that support about
with qualifications about its subordinate role to NATO, and so on.
He doubtless calculated that since European defense spending, already
low, is declining at the rate of 5 percent annually, such a force
poses as yet only a very theoretical threat to the role of NATO
as Europe's main line of defense-and thus to U.S. leadership. And
he probably shares the nervous belief of Europeans outlined above
that, with (or without) missile defense, the U.S. is so far ahead
in military technology that not even a united nationalistic Europe
bent on building a powerful armed forces would ever catch up.
That would be a mistake. Even though the Soviet Union had a gross
domestic product that was on a level with Denmark's, it was able
to compete militarily with the U.S. for about forty years because
it was willing to devote 40 percent of its investible resources
to military and scientific research. The EU has a much larger population,
vastly more wealth, many more advanced scientific institutes, and
several impressive military traditions. If it were to devote even
one tenth of its investment capital into the military, it would
catch up and perhaps overtake America in decades or less. Recall
how swiftly the U.S. became a major military power after Pearl Harbour,
or how the Manhattan Project collapsed the scientific progress of
years into months. All that Europe lacks for such a military renaissance
is a political culture that places a high value on military power
and the world influence it buys. And that could change.
Indeed, the insistence of Euro-nationalist elites on the necessity
of a European force for which they have the greatest difficulty
in specifying a practical role is a sign that it may already be
changing. Euro-nationalism, often of a frankly anti-American character,
is the driving force behind EU integrationism. Why do we
assume that this greater European nationalism will be so much more
benevolent than the lesser European nationalisms it aims to displace?
To be sure, one need not go to the other extreme and argue that
a united Europe with an independent defense force outside NATO would
be a direct threat to America's security. That is unlikely in the
highest degree. It might be seriously damaging to wider U.S. interests,
however, if the possession of major independent military capability
emboldened Europe to oppose U.S. positions on trade, the Middle
East, Korea and in international organizations generally. And if
such opposition continued over a long period, it could hardly do
otherwise than undermine Mr. Bush's vision of an united Atlantic
Community whose military expression is NATO.
In his successful trip to Europe, Mr. Bush offered the Western
European allies a greater share in running the alliance; he urged
extending the protection of NATO and the EU to eastern and central
Europe; he offered the Russians a place within this democratic partnership
down the road; and he laid the groundwork for protecting this wider
West against the rogue missiles of rogue states on its periphery.
Euro-nationalism and an independent European defense force are radically
hostile to this concept of a united West under American leadership
— as Mr. Persson would be the first to assert. The U.S. should
place every possible obstacle in their way.
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