The Latest Paris Fashion

FRANCE and Germany are in poor shape. No idea how to deal with recession and high unemployment; unable to resort—without violating EU rules—to the old trick of budget deficits to buy time; caught between mass immigration, fear of terrorism, and the backlash of racism (as evinced in France by the surge of the National Front). In these circumstances, anti-Americanism is a relief, a distraction, and— finally—a source of much-needed unity.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has committed Germany to have nothing to do with what he calls the American “adventure” in Iraq. The country’s intellectual elite may appreciate that freedom and democracy arrived with the American army in 1945, but the population at large has the sense that American victory rearranged the good old order, on the one hand draining away the essential Germanness of that order, and on the other hand conscripting Germans into far too much adventure. Cruise missiles antagonized the Soviet Union, many have come to conclude, whereas appeasement and trade brought it down. Better, safer, to pretend with Schroeder that a dictator like Saddam Hussein is really a partner like anybody else.

About the Author

David Pryce-Jones

David Pryce-Jones (1936–2025) was a British author and commentator and served as a senior editor of National Review.

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FRANCE and Germany are in poor shape. No idea how to deal with recession and high unemployment; unable to resort—without violating EU rules—to the old trick of budget deficits to buy time; caught between mass immigration, fear of terrorism, and the backlash of racism (as evinced in France by the surge of the National Front). In these circumstances, anti-Americanism is a relief, a distraction, and— finally—a source of much-needed unity.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has committed Germany to have nothing to do with what he calls the American “adventure” in Iraq. The country’s intellectual elite may appreciate that freedom and democracy arrived with the American army in 1945, but the population at large has the sense that American victory rearranged the good old order, on the one hand draining away the essential Germanness of that order, and on the other hand conscripting Germans into far too much adventure. Cruise missiles antagonized the Soviet Union, many have come to conclude, whereas appeasement and trade brought it down. Better, safer, to pretend with Schroeder that a dictator like Saddam Hussein is really a partner like anybody else.