Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Shifting Sands
Major movements afoot, and seeing them and connecting seemingly unrelated events isn't always easy -- until years later. Two pieces catch the eye today, one from Ralph Peters, a frequent contributor to the New York Post. He provides an analysis of the meaning of the French popular rejection of the proposed European Constitution which has some useful historical references. His point - we may come to be disappointed by something in which many seem to be revelling today.
At the same time, Little Green Footballs, always a good read, points us to a particularly interesting summary of a Rand study of American attitudes toward war, especially after 9/11.
What connected these links for me was ultimately the observation that the conduct of international affairs have been fundamentally altered in the eyes of a substantial majority of the American public for the foreseeable future. The American public gets it, moreso even than demonstrated in the polls last November. Whereas Americans pre-9/11 found peacekeeping missions a bit of a waste, even something as seemingly relevant as the Yugoslav civil war, today the American public is on a war footing. And events in Europe, as Peters points out, highlight the inescapable fact that the nations comprising the continent of Europe, their "French leaders" are not up to that task. They are suffering from a failure of leadership and are corroding both federally and provincially, breaking into tribalism, while the American public instead is restoring its traditional independence from Old World thinking, stepping forward to embrace the multifaceted challenge posed by 9/11 (that is what a war footing is all about) and gaining strength as Europe's components weaken.
America is shaking off its rust, having been oxidized a bit by Cold War containment logic, which reached its nadir in the period from Vietnam to Afghanistan (68-80), and is returning to certain of its traditional foreign policy roots. To do so, it needs to reshape its own bureaucracy (esp the State Dept and CIA) and reform certain illegitimate global bureaucracies (UN). Big stuff. Takes Years. But we should be optimistic. Americans get it. The French certainly don't.
At the same time, Little Green Footballs, always a good read, points us to a particularly interesting summary of a Rand study of American attitudes toward war, especially after 9/11.
What connected these links for me was ultimately the observation that the conduct of international affairs have been fundamentally altered in the eyes of a substantial majority of the American public for the foreseeable future. The American public gets it, moreso even than demonstrated in the polls last November. Whereas Americans pre-9/11 found peacekeeping missions a bit of a waste, even something as seemingly relevant as the Yugoslav civil war, today the American public is on a war footing. And events in Europe, as Peters points out, highlight the inescapable fact that the nations comprising the continent of Europe, their "French leaders" are not up to that task. They are suffering from a failure of leadership and are corroding both federally and provincially, breaking into tribalism, while the American public instead is restoring its traditional independence from Old World thinking, stepping forward to embrace the multifaceted challenge posed by 9/11 (that is what a war footing is all about) and gaining strength as Europe's components weaken.
America is shaking off its rust, having been oxidized a bit by Cold War containment logic, which reached its nadir in the period from Vietnam to Afghanistan (68-80), and is returning to certain of its traditional foreign policy roots. To do so, it needs to reshape its own bureaucracy (esp the State Dept and CIA) and reform certain illegitimate global bureaucracies (UN). Big stuff. Takes Years. But we should be optimistic. Americans get it. The French certainly don't.
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