Sunday, April 01, 2007
Claire Berlinski on the "traditional allies" myth
I just finished Claire Berlinski's excellent book, Menace in Europe: Why the Continent's Crisis Is America's, Too.
Every one of these books is worth reading for the perspective it brings, but if you only read one I suggest Menace in Europe. Berlinski writes as well as Mark Steyn (although less hilariously), but Berlinski evinces a deeper personal and academic knowledge of the subject. It helps that Berlinski lives Paris and Istanbul.
Anyway, Menace in Europe is packed to the rafters with interesting insights and sharp turns of phrase, and someday I may put up a post with the best ones. That said, toward the end of the book there is a passage that captures my own views about whether -- or not -- the United States under George W. Bush has abandoned its "traditional allies."
There is a popular myth, accepted by most Europeans and a surprising number of Americans, that Europeans enjoy a superior quality of life, that their socieites are less plagued by inequality, that European socieities are less violent, more civilized, more rational, even that Europe's popular culture is more tasteful. This simply is not so. When films by Michael Moore receive rapturous ovations at Cannes, the audience stopping just short of ululating and firing AK-47s into the air, it is not because Michael Moore makes a great many excellent points. It is because Michael Moore, like Europe, is lost in what is evidently a pleasurable miasma of perverse fantasy, internal contradiction, and hysteria.
Our policy and posture toward Europe must be informed by the belief that this popular myth is just that, a myth, and by a deeper appreciation of European history. Politicians with no appreciation of that history should not determine our policies toward Europe. Ted Kennedy, lamenting the failures of the Bush administration, proposed that "we should have strengthened, not scorned, the alliances that won two World Wars and the Cold War." But it is logically impossible to strengthen the alliances that won the two World Wars and the Cold War. The two World Wars were fought against Germany, but the Cold War was fought in alliance with West Germany; Russia was our ally in the First World War and the Soviet Union was our ally in the Second World War, but the Soviet Union was our enemy in the Cold War; Japan was our ally in the First World War and our enemy in the Second World War and our ally again in the Cold War, as was Italy; Turkey was our enemy in the First World War, neutral in the second, and our ally in the Cold War; Vichy France was our enemy for a time, too. So really, Britain is the only major power to which this statement might logically apply, and no one could fairly argue that this is an alliance we scorned. Am I quibbling here? No, not really. Anyone who has spent time thinking about Europe and its history would be incapable of making such a comment in a well-rehearsed and widely broadcast speech. And no one so unfamiliar with the history of our European alliances should be giving us advice about those alliances now.
Put differently, the grand alliances of the 20th century were all "coalitions of the willing."
4 Comments:
By 
Dawnfire82, at
Sun Apr 01, 12:04:00 PM:
As a rule, alliances don't last long enough to be traditional. We've even fought 2 wars against Britain in our history, and prepared for a 3rd during both the Civil War and immediately following WWI.
By Purple Avenger, at
Sun Apr 01, 03:08:00 PM:
If Europe is so hawt, how come so many of them vote with their feet and flee to the US?
By 
, at
Sun Apr 01, 05:01:00 PM:
We must never forget that most EU countries are essentially governed by soft socialists. By that I mean the hierarchy would if they thought they could get away with it revert to a standard socialist governmet model.
If you look closely at the EU parliamentry structure it does resemble the closed governing of authoritarian countries.With this in mind, is it so strange that so many attack the US all the time.
It may be a remote possiblity but it is a possibility that the EU will move its military alliances to Russia the future.
The people of the EU may not want this to happen but they will have say in the action. The EU parliament, or should I say the Politburo, will do it.
By Assistant Village Idiot, at
Sun Apr 01, 08:37:00 PM:
Berlinski should hardly be surprised at Kennedy - I doubt she is. She is examing his comments for content and finds it inaccurate. But Kennedy, like many other prominent progressives, do not have content as their objective but impression. Kennedy wants to create an impression that we used to know how to do things and were loved and respected in the world, but George Bush and the neocons have squandered it. That theme has been repeated since about February 2002, when Democrats started to complain about the conduct of the GWOT on the Senate floor. Their criticism lacked substance then, but it played to a powerful myth among their constituency. You will note that with brief interruptions, the declaration of the myth has continued unabated, regardless of whether the international news is good or bad.
I remain undecided whether this is an issue of self-delusion or frank dishonesty. Not that those would be mutually exclusive. Because of this, I remain deeply irritated at rank-and-file Democrats, many of whom are decent folk who should know better than to fall for this.
