Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order
Robert Kagan
Albert A. Knopf, 2003.
103 pages.
In the months prior to the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, European statesmen captured headlines as they expressed their solidarity in rejecting American appeals for decisive action. What was first European reluctance slowly degenerated into acrimonious debate and intransigence, which exposed the previously latent distrust between continental Europeans and Americans. Robert Kagan, a monthly columnist for the Washington Post, explores the sources of this trans-Atlantic conflict in his brilliant essay, Of Paradise and Power. Kagan's analysis of the American and European psyches is incisive. Although both communities are "children of the Enlightenment" with a common cultural and philosophical lineage, Kagan argues that their dissimilar histories and current geopolitical realities have created deep and lasting fissures in the trans-Atlantic relationship. Kagan opines, "On the all-important question of power---the efficacy of power, the morality of power, the desirability of power---American and European perspectives are diverging." Although the existence of a Euro-American tension is readily apparent to any informed person, Kagan elucidates the debate with his unique perspective as an expatriate and gifted scholar.
The concatenation of sheer desperation (distilled from centuries of internecine conflict) with brave diplomacy transformed cautious steps toward cooperation in the form of the European Steel and Coal Community to the current European Union. Economic unification led to tentative first steps towards political unification in the form of supranational organizations which led many foreign policy mavens to believe that the emergence of a powerful European bloc capable of rivaling the United States was within sight. The Balkans crisis served as the first true test of European power. Confronted with real challenges within their own continent, Europeans exposed their own "military incapacity and disarray" , undoubtedly products of decades of neglect in defense spending in the member countries. With the NATO air campaign in Kosovo, Europeans were confronted with the awful truth that their "ability and will...to project decisive force into regions of conflict...were negligible" compared to their technologically superior American allies. As Americans engaged in a decades long armaments race with their Communist foe, Europeans enjoyed relative peace and prosperity under the American nuclear umbrella, indeed a "sizable peace dividend" , as they devoted their energies to economic rehabilitation and social welfare programs. According to Kagan, the existence of an almost insurmountable Euro-American gap in military hardware and force projection capabilities is a primary but not exclusive source of trans-Atlantic tension.
Significant corollaries to this "power gap" are the resulting divergent perspectives on the utility of military force and perceptions of threats to security. Lacking the military means to significantly influence, let alone resolve, international conflicts, Europeans have adopted "strategies of the weak" . Europeans abjure the use of military power and opt instead for resolutions that appeal to their strengths: diplomacy and economic inducements. Alternatively, America's "unipolar moment has an entirely natural and predictable consequence: It makes the United States more willing to use force abroad."
This disparity also leads to the paradox of power. Europeans, though militarily impotent, have a higher threshold for perceived threats to security than do Americans. Raising the bar lowers the occurrence, which appeals to a continent self-conscious of their declining military. In contrast, America's "unipolar moment" and economic prosperity not only make her more vulnerable to attacks of jealousy and rage as in September 11, but also equip her with Roosevelt's "big stick", capable of decisive action anywhere on the globe.
Kagan's examination of Europe's philosophical evolution is particularly insightful. The authors of Machtpolitik and raison d'etat, Europeans finally realized the futility of militarism and power politics following the sheer scale and scope of the horrors they witnessed in the twentieth century. Kagan quotes a senior British diplomat Robert Cooper, "In the `postmodern world' raison d'etat and the amorality of Machiavelli's theories of statecraft...have been replaced by a moral consciousness." Kagan argues that the "power gap" alone does not explain European unwillingness to even attempt to compete as a dominant military power. For much of Europe, the first half of the twentieth century is remembered with revulsion, and "the modern European strategic culture represents a conscious rejection of the European past, a rejection of the evils of European Machtpolitik." In their current bliss free from the fires of war and conflict, Europeans willingly traded Hobbes for Kant in their pursuit of the "state of universal peace".
Kagan's seminal essay on the historical and philosophical foundations of the current Euro-American split is brilliant in its analysis and content. He provides order to the current debate and his blend of realism and idealism (although more former than latter) resonates with the current tenor of American sentiment and more importantly, diplomacy. His roadmap for repairing the current split, though assuredly not palatable to all, is sound. Kagan advocates American sensitivity to European concerns when American vital interests are not at stake and pursuit of a unilateralist policy when it does. For Europe, Kagan encourages "the atavistic impulses that still swirl in the hearts of Germans, Britons, and Frenchmen" and rearm in order to regain influence commensurate to their economic and moral status. But most of all, "the task, for both Europeans and Americans, is to readjust to the new reality of American hegemony." Perhaps then, both Europe and America will realize their interdependence. After all, a paradise without power is a short-lived one, and power without hope of paradise is simply un-American.
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