[A-List] US imperialism: Martian

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Chris Burford wrote:

One of the minor ways Britain has always tried to compete with the USA is in
its overseas programmes Last night BBC News 24 had a devastating interview
by Tim Sebastian of Robert Kagan tearing apart US hegemonism and hypocrisy.

------

[Kagan has been liberal in his dissemination. Here's an interview published
in the Sunday Herald. MK]

Americans are from Mars ... Europeans are from Venus

US political analyst Robert Kagan tells Alan Taylor how divisions over the
Iraq issue reflect fundamental change
The Sunday Herald, 9 March 2003

WHATEVER happens over the coming weeks, one thing is certain -- relations
between the United States and Europe will never be the same again. According
to Robert Kagan, author of Paradise And Power: America And Europe And The
New World Order, it is time to stop kidding ourselves that they share a
common view of the world, or even that they occupy the same world.

Kagan, a senior associate at the influential Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, was speaking to the Sunday Herald on a whistle-stop
tour to Paris and London, during which he lectured at the London School of
Economics, appeared on Newsnight and talked to journalists, punting Bush's
pro-war stance.

According to Kagan, the US and Europe have been drifting apart for some
years. '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,' he said.

While Europe turns it back on power, and cuts back on defence spending, the
US is embracing power, not least because of its vastly superior military
capability and financial muscle. The present transatlantic tensions, argues
Kagan, did not begin with the inauguration of George W Bush in January 2001,
nor did they begin after September 11. The divisions emerged during the
Clinton era and earlier, when there were mutual recriminations over
involvement in Bosnia.

'The first Bush administration refused to act, believing it had more
important strategic obligations elsewhere,' said Kagan. 'Europeans declared
they would act -- it was, they insisted, 'the hour of Europe' -- but the
declaration proved hollow when it became clear that Europe could do nothing
in Bosnia without the United States.

'When France and Germany took the first small steps to create something like
an independent European defence force, the Bush administration scowled. From
the European point of view, it was the worst of both worlds. The US was
losing interest in preserving European security, but at the same time it was
hostile to European aspirations to take on the task themselves. Europeans
complained about American perfidy, and Americans complained about European
weakness and ingratitude.'

Since then, says Kagan, attitudes have hardened, as the Iraq crisis moves
towards a denouement. 'A t the level of the intellectual class and foreign
policy community, there's no great difference between Britain, France,
Germany, Spain. There's a lot of unanimity. It's only at the government
level that you see this division in Europe. You don't really see it at the
popular or elite levels.'

Why is this?

'Europeans and Americans as a general matter don't share quite the same view
of the utility and legitimacy of military force. I think that's been
evolving for a while. This view in Britain that Blair could go [along with
the US and attack Iraq] if he has a second resolution, but he can't possibly
go if he hasn't a second resolution, reflects a certain attitude towards the
UN Security Council and world order and legal authority for action, which is
just absent in the US. I mean there are few Americans who would say it's the
right thing to do in Iraq, but if we can't get a UN Security Council
resolution we shouldn't do it. So that's a big gap in attitudes.

'And then some of it is more recent and circumstantial. It matters that the
US got hit on September 11 and Britain and Europe didn't.'

But the US wasn't attacked by Iraq. So why is it so intent on attacking it?

'The Europeans always say: 'We've lived with terrorism, we know terrorism.'
When Europeans think of terrorism they think of car bombs and supermarkets
blowing up. They don't have the experience, and they actually don't imagine
the possibility of cataclysmic terrorism. Therefore, it is possible for
Americans to imagine weapons of mass destruction being used by international
terrorists against the US. Therefore, it is possible for them to imagine
that Saddam Hussein, who is building weapons of mass destruction, could make
these available to terrorists. And then an amazingly high number of
Americans think Saddam was somehow involved in September 11. Setting aside
the question of who's right and who's wrong, the explanation still goes back
to September 11. Americans do make the link between Saddam , international
terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. Europeans just find that to be
completely irrational.'

Should we, then, be contemplating war ?

'Well, I myself don't believe that's the main reason to be going to war
against Saddam Hussein. I've been arguing for removing Saddam from power for
seven years now.

'For me it's always been more about the threat that he poses regionally.
He's a natural aggressor. He's invaded two of his neighbouring countries
unprovoked, used chemical weapons against his own people, used chemical
weapons against the Iranian people and he's in violation of agreements he
signed at the end of the Gulf war. So for me that's justification enough.'

There is a feeling among Americans, says Kagan, that Europe has forgotten
how the US rode to its rescue in the two world wars. 'And now, in the final
irony, the fact that US military power has solved the European problem,
especially the 'German problem', allows Europeans today, and Germans in
particular, to believe that American military power, and the 'strategic
culture' that created and sustained it, is outmoded and dangerous.

'Most Europeans do not see, or wish to see, the great paradox: that their
passage into post-history has depended on the US not making the same
passage. Because Europe has neither the will nor the ability to guard its
own paradise and keep it from being overrun, spiritually as well as
physically, by a world that has yet to accept the rule of 'moral
consciousness', it has become dependant on America's willingness to use its
military might to deter or defeat those around the world who still believe
in power politics.'

With the likelihood of war growing by the day, Kagan can see the gap between
Europe and America widening. In his view, it is not a passing phase, but a
fundamental shift with lasting consequences. 'I think that European
attitudes towards the war based on their own historical experience and on
what they've created in Europe, in terms of the European Union, are real and
not likely to change, and I don't believe that Europeans are going to be
putting a great deal more money into their military capability. But the
question that I have is, if we recognise that these differences exist, is
there a way to manage them better ? That's why I tend to give Tony Blair a
lot of credit for trying to find some way to a workable compromise between
the American and the European world view. I don't think it serves anyone's
interest for us to be screaming at each other across the Atlantic. We're
going to have to adjust to these new realities.'