The Difference Between A United Europe And A Strong Europe
Noah’s post on the Libyan adventure is great but I just want to harp on a tangential point that not many people get.
Noah writes:
Would a united Europe have intervened? If so, would we have been called upon to help?
People often ascribe Europe’s reluctance to “punch its weight” militarily in global affairs to its disunion, but I just don’t think that’s the case. I think the reason Europe doesn’t punch its weight is because it doesn’t want to.
Right now the EU, population 500 million, GDP $16 trillion, has four aircraft carriers. The United States, population 300 million, GDP $14 trillion, has eleven, each bigger than the biggest European aircraft carrier.
Whether these four aircraft carriers operate under the authority of three executives (France, Britain and Spain) as now, or under the authority of one, would not automagically increase their number. Nor would it grant the capacity to fire 110 Tomahawk missiles in one night.
The reasons “Europe” has a low military spending are the following:
1- Europe gets security from the United States for “free”;
2- It’s expensive;
3- It’s unpopular;
4- The weight of history.
Europe being united under one central government would change approximately zero of these. Arguably a united Europe might want to finally take charge of its own security at some point in the distant future, but that strikes me as unlikely.
Did Germany’s reunification, or the end of the Soviet threat that justified its reliance on America for security, end it? Would Korea’s? Pax Americana is very convenient for the protectorates.
In a conversation, a former French Foreign Minister said that while pro-Europe European elites say they want a united Europe that would behave like a “United States of Europe”, when you look at what they really do, they want a “European Switzerland.”
To be sure, Switzerland takes charge of its own security, with better success than any other nation mind you, but (because?) it doesn’t do anything about repressive regimes outside its borders, either.
The political machinations that go into getting “Europe” to sanction military action against Dictator X when Big Country A would like to intervene and Big Country B would not are interesting, but ultimately what they affect is the delay in, not the capacity of Europe’s intervention.
The reason why Europe wasn’t able to take care of Milosevic alone is the same reason why it’s not able to take care of Qaddafi alone: because it can’t. The reason it can’t is because it won’t, but the reason it won’t isn’t because it can’t agree with itself, the reason it won’t is because it doesn’t want make the political and financial investments that the capacity for independent international action requires.
And the reason we don’t want to make these investments is because we have been making them on behalf of the world for 500 years and nearly destroyed ourselves several times in the process, and now it’s time for someone else to oversee the Augean stables.
What we want is what old people want: to grey quietly and peacefully. And every once in a while we might enjoy berating our tall, grown-up son and tell him what a better job we’d do at tearing out the weeds in the backyard. But really, our back is shot and we’d much rather get back to that book.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stackelberg_competition
— Rowz · Apr 4, 08:27 PM · #
I’ve long assumed that the Euro project is impossible without complete unification. Either the common currency will be given up, or the countries will turn all policy involving money over to the central EU government, which will mean they are no longer independent countries, except perhaps for some figurehead functions such as are performed by Kings and Queens these days. After reading the weekend Irish newspapers on the plane ride home today (after spending a week with a family member who lives in Ireland, during which I heard hardly any other topic on the broadcast news besides the economic mess and sports) I got to wondering, why do they need that kind of unity? If they need to go to war unity would certainly be an advantage. But I didn’t think that very likely, and now you’ve explained why in great detail. I can also understand why the EU Europeans want to remove as much as possible of the friction that hinders commerce between countries. But do they need complete unity under a central government (aka a common currency) for that? They’re probably going to get it unless they start accepting defaults, which will probably mean multiple currencies. But do they need it?
I presume these questions have been discussed a zillion times in Europe, but while up in the air I didn’t have the resources to let Google help me find those discussions. (I HAVE occasionally heard the thunder of toes tiptoeing around these questions.)
My wife and I came back with some Euros that we didn’t exchange for dollars. I figured it’s a safe bet to hang on to them as long as Bernanke and those who are sitting on his head are still in power. The people we visited in Ireland (and some of the newspaper commentators) think the U.S. has its economic house in order, by comparison. Hah.
— The Reticulator · Apr 5, 04:19 AM · #
Sorry to go off topic PEG but I used your tips to cook a steak. It was delicious.
— Freddie · Apr 5, 05:32 PM · #
“And the reason we don’t want to make these investments is because we have been making them on behalf of the world for 500 years and nearly destroyed ourselves several times in the process, and now it’s time for someone else to oversee the Augean stables.
What we want is what old people want: to grey quietly and peacefully. And every once in a while we might enjoy berating our tall, grown-up son and tell him what a better job we’d do at tearing out the weeds in the backyard.”
Is that supposed to mean that Europe or rather, certain European powers have done some kind of a noble favor to the rest of the world in the last 500 years? Overseeing the Augean stables and tearing out the weeds, you say? Maybe some kind of “civilizing mission”, selflessly executed? Wow, PEG, that’s really rich.
— M · Apr 6, 07:46 AM · #
The phrase “punch its weight” as used by Pascal-Emmanuel has a huge number of problems, but I propose to focus on the most obvious. First, talking about punching your weight hides the assumption that a “right” level of military spending exists, and that a nation or a block of nations “ought” to have a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier for each 1.27 trillion dollars (give or take a billion) of GDP. That ignores the amount by which American military spending exceeds of other countries; American spending as a portion of GDP exceeds that of many NATO allies and emerging powers by a significant margin. American military spending has not only outrun the rest of the world’s, but also the willingness, if not the capacity, of Americans to pay for it. So I would argue that it makes little sens to claim that Europe punches below its weight: rather, the United States has a outsize boxing glove with a horseshoe in it that Americans have grown weary of and have not figured out how to put down.
That leads us to another problem: does “punching” require military strength? And if so, to what extent does the process of building a “strong” military produce enemies for it to fight? Certainly, if you assume Qaddafi would perpetrate a massacre if not restrained by the “west”, it might take military force to stop him, but then his own military equipment came from many of the same factories that built the weapons on the United States, or the cold-war era weapons intended to counter them. And military power has not yet proven as successful at eject Qaddafi from office as peaceful united civil action proved at getting dictators out of power in Egypt and Tunisia.
— John Spragge · Apr 6, 05:27 PM · #
““Europe” has a low military spending”
What John Spragge said. The US has an extraordinary amount of military spending. The fact that Europe’s spending is relatively low by comparison doesn’t mean it’s military spending is actually low in absolute terms. It just means the US is a hyperpower and like the last hyperpower, it’s addicted to war (and enriching defence contractors).
“Europe gets security from the United States for “free”“
This is false. You could plausibly have said something like that during the Cold War (though it was never “free” except in the financial sense), but not today. Who exactly is the US supposed to be protecting Europe from?
Anyway, I note that in neither of these two blog posts did either of you actually consider that maybe the European people don’t want a “United States of Europe” for quite legitimate reasons like that they like being independent sovereign countries. Most people here in Britain, given a referendum, would vote for us to leave the EU as it is now, never mind if asked whether we wanted a United States of Europe. Europhiles are more numerous on the continent, but not that much.
— Alex · Apr 8, 04:22 AM · #
Freddie: Thanks! That means a lot.
— PEG · Apr 11, 09:05 AM · #