I think Tom Burroughes is far to genteel with his treatment of EU Commissioner Chris Patten‘s remarks in the Financial Times.
My answer is not that the unilateralist urge is wicked but that it is ultimately ineffective and self-defeating.
Here is the core of the crypto-socialist beliefs of purported conservatives like Chris Patten. Only the collective approach works.
The attacks of September 11, in which citizens of more than 80 countries lost their lives, brought home in a terrifying way the vulnerability of the US and the rest of us to the actions of extremists plotting from safe places in failed states such as Afghanistan.
Indeed. That is why the ‘failed state’ which harboured and succored Al Qaeda was overthrown by force of arms and replaced with one more to America’s liking.
In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, it seemed that the US had rediscovered its need for allies to confront this common menace. The stunning and un-expectedly rapid success of the military campaign in Afghanistan was a tribute to American capacity. But it has perhaps reinforced some dangerous instincts: that the projection of military power is the only basis of true security; that the US can rely only on itself; and that allies may be useful as an optional extra but that the US is big and strong enough to manage without them if it must.
I suspect in fact the US actions were based on the quaint notion that a dead enemy tends not to plan further attacks against you and that time was of the essence, given that attack by Al Qaeda was not just a possibility but had actually occurred. Expeditious action was unlikely to have been served by waited for the participation of Belgian, Portuguese and Greek para-commandos. How long did it take for the Europeans to acquiesce in the tepid military action against the Bosnian Serbs who had been randomly shelling civilians in Sarajevo? Is that how long Patten expected the Americans to wait after September 11th?
I hope those instincts will not prevail, because I believe them to be profoundly misguided. The lesson of September 11 is that we need both American leadership and international co-operation on an unprecedented scale. It is in the world’s interest, as it is in the interests of the world’s greatest power, that leadership should be exercised in partnership.
The US said ‘you are either with us or with the terrorists’, which sounds like leadership to me. They then proceeded to blow seven shades of crap out of Afghanistan… at which point nations such as Syria, Sudan and Yemen started ‘co-operation on an unprecedented scale’ with the US. Sounds like leadership and co-operation to me. The problem lies in the Islamic world and this it is the co-operation of the relavent bits of the Islamic world that matters. If the people who flew the aircraft into the WTC were mostly French and German, no doubt there would be more of an imperitive to secure French and German co-operation. Of course partnership is pretty much the antithesis of leadership so quite what Patten means by leadership should be exercised in partnership is unclear to me.
Why is that so? Let me offer five reasons. First, every day makes us more aware of the interconnectedness of the modern world: a world in which America is at the centre of an increasingly integrated web, in which modern technology is corrosive of national boundaries and national jurisdictions. That makes it all the more important to work with those who share your values in order to protect them.
Exactly. Which is why the US worked with the UK and not Brussels. The US and the UK share values. The US and the EU do not.
Second, while globalisation – the combination of open trade, capitalism and technology – creates unparalleled opportunities, it also has a dark side. The European Union symbolises the ability of countries to come together to tackle common problems.
The ‘dark side’ of globalisation is creating global capitalist wealth generating networks which stasis based institutions like the EU and repressive regimes everywhere have great difficulty controlling. The ‘common problems’ Patten refers to are common to trade unions, subsidised farmers and protected national industries. The ‘problem’ they have is that they are trying to sunbathe and finding themselves in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty. Patten said a few days after September 11th that the attack was ‘due to globalization’. So presumably if we restrict trade to within national borders and subject all economic activity to state regulation, Al-Qaeda would not have attacked the USA. Here is an alternate thesis: if for the last 50 years the EU and other trading nations had
Third, the international institutional architecture – from the United Nations to the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and World Trade Organisation – owes more to the genius of American statesmen than to any other source. But these institutions are under threat. Their rulings are challenged with increasing truculence and impunity. They lack democratic legitimacy, which fuels the muddled movement against globalisation. They need to be nurtured or they will lose their authority – and we shall all be the poorer for it.
The UN, IMF, World Bank and WTO are idiotic institutions. Not because they are not ‘democratic’, which is just another way of saying ‘politicized’ , but because they are statist, which is to say, they are based on the premise that trade occurs between states rather than people and free associations (companies). Legitimacy does not come from democracy, it comes from non-coercion and free choice. And so does prosperity. Left to their own devises and without layer upon layer of regulations and tariffs, would companies trade more or less? Obviously more, and as more trade means more wealth is created, the problem is not how can states facilitate companies trading but how can companies prevent states and the whole alphabet soup of state-based organisations they create, from getting in the way.
Fourth, Europe cannot hope to match US military spending – nor should it even aspire to do so. Like Lord Robertson, the secretary-general of Nato, I feel strongly that European governments should increase their national military budgets, shouldering more of the burden for their own defence. But “security” is a wider concept. The EU, with its member states, is a massive provider of development assistance. We provide about 55 per cent of total international assistance and as much as two-thirds of all grant aid. That too is a contribution to international security. No one disputes the need for tough military action to destroy the al-Qaeda network and its bases. But if we are to deny al-Qaeda, and other networks, the territory from which to plan future atrocities, we have to do all we can to bolster weak or failing states and prevent them falling into the clutches of the bin Ladens of this world.
By providing “55 per cent of total international assistance and as much as two-thirds of all grant aid”…TO STATES the EU underwrites 55% of the problem, not the solution. It takes money confiscated from EU taxpayers and gives it to kleptocratic regimes across the world, who allocate the money on socialist-statist principles. Far from adding to global security, the EU undermines it. Far better would be to take that ‘aid’ money, which only aids the very regimes which lock-in the self reinforcing doom loop of politicized economics, and leaving it with the individual EU taxpayers to whom it belongs. If the EU insists on stealing it however, they would do a hell of a lot more for global security by spending the money on aircraft carriers rather than supporting flawed third world governance.
There is a final point. I need hardly say that as well as affection and admiration for America around the world, there is also fear and resentment. As the world’s only superpower, the US carries a particular responsibility to maintain moral authority for her leadership. Do your own thing and everything seems clear and purposeful; but there is a cost in terms of legitimacy and long-term effectiveness. That cost accumulates over time.
Almost invariably when someone says “I need hardly say that as well as affection and admiration for America around the world” it means nothing could be further from the truth and they are about to say something that proves quite the contrary. Patten represents a fundamentally illegitimate organisation which even by his own standards of advocating legitimacy-by-democracy is illegitimate. Who elected EU Commissioner Chris Patten.
So where does this leave us? It leaves me, at least, uneasy. I look to America – as I have always looked to America – to engage with a complex and dangerous world. There is much that is evil in that world. But to brand a disparate group of countries as an “axis of evil” did not strike me as the finest phrase ever produced by the president’s speechwriters. Of course we must oppose what is evil. But we must also build on what is good – and on what offers hope of a better future.
And what exactly is the good that ‘we’ must build on in North Korea, Iraq and Iran?
In Iraq, for example, we must redouble our efforts to get the inspectors back in and to support the opposition to Saddam Hussein. But in Iran? When some in Washington say that European policy in Iran has failed, my immediate reaction is that we need to find new ways to support reform there, not that we should put up the shutters.
Militarily crushing the entire political and military apparatus of Iran and Iraq would be pretty much an unmatchable way of ‘supporting reform’. That is no more ‘putting up shutters’ than the manner in which the US and UK interacted with Nazi Germany. We did not remove the ‘problem’ of Auschwitz and Belsen by prevailing upon the Nazis to allow inspectors to visit. If Iran and Iraq do indeed pose a clear and present danger, then it must be made clear to them in no uncertain terms that such actions will lead the USA to pose a clear and present danger to them. Publicly calling them part of an ‘axis of evil’ seems to achieve that pretty well.
In the case of North Korea, the sunshine policy of Kim Dae-jung offers the best prospect in years of bringing real change. In the Middle East, we need dialogue, not isolation and further radicalisation of the Palestinians.
Patten ended up by quoting Henry Kissinger:
“America’s challenge is to transfer its power into moral consensus, promoting its values not by imposition but by their willing acceptance in a world that, for all its seeming resistance, desperately needs enlightening leadership.” That sentence is not mine but the final paragraph of a recent book by Henry Kissinger. Is it overly candid of this friend of America’s to say that I agree with every word?
Finally I agree with Patten… or more accurately, with Henry Kissinger. Although the US should not seek to impose them, the sooner the US realises its policy of benign neglect is a mistake the better: it does indeed needs to encourage the willing acceptance of its values… by Europe.
