Megan McArdle (linked to by Instpundit) probably speaks for many on both sides of the Atlantic, but especially in the USA, when she asks: what is Chirac up to? She doesn’t know. All he seems to be achieving is to antagonise the USA, to no apparent purpose.
She’s right about what he’s doing. But maybe the answer is that he is doing this deliberately, for local reasons.
It was said after 9/11 that you couldn’t understand Al-Qaeda’s thinking if you thought only about what they were trying to do to the USA. You had to look at their local picture. What if they were really trying to impress fellow Muslims, and to increase their power not so much in the world as a whole but within the Muslim world?
I believe that something similar applies now to France. France’s main concern now is to get the sort of Europe it wants, namely a centralised European state, with France playing a very prominent part. One of the basic problems that the European Project has had in recent decades has been to create a sense of European nationality, to replace all the existing national feelings of “old” Europe. How do you do this? Well, the usual method is to pick a fight with a nice big enemy, who then obliges with insults against the nation you are trying to put together, with the result that people who might join this new nation, but might not, depending, feel insulted by the big bad outsider, and throw their lot in with the new nation. Oh yes, and it’s best to pick a time when they are preoccupied with their own situation, rather than with yours.
For an exposition of how this kind of thing is arranged, see Robert Heinlein’s The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, where separatist Moon colonists contrive a war of words (and by the end a great deal more than words of course) between the Moonies and the Earthies. This has the effect of uniting the Moonies behind the revolutionary separatists.
I don’t know much about the history of the American Revolution, but I’m guessing that this kind of trick was also pulled in America, to unite the colonists there, and to persuade them to stop thinking of themselves merely as the citizens of their separate little sovereign states, but rather as Americans.
Well, France seems to me to be working the same trick. Time was when Russia served as the perfect unification Big Bad Wolf, and during the Cold War, European unity cruised ahead, seemingly unstoppably. But then Russia was switched off as a threat, and so now the USA is the Bad Guy, an enemy with whom, one suspects, many French leaders are, in any case, far more comfortable. Preoccupied Americans look hastily at recent French diplomatic (i.e. extremely undiplomatic!) moves, and ask in amazement: Don’t these cheese eating surrender monkeys realise that they will bring down upon themselves the wrath of America? Yes they do. And I surmise that this is the whole idea.
The speed with which even now EUro-integration is proceeding certainly fits in with what I’m saying.
Of course this is a risky strategy. What if the other Europeans interpret all this not as America v Europe, but as France v Sensibleness (and by extension France v. Rest of Europe – dragging the rest of Europe into their silly little French antipathy to hamburgers and Stallone movies)?
The USA may oblige with an artillery barrage (see the rest of the blogosphere) of anti-French and anti-European insults, and a number of non-lethal economic punishments, a process that is already under way. Defacing war memorials always works. You daub some anti-American crap on war graves, the Americans explode with rage and say things about all the damn Europeans that not all Europeans are guilty of by any means, and all Europeans feel insulted. Or maybe many Europeans hear the American counter-blasts without hearing about the original insult hurled at them, and so it tit-for-tats into a serious antipathy. Success!
But the USA may, instead, give some serious thought to getting its revenge over France by doing exactly what France does not want, which would be something more like to sweet-talk its way around Europe, and dissolve “L’Europe” in a bath of Uncle Sam niceness.
Until recently, the USA has been supportive of European unity, as understood by the French, because unity against the Red Menace was what mattered. After 1990, the USA has been indifferent. But what if the USA now (a) decided to smash up not Europe itself, but the French version of it, and what if (b) they got serious about this and did it properly and subtly, rather than in a way which plays into French hands? What if the USA settles down to help the UK to create a European Free Trade Zone, a loose affiliation of freely trading nations (either within the EU or outside of it – whichever), rather than a deeply statist Euro-Superstate presided over by a Euro-version of France’s “Enarques”?
Interestingly, one of the commenters over at Megan McArdle’s notes that the man doing all this is the Gaullist Chirac, who is trying to get us all here to feel about “L’Europe” the way that de Gaulle used to talk about “La France”, as a mystical entity and an object of blind love and devotion. And a recent critic, this commenter notes, of Chirac’s anti-Americanism is the Socialist Jacques Delors. The Gaullist is the nationalist, with “L’Europe” as the new nation. Delors, the socialist, is concerned about the unity of mankind, and sees a Europe vs. USA split as a mortal threat to everything he believes in.
As does Tony Blair, but that’s another post.
I don’t know if this is true, I’m not an expert, I could be quite wrong, blah blah blah, but it sounds about right to me. What does anyone else think?
I think Chirac’s going to have some small short term successes in europe as long as Belgium and Germeny are going along with him. What happens if Germany has a CDU government (which may happen within a year or so)? I am not sure CDU really believes in the Franco-German dominated europe, and certainly CDU doesn’t want to piss-off USA.
Brian,
Interesting post. I have a few thoughts to throw into the mix. We don’t really have to read Chirac’s mind to know what’s going on in France. So many verbose French intellectuals have excoriated America for so long now, we need only look at the corpus of their “work.” What do we learn from it? Basically, they have succeeded in setting up an American strawman with only tangential links to the real mccoy. This strawman is ill-educated (throw in fat and lazy if you like), likes guns, likes the death penalty, is racist, narrow minded and gung-ho Christian. Whenever Europeans feel bad about crime, immigration, their economies, etc., it’s time to bring out the straw man to take a beating.
Europeans are especially fond of calling Americans selfish. This is our besetting sin. I believe the essense of their fury is economic. Our “selfishness” is expressed (so they say) in our grossly unequal wealth distribution. More to the point, I think, is the growing inequality between Europe and America in terms of productivity and output. It’s like that classic Peter Sellers movie, “I’m alright Jack.” America is the stupid git who takes a job in the factory and works as hard as he can; this makes his coworkers, who’d rather play cards, resent him and try to coerce him into taking it easy. The problem is that Europeans (with their 35 hour work week and 6 weeks vacation) cannot compete with Americans who work as long and as hard as it takes to pay for their McMansions and Lexuses. This is the real “selfishness”: our unwillingness to take it easy and enjoy the socialized good life.
Finally, looking beyond Europe and America, you have to see what Chirac is doing as his bid to draw together a coalition of the unwilling–a motley collection of third-world states equally resentful at America as France, and willing (when it suits them) to let Chirac speak for them to the UNSC or some such forum. It’s a cut-rate version of a nouveau French empire, but hey, what’s it cost France? Nothing but the good will of its erstwhile ally, the USA.
Funny, since the war started I just can’t get very worked up about the French. They seem too inconsequential. My rage has hardened into cold contempt. This is more or less permanent and I am proudly passing it along to my children. C’est la vie.
Kelli
It’s probably unnecessary to remind libertarians of this, but the interests of politicians should never be mistaken for the interests of the countries they govern. Chiraq has won himself a nice little domestic political boost, at the cost of annoying a foreign powere which historically has shown very little tendency to hold grudges. The only real misstep I saw (again, from Chiraq’s self-interested POV) was the unsuccessful attempt to bully the Easterners.
Post 1945, Germany had no moral authority at all, for obvious reasons. The great French success was to forge the alliance with Germany, in which essentially the Germans were allowed back into respectable society in the company of the French, and in return the EU was build under a French model with French values. Even better, the French then managed to convince lots of people that those French values were the only genuine “European values”. For those of us who like small government and a lack of bureacracy and corruption, this is a shame, as I don’t think there is anything less European about British free market common law type ideas than French statism. The French just sold their arguments better. I don’t personally see anything wrong with their being some pan-European values or institutions – in fact I think some are necessary, and I think that the single market is on the whole a good thing. However, I don’t think that the EU should be an extension of greater France. (However, it is probably impossible to reform the existing institutions to unwind the fact that they are an extension of greater France. I think in their present state they are pretty much unreformable).
I wonder if the French, in part, miscalculated because they believed that W was callow like his dad, and would be hampered by youth(?) inexperience(?) lack of perceived mandate(?). I know if Clinton was pres, he would fly to Paris, get on his knees and….apologize to Chriac while placing an order for 100 Airbuses.
Seems like W doesn’t play that game. My guess (wish) is that W’s retribuition will be brutal.
Jack M
My surmise is not that Chirac has MIScalculated that Bush Jnr’s response may be “brutal”; on the contrary maybe he has CALCULATED that it will be brutal, and maybe this is exactly what he wants.
In other words, maybe Bush Jnr., with his cowboy image (and in Europe cowboys are considered to be stupid as well as brutal) may have given Chirac just the opportunity to stir up a good row with the USA that he has been waiting for, thereby uniting EUrope.
However, I think that both you and Chirac may be underestimating Bush Jnr. I think that his response to Chirac may be not brutal at all, but that, on the contrary, it may be highly sophisticated and nuanced and downright European. Almost French, you might say. That’s what Chirac may not have considered.
I didn’t discuss the Bush angle, only the Chirac angle, but it’s an interesting extra thing to add to the picture.
I think you are mostly right. The unbelievable anti-Americanism that seems to come from most of Western Continental Europe seems to be playing into Chirac’s hands. Also, the leftist media seem to be cooperating.
I gather, from some of the questions at Centcom from the European press that there is a belief that U.S. may actually be lying about a great deal. First, there seems to be a belief that Saddam may actually not have WMDs. 2nd, I think many in Europe think we may lie about the war. I don’t mean lying in an operational sense like “we only have a few troops in Western Iraq” when I think we probabably have a sizable force there. These are tactical lies that most but the most self-righteous journalists will understand. I think that the European media (FYI, I mean western continental Europe) actually believe we may be lying about not targeting civilians. That the Iraqi’s may be telling the truth about casualties and what not. It’s not that I have blind trust in my government, but I do have a blind trust that our media will turn over every stone to find coverups and lies. And they are damn good at it. This is why the Pentagon is usually very forthcoming when a cruise missle goes ary. Because, if they lie, they know they’ll get caught eventually, and there will be hell to pay. I don’t think the European media appreciates this.
Thus, I see, from what little I’ve read (granted, mostly from links via the blogosphere) that there is real anti-Americanism that is rampant. That not merely disagrees with the right or wrong of this particular war, but believes, as an assumption, that U.S. goals are always bad. That really concerns me.
I actually think Chirac is playing a high-risk game that could accomplish his goals outlined in this great column. We’ve seen from many EU folks that they virtually define European nationalism solely being against or different than America (kind of Canadian foreign policy writ large). I think this could succeed. We’ve all read many articles on the real cultural and political differences between western continental Europe and the U.S. (with the Brits somewhere in between). Chirac, shrewdly, is banking on driving that final wedge in there. He may very well succeed. France already bullies it’s way around the EU. Imagine if they actually have popular support to do that.
The wild cards here is the Spain and Italy. Can there leaders, who are more pro-US than the population, convince there populace not to play this game? And what about Eastern Europe. Will the epiphany that seems to have taken place among it’s political leaders actually transfer to there policies visa vi the EU. Will they still blindly join the Union that seems to be creating very harsh terms for seccession? And will Bush do what Brian suggests? I don’t know. I honestly am worried. Both my wife and I have relatives in Holland and Germany. I’d like to visit them again. I’d like my son to meet his great grandmother. I am quite frankly, scared for our safety to visit Germany? Am I off base? I’m not really a hysterical person, but are these fears justified? I don’t know. But I am concerned.
Finally, while the Bush administration may take a step back from the U.N. security council, I don’t see it going away, thus France will still maintain power and influence there. Believe me, a Democrat will eventually win the White House again, and they’ll totally reinvolve us in the U.N., on the promise that a few hugs and a song really can save the world.
Damn Chirac for his cynical power play that in the end will make the world a more dangerous place, when this coalition is genuinely trying to make it a safer one. Sorry, I’m in a mood today.
Michael:
Post 1945, Germany had no moral authority at all, for obvious reasons. The great French success was to forge the alliance with Germany, in which essentially the Germans were allowed back into respectable society in the company of the French, and in return….”
In return the Frech got “agricultural subsidies” i.e. cash, payd for by the Germans. They sold respectability for cash, what’s the word for it ?
Brian’s guess strikes me as very acute. It entirely fits with what I think French conceptions of playing the long-term game are.
I think Russ can expect to go to Germany and Holland safely, even in a politically anti-American Europe, for a decade or two yet, though.
If the new European defence force includes France and Belgium, but not Holland, the break might already be happening. The Dutch, Danish, Swedish worldviews on tax and trade have more in common with Britain and the US than with France.
–
Jacob. That’s a cynical way of putting it, although it contains obvious truth, yes. It is worse than just that, though. The EU was also built with a French style bureacracy, which could not have happened without the tacit support of the Germans. When the French threaten to hijack the entire global trading system over the interests of a few farmers, again the EU goes along with it, which largely means the Germans goes along with it. (Some of these things are worse than simple bribery).
I agree with Russ that the future role of Italy and Spain are interesting. If you can forge a pro-American alliance including Spain and Italy and led by Britain, things become interesting. (Not an easy thing to do, though).
I’m off the France tomorrow. Hopefully I will not find I have been banned from Samizdata when I get back.
I
We all try very hard to figure out what Chirac’s game is. Could it be there is no game ?
Stupidity is something that sophisticated Europeans attribute to cowboys. Isn’t it possible that it is the other way round ? I submit that stupidity is the only explanation of Chirac that makes sense. He dealt a hard blow to the UN, EU and NATO. Is it possible that he did it intentionally ? Will he gain stature in Europe ? No, he just provoked division and quarrel between EU members, a split with Britain, Spain, Italy and other countries.
I don’t think there is logic or wisdom or a sophisticated scheme in Chirac; only pure anti American prejudice, and plain dumbness.
This proposition isn’t very extraordinary, most French would have agreed easily a few months ago, so how did Chirac turn suddenly into the Great Wise Leader of Europe ?
One point is that I think frankenreich will have 56 votes in the EU, but, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and another country will also have 56 votes.
Frankenreich could be stonewalled, depending on Britain/Italy/Spain.
IMHO, Chirac is largely using the Hitler model.
He’s replaced the Jew with the American (though the Jews aren’t off the scapegoat hook). He’s replaced Aryan-nationalism with European-nationalism.
Hitler used military force to conquer Europe and loot it to pay for his socialist state. Chirac will loot Europe without firing a shot, through the EU.
I might be overestimating Chirac, but I have no doubts that that is what the French want from the EU.
This is a great thread! Really well-thought out comments. I’ll add my two cents, and try not to downgrade things.
I don’t think Chirac is acting from “stupidity,” I think his actions are coldly calculated. I think he has the majority support of his, and other EU citizens, in that they fear US power. Even Spain (from what I’ve heard from Spanish nationals I know), and perhaps Italy (don’t really know), while they might support the US in the War with Iraq, have grave concerns re: US hegemony and power.
I agree that Chirac is setting up the US as “the enemy” and I emphatically agree that Chirac has used the EU to consolidate French power — and would like to use the War to further this goal. Even if the US is proved right that Iraq was a regime that needed changing, and that the War was justified, our being correct in this instance at the same time reinforces our strength and perceived threat to the European continent.
I don’t hold out much hope for Bush to suddenly display sophistication in diplomacy, but I do think his administration understands the power of money. I think we need to strengthen our ties with Spain and Italy, work to weaken UK’s ties to the EU, and pump boatloads of money and expertise into the Eastern European nations, especially those scheduled to join the EU — they have been under the yoke of more powerful countries within living memory, and Chirac’s comments to them to “be quiet” didn’t go down well.
I would caution against underestimating Chirac’s (French) political manipulations, and remember that Muslim immigration into Europe is increasing.
In summary, I think we need to bolster the EU’s non-German, non-French constituents, and note that EU beauracractic regulations also will serve as a drain on its countries’ strengths. The ultimate would be to bolster the Eastern European nations to the extent that they don’t WANT to join the EU.
Come May 1, 2004, Chirac et al. are in for a fairly rude awakening. On that day, up to ten new members will join the EU, and the days when Paris and Berlin could dictate the terms of the Union will be gone for good.
There was a preview of this at the negotiations during the summit in Nice, France in 2000. That was when the subtle and sophisticated diplomacy of Chirac wanted to give Poland less weight in EU votes than Spain, depsite their roughly equal populations. The French president also wanted Hungary and the Czech Republic to have less weight than Belgium and the Netherlands, despite their roughly equal populations. The new members were not only being told they would be second-class members in the Union, that second-class status would be built into the EU’s structure at its most fundamental level.
The Easterners didn’t play that. In this case, neither did Germany, nor did (if memory serves) anyone but Chirac, who held on to it until the very last possible moment. This influenced people, but didn’t win friends. The French presidency of the EU was widely seen as a self-made failure, largely as a result of poor preparation and arrogance. Contrast this with the performance of the Danes in the second half of 2002. Praise all around for closing difficult negotiations with the future Eastern members on time, under budget, and with a minimum of fuss. The negotiating teams and European ministries from the East haven’t forgotten.
French leadership within the EU is having not only a tough time conceptually but down at the practical level. From the middle of next year, we’re going to get to see what French elites and French farmers really think of a multipolar system. Because that’s what’s coming in the EU, instead of the old unipolar system in which France dictates, Germany pays and Britain dithers until it’s far too late and then tries to change everything anyway.
I don’t think Chirac has been very clever at all, and I think it’s going to hurt French interests most very close to home, in the councils of the EU. France will be in a very difficult position, one its leaders have worked diligently to put the country into.
My take on the current situation re: Iraq/Americ/France is much simpler than your wise and mostly valid points.
Iraq bought Chiraq.
Money can explain a lot of stupidity. And it fits with Chiraq’s known proclivities. He is probably enjoying the masterful wise punditification of his critics all the way to the bank.
Looting the EU.
The agricultural policy is only the tip of the iceburg. The new members are needed to support medical and old age benefits in the aging populations of France and Germany.
The political benefits gained by having Frawnce speak for the new members is a bonus.
Okay, so Chirac may have planned this, or he may have made it up as he went along and got swept away (and boxed in) with his popularity. Or he may just have been bought by Saddam. Or, he may have improvised an intra-EU strategy based upon Shroeder’s weakness in order to continue the CAP. Fine. But what happens next seems to depend on both Bush and Blair.
Brian M. laid out Bush’s choices – brutal or subtle.
But , and I would love feedback here, doesn’t Blair hold more sway over Chirac’s success or failure at this game?
If, as some Americans fear, this was Tony’s ONLY dance with Washington, and Tony comes back to the EU, forces a vote on the Euro etc, won’t that mean Chirac has won? I don’t believe Tony can join with the Eastern members and Spain and Italy to thwart Frace WITHIN the EU.