European Paradise and American Power

Imagine a person armed with only knife alone in the woods with a dangerous bear, prone to attack, lurking somewhere nearby. This person's wisest option would be to remain silent and hope for the best. Certainly, to go preemptively after the bear with only a knife entails an even greater risk. Imagine another person in a similar situation except armed with a high-powered rifle. It may prove to be less risky for this second individual to actually go after the bear to eliminate the threat. Waiting for a surprise attack may make the rifle less useful. Whatever decision either individual ultimately makes, it is clear that the level of personal power and armament affects the assessment of risk and strategy.

This metaphor is how Robert Kagan, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, describes the central thesis of his short book Of Paradise and Power. The large and growing disparity between the United States and Europe in their ability to project military power drives the growing fracture between the American and European views of the world. What makes these differences more difficult is the fact that both views are also animated by a myth or story that persuades both Americans and Europeans that they are setting a moral example for the world.

The United States began over two hundred years ago as a consciously different state designed to avoid the tyranny and impoverishment of Europeans. American avoidance of European politics was rooted both in an abhorrence of power politics as conducted by the corrupt monarchies of Europe and the fact that America was so militarily impotent that its situation represented that of a lone person in a woods armed with only a knife. Nonetheless, the American political model has spread. Americans can justifiable claim that successful adoption of capitalistic constitutional democracies serves as a global model for freedom and affluence. In addition, over the past century, especially during World War I, World War II, and the Cold War, America saw its military power as necessary and decisive in the protection of freedom and democracy.

The recent European experience is quite different. Chastened by over a half a century of power politics and nationalism that resulted in the death of millions of Europeans, they have adopted an abiding belief that security can only be attained through multi-national agreements and negotiations. The way to deal with adversaries is to negotiate and negotiate, building larger agreements on the foundations of trust nurtured from previous smaller agreements. Europeans are justly proud of the application of this approach and the astonishing emergence of the European Union. Once implacable adversaries like France and Germany can now share a common currency. According to Kagan, the qualities that comprise the contemporary European strategic culture are an "emphasis on negotiation, diplomacy, on international law over the use of force, on seduction over coercion, on multilateralism over unilateralism."

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