The Whole Thing

Divergence Suspended

Collin May's "Falling France" series at Innocents Abroad has been as good or better than I anticipated. It continues today with the last of three posts on Andre Glucksmann.

While awaiting the series' conclusion and absorbing its content, I may refrain from extending or editing my own notes on the apparent divergence (The Divergence, 1, 2, 3, 4) between US and European interests.

North Africa Shields Its Head

Collin May at Innocents Abroad has begun what promises to be a fascinating series on the decline of France as understood by the French themselves: France Falling - According to the French (link to blog; permalink dysfunctional). Here's his summary of the current situation:

French thinkers, from a variety of backgrounds and persuasions, have begun a discussion, not so much about American imperialism or the situation in Iraq, but about the state of the French soul. From across the political spectrum – liberals, conservatives, Trotskyites, communists, socialists and the far-right – the argument is being made that in all domains, France is collapsing. Economically stagnant, socially divided, politically paralyzed, militarily enfeebled and diplomatically isolated – this, according to numerous French thinkers, is the plight of contemporary France. Some have gone so far as to suggest that France is turning into something of a democratic pariah among advanced western democracies.

He intends to focus each week on a different notable French author, and finally to provide some of his own reflections.

I've been looking forward to May's further work on such themes since his "Europe, Anti-Europe" post last April, which provides a useful background for those trying to understand how European anti-Americanism functions and what purposes it serves.

4. Colonialism without colonies

Looking to the future, the new global Mandarins expect to include many Arab, African, and Asian members among their ranks. For generations now, the European bureaucrats have been cultivating international cadres - all those dependable votes at the UN. Particular issues - Israel and the Palestinians, interpretations of international law, and so on - may serve first as pretexts for advancement of the transnationalists' institutional interests, but the Europeans and their allies also justify their project as a long-term effort not so much to civilize the non-European world as to sterilize it - in the sense of rendering it safe. Imbued with ecologism, they see themselves as working not to improve but to save the globe. Once sufficiently trained in the arts of regulation and stultification, the new transglobal aristo-bureaucracy would tame or at least restrain technology and industrialization, elsewhere distributing aid especially when it reinforces dependency, and declaring, as needed, the occasional sacrifice or quarantine zone. Losses and setbacks are to be expected, if not quite encouraged, and are rarely to be actively opposed: For the tranzis, acts of terrorism - even so-called "mega-terror," or for that matter the occasional genocide - do not weigh terribly much in the grand balance. Anything short of global nuclear war - and possibly even that - can be discounted, and then administered.

3. The new aristocracy

The Europeans have re-created their historical aristocratic class in the form of the new transnational bureaucracy that extends across and exchanges personnel among the United Nations, the European Union, various political parties, and a host of non-governmental aid and issues organizations. The "tranzis" may see themselves as virtually immune to economic and political disaster: Indeed, disaster is one of their specialties. Thus, even if Europe's economy deteriorates severely under centrally imposed stagnation and mismanagement, there will still be a need for the tranzis to administer and divide enlightenment Europe's last effects. For the present, fear, hatred, and ignorance serve their traditional roles in controlling and motivating the masses. In the future, sheer dependency may suffice. Peripheral Europe - where the tranzi influence is weakest and the US is the counterweight rather than the counterweighed - would possibly be allowed to experiment with a range of alternatives, from American-style democratic capitalism to neo-communism to brute anarchy.

2. European interests in the war on terror

Even as the Europeans are being asked to re-define themselves, they are also being forced to deal with the onset of the War on Terror. Fear and disorientation are already natural responses to events such as the 9/11 attacks, and more generally to the outbreak of any war, and the Europeans in addition must realize that they are ill-prepared to fight on their own, and highly vulnerable if the struggle escalates. At first, they and the Americans reflexively sought each other out, invoking the common self-defense provisions of the NATO charter and loudly proclaiming their unity in the struggle. Two years later, the Europeans seem hardly willing collectively to hold America's coat for the fight, and those who take to the streets in protest against US policy may be hoping that the Islamists have noticed, even while America chooses to look away. Whether such a calculation is anything more than wishful thinking - whether it might reduce, even if only marginally, the risk of 9/11-like outrages taking place in Europe - is impossible to say. Over the long run, however, this tactic may leave the Europeans even more exposed, especially if America finds its economic and other interests better served elsewhere, and chooses to remember who its friends were and weren't when it mattered.

1. Anti-Americanism as surrogate nationalism

Anti-Americanism has a long history in Europe, but some relatively recent events have made it inescapable - not just as, in Nelson Ascher's words, a "wild, open, and hysterical" annoyance, but as a central problem in international relations and US policy.

The uncertain transition to an EU super-state puts European identities in play. Anti-Americanism becomes a classic rallying point suitable for manipulation by political opportunists, and works as a surrogate nationalism on two levels - providing negative content in the absence of a positive European identity, and at the same time offering a vehicle for emotions formerly invested in separate national identities. It's not that the French are no longer French, the Germans no longer German, and so on, only that they are being asked to be much less so, revising and to a large extent reversing a project that dominated European politics and culture for several centuries. To the new old question "who are we," the one easy and obvious answer is "not American." (Also, it seems: "Not Jewish.")

The Divergence

Inspired by some discussion at Europundits - click on "nadas" underneath Nelson Ascher's latest essay - I intend to begin blogging some notes on the widening divergence of American and European interests, a subject matter that inevitably touches as well on the Islamists, the international Left, and pretty much the whole thing.

Needless to say, it's a huge subject. Rather than try, at this time, to address it comprehensively, I'll attack it in pieces, beginning today with a series of raw comments originally posted as responses to Ascher's essay and to the discussion it engendered. I intend to revise, expand upon, and possibly re-organize the posts over time, and will allow them first to appear as rough drafts. Questions, disagreements, and suggestions will be welcome - either in the comment section or by e-mail.