September 26, 2002
From the desk of Jane Galt:Steven Den Beste has a
Steven Den Beste has a post on military spending in Europe should the US pull out. He disagrees with me that German spending would rise (and since he spends a lot more time thinking about military things than I do, you should weight this accordingly). Most interesting, however, is the point he makes that much-vaunted European diplomatic efforts are becoming less effective as they lose the stick that went along with the carrot.
I've argued time and time again that both are necessary to negotiation; you may only pull one or the other out of the bag, but you need to have 'em both there. Den Beste makes a point I knew unconsciously, but not consciously: that we provided Europe's threat until the mid-nineties, and that as our interests diverged, their foreign policy has become less effective, because they couldn't back up their efforts with any sort of force projection. As he says, why is Europe pretty much irrelevant in the Middle East? Because we can put soldiers on the ground, and they can't.
(Before you send me the angry emails, think about it: why is the US involved in peacemaking in Israel and Northern Ireland, to name two places, when Europe is much closer to both countries? Recent successful European diplomacy efforts I can think of are almost solely centered around either events right in their back yard, which used American force to back up their efforts, or former colonies where they use cash to clean up the mess they left.)
In many ways it becomes more obvious that Europe needs military force of its own. Not that I think this will be enduring fun for America; it's not fun having more players with competing interests to deal with. But ultimately, I think, as Den Beste speculates, that it will make them better friends to us, and us to them.
Posted by Jane Galt at September 26, 2002 8:27 AM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound links"); ?>