Dream on America: World Increasingly Rejecting US Model

[Agathon]

Very short answer - most non-Americans dont like Bush.

It's gone a lot further than that.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Agathon

When the gulf between us and the US is seen as unbridgeable, Bush will have won.

And the US will be isolated and eventually Gulliverized. Which means we win.

talk about dreaming.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I always tend to be amused by those who REALLY, REALLY hope for the fall of the US .

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by St Leo

Originally posted by Agathon
And the US will be isolated and eventually Gulliverized. Which means we win.

Who's we? We are in the same basket as America. Her demise takes something from us.

But its nice revenge for 1989, I suppose.

[St Leo]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
But its nice revenge for 1989, I suppose.

The fall of the Berlin wall was a good thing. So was the disbanding of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics two years later. It brought liberty to those opressed by a stifling hierarchical society.

[Atahualpa]

How's my "analysis"? Nobody ever replies to my posts.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by St Leo
This level of polarization is unwise. We are reacting to the US extremists, not the US Jane Sixpacks.

When the gulf between us and the US is seen as unbridgeable, Bush will have won.

dont worry leo, we dont group all euro, canadians etc with folks like Aggie. Even neocons dont.

[Straybow]

The only thing the world looked to the US about is prosperity. Still happening. The world has always looked at the US as imperialistic, and have sometimes courted US favor (but more often not).

This whole "threat to world peace" is nonsense. These are the same fools (the Commies' "useful idiots") who thought the US was a threat to world peace when we were holding the line against the Soviets while they sent their troops into Hungary, Poland and Afghanistan.

I suppose some people just never learn. Their loss.

[Agathon]

It brought liberty to those opressed by a stifling hierarchical society.

So will the end of the US.

Who said we wanted the US destroyed. We just want it reduced in influence so that we can deal with the world's problems without idiots wrecking it.

[lord of the mark]

Robert Kagan, neocon, in the WaPo on Europe

"Embraceable E.U.

By Robert Kagan
Sunday, December 5, 2004; Page B07

In the unfolding drama of Ukraine, the Bush administration and the European Union have committed a flagrant act of transatlantic cooperation. If Ukrainians eventually vote in a free and fair election and thereby thwart the reemergence of an authoritarian Russian empire along the borders of democratic Europe, it will be one of those rare hinges of history where looming disaster was turned into glittering opportunity. And it would not have happened without the joint efforts of the United States and the European Union using -- dare one say it? -- "soft power" to compel Vladimir Putin and his would-be quislings to retreat from their botched coup d'etat.

Maybe this is the real future for transatlantic cooperation. In recent years thinkers and diplomats on both sides of the Atlantic have earnestly tried to restore the old Cold War strategic partnership, albeit aimed at a different set of enemies. We have squeezed European troops into Afghanistan, where they are growing weary, and tried to squeeze them into Iraq, where they do not want to go. "Out of area or out of business" was the Clinton administration's mantra for NATO in the 1990s. But consider the possibility that this old formula won't work for the new "postmodern" entity Europe has become. Except in matters of trade, Europe is not a global player in the traditional geopolitical sense of projecting power and influence far beyond its borders. Few Europeans even aspire to such a role. This means Americans should bury once and for all absurd worries about the rise of a hostile E.U. superpower -- Europe will be neither hostile nor a superpower in the traditional sense. It also means Americans should stop looking to Europe to shoulder much of the global strategic burden beyond its environs.


But the crisis in Ukraine shows what an enormous and vital role Europe can play, and is playing, in shaping the politics and economies of nations and peoples along its ever-expanding border. This is no small matter. On the contrary, it is a task of monumental strategic importance for the United States as well as for Europeans. By accident of history and geography, the European paradise is surrounded on three sides by an unruly tangle of potentially catastrophic problems, from North Africa to Turkey and the Balkans to the increasingly contested borders of the former Soviet Union. This is an arc of crisis if ever there was one, and especially now with Putin's play for a restoration of the old Russian empire. In confronting these dangers, Europe brings a unique kind of power, not coercive military power but the power of attraction. The European Union has become a gigantic political and economic magnet whose greatest strength is the attractive pull it exerts on its neighbors. Europe's foreign policy today is enlargement; its most potent foreign policy tool is what the E.U.'s Robert Cooper calls "the lure of membership."

Cooper describes the E.U. as a liberal, democratic, voluntary empire expanding continuously outward as others seek to join it. This expanding Europe absorbs problems and conflicts rather than directly confronting them in the American style. The lure of membership, he notes, has helped stabilize the Balkans and influenced the political course of Turkey. The Turkish people's desire to join the European Union has led them to modify Turkey's legal code and expand rights to conform to European standards. The expansive and attractive force of the European Union has also played its part in the Ukraine crisis. Had Europe not expanded to include Poland and other Eastern European countries, it would have neither the interest nor the influence in Ukraine's domestic affairs that it does.

Cooper, unlike many Europeans, acknowledges the vital role of U.S. power in providing the strategic environment within which Europe's soft expansionism can proceed. Employing America's "military muscle" to "clear the way for a political solution involving a kind of imperial penumbra around the European Union," he suggests, may be the way to deal with "the area of the greatest threat in the Middle East." In the Balkans, Europe's magnetic attraction would have been feeble had Slobodan Milosevic not been defeated militarily. And undoubtedly American power provides a useful backdrop in the current diplomatic confrontation over Ukraine.

Cooper is not alone in his expansive European vision. Among leading European policymakers, Germany's Joschka Fischer seems the most dedicated to using enlargement and the E.U.'s attractive power for strategic purposes. Before Sept. 11, 2001, Fischer was suspicious of bringing Turkey into the European Union and inheriting such nightmarish neighbors as Iraq and Syria. But now he regards Turkey's membership as a strategic necessity. "To modernize an Islamic country based on the shared values of Europe would be almost a D-Day for Europe in the war against terror," he argues, because it "would provide real proof that Islam and modernity, Islam and the rule of law . . . [and] this great cultural tradition and human rights are after all compatible." This "would be the greatest positive challenge for these totalitarian and terrorist ideas."

Americans could hardly disagree. Unfortunately, Cooper's and Fischer's vision of an expanding E.U. empire is not shared across Europe. It finds most support in Tony Blair's Britain, as well as in Poland and other Eastern European countries, and among the current German leadership (though not among the German population). It has least support in France, where even the recent inclusion of Poland and other nations to the east is regarded as something of a disaster for French foreign policy and where the admission of Turkey is considered anathema. Modern, secular, forward-looking France still insists that Europe must remain, in the words of Valery Giscard d'Estaing, a Christian civilization. In this and other respects, France is part of what one might call "red-state Europe," a pre-modern bastion on a postmodern continent.

Americans are generally skeptical of or indifferent to the European Union. They shouldn't be. The United States has an important interest in the direction the E.U. takes in coming years. It may actually matter, for instance, whether Britain votes to support the E.U. constitution, as Blair wants. A Britain with real influence inside the E.U. is more likely to steer it in the liberal imperial direction that the E.U.'s Cooper, a former Blair adviser, proposes. That could prove a far more important strategic boon to the United States than a few thousand European troops in Iraq.

Robert Kagan, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

[Agathon]

Kagan is an idiot.

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


My understanding that higher rates of infant mortality in the US are associated with drug use, teen pregnancies in communities without structure, etc. Which arguably are caused by social policies, but not health care.

in any case so what. Maybe higher infant mortality IS caused by the lack of national health insurance. Tossing in something lack longer lifespans in France just takes away credibility. Dont you see GePap = theres no ARGUMENT here. Its like somebody when through his files to find negative things to say about the US, and tossed them altogether. Perfect for a poly poster, but one expects more from Newsweek. So whats the point, we shouldnt invade middle eastern countries without UNSC approval until we pass national health insurance, but then its OK? If not, whats the point? The US is unlikely to change domestic policies to win greater leeway overseas, much though Id like to see both results - and honestly, no foreign country is going to alter its opinion of specific US actions based on US domestic policy. And the folks in nondemocratic countries ARE going to aspire to demos, whatever the US is like - if US lack of healthcare means theyre more likely to pick parliamentary system vs Presidential system, who the hell cares?

This is politics at the Ted Striker level (Euro US Blue State US Bush ) not analysis.

No its not. Honestly, do you think "lifestyle" is enough for a 4 year difference in lifespans? I am sorry, but it seems a cheap and convinient answer. And besides, do you have any evidence to points to lifestyle? Both the quality of care AND the lifestyle are valid possible explinations for the significant difference in life spans- unless you can show definitive proof is cause they eat less, then you have no right to say its an invalid arguement.

BUt the deeper question is one of what the US standing in the world will be about- the US is the unquestioned superpower because people saw it as relatively benevolent, as opposed to a less benevolent USSR- the US remains paramount militarily, but is loosing ground as a share of economics, and if people do NOT look up to the US, do not try to emulate our system, then as the Share of the world economy the US has declined, our leadership and relevance will too.

This is a question of the US's place in the world, and of course, Americans are NOT blind, and as stubborn as we are, it does not mean we are not going to even emulate what is going on in the world around- and if the entire world moves to a couple of systems other than the American system, it is impossible to think the US will itself not change.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap

This is a question of the US's place in the world, and of course, Americans are NOT blind, and as stubborn as we are, it does not mean we are not going to even emulate what is going on in the world around- and if the entire world moves to a couple of systems other than the American system, it is impossible to think the US will itself not change.

Its not impossible that the US will emulate social democracy ( I would vote for that) but i hardly think that the world in 2005 is more friendly to social democracy than the world in 1965 was, nor do i think the world in 2040 will be much closer. But if it is, thats kewl.

It has nothing to do with Aggies 2 minute hate.

[St Leo]

Originally posted by Straybow
This whole "threat to world peace" is nonsense. These are the same fools (the Commies' "useful idiots") who thought the US was a threat to world peace when we were holding the line against the Soviets while they sent their troops into Hungary, Poland and Afghanistan

Bush is a threat to world peace. America is just a tool at his disposal.

As a feminist and an advocate of human rights, I would have rather seen the USSR take over Afghanistan. USSR's record in that category is spotty, but far better than that of the subsequent Taliban regime.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Agathon
Kagan is an idiot.