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How the West Ends?
Back in the 1950s, when the institutions were still new and shaky, I’m sure many people feared the Western alliance might never take off. Perhaps in the 1970s, the era of the Red Brigades and Vietnam, many more feared that the West would not survive. But in my adult life, I cannot remember a moment as dramatic as this: Right now, we are two or three bad elections away from the end of NATO, the end of the European Union, and maybe the end of the liberal world order as we know it.
I share that feeling. “Not only is Trump uninterested in America’s alliances,” she writes,
he would be incapable of sustaining them. In practice, both military and economic unions require not the skills of a shady property magnate who “makes deals” but boring negotiations, unsatisfying compromises, and, sometimes, the sacrifice of one’s own national preferences for the greater good. In an era when foreign policy debate has in most Western countries disappeared altogether, replaced by the reality TV of political entertainment, all of these things are much harder to explain and justify to a public that isn’t remotely interested.
To which the standard answer is blah, blah, blah, patronizing coastal Ivy-educated elite, what has the West done for us lately.
She tries:
Western unity, nuclear deterrence, and standing armies gave us more than half a century of political stability. Shared economic space helped bring prosperity and freedom to Europe and North America alike. But these are things that we all take for granted, until they are gone.
But none of these arguments work, do they. No matter what, all people hear is blah, blah, blah, patronizing coastal Ivy-educated elites — what have the Romans ever given us in return? Yeah, yeah, yeah, besides half a century of political stability, prosperity and freedom …
Foreign Policy is beginning to reckon with this idea, too: Obama wasn’t an aberration; he was a faithful expression of the American desire to have nothing to do with the world:
President Barack Obama, who as a candidate spoke of the imperative to help shore up weak and failing states, has repeatedly had to promise an impatient American public that he will do his nation-building at home rather than abroad. If he drew down forces too deeply in both Iraq and Afghanistan, he did so in part because he knew the public wanted out. Drones, yes; soldiers, no. A President Hillary Clinton might face an even surlier mood than Obama has.
I don’t think foreign policy elites have fully absorbed this collective attitude.
I don’t either. But nor do I think the American electorate has fully absorbed what it’s risking.
It probably won’t happen. Trump won’t be elected. But the signal his campaign has given the world has been received already: Even Americans don’t believe in the liberal world order as we know it. I don’t think Hillary’s capable, intellectually or as a politician, of dealing with the fallout she’ll face after eight years of her own foreign policy incompetence. The American electorate has already told the world in no uncertain terms, “Go to hell.” She’ll be presiding over a near-ungovernable country.
Surely there’s got to be a way out of this?
Published in Foreign Policy, General
How is this untrue? Why else the move for Brexit, except that the UK is rankling at controls from Brussels? Why the growing strength of the nationalist parties in France and Germany? These are all reactions, in part, to the centralized EU controls.
If the West “ends”, it’ll be from suicide: a rejection of hybrid classical/Christian culture that defined it, ethnic self-loathing taught to future generations (“Because Colonialism”), and declarations that there’s nothing superior about the West.
It won’t expire because it ends an alliance formed specifically to fight a threat that’s been dead since 1991, or because it decides that a wannabe federal superstate that erases European nations in the quest for one giant generic “Europe” was a bad idea all along. Western nations embracing their heritage… all of it, not just PC approved versions… and taking back both their sovereignty and responsibility for their own defense could only strengthen the West. Which is why those elites are so dead-set against such measures.
I’m not saying they do not participate, but they do not participate proportionately. I see little need to be concerned about any kind of arms race as the EU nations are not exactly squabbling over border disputes with each other, nor over colonial possessions, or national prestige. Fears of a WWI or WWII style arms race between European powers are unfounded.
There would be a lot more support for Pax Americana if that was restricted to punishing and scaring villains… as opposed to occupying nation after nation under the fantasy that democracy pacifies peoples raised in hate and tribalism.
Republican foreign policy hasn’t represented clear, limited, achievable goals in my lifetime.
I live a few blocks away from where most of those attacks happened. They were not committed by refugees. France has accepted very few refugees from the Syrian conflict. France has absolutely no need of American troops: It has the world’s sixth-largest military (making it man-for-man more powerful than ours) and its own independent nuclear deterrent. No one has even remotely proposed that American troops be sent to defend France since the Second World War.
That you think otherwise, demand respect for a view that is not grounded in facts, and feel contempt for people who do think facts are relevant to the discussion leaves them with no option but to patronize you. Should they pretend to respect a viewpoint not at all grounded in fact or reality?
And there’s no shortage of Kevorkian wannabes
But honestly, that’s what it looks like to the average American conservative who does pay some attention, but maybe not as much as he could, because, you know he has a life and can’t do PhD level research on this topic all day long.
I’m not trying to be flippant, I agree with your post, but really, almost all the Europeans I know seem to think we’re idiots, louts, gun toting, fools, except you, of course, they always say. Gee thanks!
Perhaps they finally realize we’ve lost the stomach to keep it up (backing NATO). The EU has become a cronyist technocracy with very little democratic transparency or have so many conservatives been lying to us for the last ten years – and if so – why?
A sure thing about history is that we are living through it right now. It is not the history of our grandparents or even of our parents, but it is our history. When people think about their history, they try to understand it. We know what happened when, but why did it happen?
We know about WWII and about the creation of NATO and about the Cold War and the Berlin Wall. We know about the space race and about how political, diplomatic and military planners worked to try and grasp the situation they were in and about the possible outcomes and what we needed to do to address those possible outcomes.
Yet time moves on and new considerations happen and a new generation of people have to come to grips with those considerations.
I looked up Anne Applebaum. Easily googled. Fine mind, lots of written positions, one is free to agree or disagree with her ideas.
I read Bucky, HTVs, and Skipsul with their views. I too have a view but sometimes I vacillate; and I swore an oath to protect and defend our country, but sometimes question how that is best done.
Barring one of us being elected president, we have severe limits on what we individually can do. In that we are more like leaves in the wind than oak trees with deep roots in the soil.
But then so were our parents and grandparents. And things worked out for them over time.
I’m at my wits end, I’m about ready to say to hell to all politics, I feel like we get screwed by everyone all the time. Lectured and hectured and lied to by the right, left, and center. I read you, papers domestic and foreign, Ricochet, and half a dozen other commentators, Policy Review, Commentary, the New Criterion, as much history and economics as i can, I gave up on National Review over telling me to shut up about gay marriage, and I can’t figure out what in the hell is the truth anymore, about anything.
Honestly, I don’t know what to think about anything any more.
I listened to a GOP debate in which the penis size of a candidate was discussed!
Welcome to Wonderland, Alice.
You sound like a natural supporter for Ted Cruz, a consistent conservative. I am a volunteer, been supportive since 2010 before he ran for anything.
Of the 25 other member nations of the NATO alliance, only 4 spend the required 2.0 of GDP on their militaries. The European’s don’t fulfill their end of the treaty.
And the European Union is a fundamentally undemocratic organization that is creating the nationalist problems that they claim to want to avoid.
It should have been written 2.0% of GDP in my previous comment.
Not to mention the game changer of nuclear arms and mutually assured destruction.
Well, I feel like he’s a shyster as well.
About the only thing in his favor is Jay Nordlinger speaks well of him, and that actually means a lot. I’ve not been impressed with him until this last debate. He learns on the campaign and adjusts and pivots and I think that is good.
I just think we’re so screwed, it’s not funny.
At present, I hope he wins, and I liked Marco, but he isn’t showing the same growth.
As to the EU… I don’t know.
The UK has the 5th largest economy in the world, the 4th largest defense budget, and a seat on the UN Security Council. It should not have to listen to apparatchiks in Brussels or the threats from Merkel.
The UK should be free to chart its own course. It’s called self determination.
Claire, I’m not a Paul supporter but I am very tempted by the isolationist argument, as are millions of us outside the beltway. I think the EU has treated the “no” votes of many countries to expanding their power with the same contempt our Supreme Court has treated the state constitutional amendments against SSM; they are fundamentally undemocratic elites that say the public be damned. And as far as support of our “allies” goes, I agree with the Trumpian platitude: We have very reliable allies, they will always be there when they need us.
Claire,
Can I give you but one example.
Daniel Hannan, is he telling the truth about Brussels, yes or no?
I’m sorry . . . did I miss the post in which you explained why I make no sense and what any of this has to do with “Putinist propaganda”? I’m sure Putin is quite pleased to see NATO members undermine their own security and cause cultural and political chaos inside their own borders, even as they continue to fail to reach the low defense expenditure goals they set for themselves.
Patronize me all you want, just don’t pretend it amounts to an argument.
As usual, Mark Steyn explains it clearly
So, the first sentence is written in the past tense for a reason . . . no longer applies to reality. Not that you are remotely accurate in describing Iraq circa 2011 as a liberal democracy . . . but that doesn’t matter much since however one describes it, it’s long gone. Are you saying that Iraq circa 2016 was worth the blood and treasure we expended? To be kind, that’s a minority view.
Bullet two was achieved in Desert Storm . . . in which we famously did not invade Iraq. So scratch that one from your list.
As for bullet three, let me help you with more accurate wording: Iraq did not pose a WMD threat before our invasion and still does not. So you can scratch that one from your list too.
But that’s okay . . . you’ve said you can go on and on . . . I’ll wait.
France left NATO’s integrated military command in 1966 and did not return to full participation until very recently (2009). I suspect that few other NATO countries – with the exceptions of Canada and Great Britain – pull their weight. If this is correct (and I may well be wrong), I wonder if Western Europe would be better able to defend itself today if we had drawn down our troops more quickly after the USSR collapsed.
The fact is, however, that we did not. With Russia threatening Eastern Europe, any further draw down right now would be foolhardy. Rather a buildup is in order. To what extent are Eastern and Western European countries increasing defense spending? Are they stepping up as is Japan in the face of the Chinese threat?
What can the U.S. do to increase European security and reduce the chance that Russia will continue to expand? Is there anything we can do to help and encourage European countries build up their own defenses more quickly?
I remember in the run-up to the Iraq war when Americans were so utterly disgusted with Europe… and Bush’s second inaugural, which was so sweeping that it troubled me — thinking “the pendulum’s going to swing the other way in a few years…we’re going to go isolationist again.”
I think that is indeed what has been happening. But I don’t think it is set in stone, or that it can’t be changed by events or by leadership. And I think Americans don’t want to think about these things, primarily.
It’s stories like this that are disconcerting to Americans. It’s not only spending that counts, it’s about readiness, and the ability to accomplish multiple tasks. The Belgians have trouble securing their own Capital.
Our treasury is empty, our forces exhausted, and our people are broken.
No more stupid foreign wars.
If you feel so strongly about them, I have an AR and a 1000 rounds. They’re yours. You do it this time.
It’s not the institutions, like NATO, that make the West powerful. It’s western culture that made the west powerful. When the culture rots, the structures will rot.
And Furthermore:
Given the freak out over total war on the member feed, I don’t trust any of you with my life or the lives of anybody I care about.
Am not certain why the end of the EU would be a bad thing. Any alliance built solely on a financial basis – completely independent of cultural issues – is a disaster waiting to happen. And the waiting may not be much longer.
As fast as they can, but most are in a vise: none of Europe’s economies have fully recovered, and any threat to social spending is exploited by pro-Putin parties.
Not enough. As during the first Cold War, the populations here are being drowned in Russian propaganda and Putin’s got his foot on everyone’s neck because he controls the energy supplies and, now, the refugee flows. It’s amazing to watch everyone in Europe squabble about the trivial — whether the words “ever closer union” should be part of the EU treaties, who should take how many refugees — while missing the larger point, which is that you’ve got one superpower expanding into Europe and the other retreating from it, so it’s no time for squabbling. I don’t think Putin has any intention of actually invading Western Europe with troops; he just realizes that if he makes life sufficiently unpleasant for these countries, they’ll elect parties that cooperate with him as he turns Eastern Europe back into satellite states.
As cliché as it sounds, it needs to lead. There’s no one power capable of dominating the Continent, by our design. Applebaum is right that we need a non-stop diplomatic presence putting our weight firmly behind European unity and backing it up with trade, security guarantees, and programs to expose and counter Russian propaganda. We’ve basically disappeared from Europe, culturally and politically.
Signalling that we mean it and are invested in NATO — through our words and behavior — is probably the most important thing. Making it clear what they need to do to be credible partners in the alliance. Peace through strength isn’t a cliché, and it isn’t even just about the size of the military, but the clarity of the commitment. The elder George Bush was extremely competent in managing the collapse of the Soviet Union and diplomacy with the former Warsaw Pact countries; America was very much felt as part of the Continent and a significant player. It needs to feel that way again.
I’m really torn over this. On the one hand we’ve made commitments to our NATO allies and they have based their plans on the assumption that we would honor those commitments. Moreover, Putin is threatening some of our NATO allies and I don’t believe we should cut and run in the face of his aggression.
On the other hand, in the longer term, I would like to see a Europe that is not dependent upon our military protection. Certainly, they are far wealthier than Russia and have the industrial capacity to beat Putin in an arms race. And I think that Hercules Rockefeller (post #41) is right, most of the countries in NATO have not lived up to their part of the bargain.
I think that the underlying problem is that rogue nations such as Russia, Iran, and North Korea have shown the ability to build formidable militaries despite the poverty – severe poverty in the case of North Korea – of their people and to threaten peaceful countries.
A small country like Estonia or a Latvia is never going to have the capability to defend itself against such a nation no matter how much of their wealth they pour into self-defense. As a result, they’re forced to make alliances. They must be haunted, though, by the question: If Russia actually attacks them, will their allies come to their aid, or will they sit back and hope that Russia is satisfied with the “appetizers” and not go for the “main course”?
The moment that Russia believes the allies will renege is the moment that the alliance no longer deters Russia. I think that Obama has made it clear that he will renege, making it all that more likely that we’ll have to fight.
So long term, I think that Obama is directionally right: push Europe into defending itself. It’s just that his timing couldn’t be worse.
Claire,
We were writing at the same time so I didn’t see your post before I published. Everything you say seems right to me. Thanks for the response!
[Addition:] Your point about “the clarity of the commitment” is brilliant.