It appears I was wrong: most posters at Little Green Footballs don't want to nuke Europe. However, I think even the most self-critical European could be forgiven for finding the anti-European animus in so many of the posts at the very least worrying, and at the outside downright terrifying. After all, if the West can't maintain its own cohesion, how can it stand up to the threat posed by militant Islam?
It seems to me that there are problems of identity and focus on both sides of the pond: both Europe and America are undergoing profound social and political change, and the world itself is changing around them at a rapid rate. No wonder that there are problems of communication and understanding - the certainties of the Cold War have given way to the deep uncertainty of the war on terror: a war whose existence many in both the US and Europe even deny. In this Kafkaesque situation, debates on international politics have a way of sliding into exaggerations and distortions of an almost surrealistic character.
Yes, I was wrong: it's probable that most at LGF don't want to nuke Europe. But, as one LGF regular told me recently: "Silence = assent". If more Americans would openly declare their support for those in Europe who are doing their best to counter the foolishness and cowardice of their political leaders, and for those in Britain who support their government in its stance on Iraq and the war on terror, the West might gain some strength.
Let's be united.
4 comments:
I think that in the Cold War the enemy was very clearly defined - it was a country: the Soviet Union. The threat was held at bay by the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). The Communists in Moscow were not sending homicide bombers into the midst of our towns and cities.
In the war on terror, the enemy is diffuse, international and global - and a doctrine like MAD will not work to defeat it. In the WoT, the enemy is dispersed, yet in our midst, and this makes it very hard to define and locate.
I agree with you that tendencies towards appeasement and accommodation are as active now in the West as they were during the Cold War. And I think that they are probably as widespread in US public opinion as they are among many in Europe. At least, that was true in the Cold War, and I can't see much reason to believe that it's much different now. The brave front presented by the Bush administration and by Blair's government don't necessarily reflect the attitudes of the majority of the public at large - and that is obviously a matter for concern.
It is a problem. And IMHO the US, though not exactly "slipping away", is not as united in its will and purpose as it needs to be. On both sides of the Atlantic, there are polarizations of opinion on the whole issue of the need to confront militant Islam, and the way in which it should be done - couple that with the current polarization between America and Europe on so many issues, including the WoT, and defence in general, and you don't exactly have a recipe for political and moral cohesion in the face of a very concentrated and committed enemy.
Somehow, I believe, the US/EU split has to be overcome, one way or the other (I personally don't know how!) - or the whole of the Western world is going to be in jeopardy.
Certainly a further split within the EU would not be a bad thing. In my post today (May 28) I've outlined some of Vladimir Bukovsky's ideas about the ways in which NATO could be restructured. At present, the EU represents a threat to NATO: if, for example, following Bukovsky's suggestion, a new NATO could be formed, consisting mainly of the "new" European states, plus Israel, this might alter the whole Middle East security equation in a positive way, while defeating the aims of the Brussels leftists and socialists. Some of the "old" European states (probably including Britain) would doubtless be happy to go along with this project - and it would certainly leave France and Germany out in the cold, where they would be compelled to do some serious rethinking.
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