The fear of all-too-powerful America is now becoming a fear of its imminent weakening, argues Adam Chmielewski. This, he says, is why it is in the vital interests of America that the State of Europe is a success.
Coming of Age
America’s hegemonic position has been seen as a demonstration of its internal strength and resilience – testimony to the essential adequacy of its political method. Yet it has also bred a complacency veiling recently revealed problems incipient in the structure of the American system:
(1) the excessive impact of the fundamentalist religiosity of Middle Americans upon the US political system has colluded in pushing the country on a misshapen crusade against international terrorism. Far from bringing the expected results, it now generates immense costs, leaving the US economy to cope with them for generations to come;
(2) a Westphalian-style foreign policy, grounded in a Hobbesian-Straussian understanding of the nature of international relations, continues to be dictated by the need to secure energy supplies in their traditional, increasingly scarce form;
(3) a reversal in the US economy which, once most productive, has turned from the production of commodities to focus on generating financial or banking ‘products’. Already in 2000, the finance sector amounted to 20 percent of the US GDP, whereas the share of the manufacturing sector in GDP fell to 14.5 percent. Due to the unforeseen consequences of neo-liberal monetarism, money, an instrument for organizing the production, distribution and consumption of commodities, has become the chief commodity in itself. Bubbles of success have brought inflated wealth to a few, yet also claimed their victims. Largely unsupported by material embodiment, they have deprived many Americans of their savings and endangered the stability of the US economy in a way that has now raised an ominous question mark over the global function of their currency.
Thus, in a surprisingly brief time-span the fear of all-too-powerful America is now becoming a fear of its imminent weakening. The emergence of America as uncontested victor of six decades of wrestling with the Soviet bloc may now gradually be turning into a grand failure, promising an uncertain future to the world at large. The political and moral legitimacy of the United States are not the only victims of this success-turning-into-failure. The US insistence that Europe jointly defends the West and its Christian values in the name of the unity of the West under American guidance, has little appeal for post-religious Europeans. Western unity itself may thereby be imperilled.
United Europe, born out of protracted negotiations, is desperately slow to face some fundamental problems of a structural and geopolitical nature. Though world-transformation is now faster than ever before, time in Europe passes at a much slower pace. European inability to address the conflict in the Balkans; to agree on a common foreign and defence policy; to decide which continent the future of Turkey is to belong to; and whether Europe is to have its own military force or not, together with its obliviousness to the problems of rising China and India – all these may be signs of a withering of internal forces, evidence at least that the allegedly unified Europe remains divisive, divided and weak.
Europe’s similarly scarce energy resources force it to depend on an unpredictable Russia. Though now inhabited by nearly 500 millions of people, Europe is facing an imminent demographic crisis: in four decades its population will shrink to barely 3 percent of the world population. The extension of the average life-span is gradually turning Europe into a land of pensioners requiring many more years’ pension support along with more extensive and expensive health care. Europe will need immigrants to contribute to its economy, which may only be brought about at the price of even more disruption to tolerant European customs and laws. The egalitarian demands of labour slow down European growth, create inflationary pressure and inhibit investment into new jobs. The European attempt to exceed the United States in inventiveness, as formulated in the Lisbon Strategy, is already an undisputed flop. Twelve rather backward new member countries exacerbate the problems of the distribution of wealth, complicating even more Europe’s already inefficient decision-making processes, and bringing new systemic problems to the management of this increasingly incoherent colossus.
Yet Europe’s protracted deliberative processes are an expression of its multinational nature: an essence of the European method. Though irritatingly sluggish, this has also not insignificant virtues. Deliberations enforced by its composition make the European community more resistant to the sway of the moment. Debates in Europe, though divisive, have, paradoxically, the beneficial result of bringing moderation to occasional eruptions of extremity in the member states. They force politicians to develop argumentative rather than populist skills, and to act in a more mature way. As a result, the quality of European politicians is noticeably, if only slightly, higher than in perennially adolescent America. The European Union may not seem much of a role-model in conflict resolution, yet it is a more reliable safeguard of world stability than that offered by the US, where people enjoy their mobility at the price of being dispossessed of the stabilising influence of their original communal identities, and are, as a result, more easily swayed by reckless political leadership and irresponsible media.
The openness of European debates keeps them alive with ever new issues. Their intensity makes it difficult to sweep European problems under any carpet, and they are faced, if not solved, with increasing intellectual courage. Aware of its energy deficits and increasing dependence on Russia, Europe is imaginatively searching for new environment-friendly resources while the US, gripped by its oil-car-and-banking industry, continues unabated its bellicose search for oil. Learning the lessons from an erroneous multiculturalism which extended recognition to immigrant groups while denying full rights to immigrant individuals, some European countries are reversing this policy, demanding from incomers more respect for European customs and laws, while some are offering incentives to families to have more babies. In view of the dwindling efficacy of US policies, Europe, coming of age, is becoming more serious about its common foreign and defence policy.
The pressures of the present moment demonstrate the inadequacy of a world-system dominated by a sole hegemonic power. It is in the vital interests of America that Europe successfully becomes the State of Europe, sharing with it responsibility for the world on an equal footing. Sovereign Europe will not lead to a clash of two unilateralisms, any more than it will signal the dissolution of the West: it could mean the West standing firm on both of its feet, and able to take a step towards applying the European method to a global scenario.
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