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« Back to Will Europe and America Get Along? main page    Transcript for: Will Europe and America Get Along?Ben Wattenberg: Hello, I’m Ben Wattenberg. Among the great stories that dominated the second half of the 20th Century were these: One: the emergence of the United States as the world’s sole superpower. Two: The movement away from war on the European continent toward a huge, peaceful, unified place that might one day look like a United States of Europe. Already there is a rivalry. Are these two global titans on a collision course? Or can they live happily ever after?To understand more about it Think Tank is joined by: Christopher Caldwell, senior editor, The Weekly Standard, and co-editor with Christopher Hitchens of Left Hooks, Right Crosses: A Decade of Political Writing. And Charles Kupchan, former Director for European Affairs at the National Security Council under President Clinton, currently an associate professor at Georgetown University and author of The End of the American Era: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Geopolitics of the 21st Century. The topic before the House: Will Europe and America Get Along? This week on Think Tank. (music break) Ben Wattenberg: Chris Caldwell, Charles Kupchan, thank you both very much for joining us on 'Think Tank.' There has been a great deal of talk in the press recently that there is a growing tide of anti-Americanism in Europe and almost equally an anti-European tide growing in the United States. I know, Chris, you’ve been doing a lot of writing about it. You’ve specialized in it. What do you make of that? Is that just press talk? Or is that the people speaking? Chris Caldwell: No, there’s something very strong that is definitely happening. Tough to figure out exactly what it is. But at the very simplest level, you can say that the attacks of September Eleventh have created different historical experiences for both sides and that even though you’d have the same trend line in, sort of, attitudes towards the world, you’ve had a concrete difference with September Eleventh. And that’s the source of a lot of the breaks. Ben Wattenberg: Do you find that also? Charles Kupchan: I think that the fact that NATO invoked Article Five a few days after the attacks meant a great deal to Ben Wattenberg: That’s an attack on one is an attack on all, is that right? Charles Kupchan: Yes. Basically it says we’re all in this boat together, and I think that meant a lot to Americans and to American policymakers. But what happened in the months following that, I think, was number one, that the United States said no to offers of help from Europe in the prosecution of the war. And secondly, the Europeans thought that September Eleven might push us back to a centrist mainstream--rediscover multilateralism, rediscover NATO and the UN. But instead it sort of pushed us to more unilateral action, wanting to go it alone and that doubly irked the Europeans and left them feeling like we had given them a cold shoulder. Ben Wattenberg: With the exception of the Brits, militarily they have very little to offer. Charles Kupchan: They have very little to offer and also I think the Bush Administration, perhaps correctly, didn’t want to get involved in the pulling and hauling of coalition warfare. Ben Wattenberg: Right. Charles Kupchan: They wanted to be free to fight the war as they saw fit. Chris Caldwell: This project that Charlie talks about, of the European Union, is explicitly conceived as a post-national strategy, as something to get beyond the nation state, which has caused the Europeans so much difficulty in the last couple of hundred years. For the United States to act as a strong nation state, and there are parallels here to the way Israel has acted in the last few years, the United States to act as a strong nation state is kind of a slap in the face to the Europeans’ entire self-regard, to their sense that they have a workable improvement on the old way of doing things. Ben Wattenberg: Well the Europeans, as you said historically, I mean they spent several centuries killing each other. I mean that’s perhaps the most blood-soaked acreage in the world, and they just never could get it right. And for all their dilly-dallying and shilly-shallying that we in America are always poking fun at over there, in the last fifty-five years they have made a monumental achievement. I mean it’s very hard to visualize a Dane going to war with a Spaniard. Chris Caldwell: That’s why this celebrated article of Robert Kagan, in Policy Review from a few months ago, is so important. He talks about this European coming together. He talks about the Franco-German relationship of today, which is one of the bloodiest borders in the history of the West. The Franco-German relationship as being perhaps the great achievement in the history of world diplomacy. But we must not forget that the United States played a huge role in bringing Europe back together. And it still continues to underwrite Europe’s defense. It provides them therefore with a whole bunch more money to spend on their welfare states, which stabilize the country. And, it creates a cultural central reference point that unites all the elites of Europe. You can say that what the countries of Europe now have in common that they didn’t have in common is Americanized elites. I was in a meeting in Milan the other day between a bunch of German professors and an Italian cabinet secretary. Everyone sat in a room and nobody said how about if we speak English, or if you don’t mind I’ll speak English. Everyone just started speaking English as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Their lingua franca. Ben Wattenberg: Well, it’s interesting. I gather the opening meeting of the Bank of Europe, which does not have England in it, was in English because it’s the only ... Charles Kupchan: It’s becoming the main language that people use when they communicate in multinational companies in Europe, oftentimes in the European Union Council, and so actually you’re getting a common language in Europe, even though you have separate national dividing lines and linguistic dividing lines. Ben Wattenberg: Unfortunately for the French it’s not the one they want, but it’s a... Charles Kupchan: And it will make a difference in the sense that one of the things that does hold Europe back from becoming more of a unitary actor are these dividing lines, the fact that you don’t have as much labor mobility. Because if you don’t speak French and you’re Italian, you can’t go work in France. Ben Wattenberg: You can legally. Charles Kupchan: You can, but you can’t go get a job if you don’t speak the language that they’re using. Ben Wattenberg: Right. Charles Kupchan: But if everyone is gradually speaking more English, that helps. And also I think, as Chris was saying, there is a project of identity-building here that’s important. And I think a lot of Americans forget that it took a long time for America to have a common identity. Ben Wattenberg: I wanted to ask about that. I think Chris wrote something about it that since Nine Eleven the anti-Islamic feeling has been greater in Europe than in the United States. Did you write that? Chris Caldwell: I don’t think I would have used that formulation. No. But it’s probably correct. I think it’s a sign of the larger concentration of Islamic populations in Europe, unassimilated thus far, and the closer proximity to the front line of the Islamic world. But, yes, this is being perceived as a big problem in Europe. Ben Wattenberg: The Europeans have not yet learned, I mean, to be arrogant about it, the American way of assimilation and acculturation of immigrants. Charles Kupchan: That’s very true. We are much more of an immigrant society. We have on our books civic definitions of citizenship. You’re an American if you’re living here. In Europe they still have in their mindsets a more of a metaphysical, ascriptive definition of citizenship. Even in a place like France, where you technically can become French, let’s say, if you come from Algeria. There is still a sense, but they’re not a real Frenchman. This problem is really going to get worse not better in the sense that you have declining demographics in Europe. You could have no workers there ultimately to help pay the pensions of the old. Where are the people going to come from? They’re going to be immigrants from Central Europe, from Turkey, from North Africa, the Middle East. The Europeans know that. The question is, are they going to bite the bullet and change their immigration laws? And are they going to be more receptive to multicultural societies? Ben Wattenberg: They know they have to do it and they hate the idea of doing it because it will really, as they would put it, dilute their cultures. Charles Kupchan: And they really are going to have... Ben Wattenberg: And they have not assimilated the Arab populations. Charles Kupchan: No. And that’s part of the reason that you have strong anti-Muslim sentiment because they tend to live in segregated areas within cities. They tend to go to separate schools. And therefore you don’t have the common sense of a multinational state that you do in the United States. Ben Wattenberg: There’s been a great deal written, at least in the United States, about a wave of anti-Semitism washing across Europe. Is that press talk or is that real stuff? Charles Kupchan: I think that you’ve seen a rise in anti-Semitism, certainly after Nine-One-One and to some extent before, with the rise of the sharp right parties, the Haider parties, LePen parties in France. I personally don’t see it as a wave of anti-Semitism that looks anything like the Nineteen Thirties; that is, that it will reenter mainstream European politics. It’s driven in part by the large Muslim populations and in part by a very different portrayal of the Arab Israeli conflict. You turn on the evening news here and you watch the reporting about the Middle East. You see one thing. Turn it on the BBC or turn on TV France and it looks like a very different conflict. Chris Caldwell: The current wave of anti-Semitism in France-- and remember what we’re talking about here. Not people, sort of, mouthing off in barrooms, but, you know, desecrating synagogues, throwing firebombs at Jewish buildings. That started in October of Two Thousand, with the second Intifada on the West Bank and in Gaza. And it is a... Ben Wattenberg: Before Nine Eleven. Chris Caldwell: Before Nine Eleven, yes, although there was a big spike the week of Nine Eleven. Ben Wattenberg: Right. Chris Caldwell: But these incidents have been quite steady. There has been a decline in France over the last six months, roughly since the presidential elections in the spring. But they’ve been quite steady since October Two Thousand. And it does create a big assimilation problem because people say that the instant instinct of French people is to say, well, France is not anti-Semitic; that is just Arabs who are doing this. Ben Wattenberg: Is the ultimate goal of European unity a pluralist body? Charles Kupchan: European identity is beginning to matter more. And there’s also a European convention going on right now that some have compared to our constitutional convention. I think it falls short of that. But if you look at what’s on the table, it’s pretty important issues. One, the potential ratification of a Europe-wide constitution, potentially a directly elected chief executive, potentially a single foreign minister for Europe as a whole. So these are not all going to be adopted, but I think it does suggest that Europe is getting into the realm in which it is definitely not just a grouping of sovereign states, not yet a federation, but somewhere in between. Chris Caldwell: I’d like to return to this issue of pluralism that you raised. This project that Charles is talking about I’d say commands majority support in the two major parties in most European countries. But it’s deeply unpopular among elements of both the right and left who see it as a kind of a meaningless project. So, of course Europe will be pluralistic because it will be nothing is the way this argument goes. It’s going to be a collection of rules about human rights and ... Ben Wattenberg: But will they kill each other any more? Chris Caldwell: Will they kill each other? Probably not. They’ll be too bored to. This is an area where I think Charles and I have our strongest disagreements. Charles would say that Europe is moving inevitably towards an ever-greater cohesion. I think Europe is now beginning to hit some of the...they’ve left the tough problems for last and now they’re beginning to hit the problems they can’t surmount. With the German economy, which is the third largest economy in the world running--contracting actually--you don’t have the money to build the big European defense establishment. So what happens as Europeans feel the need to disarm? They begin to retreat from their European project. It was envisioned, particularly after Kosovo, that Europe would come closer together; they’d have a rapid reaction force and all this stuff would begin to be shifted from the national plan onto a sort of a transnational pan-European funding of defense. Now that they’re increasing defense spending in France and in the Scandinavian countries, the opposite is happening. It’s all being done at the national level. Ben Wattenberg: Did I read that the United States spends more on defense that the next fifteen countries? Charles Kupchan: That’s correct. Chris Caldwell: Right. Charles Kupchan: And more defense R&D than the rest of the world combined. So nobody’s going to catch us for a long time. But I think the question is, will Europe be enough of an entity in diplomatic and political terms that we find it getting in our way if there is a divergence. And I think we’re already beginning to see that. Ben Wattenberg: Well is it necessary, if you have two power centers even, just forget the military part of it, if you have two big power centers, is it necessary that there will be a rivalry? Charles Kupchan: Anyone who doesn’t think that the U.S. and Europe will, as the balance becomes more equal, will jockey with each other, I think doesn’t read enough history. The key question is: will it become adversarial? And there I think a lot depends upon how we manage the relationship. But just take the monetary issue alone; the euro is about equal to the dollar now. It’s replacing the dollar in central Europe. Trade between the EU in Russia is now denominated in euros. Ben Wattenberg: Now why does that hurt us? Charles Kupchan: It doesn’t hurt us, but it means that rather than having one captain at the helm, you’re going to have two. You’re going to have the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank. The last time you had two dominant currencies in the world were the Nineteen Thirties. Chris Caldwell: Europe in the last couple of years, particularly once it got a strong competition manager Mario Monte of Italy, blocked a number of American mergers from operating on the European continent. And once the European bureaucracy decided to do that, these became nonviable mergers because we’re talking about global markets. So Europe now has a veto on the business conduct of American multinationals. So to that extent... Ben Wattenberg: Well, you know Europe for all its disastrous demographics of the future, even fifty years from now if you take what the U.N. considers Europe, which is from Ireland to Siberia, you’ll still have five hundred and fifty million people, which would be more than the United States. So if they ever get their act together-if-there are still a lot of players. I mean it’s still a big... Charles Kupchan: It’s a big market. Their GDP is about eight point five trillion now. Ours is ten. So you’re really talking about the two main centers of power in the world, if power is not defined militarily. And that is really going to put us in a new landscape. One thing that’s happening now in Europe that’s quite interesting on this issue is the Central Europeans are avidly pro-American; partly because a sense of the Cold War we were the liberators. They wanted into NATO because they want us. Ben Wattenberg: You’re talking Poland? Charles Kupchan: I’m talking about the Poles, the Hungarians... Ben Wattenberg: The Czechs. Charles Kupchan: The Czechs, the Baltic countries. Ben Wattenberg: Right. Charles Kupchan: Much more pro-American than Germans and French, traditional West European countries. And therefore you’re beginning to see some tension between the Central Europeans, who say let’s make sure America stays here. We love Uncle Sam. And the Western Europeans who are saying maybe it’s time to step away from Uncle Sam and be more independent and probably I think the West Europeans will ultimately win that just because they’re much larger, stronger, wealthier countries. Ben Wattenberg: Yeah. The Central Europeans are not going to feel protected from Russia unless U.S. is in the game. Charles Kupchan: That’s part of the reason. They have had guarantees from the French and the British before and they didn’t mean much last time around. And that’s why they want the U.S. there. Ben Wattenberg: I am just reading this book, Nineteen Nineteen... Charles Kupchan: Right, the Versailles... Ben Wattenberg: The Versailles. What a fascinating book. And it’s, I mean everybody hates each other. That’s all they do is go around hating each other. Wilson and Clemenceau and David Lloyd George and they’re all plotting and everybody’s trying to carve up Poland and carve up Italy. It’s not a nice place in its pristine form. Charles Kupchan: Right. And those memories still run deep. And I think that’s partly why you have this situation in Central Europe where they want us. Chris Caldwell: Certainly Poland. It’s very interesting to talk to Poles and to see the way they--Hawkish Poles, Hawkish, formerly anti-communist Poles --and to see the way they differ from the war on terrorism on one thing: The Russian-Chechen thing. They have a visceral sympathy with the Chechens because they’re fighting the Russians. Ben Wattenberg: This feeling of antipathy between Europe and the United States, is it because the Europeans once the grandmasters of the Western World are now in second place? They’re still, you know, important places obviously but that they’re in second place and they really can’t get used to it. And is the converse feeling on the American side that the only way the Europeans figure they can get back in the game is through multilaterally, global government, something that people in this country just would not stand for? Chris Caldwell: There’s a little bit of that but it’s complicated. If you look at the Nineteenth Century narrative of the world it was Europe--or maybe with America as a sort of an outpost--and the whole world revolved around it. No one thinks that any more. The West is now challenged by the relevance of other cultures. People are just interested in what... Ben Wattenberg: China. Chris Caldwell: ... people think, Chinese people think, or Indians think. So in a sense we’ve all had an ontological comedown in that way. I think that the Europeans are in a very tricky psychological position. They’re asked to join a Western alliance that is supposed to be very flexible. They’re supposed to be at its beck and call. And yet because of the way it’s structured, which seems an arbitrary thing broken down into fifteen or thirty different countries, however you want to measure it, because of their arbitrary structure, they have no say. So the United States, in terms of the Western alliance, in terms of the Western economy, becomes to Europeans kind of a rotten borough. It gets extra votes in everything that goes on. And I think that that’s the source of a lot of the European frustration. And sometimes it’s hard to tell that legitimate, although hard to resolve, ire from just jealousy and pique. Charles Kupchan: And also I think there’s a important generational change taking place in the sense that for the last fifty years or so politicians would sell Europe to the separate national states by saying we need Europe to escape the past, make sure World War II doesn’t happen again. But most Europeans who are now coming of age don’t know World War II, don’t remember the Cold War; many of them are coming of age after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Ben Wattenberg: Certainly don’t know anything about World War I. Charles Kupchan: For sure. And so you’re seeing a shift in the narrative of legitimation for the EU. And it’s now about the future. It’s now about an EU that projects Europe’s voice on the global stage. And who’s it going to project its voice against? Number one - the United States. Now it used to be just the French that would use that kind of rhetoric. It’s now Fischer and Schroeder in Germany. It’s now the Swedes. It’s the Italians. Even Blair talks about the EU in these terms. And I think that’s another reason that we’re beginning to see more tension between the two, and that is part of the process of nation building, if you will at the European level. Ben Wattenberg: But Blair’s hole card is that he’s tight with the U.S. I mean that’s his... Charles Kupchan: He’s certainly trying to have his cake and eat it too. To be the traditional bridge to America but play the Europe card. My guess is that we will soon see Brits buying their fish and chips with euros and that the British diplomatic strategy will change from being a bridge to the U.S. to changing the Franco-German core to the Franco-German-British troika. I see them headed straight for Europe. Chris Caldwell: I don’t see them heading straight for Europe. I think there’s still a lot of resistance in the opinion polling on the euro. Blair wants a referendum on the euro. He made a foolish, politically foolish promise, to hold a referendum before he went in. He’s not sure he can win it. So, that far British nationalism is still intact. Where I would agree with Charlie is that I think that there is a rather larger undercurrent of being 'not with the program' in Britain than we think. The Scots have been radicalized somewhat by having their own parliament. In Ireland you have protests against using Shannon Airport for transshipment of American military supplies, which a lot of people in Ireland are marching against as a breach of Irish neutrality. There’s a simmering anti-Americanism in the British Isles that I think we will maybe hear more from. Ben Wattenberg: And there’s something else that a lot of Americans feel is just raw sanctimony, which is for example that no member of the European Union can have capital punishment on the books. Chris Caldwell: I think that the actual opinion polls in Europe show a slight opposition to the death penalty. The support for the death penalty is not like it is in the United States. But, yeah, capital punishment exists primarily as a way for Europe to define itself. A pretty petty way for a grand continent to define itself, if you ask me. But it’s serving a second function now, which is to keep Turkey out of the European Union in a way that doesn’t force the Europeans to say that they’re keeping the country out because it’s Islamic. Charles Kupchan: And I think part of what’s happening here is that there have always been some value differences between North America and Europe on capital punishment, on questions of individual liberty versus a more communitarian approach to society. And now these value differences are getting a lot of play because you’re seeing a political separation between the U.S. and Europe. I think politicians are sort of deploying them and working them up to become larger than life issues. And I think that’s, again, a sign that we may be entering troubled waters in which the traditional Atlantic Alliance as we know it is headed for something else. Ben Wattenberg: Okay. Thank you very much, Charles Kupchan... Charles Kupchan: Thank you. Ben Wattenberg: ...Christopher Caldwell. And thank you. Please remember to send us your comments via e-mail. For Think Tank, I’m Ben Wattenberg. (credits) We at Think Tank depend on your views to make our show better. Please send your questions and comments to New River Media, 1219 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20036. Or e-mail us at thinktank@pbs.org. To learn more about Think Tank, visit PBS on line at www.pbs.org, and please, let us know where you watch Think Tank. At Pfizer we’re spending nearly five billion dollars looking for the cures of the future. We have twelve thousand scientists and health experts who firmly believe the only thing incurable is our passion. At Pfizer. Life is our life’s work. Additional funding is provided by the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation, the Bernard and Irene Schwartz Foundation, and the Smith Richardson Foundation. This is PBS. 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