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« Back to The Atlantic Rift main page    Transcript for: The Atlantic RiftTHINK TANK WITH BEN WATTENBERGTTBW 1124 FEED DATE 9/4/2003 'The Atlantic Rift' with Robert Kagan Funding for Think Tank is provided by: At Pfizer we’re spending over 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. 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. (opening animation) BEN WATTENBERG: Hello, I’m Ben Wattenberg. Americans don’t like the word 'empire,' but no empire in history has been equal to the United States in its ability to project its power and cultural influence around the world. The United States accounts for almost half of the world’s total military spending. Its share of the world’s economic output is more than 30 percent -- three times larger than that of the British empire at its zenith. So, does America have an empire? If so, how is it different from the major empires of the past? What is its purpose? And how has this changed our relations with Europe? To find out, Think Tank is joined by Robert Kagan, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, columnist for the Washington Post, and author of Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order. The Topic before the House: The Atlantic Rift. This week on ThinkTank. (opening animation) BEN WATTENBERG: Robert Kagan, welcome to Think Tank. Your new book, Of Paradise and Power, has caused great controversy. Let’s just start out in brief. In gist, what’s it about? ROBERT KAGAN: Well it’s about a big gap in strategic perceptions and perceptions about world order that’s opened up between the United States and Europe I think over the past couple of decades but which has really been blown wide open since September 11th. Americans I think still believe in the necessity of military power as part of any nation’s foreign policy, as essential to maintaining the international system. Europeans, to a great extent, have moved beyond power. The system that they’ve created on the continent of Europe, the European Union, is one where military power plays no role and Europeans today think that’s the way the whole world should operate so they view the United States, in a way, as a threat to their vision of what the world should be. BEN WATTENBERG: Well, in point of fact, no one is threatening Europe, is that right? ROBERT KAGAN: That’s right. BEN WATTENBERG: Who’s going to.... Russia’s gone as a threat, although some of the Eastern European nations are still worried about it. So what do they have to worry about? ROBERTY KAGAN: Well the truth is they don’t have as much to worry about as we do because they don’t occupy the same position in the world that we do. Now what I think Europeans sometimes forget is one of the reasons that they can enjoy this paradise that they have in Europe is because the United States is still manning the walls. The Europeans once understood that. During the Cold War, they understood that America was playing this critical role, not only in providing security but allowing Europe to evolve in the direction that it has evolved in. But today I think Europeans have forgotten that to a large extent and spend most of their time worrying about the United States, not against the kinds of people out there in world that the United States is protecting Europe against. BEN WATTENBERG: How did the western European nations come about this peaceful coexistence. I mean this is a continent that is drenched in blood. I mean for a hundred years they’ve been - aside from great economic advances - they’ve done little but kill each other. ROBERT KAGAN: Well, and partly for that very reason they made a real commitment and I think you know, an honorable and praiseworthy commitment after the second World War to try to build a Europe where these horrible wars would not occur anymore. In the early stages after World War II, the United States played an absolutely central role in guaranteeing that Germany would not be a threat again to France and England for instance, and in making possible this kind of peaceful reintegration. Then throughout the Cold War the United States also defended Europe against the Soviet Union, which gave Europe time to evolve in this direction. And then after the end of the Cold War they really were able to make great strides. It’s an act of will on the part of the Europeans, they really believed that they most never return to the awful history that they’ve had and that’s commendable. BEN WATTENBERG: And in point of view what they’re doing organizing this European Union, I mean, in so far as it will work out, it’s quite a remarkable bit of history isn’t it? ROBERT KAGAN: It’s a geopolitical miracle. I mean, they have come as close as any group of nations has ever come to realizing Emanuel Kant’s vision of a perpetual peace and a system where military force has no role whatsoever. They have a system of international law and international institutions that they allow to govern them. This is some kind a dream - Americans once entertained this dream for the whole world. Europe has accomplished it. And I think Americans should be very grateful by the way, because nothing is a greater benefit to the United States than a Europe at peace. We’ve lost many, many lives over the past century because of European wars. BEN WATTENBERG: I thought that there would be a good deal in your book about America’s goals in the world. Freedom, democracies, civil society, free press, the sorts of things that have in point of fact and I’ve got some numbers around somewhere - I’m sure you’ve seen them,the Freedom House has one index, and the Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation do another - as to how what we call western values have expanded. And yet you don’t really push that, that that’s America’s goal in the world. Is that America’s goal in the world? To expand and extend human liberty? ROBERT KAGAN: Yes, and it has been for more than two hundred years. I think what’s ironic is that Europe has now developed a mission of it’s own, but it’s not the same as the American mission. BEN WATTENBERG: Well what is the European mission? ROBERT KAGAN: The European mission is to export what Europe has learned or discovered or achieved within Europe in terms of international order and moving beyond power to export it to the world. We Americans should understand this idea. We tried to export our principles to the rest of the world. Now the Europeans are trying to export theirs, but unfortunately they re not exactly the same mission. BEN WATTENBERG: You have a quote in the book I was reading it last night that something to the effect that America is too powerful, even for its own good. What is that? And that was from The Economist, which is an English publication. ROBERT KAGAN: Well, there is both in Britain and in Europe more broadly this sense that the United States has become so powerful that the United States is in danger of fulfilling Lord Acton’s prophecy that power corrupts and that without any check on American power... BEN WATTENBERG: And absolute power. ROBERT KAGAN: And absolute power corrupts absolutely, and that all checks on American power have been effectively removed. When the Soviet Union disappeared the United States was unchecked in a certain respect, except by itself. And I think that there are many Europeans who are now wishing that there was a greater balance of power in the world and they do believe that Americans would be better off perhaps if there were a greater balance as well. I actually don’t happen to agree with that. I don’t think that’s the great problem that we face, but that is a very common European view. BEN WATTENBERG: And yet there are, what, forty or fifty wars going on in the world. We are involved now, as far as I can recall, in one, in Iraq. It is not as if we are going out like Judge Roy Bean to establish the law west of the Pecos. I mean, we’re still a restrained power aren’t we? ROBERT KAGAN: Well, you know, it’s a relative term. I mean if you’re a European we don’t look like a restrained power. The invasion of Iraq does not look like the actions of a restrained power and I would say historically it is a mistake to imagine as so many Americans do imagine that the general posture of the United States is 'we’re just sitting here minding our own business.' I mean we haven’t been minding our own business for three hundred years I would say. BEN WATTENBERG: You have that Jefferson quote in here. That America’s goal is to build an... ROBERT KAGAN: ...empire of liberty and the early founders talked about us being a Hercules in the cradle. I mean the expectation that the United States would be a dominant power in the world and not just a great power in the world, has always animated American foreign policy; it’s partly a product of our sense that we have the received wisdom about how human beings ought to relate with one another, but it’s also partly a belief that because we have that it ought to be reflected in our strength and our influence in the world. BEN WATTENBERG: Now, what is the difference - and Rumsfeld brought it up at one a these press conferences and caught a lot of hell for it, but also made a point - between the sort of principle central nations of western Europe, particularly France and Germany, and the rim nations, I guess particularly the new inductees into the European Common Market or whatever, I mean Poland and Hungary... ROBERT KAGAN: Those countries which until recently lived under the control of the Soviet empire and still fear Russia look to the United States to continue to provide them security. They don’t look to France, they don’t look to Germany. They don’t even look to Great Britain. And so that continues now. How long it will continue, however, is another question and this is where I think we shouldn’t be too optimistic that what we now call new Europe is not in fact the Europe that is passing. That France in fact and Germany may represent where Europe is going more than Poland, more than Tony Blair’s Great Britain. BEN WATTENBERG: And in the conservative caricature those Europeans are interested in six-week vacations and short work weeks and in your book you say a paradise. I mean, is that what Europe is like? ROBERT KAGAN: I think it’s wrong simply to say Europeans just are fat and happy and they don’t want to do anything and that’s the main reason. I think you have to credit the historical experience that they’ve had, the ideological evolution they’ve gone through, and one thing that is common currency in Europe is that military power is not the answer. That national sovereignty is not the answer and that what we need are international institutions, a world order, that looks like the European Union and I think they believe it deeply and viscerally. BEN WATTENBERG: And this issue came up with the issue of the - what is it... ROBERT KAGAN: International criminal court. BEN WATTENBERG: And they maintain what? ROBERT KAGAN: Well, I mean the international criminal court is a product of you know, enlightenment Wilsonian thinking and it’s an effort to make sure, they would say, that war criminals are tried in every country. The United States felt, I think rightly, that American soldiers, of whom there were many more around the world than any European soldiers, are uniquely vulnerable to people who want to try to use this court to go after America because they’re jealous or angry at America. BEN WATTENBERG: And didn’t they actually try to indict some Americans? Who did they go after? ROBERT KAGAN: well there’s always been this, sort of, effort to indict Henry Kissinger over Chilean things, but you know, where I think the Europeans make a mistake is in believing that you can make this leap from - even if their end state is a desirable end state and I think many Americans would agree that where Europeans want to go in terms of world order is a desirable place to go - But I think Americans are a little bit more realistic if you will, than Europeans in recognizing that we’re a long ways from there, still, and that the way to get there is not to cut into the power of the nations that share this vision, but to continue to have the power to resist those who oppose this vision. BEN WATTENBERG: Churchill always stressed the unity and the importance of what he called the English-speaking nations. And in point of fact the Brits were the only ones who really gave substantial military support in Iraq. How do you account for the British separation and the ability of Blair to make this decision and actually send, by British standards, a substantial number of troops, you know, and including some that have been killed. ROBERT KAGAN: Well, I mean, first of all it has to be said that Blair showed enormous political courage. I would say unusual political courage because he really did and has put his Prime Ministership on the line in supporting the United States on this. I mean one of the things that I found most disconcerting as an American living in Europe is that when I would travel to Britain, the British intellectual class, the foreign policy elite sounds just about the same as the French intellectual class and the French foreign policy elite. And the Germans as well. British public opinion was not that different from European public opinion until Blair made his stand and then brought a lot of people around. It’s a tricky issue. Britain has been with the United States in almost every war that has ever been fought over the last... BEN WATTENBERG: Since they burned down the White House. ROBERT KAGAN: Since the last time they burned down the White House and sort of on the Civil War... BEN WATTENBERG: You said the last time... ROBERT KAGAN: They’re a little iffy on the Civil War. But other than that I mean you name it and the British have been there and so clearly there is something special going on. It’s not just the special relationship with the United States. It’s also a wariness of Europe. One of the things that I also noticed is that once the war started, anti-French opinion in Britain rivaled anti-French opinion in the United States. And so there’s a real... BEN WATTENBERG: They had freedom toast, not French toast. ROBERT KAGAN: Well, I don’t know whether they renamed any foods, but it was in the newspaper, and you know, just stop an average Britain on the streets and they were very, very hostile to France. And there’s a traditional British wariness about getting too close to the continent of Europe. BEN WATTENBERG: I’m writing a book about international demographics and, as you look at it as related to power, the European birthrates are so low now. It takes 2.1 children per woman on average to just keep society normal. They’re down to 1.3, which is just demographically would have been unbelievable and it’s a trend that’s been going on for thirty or forty years now. As you look down the pike, the difference in power and strength in so far as it is determined by the numbers of people, which in some way, at some point it is, is going to grow. Europe’s going to get weaker and weaker compared to the U.S. because of our immigration policy. Which nobody’s going around saying Hosanna, it’s great, but there is not that extreme hostility that you see in Europe. ROBERT KAGN: No, I think that this is the case. I argue in the book and I’ve argued with Europeans about this because a lot of Europeans are sort of hoping the United States will just implode at a certain point, but it seems to me pretty clear that we are probably at the beginning of an age of American global hegemony, not at the end. I understand that the projections are that in 2050 the average European - the average age of Europeans is going to be something like fifty-two and the average age of Americans is going to be something like thirty/thirty-one and so America’s are getting more youthful in a way and more vibrant; Europe is getting older and older. It has all kinds of economic repercussions in terms of the European population having to support an elderly population. How much money are they going to be able to spend on defense? So I think the gap is going to continue to grow and that the danger is, or just the reality is, that Europe in American eyes is going to become less and less a relevant player in international affairs and the Europeans feel this acutely, which is one of the reasons that they have opposed this operation in Iraq. It’s one of the reasons that they want the U.N. to be the central, only, legitimizing authority for international behavior Because that’s where they can deal with the United States as equals. BEN WATTENBERG: And yet America and the European group of nations, we still do really stand for the same things don’t we? I mean it’s sort of an anomaly that you’re dealing with now. We’re splitting apart and yet our basic forms of government - and they’re not identical, I mean we don’t have a parliamentary system, we have a presidential system, but in terms of rule of law and an independent judiciary and a freedom of press, freedom of expression, all those sorts of things - we are on the same team. ROBERT KAGAN: Well, this is both the good news and it’s also what’s so disturbing about where we’ve gone because on the one hand, you know, if you asked me are we about to have a divorce with Europe, you know, a real separation? I think the answer is no. Precisely because we share so much in common and I would go further than you’ve even gone. I mean we do have a fundamental commitment to democratic governance, we do have a fundamental commitment, you know, give or take a little socialism here and there, to capitalist government. I think we’re both children of the same enlightenment project. But that’s why in a way it’s so unnerving and upsetting that on these very fundamental questions of international strategy, the legitimacy of the use of force and international order, we have such a sharp divergence of views. My worry is that, over time, this divergence of views on these fundamental issues, even though they’re the only issues we disagree about, can you know, poison the rest of the relationship and I worry as a... BEN WATTENBERG: The difference being the attempted European reliance on these international organizations the U.N., the International Criminal Court, and they got all upset about this Kyoto treaty as if that were some big deal. I mean this was something that exempted the two biggest countries in the world, India and China, and was voted down by the U.S. Senate by ninety-six to nothing, and yet they regarded this as some madcap U.S. failing. ROBERT KAGAN: Well and clearly there’s more going on in the Kyoto treaty because, of course, if you actually ask the European governments whether they would approve the terms of the Kyoto treaty they’d probably say, 'no' themselves, but it was really the sense that this was an America saying, 'We don’t care what anybody in the world thinks.' And I think that the issue of Iraq that’s caused so much conflict between the United States and Europe is not about the details of Iraq, whether it was good to get rid of Saddam Hussein or not. The Europeans know it was good to get rid of Saddam Hussein. It is about an unbridled, unchecked America that they fear and that they fear doesn’t need them anymore. You know, one a the things that happened right after September 11th, when the United States began the war in Afghanistan and NATO, for the first time in its history, voted what’s known as Article 5, the decision to provide common defense with the United States, and they felt with some justification the United States said, 'Well that’s great, but we don’t actually have anything for you to do.' I think that was very upsetting and unnerving to the Europeans. BEN WATTENBERG: This is part of our whole military development that Secretary Rumsfeld has been touting, the development of the smart weapons and all that sort of stuff. ROBERT KAGAN: Just in terms of how many troops and how much force Europeans can bring to bear on any given situation, that it’s fairly minimal. I mean if we had all the European cooperation in the world today in Iraq, I don’t think Europe could still provide more than ten or fifteen thousand troops for the United States and so it’s always going to be the situation that the United States is going to provide ninety to ninety-five percent of the fighting capacity; Europeans are going to provide five or ten percent, but they’re going to demand in return forty to fifty percent of the decision-making process. Now, there are times when that’s a good bargain for us. I think in Kosovo that was a pretty good bargain for us. BEN WATTENBERG: We did the high level bombing... ROBERT KAGAN: We did the high level bombing and... BEN WATTENBERG: And Clinton was so proud that no American got killed and Osama bin Laden read it as Americans are - it’s like Vietnam we’re afraid to get... ROBERT KAGEN: Well he read that more clearly in the Beirut bombing after we ran out of Lebanon. He’s been reading that in us for twenty years, but I think that from the European point of view, you know, they got to play in Kosovo although they were a little unnerved by the disparity in military power. BEN WATTENBERG: There was something really weird about it that here is this, this little ethnic rivalry going on and this vaunted European enterprise, whatever it is, had to have America to deal with it and couldn’t even get together. I mean there’s something screwy. ROBERT KAGAN: Well, and from a European point of view it was somewhat shameful and... BEN WATTENBERG: It was shameful. I mean if they can’t police one relatively little internecine piece of massacre... ROBERT KAGAN: But what was most interesting, it seems to me, and again this is why, you know, I offer this thesis to explain it, is that even after Kosovo, when Europeans, especially Blair and Chirac at the time, join together and say, 'We need to have a European capability. We can’t let this happen again,' it didn’t happen. Even after Iraq now, when Europeans are saying, 'We can’t trust the Americans anymore. We need to have a stronger military force', it’s not going to happen. They are not willing to put money into their military capacity even to check the United States, which is what they claim they want to do. And that’s because I just think they do not have it anymore in terms of building up any military capacity and the will to use it. BEN WATTENBERG: As you look toward the future, are you an optimist or a pessimist or it’s all just a great unknown out there? ROBERT KAGAN: Well, like a lot of people I would have said I was an optimist before September 11th, 2001, and now I’m a little bit more worried. I would never call myself an optimist in the sense that... I reject the notion that world history just trends in a certain direction and that we’re just naturally moved toward a more democratic, more peaceful, more liberal order... BEN WATTENBERG: The Fukuyama theory... ROBERT KAGEN: Well I don’t mean to - I don’t want to caricature Frank’s argument... BEN WATTENBERG: No - no - no - no... ROBERT KAGAN: ...but I don’t think, right, there’s just an evolution of history. I think it is what powerful nations do at any given moment that sets the general trend. And so I always fear that - and have feared - that if the United States were to pull back from playing this central role in the world that the world would necessarily be controlled by others. Whether it’s a rise in China, which I think is something we’re gonna be dealing with in ten, fifteen or twenty years, or whether it’s some other force and so I’m not an optimist. I’d like to think the United States has it in its power both in terms of real power but also in terms of its willpower to continue playing this role, but that’s why conflicts like Iraq have such high stakes for us. It’s not just about Iraq. It’s about the role that the United States has continued to play in the world. BEN WATTENBERG: Because if we pull out, as using I guess it was Nixon’s phrase, we would be perceived as a muscle-bound giant that had all these weapons but were afraid to use them. ROBERT KAGAN: Well there’s that, but it would also be what would be our reaction? You know, the funny thing about Vietnam War is that although we thought it was and, you know, it was a searing experience in our history. I think if you pull back the lens a little bit you’ll see it only put us off our stride for about a decade and then you had Ronald Reagan in office and then we were, you know, I would say back on the right track. But I do think that should we have to leave Iraq with our tail between our legs the affect on us will be dramatic, I know what they affect in Europe will be to completely discredit all of those who joined up with the Bush Administration in Europe. The affect in the Middle East will be strengthen and hearten those who wish us ill; the affect in Asia will be similar. So there’s a lot riding on Iraq and that’s why I can’t be just sunny about the natural evolution of things. BEN WATTENBERG: Let me ask one final question. Were you pleased with the reception of this book? ROBERT KAGAN: I was not only pleased, I was amazed. I mean I was sort of startled by it quite honestly. I didn’t certainly write it with the intention of creating a big stir. BEN WATTENBERG: Well you did and we are very pleased that you joined us to help us through it. So thank you very much for joining us and thank you our audience for watching. Please remember to send us your e-mail. It helps us make Think Tank a better program. 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. Funding for this program is provided by: At Pfizer we’re spending over 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. 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. 1 Back to top  Think Tank is made possible by generous support from the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Bernard and Irene Schwartz Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation, the Donner Canadian Foundation, the Dodge Jones Foundation, and Pfizer, Inc. ©Copyright Think Tank. All rights reserved. 
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