New Cold War?

http://www.unison.ie/stories.php3?ca=27&si=963924

"Blair fears new ‘Cold War’ over rift with the US
Tuesday April 29th 2003
BRITISH Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday issued a warning that the world would be plunged back into an insecurity and tension reminiscent of the Cold War unless Europe and America quickly repaired the transatlantic relationship.

On the eve of talks in Moscow with President Vladimir Putin, who strongly opposed the war in Iraq, Mr Blair said there was a real danger that the advanced world would split into rival power blocs.

"My fear is that if we do not deal with the world on the basis of a partnership between Europe and America, then we will in a sense put back into the world the divisions that we wanted to get rid of when the Cold War finished.

“I think that would be just a disaster for the world.”

Mr Blair fears that the bad feeling caused by the war will exacerbate anti-Americanism in Europe, leading to a permanent rift.

Aiming his comments mainly at President Jacques Chirac, he said European leaders were facing a crucial time that would shape the future of global diplomacy. If they saw themselves as competitors to America, the dangers for world security and the global economy would be profound.

Toby Helm
in London"
This is not the first time TB has warned against a second Cold War. I don’t think that’s going to happen, though. I don’t think the EU, or Europe as a whole, is in any position to compete against America. What I think would be healthy, though, is the EU as a counterweight, to keep the power in balance. I don’t think it’s a good idea to let the world be dominated by one nation, there should be a democracy of nations, not an “Empire” with one nation having all the say over all the others.
Why is TB so insistent on this? Is this a valid point he’s making or is he scaremongering the EU nations into complying with the US?
Why is he so insistent that the EU should make amends, not the US?

Any thoughts on this?

I’ve been trying to write this post in a somewhat intelligible fashion for 10 minutes and keep having to go back and rewrite, so I’ll take a different approach and try to keep it very simple.

  1. You can’t have a single super power, it’s just not right. Things need counterbalances, or the whole thing tips over.

  2. If you’re gonna have two competing superpowers it is better if they have some common goals, rather than antagonistic imperial tendencies.

  3. It would be nice if the next superpower that rises to compete with the US could be counted on to be friendly most of the time, and this I think, is what Blair is trying to get to.

The way I see it Blair is looking for an alliance that while not antagonistic to the US, it will at least be able to look strong enough to stand up to the US, in case that is needed. It’s a dicey thing, but I think it might be better in the long run.

Cite?

None, obviously. But it sure doesn’t feel right.

The problem with the EU as a superpower is that without the UK it has no credible military and thus can not project power around the world. In order to have a credible military they would have to shift money from social services which is politically untenable. Also the EU bureaucracy is creating another level of taxation and regulation which are drags on European economies. Combine this with the demographic crisis on the horizon and the rise of Islamism in their cities and the future for Europe looks bleak in comparison with the US. Any thoughts of the EU being a superpower to rival the US is just wishful thinking.

Europe is not in any position to rival the US, except in a economic sense.

What i don’t like though is the implication that Europe must be the one to repair the rift. It was the US that ignored the UN and went to war with Iraq. It was the US that withdraw from various international agreements like Kyoto and the ICC. Why should Europe be the one apologising?

Smiling Bandit:

Concentration of power in the hands of the few is dangerous. Hence why your government is split into an executive, two legislative houses, and an independent judiciary, rather than being a dictatorship.

Well, for one thing because the US just showed that, as things stand right now, it has the military might to enforce its will, and will use it when it feels like it. Economically the US economy is also a powerful force. Consequently Europe finds itself in the position of potentially having pissed off the biggest, baddest, strongest kid in the block. I think what Blair is trying to do is to send out for the Charles Atlas program before they get sand kicked in their face.

Yes, the US military can defeat an already-defeated country with no strategic weaponry or central leadership in only a few weeks. Don’t let it get to your head like that, bayonet1976. Could it be that Iraq was portrayed as Threat Number One at least in part because it was going to be that easy?

The world is still much larger than the US, and not dependent upon it to nearly the extent that some enjoy thinking. It doesn’t have to take all that much of an alliance among potential invasion target nations, and maybe none in the case of the well-armed, to prevent it.

The question, as it was before, is still what happens over the next few years, not the last few days.

I don’t see how the US-military is of any relevance in a “conflict” between the US and Europe.

Economically, Europe can pose a counterbalance to the US, but only if we are willing to act collectively. As much as I’d like us to do that, I think it’s still a long way to go.

The balance of powers during the cold war wasn’t a bad thing because there were two superpowers. I was bad, because one of them was an evil dictatorship and because they were openly hostile to each other. This wouldn’t be the case with Europe and the US. Allthough there are some important differences, we still share the same values.
I’d like to see something like a friendly opposition. Like Tories-Labour or Republicans-Democrats. Different points of views on some issues, but the same basic values.

Thinking about it actually, i think this has the potential to be a good thing. As Kalimero said, Europe and the US share the same basic values - essentially a belief in democracy and freedom. As long as both sides believe rationally, and don’t start being anti American, or anti European just for the sake of it, then i don’t see how it could be bad.

Maybe a taste of this was Kyoto. The US withdrew, and for a time it looked like the agreement would fail. The EU almost single handedly rescued the deal - it had to be watered down, and the EU had to give significant concessions elsewhere, but it is now part of international law. Some form of global warming treaty is better than none at all.

An economical power was what I have in mind. The US spend so much on Defense, Europe can never expect to catch up with them. Heard on the news recently that Europe as a whole spends about 60% of the what the US spends, but we only end up with 12% of what the US ends up with. So the money we spend on defense and military, is not being spends wisely and economically, to begin with.
I don’t necessarily think that EU and US should be rivals, or enemies, but healthy economical competitors, to diminish the danger of one nation having a monopoly on something.
I think that this is obtainable.
I don’t think that we should see eye to eye with the US on everything, there should be room for healthy criticism.

In that light I can’t understand TB’s angst for a new Cold War. Why does he think that this will happen? And why does he urge Europe to mend the relationship? Why is that not up to the US?

It was up to the US and UK to convince the rest of the world that they were in the right, and the majority of those parties were never convinced, so why is it then up to us to improve the relationship that we have with the US?
It doesn’t make any sense. It sounds spiteful, and arrogant.

One of the many advantages of being a ‘Hyper-Power’, people come to you to make nice, since their relationship with us is probably more important to them then it is to us, if that makes any sense.

So when Saddam Hussein terrorizes Iraqis to make them subservient to him, it’s bad, but when the United States terrorizes the Europeans to make them subservient to us, it’s good. Right?

Brutus, hasn’t it occurred to you that “Old Europe” is searching for a rock while saying “Nice doggie”?

Europeans are being terrorized? Or is someone resorting to stupid over-dramatization?

I am sure that fantasy is going through the minds of various Frenchies and Germans, but they have no rock to safely throw. A trade war will hurt them more then us, and they simply won’t spend enough money to rival us militarily.

America is firmly entrenched at the top. You can’t have a proper ‘Cold War’ when the odds are so uneven.

Is this an unssupported (wishful) assertion, or do you have a logical argument to back your claim?

Hint: alienating the rest of the world is not a good strategy if you’re the world’s biggest debtor, depending on foreign capital to keep your economy humming.

I’m not sure why you’re believing that militarily, the UK is the powerhouse of Europe. France’s military is equivalent to the UK army, and the german army isn’t to be ignored (though Germany indeed doesn’t have the ability to project power and anyway is still very reluctant in being involved in military operations outside its boundaries).
However, you’re right with the second part of your reasonning. Europe could become a military superpower only if :

-It agreed to integrate its military forces, to spend money on common projects (instead of having five different countries trying to produce five different sort of tanks, planes or whatever, which is totally counter-productive, since it costs 5 times more in developpement/research, etc…)

-It has a strong common foreign policy (and we’re a very, very long way from it), or else this “european army” will be of no use.

-European countries decide to spend much more in military expenses. Only France and the UK (and to a more limited extend Germany) spend some serious money on their militaries, and even them spend much less (relatively to their GNP) than the US.
And military spending usually isn’t a high priority for european governments.
IOW, Europe surely won’t become any kind of military superpower in the short term (except if something really extraordinary and unexpected happens, making it necessary). In the long run, if the EU becomes more and more integrated, then, perhaps, someday, the EU will be a significant military power…
By the way, France, Germany, Belgium and Luxemburg recently (last week or so) had a a meeting to achieve of better integration of their armies, independantly from the NATO (it’s one of the major issue in Europe : should the European integrated militaries be independant from the NATO, or rely on existing NATO structures…France is the strong proponent of the “independant” side, the UK the strong proponent of the “within NAO” side…which is of course the option strongly prefered by the US, which exert a lot of pressures to avoid this “independant” european force).

Also, there’s already an “Eurocorp” involving German, French, Belgian, Luxemburgese and Spanish units, mostly based on the previous Franco-German Eurocorp, which has existed for a dozen of years or so. This could be an embrio and a test ground for integrated european militaries (there seem to be a lot of issue

Quite true

I totally disagree. The EU had very positive results from the economical point of view. As for the new level of taxation, the expenses aren’t that high (though there’s the agriculture spendings issue), and by your reasonning, you should supress the US federal government level, since it just add another level of taxation, and become 50 seperate states (or perhaps even some hundred of independant counties and cities…after all, the less level there are, the better, don’t you agree?)

This is a more general issue.

I can’t see in what way this is related to the topic at hand. And anyway, though there are more and more muslim people living in Europe or who are european citizens, the rise of fundamentalism Islam in these countries is very limited. MOst of the french muslims, for instance are preatty much “westernized”.

I’m sure they are thinking beyond just Iraq, but does anyone think the US would have acted differently in Iraq if Europe had an equivalent military capability? I don’t think it would have changed one thing.

Is Europe afraid of a US invasion? If so, they are free to spend as much as they like to prepare their defenses. Spend away mon amis!

The better off Europe is millitarily, the happier I’ll be. In the sense that they will be more self reliant in taking care of issues in their own backyard (hint: Yugoslavia) w/o crying to the US to do it for them.

There may be people in the US who want some sort of hegemony in Europe, but not me. I’d love to the troops in Germany come home.

The cold war was about containment of communism, an evil that killed tens of millions and virtually enslaved 100s of millions others throughout most of the 20th century. We currently have a fairlyl minor spat with Europe. I’ll trust our tightly entertwined economies to keep the peace between us.

Just one more thought. TB is in a tough spot. As America and Europe drift apart*, Britain is stuck in the middle and TB doesn’t want to have to chose whom to go with. This makes perfect sense from his standpoint. He’d be the biggest benificiary of a healing of the Euro/American rift.

*I someone hesitate to say “drift apart”, because I still think our similarities and common goals dramatically outweigh our differences. I use that phrase for lack of a better one.