The European Dream

by Jeremy Rifkin

  When European intellectuals accuse current American leaders of conducting a “cowboy diplomacy,” they are right. The American tradition in foreign policy follows close on the heels of the American Dream. Our vision of the noble American is a man or woman alone in a hostile and unpredictable world but able, by sheer perseverance and will, to tame the wild, keep evil forces in check, create an island of order, and make the world a safe place to be. Every American Western novel and movie glorifies this story. This is who we think we are: an uncomplicated, good-hearted people who stand up against evil and champion the right of every person to be free—which we define as autonomous and independent. Why would we pursue a foreign policy at odds with our own basic sense of who we are?

  Even before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon, the George W. Bush Administration was beginning to steer American foreign policy back to its earlier vision of “going it alone.” The United States began to unbundle itself from previous global commitments, while rejecting new global initiatives.

  In a series of stunning reversals, the U.S. government refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol to curb greenhouse gases, it said no to the Land Mine Treaty and to the comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and it withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, even though virtually every other nation gave its support to these covenants. And, in a final rebuff of world public opinion, the U.S. refused to support the International Criminal Court, which bound the nations of the world to an enforceable standard for securing universal human rights.

  The “great reversal” was a long time in the making. In 1992, when now vice president Dick Cheney was the secretary of defense, the Pentagon prepared a draft document outlining what would become the cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy a decade later. The Pentagon white paper bluntly stated that the U.S. government must “discourage the advanced industrial nations from challenging our leadership or even aspiring to a larger regional or global role.”16 The Pentagon report said that it was critical that the United States “retain the preeminent responsibility for addressing . . . those wrongs which threaten not only our interests, but those of our allies or friends, or which could seriously unsettle international relations.”17

  The attacks on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon gave the Cheney forces the opportunity to operationalize the vision of American foreign policy they had laid out a decade earlier. The new national security strategy, put out by the White House, said that the U.S. government would maintain whatever military capabilities were needed to ensure that no other state could impose its will on America or its allies and would discourage and even prevent any potential adversary from attempting to build their military capability to challenge our own.18

  In a commencement address at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in June 2002, President Bush made clear that “America has, and intends to keep, military strengths beyond challenge—thereby, making the destabilizing arms races of other eras pointless, and limiting rivalries to trade and other pursuits of peace.”19 The president’s remarks were calculated to let the world know that, henceforth, America would use its vast military machine to be the unchallenged hegemonic power and that it would not allow itself to be weighed down by multilateral commitments and treaties or be burdened by alliances that required shared deliberation and consensus prior to taking action.

  Much of the rationale for the new unipolar policy was driven by the new circumstances in which the U.S. found itself in the post-9/11 period. The Bush Administration argued that in an era punctuated by global terrorism, “a military . . . must be ready to strike at a moment’s notice in any dark corner of the world.”20 Because it’s impossible to know when terrorists will strike, or where, the U.S. must be able to exercise the option of preventive action as a form of self-defense. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld put the new situation facing America and the world this way: “We don’t know what we don’t know.”21 That being the case, America might have to attack before being attacked. The White House’s new post- 9/11 security strategy is unequivocal on this point. In its now famous September 2002 directive on national security, the Bush Administration stated that “to forestall or prevent . . . hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively.”22

  Worried that terrorists might be able to secure weapons of mass destruction and strike at will, the U.S. government said that it had no choice but to determine, on its own, if necessary, when the sovereign rights of the U.S. are in jeopardy and to act accordingly without having to consult or receive prior permission by other governments. By the new policy, the U.S. assumes virtually carte blanche authority to invade any country it suspects of harboring or financing terrorists or developing weapons of mass destruction that might find their way into terrorists’ hands. The new foreign policy, then, is what can be euphemistically referred to as “anticipatory self-defense.” Critics argue that the policy is an oxymoron and threatens to undermine the entire post-World War II set of agreements, embodied in Article 2 and Article 51 of the UN Charter, which makes it illegal for one country to attack another unless first attacked, and then only in self-defense.23

  The U.S. counters that if it were forced to wait until it had sufficient evidence of wrongdoing, or until it could muster up a consensus in the UN Security Council, it might be too late to defend itself. The problem, as G. John Ikenberry points out in an article in Foreign Affairs, is that if “the United States feels it can take such a course, nothing will stop other countries from doing the same.”24 Ikenberry asks rhetorically whether the United States would want “this doctrine in the hands of Pakistan, or even China or Russia.”25

  When political observers wonder whether the U.S. and its closest ally, the European Union, are beginning to diverge and grow apart in some kind of fundamental way, the answer is an unqualified yes. American foreign policy seeks to resurrect the realpolitik of an earlier era and rests its claims on its sovereign right and duty to protect and defend its territory and citizenry as it sees fit. Nor does it feel obligated to demure to international arrangements that might impede what it perceives to be its vital interests. Stalwarts in the Bush Administration have even gone so far as to claim, according to Harvard’s Stanley Hoffman, that “the United States Constitution allows no bowing to a superior law, such as international law, and no transfer, pooling or delegation of sovereignty to any international organization.”26

  Many in the U.S. government would not subscribe to such overly heated rhetoric. Still, the reality is that the Bush doctrine, if taken to its logical extreme, does relegate all international covenants and commitments secondary to its sovereign right to be the ultimate arbiter of its country’s actions.

  Divergent Views of the World

  The U.S. foreign policy is light-years away from the foreign policy orientation of the twenty-five member states that make up the European Union. These countries have increasingly shed the historical legacy of nation-state sovereignty in favor of working in concert, under international laws, to which they are bound. The European Dream is one of inclusivity, not autonomy. They seek to live in a world governed by consensus. The “go it alone” policy of the U.S. is anathema to them because it threatens to unravel all of the painstaking small steps they have taken to pool their interests and share a collective destiny. They worry that U.S. flouting of international norms and agreements opens the door to the very Hobbesian world of “war of all against all” that they had hoped to leave behind in the ashes of the last world war.

  Some will say, Hold on . . . Didn’t many European Union member nations act in possible violation of international law, not to mention the EU’s own governing principles, by joining the U.S. in its “coalition of the willing” in Iraq? Perhaps. But the interesting point was that the split inside the EU was the subject of much soul-searching in the aftermath of the Iraqi invasion. Instead of leading to irreconcilable fissures and the disaggregation of the Union, as some predicted it would, it had the opposite effect. Member st
ates began asking how they might strengthen their common foreign and security policy to make sure that they didn’t suffer a repeat of the spectacle that unfolded in the days leading up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

  The sovereignty issue is what ultimately divides the U.S. and the EU, and an older American Dream from the new dream shared among most Europeans. To whom do we owe our ultimate allegiance? Where does authority lie in a globalized world? The U.S. is reverting back to an earlier era where allegiance is to the nation-state and final authority rests with the sovereign government. The state confers all rights upon its citizens and determines the nation’s role in the international community. There is no higher authority. Within the nation-state container, people are granted civil, political, and social rights, which allow them the opportunity to acquire property and pursue happiness.

  The European Dream is far more cosmopolitan. While the EU member states retain a modicum of sovereignty, their citizenry are also bound to universal human rights that supersede sovereign state prerogatives. If the American doctrine of unqualified state sovereignty were to prevail, the whole notion of universal human rights, the very edifice upon which the new European Dream is built, would collapse. Universal human rights are a sham in a world where the highest authority rests with the sovereign state. If the nation-state is the ultimate sovereign authority, as many in the Bush Administration believe, then human rights can’t possibly be universal, because their very viability would depend on the whims and caprices of a territory-bound political institution.

  It’s a strange paradox that in a world that is increasingly globalized and in which geographic boundaries of all sorts are loosening or disappearing altogether, the U.S. government is hardening its notion of sovereignty in contradistinction to everything going on around it. But that’s because dreams die hard. We are a people who don’t like to be told what to do by anyone. We like to think that we are capable of making our own way in the world without outside interference. We don’t even like our own government to tell us what we can and can’t do. Why would we be any more disposed to having a foreign power dictate the terms of our behavior? Our sense of self-reliance and autonomy runs deep, to the very marrow of our being.

  The mere thought of being constrained by the will of others goes against the grain of the American spirit. Constraints are not our strong suit. In fact, it is the lack of constraints, the openness of the American way of life, that has allowed us to realize our dreams. Bowing to the will of others seems too subservient, too submissive for the American mind. President Bush, for whatever our European friends think of his intellectual credentials, understands the American psyche. In his State of the Union Address in 2003, President Bush told the American people that “the course of this nation does not depend on the decisions of others.”27

  Americans, by and large, have mixed feelings about international law. Polls show that a majority of Americans support our membership in the United Nations and favor the U.S. being party to international agreements. A comprehensive poll conducted by the German Marshall Fund in the fall of 2002—a year after the attacks on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon—found 61 percent of Americans favoring a multilateral approach to foreign policy, and 65 percent of Americans saying that the U.S. should invade Iraq only with UN approval and the support of its allies.28 I’d suggest, however, that American sentiment in this regard is thin compared to our friends in Europe. Just six months after the poll was conducted, a firm majority of Americans rallied behind President Bush’s decision to send troops into Iraq without a UN resolution. At the time of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, 72 percent of the American public said that they favored sending in troops, and only 25 percent said that they opposed the invasion.29 While some Americans took to the streets in protest, the numbers were relatively small compared to the outpouring of sentiment across Europe in opposition to the U.S. invasion.

  The reality is that Americans are deeply divided on how best to conduct foreign policy. A sizable minority, primarily in the northeastern and northwestern regions of the country, think more like Europeans when it comes to foreign policy. Their views tend to be more cosmopolitan. The southern, southwestern, midwestern, and Rocky Mountain regions—whose population makes up a solid majority—are more likely to identify with America’s frontier mentality and favor a “go it alone” approach, if necessary, to secure American self-interests abroad.

  Similarly, the German Marshall Fund reported that 75 percent of Americans believe global warming is a serious issue, and a majority favor the U.S. joining the EU in ratifying the Kyoto Protocol.30 Yet here, too, the reality is somewhat different. American voters are opposed to government legislation that would force automakers to increase fuel-efficiency standards if it meant having to drive smaller cars, and a majority oppose even a moderate increase in the gasoline tax—the U.S. has the lowest gasoline taxes of any major industrial country.

  Or, consider the American view of the International Criminal Court. Seventy-one percent of the American people say they favor ratification of the treaty. Yet barely a whisper of disagreement could be heard on the hustings when the Clinton Administration signaled that U.S. approval of the agreement had to be conditional on American troops being immune from prosecution by the judicial body—which makes a mockery of the very idea of the institution.31 The vast majority of Americans agree with the Clinton Administration stance. While 71 percent of the French electorate, 65 percent of the German public, and 52 percent of the British people say the International Criminal Court should have authority to try their nation’s soldiers for war crimes, only 37 percent of Americans say the International Criminal Court should have jurisdiction over U.S. troops accused of war crimes.32 I have a hard time imagining the American public ever allowing the International Criminal Court to try American soldiers for war crimes.

  Political scientist Francis Fukuyama writes that “Americans . . . tend not to see any source of democratic legitimacy higher than the nation-state.” 33 Europeans think differently. While European states are ceding more and more sovereignty to the EU and international bodies, the U.S. is going the other way. That’s because Europeans feel that their freedom is enhanced by inclusivity and embeddedness with others, while Americans feel that transferring sovereign rights to extraterritorial agreements and institutions diminishes our sovereignty and results in loss of personal freedom.

  Europe’s Dream of Perpetual Peace

  What, then, does a European foreign and security policy look like? For beginners, it’s so utterly different from anything that came before it in human history that it requires a leap of human imagination to even entertain it. European foreign policy is built on spreading peace rather than amassing power.

  Europeans reject the kind of power politics that has dominated foreign policy for centuries and has led to so much death and destruction in the world. European leaders ask rhetorically: Who knows better than us the terrible consequences that can result from nations attempting to assert their will over others by means of coercion and force? And to those who say that human behavior will never change, Europeans retort, Look at what we’ve accomplished in Europe. After centuries of fighting among ourselves, twenty-five nations have put down their arms, joined with one another, and vowed never to go to war with one another again. German foreign minister Joschka Fischer speaks for many in Europe who are determined to never again allow national rivalries to descend into open warfare. Looking back at the checkered history of the modern nation-state, Fischer says that Europe is now steering a different course into the future: “The core of the concept of Europe after 1945 was and still is a rejection of the European balance-of-power principle and the hegemonic ambitions of individual states that had emerged following the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.”34 Fischer and other European leaders are committed to replacing the old ideology, steeped in the Hobbesian vision of a “war of all against all,” with a new vision of perpetual peace.

  The new European Dream has ancient roots. In 1795, the German philoso
pher Immanuel Kant published an essay entitled Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch. Although it received little attention at the time, the piece was resurrected in the post-World War II era, and has become an almost biblical reference for the new European vanguard. Kant envisioned a “state of universal peace” brought about by the creation of “a world republic.” Kant believed that such a state would be possible once the nations of the world accepted representative forms of governance. The spread of democratic principles, thought Kant, encourages cooperation over conflict and lays the groundwork for a cosmopolitan order.

  While Europeans don’t espouse a world government, they do believe that the deepening of the democratic impulse can lead to a new way for people to behave with one another—one based on mutual respect, empathy, and a recognition of “the other.” That’s why European leaders favor negotiation over ultimatums, reconciliation over recrimination, and cooperation over competition.

  Romano Prodi, the president of the European Commission, says that the EU’s goal is to establish “a superpower on the European continent that stands equal to the United States.”35 Many American political observers worry that remarks like these signal a new era of conflict between Europe and America and warn that the United States needs to remain watchful and on guard lest Europe become a new hegemon and a threat to America’s self-interests. They misunderstand what Mr. Prodi means by the term “superpower.” Europeans have a very different idea in mind of what ought to constitute a superpower in a globalized society. Listen carefully to how President Prodi explains the success of the European experiment. He writes,