THE TRANSATLANTIC SPECTATOR: We Can Get Along
Regnery, Alfred S.
PENDING TIME TALKING to European politicians and journalists makes you want to sing a paraphrase of the Kingston Trio's old Merry Minuet: The Germans hate the British, and the British hate the...
...and finally the Cold War...
...That heritage wil probably depend on the strength of the Unites States, over the coming decades, more than th strength of Europe...
...NOTHER VAST DIFFERENCE between American and Europeans is European secularism am merican faith...
...Americans car, deeply about preserving Wester] civilization, which is really another way of describin, our Judeo-Christian heritage...
...While Europe disarmed, or nearly so, the U.S...
...Nor is all lost in what Donal( Rumsfeld called "Old Europe...
...As in a bad marriage preoccupied by familystruggles, the dissatisfaction doesn't emerge until the partners have time to think about it...
...Just what is the nature and origin of this division between Europe and the United States...
...European secularism and self-indulgenc, also explain to Americans the demographic meltdown underway across European countries...
...strategic polic: into the foreseeable future, am those Americans who are most con cerned that the Alliance continu, are those most worried about socia and cultural trends in Europe...
...Of these it is widely reported that more than 40 percent of al Americans attend church at least once a month...
...Britain will remain ; close ally of the United States fo years to come...
...government perpetrated the September 11 attacks, and best-selling books in both Germany and France spell the theory out in detail...
...In a recent ABC News poll, 80 per cent of Americans define themselves as Christian: and as many as 95 percent believe in God...
...debate over the Iraq war...
...In Great Britain, France, and Germany, it is estimated that fewer than 10 percent of the population attends any church regularly, and polls show that fewer than 50 percent believe in God...
...As Mel Gibson's critics hay, recently learned, the United States is still seriou about religion...
...Europe, on the other hand, once the heart of Christendom, is increasingly secular...
...As George Weigel points out in First Things, Europeans have convinced themselves that in order to be modern and free, they must be radically secular...
...Anti-Americanisn exists on the anti-Blair left, but it lacks the intensit: common on the continent...
...Moreover, we are willing to use our military, unilaterally, if necessary, and certainly without the approval of our European allies...
...Given their experience in both world wars it is probably understandable that Europeans feel this way, but it remain ironic that Europe, once the very definition of mili tarism, has become pacifist, and the United State: which previously used its power sparingly and as nilitary power...
...last is the world's resort, leading...
...Only after 1991 and the end of European communism, when Europe, after nearly a century of war, waste, and insecurity, was again stable and secure, could the divide that now is so evident come to the surface...
...But Europe is not a culturally monolithic conti nent...
...PENDING TIME TALKING to European politicians and journalists makes you want to sing a paraphrase of the Kingston Trio's old Merry Minuet: The Germans hate the British, and the British hate the Dutch, the French hate America, and I don't like anybody very much...
...Thy Atlantic Alliance will remain th cornerstone of U.S...
...never stopped developing and building new armaments after the Cold War ended, and we now enjoy a vastly superior military to all of Europe combined...
...Anti-Americanism is alive and well in Europe, and most Americans feel the same way about Europe...
...as their most impor tant ally...
...Many Americans take about as dim a view of Europe as the Europeans take of us, and believe that a soft, weak, and self-indulgent continent is building a comfortable welfare state for itself, while the U.S...
...Even in Spain, Italy, and France, the oldest Catholic countries in Western Europe, secularism has dispellei faith, which remains a rare phenomenon with littl, influence on the population...
...Conversely, some 80 percent of Americans believe that war can achieve justice and, ultimately, peace...
...The power gap, the more obvious of the two, is the result of a vast disparity in military and technological power and, because of our superior strength, what the Europeans view as our willingness to use force to get what we want...
...Europeans are amused when American politicians end a speech with the words "God bless America," cannot imagine a prime minister saying "God bless Germany" or "God bless France," and feel much more comfortable with an admitted agnostic such as Gerhard Schroeder as their head of state than with a church-going Christian such as George W. Bush...
...Americans, particularly self-declared Christ ians, believe that this secularism accounts fo Europe's abandonment of its cultural and historica roots and its replacement of its heritage of hard won and military adventure with a reliance on bureaucra cy, over-regulation and the illusion of U.N.-provides security...
...Alfred S. Regnery is publisher of The America] Spectator...
...Americans generally take a dim view of international law and international courts, while Europeans tend not only to favor the concept, but to regard terrorism as a legal rather than military matter...
...Over 25 percent of Germans believe that the U.S...
...Most of these countries sent troops to Irac And Great Britain, our closest partner in the Ira( war, retains the "special relationship" establishes over many years by Republicans and Democrats Tories and Labourites alike...
...foots the bill for European security...
...Not all of Europe is anti-American or unwillin: to maintain close relations with the United States The former countries of the Soviet Bloc, most o which are members of NATO, are almost uniforml: pro-American and view the U.S...
...Europe and the United States have been drifting apart since well before the U.N...
...the rise of totalitarianism and economic devastation from the Great Depression...
...A significant number of Europeans actually believe that a dominant United States is more threatening to world security than was the ruthlessness and tyranny of Saddam Hussein...
...But preserving and strengthen ing that heritage can best be done by finding corn mon ground with clear-thinking Europeans, am maintaining the American-European alliance...
...Much of the division was obscured by the overwhelming global events of the twentieth century—two world wars and the illusory peace between them...
...But perhaps even more important, Kagan argues, is the ideological gap, which has seen the Europeans reject power politics in favor of a "moral consciousness" that melds rule of law, internationalism, and reliance on international organizations and bureaucracy...
...America's culture is Europe' culture, and never in history ha there been an alliance which runs a deep in terms of cultural power, mil itary power, or economic power Although there are many differ ences, there are also many commoi values and common interests tha can be used by both sides to over come disunity...
...Europeans also are much more impressed with the liberal notion of "moral equivalence"—the idea that a state such as Iraq or Palestine has the same rights and status as a Western democracy...
...Thi United States will not write Europe off, much as some Americans woulc like to do so, nor is Europe going b write us off any time soon...
...Under its sway few Europeans believe that any war can ever be just...
...Robert Kagan, in his book Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order, argues that we are divided by both a power gap and an ideology gap that reinforce each other...
...What's going on here...
...Fewer than 20 percent of Americans consider France a reliable ally, down from 50 percent three years ago, and Germany is thought of in only marginally better terms...
Vol. 37 • April 2004 • No. 3
