THE DUBIOUS EXISTENCE OF EUROPE:

...This is especially true in recent months with Mr...

...Israel, the symbol of one of Europe's greatest internal failures, appeared mainly an embarrassment...

...This involves a limitation of national rights of decision, but France is ready to go forward on this...

...The European 'vision' is, alas, undoubtedly one our time shall never see, a great effort that failed...

...Further, as Leopold Labedz has said, the Arab world only sits on its oil...

...He is now happily in the present Parliament as an Irishman...

...they do not, then, think of a war with China but rather the Russians will attack Europe...

...It is so weak, in fact, that we have been hearing talk of taking it over again...

...Just before the Fall British elections, David Wood sadly pointed out that both parties maintained that, if elected, they would no longer use Parliament as the basis of finding solutions to public problems...

...If the Russians no longer felt that they had the power to shoot a Solzhenitsyn, if Husak expels Dubcek, this just may encourage Europeans enough to believe that Europe only ought to exist someday because no one really threatens her territory...

...How long will they patiently wait amid growing domestic unrest while they arm the mideastera potentates and cajole the sheiks and emirs for high-priced money to pay for their lifeblood...

...Walter Laqueur says that Syria has twice as many effective tanks as Britain...

...But improbable things can still happen...

...The radical wings of the socialist parties and unions are more and more taking power from the earlier, more democratic elements...

...From the coming crisis, it may well emerge defenseless, exposed on every quarter...

...Helmut Schmidt, if he can survive, may be even more hopeful...

...With three-quarters of the world already under military and one-party rule, we can hardly be cheering our political wisdom...

...And if James Reston and the New York Times insist that Europe is highest on the list of American self-interest, they ought to know, so Europe can relax and begin to reread Hob-bes where it was all spelled out in the first place...

...Since these same Europeans invented "self-interest," they are the first to recognize that it is not such a good port in a storm...

...The recent arbitrary French decision to cut off Italian wine imports is but the umpteenth example...

...The theoretical defenders of democratic forms -the very word "democracy" has mostly been opted by the marxists in many lands-have never been fewer...

...And Europe has never come to terms with the significance of the difference in political institutions in Southern and Northern Europe...

...He is working on the rest...

...Alfred Kingow, it is true, has asked, "Is it so farfetched that Europe may break ranks and join a Sino-Arabian-African bloc and leave the two 'superpowers' in rather splendid isolation...

...it has neither produced nor developed the markets and technology that made petroleum valuable in the modern world...

...There is no question, however, that the events in Portugal have renewed hopes that a rather harder line and the new possibilities of the military may be better than pampering forms of Communism that insist on calling Russia "state capitalism...

...Europe is now on the way to becoming the Fifty-First State of America...

...Smiling Arab sheiks reminded Europe that an ancient enemy was still about...

...Europe presently has to watch Portugal and Spain in this context...

...We have only to think of the Basques, the Scots, the Moravians, the Irish, the Croats, the Flamands, the Bavarians, the Tyrolese, the Bretons, to be aware how fragile the nationalisms of Germany, France, Italy, England, and Spain, to mention no more, really are...

...Kissinger knows that the Old World's tribes and particularities are at least as important as its not yet, if ever to be established unity...

...And even though European governments have pretended that Southeast Asia is none of their business, that American troops were better used in Germany than in Korea or Vietnam, still, I think, there is currently something of a tendency to get on the winning side, a feeling that nothing must be done any longer to annoy what will probably come about anyhow...

...La Stampa, Torino, 15 April 1975) The problem indeed seems perennial...

...The Shah of Iran and the marvelous Sheik Yamani in Saudi Arabia actually claim they are going to build modern industrial states to replace Europe, usually with willing French, British, or German aid...

...I have a friend who thinks selling the Mezzogiorno to Saudi Arabia may be the only solution to the problem of Italy's South...

...though our Secretary of State is often accused by Europeans of neglecting and ignoring them precisely because they have no power beyond their own bickerings, still Americans have always suspected that one of their kind should some day repay the effort of Christopher Columbus...

...One could almost argue that, for now, the future of the nature of European communism is a struggle between Rome and Lisbon with the Russians taking notes...

...Subsequently, this good but executed admiral became justly famous when one Voltaire, noting but another of the eccentricities of leadership across la Manche, remarked that in England, it was necessary from time to time to shoot admirals "pour encourager les autres...

...Europe is itself discovering considerable oil in the North Sea, the main effect of which so far seems largely to be a prod to Scottish nationalism and British coal miners, an excuse for Norway to stay out of the Common Market, and a dead earnest fight about who owns the seas about the far Northern Islands...

...Napoleon and Caesar are European traditions and still, for many, European alternatives...

...Thus, if we are finally to shoot someone for a failure to create Europe in order to encourage the others, it would probably have to be someone who speaks the language of either Voltaire or Admiral Byng...

...This would imply a continued American vigor and capacity to act outside itself, along with a realization by the Eight, or the Nine or Ten that if, in their lack of unity, they have only to choose between American and the Soviets, then their best bet, their only bet is to follow the example of say Hawaii and not that of the Ukraine...

...People, Riches, Trade, Power do change their Stations...

...Islam will simply bypass Europe, as Europe once bypassed it...

...It seems quite easy these days to convert young officers to some brand of marxism...

...The reason for such unsuccess, Mr...

...On top of these successful imperialisms has been evolved or imposed or selected a wide variety of parliamentary-executive systems variously designed, like most 20th Century armies, to avert the last war, the last constitutional crisis...

...I hope they were right...

...The newly found capacity of the Islamic states to act in some sort of concert finds Europe quite unprepared, although much now depends on the aftermath of the murder of King Faisal...

...What is left is an unsatisfactory choice between a Fifty-First State, a Finland, a Concert of Europe of Radical Socialist States, and more of the same...

...This said neglect was his failure to prevent the French fleet from taking the Island of Minorca...

...But there is another consideration that should be noted...

...Kissinger to Mr...

...Pompidou to Mr...

...This would pursue the radical industrial and social plans appearing in the extremes of French, German, and British socialist parties, complete nationalization and bureaucratization of society...

...Neither side can afford to allow the other any absolute control...

...This is not made easier to these overly pragmatic Europeans when they carefully read the columns of James Reston, Joseph Kraft, and the editorials of the Washington Post and the New York Times which blandly assure them that they are high on the list of America's self-interest, so do not bother about South Asia...

...There is a further irony to all of this...

...Everyone rushed about making his own deal...

...In contrast, Europe has repeatedly formulated from within her own turmoil one further and unhappy legacy, a legacy which undoubtedly antedates in some sense its very parliamentary heritage...

...Why should not some of them get together and work out a coup or an invasion in one oil country or another in order to assure themselves of a reliable supply at a reasonable price...

...Besides the Arabs must, after all, spend their money someplace, like buying General Motors, or the Bank of England, or Belgium, as the pundits are saying...

...This will be the great struggle for the next thirty years, not unlike Africa at the turn of this century...

...There is a certain degree of anti-Sovietism in these movements, a freedom based on the security provided by NATO and American deterrence...

...This decline even affects the smaller states, also part of Europe, such as Belgium, Holland, Denmark and Sweden, as much as it does the larger continental powers...

...No European ever forgets this...

...That is to say, all pretense at real parliament must be eliminated...

...All of this pessimism is compounded by the growing awareness of the weakness of the United States...

...And Walter Laqueur, Director of the Institute of Contemporary History in London, wrote: In the cruel world of global politics, there is only one way for Europe not to be ignored by America, not to be threatened by Russia, not to be blackmailed by the Arabs, in short to gain equal treatment and this is, of course, to be strong and united...

...Meanwhile, Colonel Quaddafi, though quieter of late, comes quite close to Holy War language...

...There is a beginning of something in Brussels, where pessimism has reigned so much of late...

...A Sino-Arabian-African-European bloc is almost a world government...

...But how many of these really affect public opinion...

...Caesar and Napoleon are, we must acknowledge, valid European political traditions...

...This says that when the representative system fails, the only recourse is to an authoritarian government...

...Europe thus is beginning to suspect more openly that it is in deep trouble because of its failure to form some more positive political entity...

...What is noteworthy today is the degree to which the idea of Europe, except perhaps in Britain, has passed from Christian idealism to the program for the nationalist Communists and radical socialists as a means to gain both legitimacy and power...

...Meanwhile, the Chinese are busy claiming all potential oil reserves in the seas off China, of which there seems to be a fair amount...

...Powell...

...The Dutch proposal to have direct European parliamentary elections by 1980 is perhaps a positive counter-sign...

...Nixon, of uncertain memory, went to Egypt, Adelbert Weinstein complained, ". .. Europe has become not only a collection of military satellites of the United States . . . but also a divided Europe has no say whatsoever on decisions of international significance...

...Which way the Japanese turn will profoundly affect world power...

...In fact, one of the most obvious and least attended-to things happening in the world today is the enthusiasm to claim sovereignty precisely over the high seas...

...The irony of General Spinola in Portugal has the whole left in intellectual turmoil and is probably prophetic of a significant change in our thinking on this whole matter...

...Gert Goebel's remark is symbolic on a much larger scale: "No one has any idea how to deal with the problems that beset agriculture in Europe...

...To me, perhaps the most poignant model of Europe's current disarray is one Admiral Byng, who was executed in Portsmouth on 14 March 1757...

...Should Russia further decide to take Yugoslavia on Tito's death, as there are signs it intends to do-the Americans have already announced with Czechoslovakia that our "self-interest" is not involved- the impact on the ability of Italy's and France's Communist parties to take power would probably be greatly enhanced, though not in the exact way they presently like to picture it...

...And further, if these same proud entities which formed so much of the modern world continue to refuse to found a solid, common political power, as seems more and more likely, what will be their individual fates...

...The erstwhile admirals and generals who replaced the Brazil-bound hero of last year are ever mouthing Rousseau and telling us that these Portuguese have to be forced to be free...

...The Italian Communist party is currently valiantly trying to make its "historic compromise" with the Christians to come to power by constitutional means...

...The final alternative is what is known as "Finlandiza-tion," the final impotence of Europe and America which would lead each European state to make its own terms with the East, with a Russia that would perhaps allow no form of socialism to exist except the one it approves...

...S. Rosenfeld wrote, "Why should the countries hardest hit by oil price increases (not us) simply sit around and take their lumps...

...THE DUBIOUS EXISTENCE OF EUROPE JAMES V. SCHALL The day of any 'Christian' Europe is undoubtedly over Americans tend to believe an entity vaguely called "Europe" does exist because Europe, for its own good, ought to exist...

...Giscard has recently said, "The ultimate objective of France is, however, a confederated structure for Europe...

...It was in Britain during the February (1974) General Election when Mr...

...In this, I suspect, the death of Tito (and probably Franco too, if it comes before the revolution) will surely be the sign...

...Almost invariably as if preprogrammed, commentators on British television would hint that Mr...

...And we know the Russians have been completely beefing up and modernizing their tank fleets...

...Among these, it is difficult to imagine that the latter will not be both the better choice and the reality...

...Italy and England are now probably the practical touchstones here, France and Germany the more theoretical ones...

...Brezhnev's message about Russia acknowledging the reality of the Common Market (about which he seems later to have had second thoughts) and the conference's desire to establish a common policy of European left parties...

...And even though the world is getting tired of empire and largeness-we would all do well to reread Cardinal Newman's sermon of 1866 to the Italians on the loss of their small states-it is at least arguable that a fully united Europe would be a superpower on a scale which neither the Americans nor the Russians nor the Chinese, creating their new man, could match, if only because Europe more than anyone else, remembers the old man which it once hammered out...

...This roving gentleman has also, to be sure, lately discovered the Soviet Union, China, as well as parts of North Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia, this latter having become more like a nightmare...

...This means that the current Arab power is very passing...

...Probably it is...

...The Soviet Union has, with Czechoslovakia and Solzhenitsyn, shown an extremely agile capacity to act when it sees the necessity to do so...

...No doubt the Islamic leaders were as surprised as any to discover that the net effect of their oil policies was to strengthen the Americans and the Russians (the Russians apparently used income from arms sold to Egypt and Syria to pay for American wheat, and only doubled their oil prices to show what a good deal it is to be in the right camp) while weakening Europe, Japan and the Third World...

...The major political failure of Europe is that it has never known, seldom even conceived of the possibility of a continental political authority and strength that was not founded upon the abuse of power...

...Indeed, at a moment when foreign aid to the Third World has become more problematic, in part because of increased oil and commodity prices, the Arabs themselves are beginning to develop their own foreign aid programs (mostly for other Muslim powers) as well as becoming the great capital founts...

...European Pessimism In a sense, it is hard to grasp the profound pessimism Europe began to realize about itself all through 1974...

...And Enrico Berlinguer's pious hope for a legal marxism in Italy, as he elaborated it in the Party's recent 14th Congress here in Rome, seems in need of revision already because of the ease of the Portuguese take-over...

...South America's turn seems to be next...

...And surely the Arabs will squabble among themselves again.There is no chance that Algeria will lead the Third World as it tried to do in the recent Paris energy conference...

...In the meantime, the major question that must be asked of each existing, wrangling European state from England to Germany, Italy, France, and even more now, Spain, is this: Is it any longer governable under its present form...

...Yet, being European in birth, Mr...

...Both Augustine, though African, and Hegel were Europeans...

...Europe traditionally has been a place that gets along...

...The day of any "Christian" Europe is undoubtedly over...

...Henry Kissinger has read his Locke well...

...It goes without saying that France is and has been the great obstacle to a free, united Europe...

...But even father james v. schall, S.J., is on the faculty of the Gregorian University in Rome...

...In a sense, Europe has never existed politically because Europeans themselves have neglected it...

...It is not only the Chinese that are beginning to feel that the war may be in the west and that the Americans may be a paper tiger...

...But these early efforts turned out to be mainly failures...

...April, 1974) I suspect this is but another Frenchman preparing for the wrong battle...

...The model of the future of Europe would then be nearer that of the Warsaw Pact and Concom which, as a friend from Warsaw recently told me, means no direct relations with any other nations except via Moscow...

...The Secretary of State speaks German as his native language...

...And the Editor of the Financial World added: "And what of Europe...

...In other words, what Europe has so far created is not a political system...

...And I recall too reading an article by the Editor of Le Monde Diplomatique, who almost never has a good word to say about the United States, an article on inflation and fascism which automatically assumed that inflation would produce a "right" Caesar, if not worse...

...Under the aegis of "Atlantic Charter II" and the oil crisis, the Secretary of State has been valiantly trying to discover Europe like a good American should...

...And this does not even touch the peculiar European problem of class and the politics built upon it in opposition to or transcending the national state...

...What is certainly dead, to repeat, is the old idea of a Christian Europe...

...An intelligent Russian foreign policy to promote this would probably work wonders...

...Brandt to Mr...

...Indeed, many, such as Paul Hazard and G. K. Chesterton, even suspected that the localities and varieties and oddities of Europe were by far its most important assets...

...Each nation-state scrambled for itself in the crunch...

...They both felt some higher power ruled the destiny of nations...

...The Decline of Parliaments The great political problem today, furthermore, is the steady and startling decline of parliaments and the political philosophy upon which they were based and justified...

...In 1762, the author of the Social Contract wrote, "The Russian empire will want to subjugate all Europe, and will be subjugated herself...

...As of now, it looks as if General Franco will suffer the fate of Haile Selassie...

...Thus, the fact that Europe has so little is proof enough of its doubtful existence...

...In retrospect, the effort of the Japanese to secure a wide co-prosperity sphere during the 1930's makes some considerable sense in the light of what is happening to their economy as a result of the oil crisis...

...History is a tale of efforts that failed, of aspirations that weren't realized, of wishes that were fulfilled and then turned out to be different from what one expected...

...Thus far, the words of Mr...

...Beyond that, Europe was very much occupied in forming its own identity, and it had so much difficulty in doing so that any greater conception seemed a threat to whatever autonomy they had so painfully wrested from their deliberations...

...With more and more Christians, Protestants and Catholics alike, accepting some sort of marxist analysis anyhow, the prospects for a new Europe take on much different forms than they once may have had...

...Flourishing mighty cities do come to ruin...

...What must be increasingly recognized today, as a reading of Robert Heilbroner's The Human Prospect will readily suggest for those who have not been paying attention, is that the contemporary liberal and radical, in connection with the 'limits of earth' theses, are more and more coming to acknowledge the necessity and even normalcy, so they tell us, of authoritarian regimes...

...Europe has had its chance and missed it...

...For many, Finland might not seem to be such a bad choice...

...The change in France from Mr...

...This is what Willi Brandt says...

...Even the Common Market is less and less attractive, and not only to British Labor, in an inflationary era when Europe has no real political muscle outside itself, or even within itself...

...Kissinger told James Reston last October, was that "at that particular moment, Europe was enormously absorbed with itself...

...Europe, thus, must have something to offer, something with which to defend herself...

...For the marxists, I suspect, religion no longer presents much of an obstacle...

...If we leave aside the long-range speculations of Solzhenitsyn and Djilas about the eventual breaking up of Russia, there are three likely alternatives besides the status quo, which latter is the situation someone like Willi Brandt sees going on and on...

...This unfortunate gentleman was court-martialed for neglect of duty...

...In any case, he has never completely forgotten his origins...

...This freedom depends upon the degree of balance of power and detente that might exist among the superpowers and assumes that no one superpower will gain comparative dominance...

...Giscard d'Estaing and in Germany from Mr...

...Portugal is not a theoretical freak but follows a kind of grim logic which cannot avoid political extremes...

...The Russians have such a . big army and navy and missile force because maybe they like parades on May Day and cold climates demand security...

...And the Common Market solution to this problem-to convert good French wine into industrial alcohol rather than compete on price so the rest of us could enjoy it-seems almost diabolical...

...Their muscle today is primarily military, not economic...

...In any case, even an individual strong man on the conservative right could probably not save any European country today...

...Europe must know by now, though, that American zeal to protect it is rapidly disappearing...

...This alone makes Islam in some sense capable of great strength against a weak Europe...

...As Flora Lesis has indicated, France has tried almost every tactic either to rule Europe herself or to prevent anyone else from doing so...

...When Mr...

...Denmark and Holland alone seemed brave...

...Even Russia itself falls into this category...

...They quickly discover that, given half a chance, they are quite adept at exploiting each other...

...In other words, in spite of Strasbourg and Brussels and Geneva, the chances are that Europe will never exist in any meaningful form...

...No doubt too the ultimate answer to oil politics, as several Arab leaders remarked, is largely technological, the discovery and development of alternate energy sources...

...Reston...

...This might be enough were not the old enemies of Europe, especially the Islamic states, making noises that stir uneasy pasts, were not the Russians continually strengthening their forces in Eastern Europe, their navy, shooting all those satellites up, were they not beginning to wonder if they really have to take account of Europe at all...

...Historically, each modern European state is a modification of some passing imperialism, usually in the name of nationalism or absolutism, forced upon reluctant lesser linguistic or ethnic or religious groups, groups that everywhere have defied the logic of history to be still vigorous and dynamic...

...What, then, is the prospect for Europe...

...As Francesco Alberoni has just pointed out, Europe soon, in spite of its fear of going it alone, must find its own way...

...The world we Americans should like to see materialize will not come about...

...Thus, the Arab sparse area of maneuver is solely dependent upon the balance of power between the Russians and the Americans...

...No one is more surprised by this than the marxists themselves...

...Do you really think they will sit still forever and watch their throats being cut...

...The contemporary problem with Europe as such is that there is no one to shoot, let alone anyone to encourage for its mortal condition...

...Furthermore, it is highly doubtful if she will ever again have the possibility of creating one, even though she still tries...

...But for the moment, Russia may just feel that a thoroughly leftist Europe, even somewhat out of its total control, is the best that can be immediately hoped for...

...The Christian Democratic parties under De Gasperi, Adenauer, and Schumann were the main bearers of this notion of a religious-humanist-responsible Europe...

...The Third World is confused because it learns now that not just the Americans, Europeans, Japanese and Russians are exploiting them...

...The great historic battles that finally saved Europe from Islam- Tours, Lepanto, Vienna-the very capacity of the European powers to control Islam for so long during the last two centuries, was made possible by the inner divisions of Islam...

...No one is willing to admit in public that a strategically more dangerous "Cuba" might be in the making, even fewer are willing to do anything about it...

...Within this parliamentary tradition, a militant left now exists with ever increasing force in each European country which insists upon reducing all problems to industrial-class-exploitation issues which, according to the theory, can only be resolved by proper bureaucratic, party management...

...A second alternative is typified by a remark of a Brussels official...

...This is the main difference between the Europeans and the Americans, except that Americans profess to be in Europe for the protection of Europe, while the Europeans on the whole are quite convinced Americans (soldiers, businessmen and tourists) are in Europe solely for their own protection, profit and pleasure...

...All European princes seem laboring in concert to accelerate the event...

...Schmidt has made a difference, however...

...We have no theory for this as yet...

...The first is the success of the new Europe along the European left line, a line that would probably leave the Arab world for the Soviets to "order...

...Inflation and oil have been breaking up step by step common market policies when each state has to protect itself...

...It would seem more than fitting were that American who should force the Europeans to face their disunity to turn out to be not a George Marshall, but a dogged refugee from the remnants of the ancient Hapsburg dominions...

...Indeed, it will decide it...

...What is against it is merely all the evidence...

...The degree to which ecology and development theories are seeing traditional free political forms to be the enemy is nowhere really faced today...

...Reston has bravely been encouraging us not to be so pessimistic...

...No wonder, of late, Mr...

...Every major European newspaper during the energy crisis complained about the impotence of Europe...

...Some 213 years later, Stefano Silvertsi reports that "in China it is held that the USSR has made a lot of noise about the East in order to attack the West...

...Islam in itself, of course, in spite of its British tanks and French Mirages, is very weak, even after it buys all the newer American weapons and Russian hardware...

...Every European country, it soon became apparent, had a leadership crisis of its own and was trying to sort out its own domestic problems...

...And that wise political thinker, Alexander Passerin d'Entreves has lately written that the June Common Market Referendum is precisely an abandonment of Parliament as the core political institution, though fortunately England still retains the single-membered electoral district as against the damnable and dangerous party list system of the lower continent...

...Europe's 'capital' is a technocratic breeding ground populated by a thousand issues," Pierre Drouin noted...

...The only confusing aspect in these hardy truths is that the American Secretary of State is currently a European...

...Yet in truth, there are very few strong men on the European scene today, except, as Andrew Knight reported in an Economist survey (1 December 1973), those being trained in the Stalinist tradition on the left in the West German universities...

...the opportunity may not come again...

...Powell's motivation was that of the strong man waiting to pick up the pieces when the current parties and unions brought the nation to ruin...

...The assumption is usually that authoritarian government must come from the right, even though neither Caesar nor Napoleon could be described accurately in this manner...

...Since World War II, the idea of Europe, insofar as it was not a projection of the Americans of themselves, was nourished and nurtured in the bosom of Christian Europe...

...The opening of Suez to the Russian fleet (Suez is now scheduled to open this June) and the pacification of Yugoslavia, if it might be called that, would make a big difference here...

...Lord Chalfont recently noted that the British Communists have less than one percent of the membership of British labor but over ten percent of its major offices...

...Enoch Powell announced he would no longer be a Conservative candidate for Parliament...

...The mode of thought of these commentators was almost more revealing than the antics of Mr...

...The recent letter of Alexander Dubcek, in this context, seems almost pathetic in its hope that Communism can be legal and moral...

...Kissinger's star apparently fading and the collapse in Southeast Asia forcing to the fore the strength and will of America, behind whom, as Alberto Ronchy recently wrote, there is no one else...

...The Tartars, now its dependents and neighbors, will soon become its masters, and also ours: this revolution seems to me to be inevitable...

...Besides, the long-range questions that loom on the political horizon have to do with the control and probable decline of industrial society as such...

...The meeting of the European Communist parties in Brussels last year was remarkable both because of Mr...