Among other things - like nationalism and overcoming the traditional balance of power politics held to be the bane of Europe - project European Union appeared to seek to create a new man (woman). This social engineering project sought to craft a man (woman), who would in the Kantian tradition be ‘rooted yet cosmopolitan’.
He or she would disavow war, militarism, and be at peace with himself (herself) and the world. Trade between ‘nations’ of Europe, free movement of Europeans and the dissolution of a prong of sovereignty – borders - would be the key enablers for the ‘new’ European man (woman).
The attendant ‘soft power’ would be a draw for the world - first Europe’s ‘near abroad’ and gradually the entire world. The postmodern construct that would ensue would cock a snook at the Westphalian sovereign state system. Gradually and inexorably, the world would become a postmodern ‘nirvana’ defined by leisure and bliss – and of course boredom.
In the meantime, European security would be outsourced to the United States with NATO (where some free riding by Europeans was somewhat normative) and US ‘extended deterrence’ allowing Europeans to twiddle their thumbs and become fuller ‘Venetians’ (in the famed formulation of the neo-con Robert Kagan).
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Project EU creaks with ‘democratic deficit’
But when the ‘polish plumber’ became synonymous with ‘wage competition’ say in the UK, when ‘wars of choice’ in Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria ‘swamped’ European shores with swarthy Muslim men and women, when the European welfare state creaked under welfare payments to both immigrants and unemployable natives, when orders by Eurocrats in the European Commission offices created the ‘democratic deficit’, project EU started creaking and groaning.
In these schemata and matrix, when a hypothetical Jensen or Poulsen of and in Denmark was faced with a brown or black man (woman), Jensen would only grimace and wince putting his or faith in the Danish Folk Party.
Similarly, confronted by growing numbers of Banlieues (urban slums populated mostly by immigrants of North African descent), the French Hubert and Pierre would do the same.
In Germany, Heidi and Johanne could no longer recognize Berlin as his or her city, the ‘natural’ contradictions of project EU came to the fore. But then these were internal issues (maybe of an internal security nature?), Europeans remained smug in the external security dimension (provided by the US).
In this smug cocoon, wrapped in the mantle of US provided security, the war over Ukraine happened. European smugness, while it was not shattered, received a jolt. This was compounded by the assumption of the highest office of the US by Donald Trump who had made his politics toward Europe and the world at large very clear.
Now with the ‘external stimuli’ of war and the potential rupture in Europe’s political economy with the ‘Trump economic shocks, Europe faces a moment of its reckoning.
Elemental choice for Europe
The elemental choice for Europe is not between NATO, or no NATO, or a truncated NATO, or so-called strategic autonomy or even a European army; it is the will to defend itself and /or ability to project power. Can, the question, is Europe do either? The answer is Iffy - primarily because over the years Europeans have become soft.
In an ideal world, ‘softness’ is something laudable and appreciable. Who, for example, would like a given population. To be war like, and militaristic (even though aggression may be primed in the proverbial DNA of human beings)? But when ‘softness’ becomes a reflex, and even a Condition, neither money, nor politics nor bureaucratic inertia, to employ academic parlance become ‘intervening variables’ that preclude defense preparedness.
At one level, expecting Europeans to ‘defend themselves’ or re-militarize aspects of their constituent states, is a tall order; it amounts to placing a scythe on one elemental and foundational aspect of the European construct. But, to hark to the point raised in this essay, the ‘Trump shock’ and the war over Ukraine presents Europe with a stark choice.
Can Europe muster the will?
The impediments to Europe owning to its security are not about military systems misalignment, force postures, lack of money, political squabbling and so on but about political will. Can Europe muster this will? And if it does, who, one will bell the cat (France or Germany or both?) and if they do, will it mean the recrudescence of Europe into ‘fratricidal rivalry’?
No one knows the answer to these questions. What, however, is certain is that the Trumpian interlude in world politics and international relations is not a passing moment or fad. Complemented by structural changes in international relations - increasing multipolarity and Great Power politics - Europeans will have to do something - re their defense and security.
Will the question be Europeans’ ‘man up’? Will they, to twist the vulgar phrase, employed by Robert Kagan in an even vulgar self-serving (and even despicable context) Europeans make the journey from Venus to Mars?
Only time will tell.
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