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-- The Diplomatic European Superpower
The Diplomatic European Superpower
read here: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.08/view.html?pg=4
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Barbarians at the Gate Europe wants to be the other superpower. There are just four problems. By Bruce Sterling VIEW Your Permanent Record Is the full-length album a dying art form? Why A.I. Is Brain-Dead Barbarians at the Gate Don't Worry About Deflation Scott Menchin In April, while the US was loudly conquering Iraq, the world's weirdest empire quietly swallowed 10 countries. In the ancient shadow of the Acropolis, the European Union expanded from 15 nations to 25, opening its gates to the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, the island of Malta, and the schizoid mess that is Cyprus. Someday, "Europe" might extend all the way to Japan. What's the EU's secret for transcending nationalism? Infrastructure. April's 4,900-page Treaty of Accession is all about railroads, smokestacks, trademarks, livestock, fertilizer, cosmetics, glassware, footwear - everything it will take to level the playing field across a consumer population of 450 million people. Life is bound to improve for the new members, from Polish newspaper editors who once feared for their lives to black-lunged Czechoslovakian miners. Celebration is in order, and mankind should rejoice. EMEK No silver lining comes without a cloud, though, and Europe faces severe challenges. First and foremost, it lacks a real government. Managing Europe by remote control through 15 national authorities was unwieldy, but 25 looks downright impossible. The nascent empire needs to establish some federal-style centralization, if only to have a place to pick up the phone. The aptly named Convention on the Future of Europe, a 105-member committee chaired by the former French president Val�ry Giscard d'Estaing, is poised to create - really - a president and a politburo of some kind, a vice president, a foreign secretary, and a constitution. This will be no picnic, especially with the French at the wheel. They'll have to hammer out a bill of rights amid power struggles over vetoes and representation. If it were anybody but Europeans, they'd die before it was over from the sheer boredom of all that negotiating. Second, European countries that haven't yet been absorbed are in steep decline. The outlines of the Schengen open-border confederation constitute a 21st-century Berlin Wall, separating the New Europe from what now can be justly called Deepest, Darkest Europe. The outcasts are deprived of investment capital. Their crumbling highways and ill-kept infrastructure make it hard to compete with their neighbors' glossy standards, so they attract offshore maquiladora-style plants and sex tourism. Their best and brightest become brain-drained guest workers. As time passes, keeping up with the Joneses requires an ever greater leap, and "transition" looks less like an interregnum and more like a ghetto. This is the stick to Europe's carrot, and it's a nasty one. As for the union itself, thriving beside iron-fisted, hidebound Communist regimes was hard enough, but prospering next to massive organized crime - that won't be pretty. Third, Europe is lightly armed. Although Europeans in general scorn the American cowboy tradition of blowing the living daylights out of bandits, the EU's fringe hosts its share of vigilante bloodletting - thanks to church-burning Balkan bandits, tin-pot dictators in Belarus, Albanian heroin gangsters, and cold-eyed al Qaeda theology students. It's one thing to talk softly and carry a big stick, but it's another to talk endlessly and have no stick at all. Europe's air forces are too trifling to fly soldiers and arsenals to war zones. You can count its aircraft carriers on two hands with fingers left over. Under those circumstances, having a military courts humiliation without adding security. The people of Poland, repeatedly sacked and trampled, laugh in their sleeves at French "security guarantees," so of course they're going to suck up to the empire that has functional hardware. Whether weary Americans arrange Dayton Peace Accords or smart-bomb Serbian dictators, they only highlight Europe's weakness in what should be its own sphere of influence. Finally, today's children are the citizens of the future, and Europe has very few of them. While Asia's population spills out of its own borders to colonize the West, Europe's is aging and shrinking. The huddled masses yearning to breathe free, who once turned the American continents into emergent states, are more comfortable now. Meanwhile, people from less comfortable regions are arriving in droves. Modern France attracts Algerians, Moroccans, Senegalese, and Tunisians. Turks and Kurds go to Germany. Italy is a magnet for Albanians. Decades hence, the people of "Europe" will have a rather expansive genetic profile. But as long as the infrastructure is there, does it really matter who inhabits it? Becoming a mix-and-match composite of the planet's ethnicities never slowed down the US. Whatever "Europe" is - union, superstate, confederacy, club, bloc, or community - it's a brand-new form of political organization whose best days are likely ahead of it. And it doesn't have to stay put on any particular continent, either. A 21st-century Europe without any Europeans in it - that's such an attractive prospect that even Republicans might join up. |
I suspect the EU will collapse in the face of resurgent nationalism within the 21st century. So, in short, I don't think they have what it takes to become a legitimate "superpower."
the only surperpower i see being formed is a German-French alliance. They're integrating their armed forces. China is a waking dragon.
I agree with Arbiter, I don't really see the EU taking a strong federated role ever, nationalisim is just way to strong in EU. The only way to do this is unite against a common enemy, and the zeal against this enemy would have to be very strong.
Assuming however they will attain Federation I believe its an interesting approach, diplomacy instead of arms.. ultimately it will fail however. What many diplomats tend to forget is that Diplomacy is the art of saying what weapons you have and how you won't have to use them.
If you have no weapons no one will listen to a word.
I sincerely doubt you would ever see anything like a confederacy of united states with a federalist central government like hte US happening in the EU. There is simply too much division and differences between countries for anything like that to happen. Simply look at some of the wording of the original constitution that was drafted months ago:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3039883.stm
And look at the plethora of disagreements, stalling, and opposition to versions of the constitution since that time period:
http://newssearch.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin...n&scope=newsifs
At the most, I see a NATO like organization with economic ties rather than a one governing body/one country sense of a super power. If the EU were to ever become a true indivisible super power, I simply don't see that happening in our lifetimes.
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| Originally posted by ahlamalek the only surperpower i see being formed is a German-French alliance. They're integrating their armed forces. China is a waking dragon. |
I think that eventually Europe will become a 2nd United States, but it will be very slowly. It might take 200 years.
There are voices in the European Parliament that we should make English as a 2nd language in all of Europe, so that everyone will also get an English education. I hope that this will happen eventually, wouldn't be that much of a problem for the Netherlands, we get Dutch, German, French and English at school...
the germans and the french together?? that will be the day i want to die...no one wants a frenchman serves alongside a german. i certainly do not. we have been enemies throughout history, why end it now!!!
-NATIONALIST HEINZ OF GERMANY-
Woohoo! We finally got an authentic german nazi here! Can't wait for the nazi-jew fight to break out, I'm tired already of the jewish-arab ones.
On a side note, you've also been allies with France at certain times, so read your history books better.
I don't see what is wrong with EU becoming a supercountry. European nations are too small and to weak to be of any relevance as the global powers if they act unilaterally. Their union is imperative in order to give them strength to back up their interests. Not to mention that big scientific projects such as space exploration and advanced military technologies are too much for each of those countries alone. Only with a tight union will european countries be able to measure up to the other superpowers and to have their say in world politics. Aside from such a union, the only other option is a conglomerate of quarreling states that will crumble and fall as soon as any real threat shows up. Not to insult your national pride, but Finland alone can do nothing of relevance in the world, aside from maybe impacting a cell phone market. Finland as a part of the EU has the power to participate in dictating the future of the world.
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| Originally posted by DrUg_Tit0 I don't see what is wrong with EU becoming a supercountry. European nations are too small and to weak to be of any relevance as the global powers if they act unilaterally. Their union is imperative in order to give them strength to back up their interests. Not to mention that big scientific projects such as space exploration and advanced military technologies are too much for each of those countries alone. Only with a tight union will european countries be able to measure up to the other superpowers and to have their say in world politics. Aside from such a union, the only other option is a conglomerate of quarreling states that will crumble and fall as soon as any real threat shows up. Not to insult your national pride, but Finland alone can do nothing of relevance in the world, aside from maybe impacting a cell phone market. Finland as a part of the EU has the power to participate in dictating the future of the world. |
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| Woohoo! We finally got an authentic german nazi here! Can't wait for the nazi-jew fight to break out, I'm tired already of the jewish-arab ones. On a side note, you've also been allies with France at certain times, so read your history books better. |
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| Originally posted by Heinz Im talking about the last 300 years! Napolean against Prussia. The Prussian-Franco War, where Germans took over the Saarland. WW1, WWII. and from then on, both nations have just set aside they problems and just have moved on peaceful next to each other. that is fine, but no union between them! the french and the germans!? NO! It cant happen! -GERMAN NATIONALIST HEINZ- |
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| So you conviniently excluded the Thirty Years War when France under Richelieu helped you fight against the Catholic forces. If it hadn't been so, you'd be an Austro-Hungarian provice now. But aside from that, I don't see why you're so opposed to the union between your two countries. Nowadays you have nothing to dispute, and all your disputes are solved. Admit it or not, but France is the Germany's biggest ally. And if you don't accept such a situation, you're putting yourself in a vulnerable position where you will be forced to do what the americans say. While France still has some impact on the global politics, Germany alone has none. You don't have any nukes, and your military is weak. Let alone that any drastic german military increase will bring unpleasant memories to the rest of the world. On the other hand, France doesn't have enough population and resources to have the status of a real superpower. But together, with a Franco-German union, you would be a formidable oponent. Besides, who would you have as your ally in europe now? Britain is too close to the americans. Italy has shown it's worth in WW2, when it was unable to conquer Ethiopia and Albania at the peak of it's military and nationalist power. East european countries are also weak. Russia maybe? But I guess you would dislike that even more. So your only other option is to pretend to have sovereignity and side with the americans. But in such a situation you wouldn't have nearly as much say as you would as a part of a strong european superpower. |
Yes, I do agree it is best for the Europe to unite as a whole. Still, the British pose a problem in such a scenario, as they too have the serious "lost superpower status" complex. Therefore they always have to prove to themselves they still hold some power, so they are always obstructing EU policies and are hard to give up on their sovereignity.
I hope Europe never unites as one superpower! I'm glad to live in the UK which must be the most stubburn country out of all the European countries, I think the idea for the single European currency sucked! all the countries with shit currencies joining the Euro is what has seemed to have fucked up the Euro for everyone else.
The politics of all European countries are to different some are far right others far left it would never work.
What people don't realise with Europe is every country is so different from the other, and there is so much history behind us all, like I couldn't quite picture a joint army its hard enough for most European nationalities to get along with eachother on holiday in medditterian let alone fighting as one united fighting force it would next work.
"We must create a central European economic association through common customs treaties, to include France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Austria Hungary, Poland, and perhaps Italy, Sweden and Norway. This association will not have any common constitutional supreme authority and all its members will be formally equal, but in practice will be under German leadership and must stabilise Germany's economic dominance over Mitteleuropa"
This was written by a German politician before World War 1, cited in Ferguson, N., The Pity of War.
Better late than never.
I wish the European Union the best of luck, I am still trying to figure out how 25 nations as it soon will be can all sit together and put the interests of E.U. over the interests of individual nations of Europe unless most follow France and Germany like zombies. Lets be honest folks do you think that France will put the policies and interests of Lithuania, Malta, Latvia or Slovenia to name a few above its greater purpose to become a superpower again. This idea of the European Union can go no further than a loose grouping of nation states, with the larger nations dictating to the smaller nations the way it will and shall be. Good luck Europe. Only time shall tell the tale.
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