This month marks the 50th anniversary of the appearance of the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show,
a watershed in the history of U.S.-European relations. With the
"British Invasion" Europe rebounded from war in the American
imagination, and became a place that captured the hearts and minds of
the young. No longer grey and dreary and bombed out, it was suddenly
cool, a cultural leader and a place everyone wanted to go.
Today, the perception of Europe from the U.S. side can be summarized in the following lines from a poem by Mark Bibbins that appeared in the New Yorker a couple of weeks ago: Europe: you swear it exists because you once had sex in it, and ideas.
Europe has not been seen as a geopolitical force by most Americans. Their attention has been riveted by war in the Middle East, Asia's economic rise, and now Russia.
This attitude pervades not just public perceptions, but the private musings of U.S. government officials. A diplomatic kerfuffle, accelerated by social media, caused smirks on this side of the Atlantic. It was reported that U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland exclaimed "f**k the E.U." to Ukraine's ambassador to Washington. She was expressing her disappointment, as well as the Administration's dismay, at the handling of the Ukrainian crisis by the Europeans. German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed her outrage (not at the Ukrainian situation, but at the diplomatic leak). In a world of increasing risks and dangers, Europe seems self-absorbed, lacking both the innovation capability of the U.S. and China's commercial energy. It appears unable to capitalize on and manage potentially positive events on its borders, let alone globally. Angela Merkel seems to be more of a corporate crisis manager than a leader of 500 million Europeans.
The European Union is brand new. Van Middlaar counsels forbearance. "A political body cannot emerge in a single moment: it takes time." His book is a tour de force of European political philosophy. An entire chapter is devoted to the Greek model, another to the Roman, all to illuminate the grand European experiment that he has witnessed first hand. As for the euro crisis:
When a storm becomes too fierce and the wind blows your boat towards the open sea, it is better to have a good compass than an anchor, better to rely on your sense of direction than on rules. So the euro crisis, like the others before it, is forcing the circle of member states to politicize itself, to increase its capacity to act and take responsibility. The power of the European telos is such that it is revived by every crisis. In the confusion, the hope of redemption gives way to an even more fundamental desire: to face the future together. But this opening-up to new experiences demands the abandonment of any notion of returning to a particular port.
So will Europe become, as Kishore Mahbubani has suggested, geopolitically irrelevant? The Ukrainian crisis reminds us that Europe matters. If Asia succeeds economically, but reverts to war, then Europe's experiment, which all will agree has created a successful and lasting peace within its borders, will bring with it a prosperous and sustainable future.
Read more: End of Europe? Not So Fast, Mr. Putin | Lyric Hughes Hale
Today, the perception of Europe from the U.S. side can be summarized in the following lines from a poem by Mark Bibbins that appeared in the New Yorker a couple of weeks ago: Europe: you swear it exists because you once had sex in it, and ideas.
Europe has not been seen as a geopolitical force by most Americans. Their attention has been riveted by war in the Middle East, Asia's economic rise, and now Russia.
This attitude pervades not just public perceptions, but the private musings of U.S. government officials. A diplomatic kerfuffle, accelerated by social media, caused smirks on this side of the Atlantic. It was reported that U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland exclaimed "f**k the E.U." to Ukraine's ambassador to Washington. She was expressing her disappointment, as well as the Administration's dismay, at the handling of the Ukrainian crisis by the Europeans. German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed her outrage (not at the Ukrainian situation, but at the diplomatic leak). In a world of increasing risks and dangers, Europe seems self-absorbed, lacking both the innovation capability of the U.S. and China's commercial energy. It appears unable to capitalize on and manage potentially positive events on its borders, let alone globally. Angela Merkel seems to be more of a corporate crisis manager than a leader of 500 million Europeans.
The European Union is brand new. Van Middlaar counsels forbearance. "A political body cannot emerge in a single moment: it takes time." His book is a tour de force of European political philosophy. An entire chapter is devoted to the Greek model, another to the Roman, all to illuminate the grand European experiment that he has witnessed first hand. As for the euro crisis:
When a storm becomes too fierce and the wind blows your boat towards the open sea, it is better to have a good compass than an anchor, better to rely on your sense of direction than on rules. So the euro crisis, like the others before it, is forcing the circle of member states to politicize itself, to increase its capacity to act and take responsibility. The power of the European telos is such that it is revived by every crisis. In the confusion, the hope of redemption gives way to an even more fundamental desire: to face the future together. But this opening-up to new experiences demands the abandonment of any notion of returning to a particular port.
So will Europe become, as Kishore Mahbubani has suggested, geopolitically irrelevant? The Ukrainian crisis reminds us that Europe matters. If Asia succeeds economically, but reverts to war, then Europe's experiment, which all will agree has created a successful and lasting peace within its borders, will bring with it a prosperous and sustainable future.
Read more: End of Europe? Not So Fast, Mr. Putin | Lyric Hughes Hale
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