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Of Paradise and Power Summary
Author: DJ06.04.2008
During our Christmas break we had to read two books as an introduction to the International Relations (International Politics) MA Thesis. One book was assigned to the entire group and that was Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order , written by Robert Kagan. We were required to write 2-3 pages summary of the book, including criticisms and suggestions for further research. It was a good way to start Christmas vacation.
Of Paradise and Power: American and Europe in the New World Order Summary
Americans and Europeans no longer share a common understanding of the world. Basically, Americans are mired in an anarchic Hobbesian world while Europeans are entering the postmodern paradise of Immanuel Kant’s perpetual peace. Kagan argues that America and Europe are divided by a gap of power and ideology that are self-reinforcing. One of the causes for that is the decline of military power in Europe.
The early promise of a “new Europe” was created through the European Union after bonding together into a single political and economic unit with the treaty of Maastricht in 1992. During that time it was widely believed that Europe would be the next superpower in economic, political and military terms.
However, the “new Europe” did not fulfill its promise. In economic and political terms the achievements of Europe were high. However, Europeans discovered that economic power did not necessarily translate into strategic and geopolitical power. The Balkan conflict in the 1990s revealed European military incapacity and the unwillingness to deploy decisive force into regions beyond the European continent.
Kagan posits the question why Europe hasn’t fulfilled the promise of the European Union in foreign and defense policy away from US dominance. The answer lies in the realm of ideology and European attitudes not only towards military spending but towards power itself. Europeans have developed a genuinely different perspective on the role of power in international relations. This perspective stems directly from post WWII experiences where power politics, which has brought such misery upon European people over the past century and more, was rejected.
Military, Europe is much weaker than the US. This weakness has produced a powerful European interest in building a world where hard power and military power matter less than soft power and economic power. Europe is seeking an international order where international order and law and international institutions matter more than individual nations. The “brutal laws” of an anarchistic Hobbesian world where power is the ultimate determinant of national security ad success is simply not congruent with the new European style of politics.
For Europeans, ideals and interests converge in a world governed according to the principles of multilateralism. Europe exercises an emphasis on negotiation, diplomacy, commercial ties, on international law over the use of force, on seduction over coercion and on multilateralism over unilateralism. However, after the post Cold War era, the US was becoming more unilateral in its approach contrary to Europeans who sought to build a more comprehensive international legal system in order to avoid such unilateralism.
To Europe, the power of the US and its willingness to use this power, unilaterally if necessary is considered a threat to Europe’s new sense of mission. Americans believe that their power politics made it possible for Europe to think that power was no longer important. US military power has solved the “German Problem” and allows Europeans today to think that US military power is outmoded and dangerous.
Kagan names this the “great paradox”. Europe’s passage into post-history has depended on the US not making the same passage. Europe has neither the will nor the ability to guard its own paradise and keep it protected from the “immoral outside world” and has become dependent on America’s willingness to use its military force to deter these “outsiders” who still do believe in power politics. American leaders firmly believe that global security, liberal order and Europe’s postmodern paradise cannot survive unless the US uses its power in the dangerous Hobbesian world that still thrives outside of Europe.
For guarding Europe’s postmodern order, the US seeks freedom to address these dangers that could threaten the postmodern paradise, and more importantly, American nationalistic interests. In the 1990s the Republican Right emerged and endorsed realist international relations theorists and policy makers. They quickly became the dominant force in the American foreign policy establishment and guided the US back to a more narrowly defined nationalism focused on self-interest.
In 2001 George W. Bush came to office and introduced the realist nationalism of the 1990s in American foreign policy. After September 11, as a by-product of their nationalism, Americans did not seek legitimacy from supranational institutions when they planned military retaliation abroad, but used their own principles. Americans have no experience with successful supranational governance and, consequently, they do not seek any legitimacy from it.
Americans and Europeans disagree about the role of international law and institutions and about the question of international legitimacy. The Iraq war and the Bush Administration’s conduct of international affairs have deepened the transatlantic rift between Europe and the US. A great philosophical schism has opened within the West and mutual antagonism threatens to destabilize the relationships of both sides of the transatlantic community.
Most of the Europeans no longer worry and no longer look to the US to protect them. Europeans living in their postmodern paradise do not fear the jungles beyond and do no longer welcome those who guard the gates. Instead they ask: who will guard the guards?
Kagan concludes that there is still a “West” that shares a common set of aspirations for humanity. His opinion is that Europeans should accept and support the US’s prominent role in the world as a small price to pay for the preservation of their own “postmodern paradise”. US foreign policy should in turn pay respect to multilateralism and the rule of law. With this, European and American interests will converge more to a “common understanding”.
Critique
Although Kagan qualifies Europe as a miracle and a postmodern paradise, this is not necessarily the view of European citizens about the European Union. In this respect, Kagan attributes too much weight to the European Union as unit of analyses and, as a result, the postmodern paradise in Europe is largely attributed to the European Union. However, it is much more likely that the paradise was constructed through liberal democratic nation-states within Europe.
Moreover, quite a few of these liberal democratic nation-states in Europe have also supported the actions of the US in, e.g., Iraq. Nation states such as The Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Great Britain, Portugal, Denmark, Poland and Hungary have supported the US in its military endeavors. There has never been a common or supranational “European” point of view that could be considered a “united front” against the power politics of the US.
Additionally, Europeans are much more divided in their approach of American foreign policy and European foreign policy than Kagan suggests. Also, Americans might be very divided themselves and in particular Kagan ignores the role of the liberal left in the US. This makes his analyses very black and white and leaves out any shade of grey on both sides of the Atlantic.
Suggestion for further research
Kagan’s book is well written and brings up many valid points about the transatlantic relationship between the “new Europe” and America. Nevertheless, some of his assumptions with regard to the paradise lack an in-depth insight into the role of sovereign nation-states within the European Union.
A certain transatlantic rift has formed between the US and Europe, however, by utilizing the supranational European Union as unit of analyses, Kagan surpasses key insights of differences within the European Union. Firstly, further research should differentiate the various perspectives and strategic policies of the nation states within the EU and not treat the EU as a lump sum of all nation-states. Internal discrepancies between nation states within the EU are much more likely to impact the transatlantic end result than any EU policy itself.
Secondly, based on an institutional perspective, the EU cannot be compared to the Federal government of the US in several ways. The present EU never (yet) obtained its own state constitution nor a legal personality nor true federal state power. A lack of constitution, legal personality and federal state power also prevents the creation of a common EU defense force and policy. Kagan never researched the question whether the EU, from within, has evolved sufficiently enough to provide an answer to today’s military challenges. This could simply require more time. Kagan assumes that Europe’s military weakness is caused by (static) external factors, which is not true in all cases.
April 7th, 2008 at 12:11 am
Darly, if you wrote the summary and the critique yourself, it is well done. Very interesting information about foreign affairs. In my AP U.S. History class, we were just talking about U.S. foreign policy two weeks ago. Many of my students had some strong points of view on this issue. So you are correct that foreign policy is very complicated, it’s not black and white.
April 7th, 2008 at 3:48 am
Thanks Karmadiva (Laotian Teacher). It is a good book and we are using it as a starting point for our Thesis subject.
April 7th, 2008 at 5:25 am
[...] DJ: Thanks Karmadiva (Laotian Teacher). It is a good book and we are using it as a starting point for our Thesis… [...]