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Rationally Speaking
N.
34, March 2003
America, Europe, and the rest of the world
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How deep is the current divide between Europe and the United States
in terms of how to conduct international affairs? Alarming notes have been
sounded on both sides of the Pond to the effect that the rift risks breaking
up NATO and rendering the United Nations “irrelevant” (to use the rhetoric
of the Bush administration). Usually, the French are being singled out
for leading the rebellion against the US hegemony, even though an overwhelming
majority of European citizens have been voicing their opposition to the
current US policy on Iraq, even in “pro-American” countries such as Britain
and Italy.
As it is often the case in complex matters, one cannot form a reasonable
opinion just by listening to alternative ways of spinning the same stories
in the media (assuming that one bothers to check directly what the French
or British press say, since American media are becoming more and more homogeneous
thanks to their ownership by an increasingly smaller number of multinationals).
It was therefore refreshing to see actual data from a large survey of American
and European attitudes conducted by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations
(CCFR). The picture emerging from the study is more complex and nuanced
than what we tend to hear trumpeted by talking heads and media pundits.
It comes down to the following: Europeans are inclined to agree
with Americans on more issues than either of them agrees with the rest
of the world (this is good news for people who are worried about the collapse
of the West). However, there are major areas of disagreement that might
make for a very interesting upcoming decade in geopolitics (and this is
the good news for those who are interested in a more open discussion of
international issues). Let’s take a look at some of the details.
First off, Americans and Europeans really like each other, and this
goes even for the French. On a scale of 0 to 100, Americans rate European
countries between 61 (Germany) and 76 (Great Britain), which is much higher
than they rate any other country except Canada. Conversely, the Brits rate
the US at 68, and the rest of Europe doesn’t go any lower than the Dutch’s
59. Furthermore, Europeans and Americans see the same threats in the world,
with terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism ranking the highest. And, both
sides agree that war on Iraq would be justified, if backed by the United
Nations (complete opposition to the war run at only 13% in the US and 26%
in Europe at the time the survey was conducted).
However, worldviews start to diverge when one digs a bit deeper.
Generally speaking, Americans find the world a much more threatening place
than Europeans do. Most importantly, the two also differ on their analysis
of why some threats are there to begin with. For example, 55% of Europeans
think that US foreign policies have directly contributed to the terrorist
attacks on September 11, 2001 (and I would add that a good case can be
made that they are not far off the mark).
Americans and Europeans also sharply disagree on how to fix the
problems they face. Only 19% of Europeans would like to increase their
country’s military spending, as opposed to 44% of Americans (and one need
to notice that the US already allocates significantly more money to the
military than European countries do). On the other hand, Europeans are
much more willing to spend their resources on foreign aid, since a large
majority of them sees that as a much more effective key to long-term planetary
peace and prosperity. This divergence has major consequences for the whole
concept of “superpower”: Americans think that the key to superpower status
is a strong military, while many Europeans want a united Europe to become
a superpower in the sense of cultural and economic interaction with the
rest of the world, opposing more military spending by either their own
countries or the European Community as a whole.
If one broadens the horizon beyond the immediate concerns of war
and terrorism, other interesting similarities and differences emerge: Americans
are only slightly more supportive of globalization than Europeans, and
about half of both Americans and Europeans think that global warming is
a high-priority threat. However, 66% of Europeans are opposed to some degree
to biotechnology, against only 45% of Americans. Perhaps the largest divergence
of opinions manifests itself on immigration: 66% of Americans consider
it a threat of the highest level, while only 38% of Europeans agree with
that assessment (of course, there are differences among European nations
themselves, with Italy being one of the most worried about immigration).
What are we to make of all this? On the one hand, declarations of
an insurmountable divide between the US and Europe are obviously blown
out of proportion: we are not witnessing the big schism of Western culture
just yet. On the other hand, it would be foolish for anybody (and especially
for rather single-minded American politicians) to underestimate the areas
of divergence between the two major blocks of world democracies. And please,
stop telling the Europeans that they should get in line because America
saved them during World War II: gratitude is an important value, but wishing
to translate it into perennial and unquestioning allegiance is a bit insulting.
And one thing nobody needs is to add any additional insult to the dialogue
between the two major democratic blocks of the world. |
