THE RIFT BETWEEN AMERICA AND OLD EUROPE This book strives to explain the opening of the great political rift between America and Old Europe in 2002–2003. Following the wave of solidarity with America in 2001, most of America’s European allies enthusiastically joined the war in Afghanistan, but for some of them enthusiasm soon gave way to pacifist reactions to the American switch from the common war on terrorism to regime change in Iraq, to American rejection of international treaties and to hostility to the UN. The evolution of American foreign policy from earlier multilateralism to the neo-conservative unilateralism of the Bush administration thus caused hostility in some of America’s traditional allies, among them France and Germany. French and German public opinion polls, media opinion, and the context of past foreign policy supply the background for this analysis in a year of major parliamentary elections in both countries in 2002. Early in 2003, the European-American estrangement led to an open break as Washington plunged ahead, overriding UN and allied support for weapons inspections in Iraq, to launch a blitzkrieg operation against Saddam Hussein. Ultimately The Rift Between America and Old Europe analyses how this decision, combined with the rejection of Kyoto and other international treaties, all clearly related to the conservative Republican revolution in domestic policies, widened the rift by undermining the role of America as a democratic model. The book ends with a critical assessment of the 2000 presidential election and its significance for America’s leadership abroad. This book will be of interest to advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students in international relations and security studies as well as to journalists and policy-makers. Peter H.Merkl is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of California. He has published widely in the field of political science, diplomacy, and European Politics. CONTEMPORARY SECURITY STUDIES Daniel Ganser, NATO’s Secret Army: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe Peter Kent Forster and Stephen J.Cimbala, The US, NATO and Military Burden-Sharing Irina Isakova, Russian Governance in the Twenty-First Century: Geo-Strategy, Geopolitics and New Governance Craig Gerrard, The Foreign Office and Finland 1938–1940: Diplomatic Sideshow Isabelle Duyvesteyn and Jan Angstrom (eds.), Rethinking the Nature of War Brendan O’Shea, Perception and Reality in the Modern Yugoslav Conflict: Myth, Falsehood and Deceit 1991–1995 Tim Donais, The Political Economy of Peacebuilding in Post-Dayton Bosnia Peter H.Merkl, The Rift between America and Old Europe: The Distracted Eagle Jan Hallenberg and Håkan Karlsson (eds.), The Iraq War: European perspectives on Politics, Strategy, and Operations Richard L.Russell, Strategic Contest: Weapons Proliferation and War in the Greater Middle East David R.Willcox, Propaganda, the Press and Conflict: The Gulf War and Kosovo Bertel Heurlin and Sten Rynning (eds.), Missile Defence: International, Regional and National Implications Chandra Lekha Sriram, Globalising Justice for Mass Atrocities: A Revolution in Accountability THE RIFT BETWEEN AMERICA AND OLD EUROPE The distracted eagle Peter H.Merkl LONDON AND NEW YORK First published 2005 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX 14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to http://www.ebookstore.tandf.co.uk/.” © 2005 Peter H.Merkl All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Merkl, Peter H. The rift between America and old Europe: the distracted eagle Peter H.Merkl. p. cm.—(Contemporary security studies) ISBN 0-415-35985-6 (hardback)—ISBN 0-415-35986-4 (pbk.) 1. National security-United States. 2. National security-Europe. 3. United States-Foreign relations-Europe. 4. Europe-Foreign relations-United States. 5. World politics-1995–2005. I. Title. II. Series: Cass contemporary security studies series. UA23.M467 2005 327.7304-dc22 2004023978 ISBN 0-203-00791-3 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-415-35986-4 (Print Edition) CONTENTS Introduction 1 1 Who lost America? Who lost Old Europe? 5 2 Alea iacta: How did the rift happen? 34 3 The distracted eagle 68 4 A conservative revolution? 104 5 Revisiting President Bush’s election 134 Notes 168 Index 189 INTRODUCTION In the aftermath of the cataclysmic events of September 11, 2001, the dramatic opening of a rift in the Atlantic Alliance, particularly between the United States and some of its oldest allies, Germany and France, may well have been the least expected consequence of that fateful day. Nearly everybody remembers the extraordinary impact of that horrible day on Americans and on friends and onlookers the world over. Who could forget the outpouring of sympathy and offers of assistance of that moment, especially from massive rallies in capital cities of the West, such as Paris, Berlin, London, and Rome? The respected liberal French daily Le Monde headlined: “We are all Americans now.” The German Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder of the Social Democrat party (SPD), called the terror attacks “a declaration of war against the whole civilized world” and promised “unlimited solidarity” and being “firmly at the side” of the American ally in the war on terror; many other voices in Europe and around the world, great or small, gave similar assurances and signs of affection. Half a year later, however, this worldwide solidarity began to fade and even within the alliance, cracks began to appear. Soon, both France and Germany and some other governments began to oppose the American course of policy regarding “regime change” in Iraq and the new American doctrines pointing towards unilateralism and super-power hegemony. They did not believe that the dictator Saddam Hussein had had anything to do with the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York and on the Pentagon. In October, 2002, the American leadership role was challenged at the United Nations Security Council where France, as one of its five permanent members, has a veto. After considerable wrangling, however, the Council unanimously passed a resolution (no. 1441) authorizing the resumption of UN weapons inspections in Iraq and threatening serious consequences if Saddam Hussein did not cooperate. But early in 2003, just before the beginning of the hostilities in Iraq, implacable French stalling, along with Russian, Chinese, German, Mexican, and nearly everyone else’s opposition, denied the United States the support of the Security Council for an immediate military invasion of Iraq. Americans, in and out of government, became rather angry with Germany and France to the point where the in-house cafeteria of Congress decided to relabel French fries on its menu “freedom fries” and prominent Washington bar stewards demonstratively poured French wine and champagne down the drain. Notable pundits distinguished themselves attributing cowardice to the French who did not seem eager to fight for President Bush’s crusade, even calling the French “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” in conservative magazines. The word “surrender” in this connection implied that Iraq represented a World War Two-like threat to the West and that French and German reluctance to meet it constituted “appeasement,” comparable to appeasing Hitler’s aggression in 1939. In France, one writer called President Bush a cowboy à tête de boeuf—a common insult also among British and German peace demonstrators—and there were calls for a boycott of American goods. According to a Sofres poll in France at the peak of the dispute, 18 percent of a national sample agreed with this boycott strategy.1 The rift between America and old Europe 2 Prominent French intellectuals like Emmanuel Todd (Après l’empire) were widely discussed all over Europe. Todd suggested that America, far from being omnipotent—but a “hyperpower” in 1945—was in process of decomposition now. In a German public opinion poll in February, 2003, 47 percent of the respondents of a national sample (up from 42 percent the previous year), also opined that “as Europe rises, the US is declining as a great power.”2 As in other testimonials from around the continent, there were overtones of dismay about having to work with an America identified with the neo- conservative Republican regime, sure of its manifest destiny, greedy for the lucre of this world, unilateral by conviction, and grudgingly ready for multilateral approaches only when these suited its purposes. A prominent German intellectual, Ulrich Beck, in an essay in Der Spiegel, “Make law not war,” similarly railed against the new American emphasis on military superiority and the doctrine of preemptive war. International conflict and global threats call for a strengthening of international law and treaties, for moderation via multilateral institutions and diplomacy. Writing at the very beginning of 2003, Beck warned that American military unilateralism would not only bring about regime change in Iraq, “but destroy the United Nations and bomb the world back into the precontractual state of nature” [of Hobbesian anarchy, or the war of all against all]. He conceded that an open society, freedom, and democracy alone—without military muscle—might not always convert hearts and minds or promise security; he pointed to Europe’s helplessness in the face of the civil wars in the Balkans prior to American intervention.