Transatlantic chill? Blame Europe’s power failure

Whatever happened to the myth of the ‘‘Latin lover,’’ one would joke, except that the issues are serious. They go beyond Germany and France’s declarations last week that they would oppose a US-led invasion of Iraq if UN inspectors aren’t given more time to search for horrible weapons. The real issue is that Europeans feel they have not been accorded the power they deserve in the international arena, while Americans largely feel that Europe is freeloading off US military might. That is what makes the Euro-American duel so nasty.

This a heady, but challenging time for the small tribe of us who make our livings ferrying ideas across the Atlantic. A friend, a literary agent in New York, moans, ‘‘I spend half of my time defending America with my European clients, and the other half defending Europe with my American clients.’’ The cover story in the latest issue of the New York Review of Books is Garton Ash’s essay, ‘‘America’s Anti-Europeanism.’’ The magazine’s European twin, the Times Literary Supplement, has a cover story titled ‘‘Why the French Hate America,’’ a long review by Henri Hastier of the BBC. Meanwhile, the Times in London and Le Monde in Paris published an essay by the master spy storyteller John Le Carre denouncing President Bush ‘‘and his junta.’’

It is common to attribute cross-Atlantic quarrels to cultural differences, different styles and ways of life. Others see the gap as mainly ethical, a conflict of two sets of values. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld criticises ‘‘old Europe’’ — the France and Germany that are saying no to war in Iraq — while praising ‘‘new Europe,’’ the former Eastern European countries that, after escaping Soviet domination, still value liberty and justice. Javier Solana, the European Union secretary of state, says that the clash is about ‘‘values,’’ that Americans are ‘‘religious’’ while Europeans tend to be ‘‘secular.’’

Culture is not a real issue. Our tastes are not so different. French and Italian intellectuals can make a fuss about McDonald’s, but even in the US, McDonald’s is selling fewer Big Macs. The percentages of Europeans and Americans who watch Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone are surprisingly similar. In both the EU and the US, there are audiences for Pavarotti and Jennifer Lopez.

Take the fuss in Europe over the death penalty. Civilised Europeans read almost every week stories about the cruelty of the death penalty in the US. A prominent Italian writer once told me, ‘‘I’ll never visit the US while the death penalty is in effect.’’ Yet he did not apply the same principle to Spain, Portugal and France, all of which he visited while the garrote and the guillotine were still hard at work.

The two areas where Europe and the US risk serious friction are geopolitical and ideological. The EU economic tiramisu might soon be bigger than the $10 trillion US apple pie. Bolstered by its economic growth, Europe wants to be the new superpower, but Washington will share power only when the European economic giant becomes a military and diplomatic giant, too. Right now, Europe doesn’t fit that description. When Europe had to settle a minor issue between Spain and Morocco over possession of the barren island of Perejil, it took a phone call from Secretary of State Colin Powell to cool heads. And when Slobodan Milosevic was running wild, Europeans did not intervene.

One diplomatic issue that does arouse European public opinion is the ‘‘favourite son’’ treatment that Washington grants to Israel. (Many polls show that anti-Americanism is fuelled by the conflict in the Middle East.) Europeans want to try their hand at negotiating peace, but all they offer is: ‘‘Let’s do what America is not doing.’’

It is not America’s unilateralism that relegates Europe to the kids’ table. It is Europe’s budget priorities. Europe spends $2.50 a day on every cow that grazes happily on the grass of the EU. Yet defense spending lags. Andrew Moravcsik, a professor of government at Harvard University, estimates that ‘‘the US spends five times more on military R&D than all of Europe.’’ Europe’s soldiers cannot fight beside their US comrades-in-arms because they lack technology such as the AN/Pvs-7 night vision goggles; the US Army has 215,000 of them. European forces have 11 heavy military transport planes; US forces have 250.

The US will accept Europe as a real equal when it sees muscle behind diplomacy. However much Europeans dislike Uncle Sam’s war machine, they forget that Europe can’t fight without it. When Europe accepts its geopolitical responsibilities, the world will be a safer place. A real geopolitical rivalry will be healthy both for the United States and Europe.

In jockeying for geopolitical power, the US and Europe they risk forgetting this. It happened last Monday with the grotesque ascension of Libya to the chairmanship of the UN Human Rights Commission; the United States opposed it while Europeans abstained. Whoever wins the Free World Super Bowl, Europe and the United States risk losing their souls if they forget what our democracies stand for, or should stand for.

(LA Times-Washington Post)