Problem With Europe
US think tanks and experts are making the worst assessments of Europe and the Euro. Can they be believed?
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Can the attempted Euro-dollar duopoly work? | Cartoonist R.J. Matson of Roll Call; source & courtesy – Politicalcartoons.com / msnbc.msn.com | Click for image.
In the last five hundred years, Europeans have fought with each other and the rest of the world. Over slaves, gold, coffee and sugar, religion and territory, seas and rivers.
In short, everything.
The European Union is a classic example of an organization built around a “win-win” economic logic. The idea of the EU’s founding fathers was that economic cooperation and shared prosperity would create a positive political dynamic. And for 50 years it worked beautifully. But that win-win logic has gone into reverse. Instead of feeling stronger together, EU countries increasingly worry they are pulling each other down. The result is a surge in political tensions inside Europe and, in particular, an outbreak of anti-German sentiment.
This has global implications; for one, America’s pivot to Asia is posited on the idea that Europe will no longer require attention — a premise I somehow doubt. (via The Rise or Fall of the American Empire – By Robert Kagan, Gideon Rachman, and Daniel W. Drezner | Foreign Policy).
Gideon Rachman, the author of the extract above, has made a career by being paranoid about the future of the West. He sees an enemy of the West under every bed. Fact is the West is its own worst enemy.
Looking at the crisis in EU and the USA, could Gideon Rachman be right.
Just this time around?
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