LONDON – That was a week and a half that was. The primary American transatlantic relationship has been moved eastward, away from London, Paris and Berlin to Moscow. Nuclear war between east and west has been consigned to the history books. And if on cue the new nuclear powers on the Indian subcontinent have rattled their rockets ready to unleash Armageddon on Asia, not on Europe as we had been brought up to fear. Meanwhile it has become clear that the Bush administration now considers its job all but done in Afghanistan. The bombing has given the American people their pound of flesh. Reconstruction and all the other idealistic goals of nation building can be left to the Europeans.
If the U.S. sees a role for itself in this part of the world any longer it is only as an emergency interlocutor to try and talk the Indians and Pakistanis out of their nuclear madness. But if it ends in nuclear war America “has no dog in that one”, and the Europeans can be left with the responsibility of helping bury the millions of dead and clearing up the political mess. If I had thought ten years ago that before all my children had grown up I’d have to write a column that began like that I’d have turned myself into a mental institution. A decade ago the Cold War seemed really over. My children could enter adulthood without the fears that haunted my own childhood. Democracy was spreading fast. Human rights was the new buzz word and war of a major kind that had made the twentieth century the bloodiest in mankind’s history seemed not only unlikely but irrelevant in a world where the forces of globalisation had now become so dominant that no one had to spell out the truth that if we didn’t all hang together we’d hang separately.
Ten years ago the centre of gravity was moving back towards Western Europe. European civilization had dominated the world for better or worse for 400 years and was about to do so again. America, rescuing Europe during and after World War 2, had briefly taken command but now was slipping gradually back to its old isolationist role, with the rest of the world, or at least their elites, rather thankful as they cast a wary eye on a culture that seemed both so superficial and so violent. Europe, as the Union tightened, culminating in the decision to create a common currency, appeared to be regaining its old step of setting the political and cultural pace for the world. Whereas in previous centuries it had been the Renaissance and the re-birth of art, the Reformation and the intellectualisation of religious thought, and the Enlightenment and the freeing of political ideas, now it was a sense – it yet had no word to describe it – of creating a civilization that was to flourish without conquest, that would cooperate without violent diction or action, that would seek only to propagate the causes of electoral politics and the rule of law for solving both society’s and the world’s disputes.
It wasn’t Milosevic who blew a hole in all that. It was obvious that ex-Yugoslavia was merely a throwback to an era the rest of Europe had long matured out of and once the small group of leaders and agitators had been sidelined that problem would take care of itself. Likewise it wasn’t the seemingly sudden bursting of ethnic disputes and wars all over the place that douched us with cold water. Again the fears were overdone, the problems ridiculously extrapolated forward – “Where will it end? Will it end with 5,000 countries?” asked the U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher. In fact as early as 1993 the number of ethnic disputes began to fall dramatically as did indeed the number of wars.
It was simply that Osama bin Laden made George Bush’s day. Without the destruction of the World Trade Centre this most unintelligent, uncharasmatic and unvisionary of recent American presidents would have faded into obscurity and much of his hard-bitten, imperialistic programme with it. Putin’s Russia would never have countenanced giving up the fight on the renunciation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Nor would Western Europe. Putin’s Russia would never have stepped forward to embrace America with the personal warmth that Putin has exhibited, overriding the views of many of his closest advisors. The Russian elite might well have moved willingly to forge this kind of close relationship with Western Europe, but now European eastern policy, in comparison with America’s single-mindedness, seems to be in disarray. Worried to death how to honour its promise to bring the eastern European members into the fold, the EU has seemingly stopped thinking of how to deal with Russia. Gorbachev’s dream of a “common European house” seems remoter than ever.
Today, America clearly calls the shots. America makes the big decisions on who needs a good kick and when. If China is not yet intimidated by this then it will soon will be- perhaps some crisis over Taiwan will be hyped up so that America has an excuse to put Beijing in its place. Meanwhile Europe appears in danger of muddling along. Its common currency, functioning and effective, is doing wonders for the market place, but the political and cultural muscle that should grow out of it remains flabby for lack of political backbone. But if Europe does become merely a “used up” civilisation it is a turn of events that the world will live to profoundly regret.
I can be reached by phone +44 7785 351172 and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
Copyright © 2002 By JONATHAN POWERFollow this link to read about – and order – Jonathan Power’s book written for the
40th Anniversary of Amnesty International
“Like Water on Stone – The Story of Amnesty International”
