Europe's Crisis
This essay, from Commentary Magazine, is fascinating. My initial thought was that its ostensible purpose is about terrorism, and that recent events in Europe and elsewhere around the globe prove terrorism to be, in fact, a global scourge.
But that is not it at all. The author widens his focus, and betrays his true intent: that the murder of Dutch film-maker, Theo Van Gogh and the bombings in Spain are merely pieces of a puzzle -- and that the US is neither the cause of the world's ills, nor its savior -- and especially Europe's.
"Nor is terrorism the only problem affecting Europe’s general security that, like it or not, Europe alone is going to have to deal with. The present European Union, comprising 25 states (with 15 more hoping to join), faces unique strategic challenges. Already sharing a border with the newly expanded EU are Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, and Russia. If and when Turkey joins, Europe will include both it and Cyprus, another “Asian” state, and will then, by its own volition, be sharing borders with Georgia, Armenia, Iran, Iraq, and Syria... In short, the new European Union is forming itself smack in the cockpit of geopolitical danger. At the same time, it lacks either the material or the diplomatic wherewithal to deal with this danger in a forceful or unified manner. As the crisis of freedom in Ukraine developed this past November and December, and as Polish President Aleksandr Kwasniewski and Solidarity hero Lech Walesa headed for Kiev, the stance of the French government was, as a French commentator aptly put it, one of “embarrassment.” “It can scarcely be an accident,” the English columnist Philip Stephens dryly observed in the Financial Times, “that France’s Jacques Chirac and Germany’s Gerhard Schroeder have not missed the opportunity to keep quiet about Ukraine’s orange revolution”—an event of far greater consequence for them, and for the European Union at large, than anything the United States may or may not be doing in Iraq."
Someone (the author) finally discusses that terrorism is not the problem but a symptom. And that geo-politics, economics, social structures, military might, and international relations each contribute to the unity of the whole.
But that is not it at all. The author widens his focus, and betrays his true intent: that the murder of Dutch film-maker, Theo Van Gogh and the bombings in Spain are merely pieces of a puzzle -- and that the US is neither the cause of the world's ills, nor its savior -- and especially Europe's.
"Nor is terrorism the only problem affecting Europe’s general security that, like it or not, Europe alone is going to have to deal with. The present European Union, comprising 25 states (with 15 more hoping to join), faces unique strategic challenges. Already sharing a border with the newly expanded EU are Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, and Russia. If and when Turkey joins, Europe will include both it and Cyprus, another “Asian” state, and will then, by its own volition, be sharing borders with Georgia, Armenia, Iran, Iraq, and Syria... In short, the new European Union is forming itself smack in the cockpit of geopolitical danger. At the same time, it lacks either the material or the diplomatic wherewithal to deal with this danger in a forceful or unified manner. As the crisis of freedom in Ukraine developed this past November and December, and as Polish President Aleksandr Kwasniewski and Solidarity hero Lech Walesa headed for Kiev, the stance of the French government was, as a French commentator aptly put it, one of “embarrassment.” “It can scarcely be an accident,” the English columnist Philip Stephens dryly observed in the Financial Times, “that France’s Jacques Chirac and Germany’s Gerhard Schroeder have not missed the opportunity to keep quiet about Ukraine’s orange revolution”—an event of far greater consequence for them, and for the European Union at large, than anything the United States may or may not be doing in Iraq."
Someone (the author) finally discusses that terrorism is not the problem but a symptom. And that geo-politics, economics, social structures, military might, and international relations each contribute to the unity of the whole.
posted by David M Gordon | 4:17 AM
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