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The following article appears in the 25th anniversary issue of World Policy Journal. For the month of November, read the entire 25th anniversary issue, fall 2008, for free!

Both Europe and America present the world with a model for democratic government on a continental scale. Europe’s model is comparatively recent—with only a half century of history. America’s model has been evolving for over two centuries. Both are likely to play a major role in determining how the world organizes itself over the next 25 years. But the two models and their likely global roles differ greatly, and their implications for how the rest of the world develops are also likely to be very different.

Whereas Europe’s model has a comparatively weak central power—more confederal than federal—the American experiment, since its nineteenth century Civil War, has internally grown increasingly centralized. Compared to the member states of the European Union, America’s states are much more restricted in their powers and budgets. The federal budget dwarfs them all and reflects where real power lies. In short, America’s continental model is not one where unity appears to have been bought at the expense of centralized power. On the contrary, America’s federal center has by now accumulated colossal military and economic might, unmatched by any other government around the world. Given this force, it is not surprising that the United States has developed a vocation for global management,which by now has become an integral part of America’s identity as a nation. Continue Reading…

The global financial crisis has now hit Europe square in the face and, all of a sudden, this nascent continental superpower appears to have a chin far weaker than most thought.

The European Union was designed to create a strong trading zone of countries able to maximize each member’s industries, for mutual gains, in a global marketplace. Key to gaining cross-border industrial benefits was to fashion a financial harmonization that would eventually be crafted into a single market.

Fundamental to achieving this end was the formation of the Euro as the single currency, removing foreign exchange risks and making it easier for companies to grow across borders and produce a more flexible migration of workers. (The Euro was introduced across the European Union with the UK and Switzerland the biggest abstainers, mainly due to domestic concerns over independence.)

The EU’s political objective is now established as well—although it is very much work in progress. A complete harmonization of the European plan would impact businesses, cultures, and the way of life of everyone within the EU. If successful, the EU would be very well placed to compete on a global scale with other growing regions and probably would attract significantly more international business. However, the current financial crisis is putting an enormous strain on each member state.

The collective established within the European Union appears to be faltering under the strain of an unprecedented global financial crisis. We have seen the Irish go their own way to protect the customers of Irish banks, with similar situations occurring in Greece and Denmark. Heavyweight German economic regulators considered similar measures, but changed tack at the last minute, probably because of pressure from the UK and France. When the chips are down, it’s natural for countries to protect their residents, but this flies in the face of unity.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has proved powerless in this crisis. Each central bank in each state is taking its own unilateral action, leaving the ECB almost redundant. However, the worldwide reduction of interest rates agreed and acted upon recently shows how a coordinated focus can bring immediate benefits. Further actions of this type will eventually bring stability and allow the markets to settle at a new (albeit lower) level.

It’s worth making the point that there is a big difference between market volatility and the fundamental stability of global economies. Markets move by speculation and risk, while economies are slower to react and move more in line with inflationary forces and fiscal policies imposed by governments. For this reason, the billions of dollars that governments are pouring into supporting banks have little to do with the overall strength of markets, as the prices of shares in the banking sector may rise or fall with little linkage to the performance of other sectors as investors switch from one to the other. Governments must be cautious about pouring money into the markets as such actions can seem like casino bosses underwriting the losses of their biggest players. The players will simply continue to play harder betting more. Read the rest of this entry »

When I was an undergraduate in college (in the last century), French was considered the language of diplomacy. My United States passport, despite the recent estranged “Freedom Fries era” of Franco-American relations, still states most entries in both English and French. Alas, in this brave new age, the diplomatic power of French appears to be slipping, not the least in Europe, and especially on its now contested borders with Russia.

France currently holds the presidency of the European Union, in which role and under the enterprising leadership of President Nicolas Sarkozy (whose name it is really too tempting in the present context to spell “Czarkozy”) France undertook to broker the withdrawal of Russian forces from Georgia after their recent incursion to “liberate” South Ossetia and Abkhazia. With typical French panache, the whole thing was neatly presented, apparently understood, and expected to be rapidly executed. However, it quickly became apparent that certain critical details of the original French draft of the terms of Russian withdrawal had, literally been lost, or at least warped, in translation.

It all hinges on a prepositional dispute. Does the draft agreement call for security “for” South Ossetia, as the Georgian and English translations state, or does it call for security “in” South Ossetia as the Russian translation allows. The Russians are sticking with their translation, which they are interpreting to mean that their presence in South Ossetia is essential for security in this disputed territory. Mon dieu! Read the rest of this entry »

Ketevan Ninua is a co-founder of Georgian Center of Technology, a technology and engineering institute in Tbilisi, Georgia, and a board member of ProGeorgia.org, Inc. Born in Tbilisi, she is a New York representative of the Georgian Association in the United States.

While Russia’s recent invasion of Georgia came as a surprise to most around the world, it should have evoked quite the opposite reaction. Molestation of her neighbors, including setting impoverished Ossetians against Georgians, has long been Russian policy. Today imperial Russia, flouting international law, threatens Georgia’s very existence by bombing the country, slaughtering civilians, and occupying territory. This is a situation that the West has encountered numerous times in the past: Czechoslovakia, 1938; Berlin, 1948; Budapest, 1956; Prague, 1968; Afghanistan, 1979. The world condemns Russia, but condemnations do not curb Moscow’s behavior.

Russian aggression stretches back centuries; its approach to conquest dates from the Middle Ages, when soldiers were sent to war with no promise of payment other than loot. Russian aggression on a macro level is well-documented, but the savagery of its soldiers has not been widely reported. Russian soldiers in Georgia have engaged in widespread looting of food, electronic equipment, furniture, footwear, and clothes—even used toilet bowls and sinks.

Russian soldiers have raped and murdered innocent civilians. In Georgia, three generations often live in the same home; Russian soldiers have beaten elders and shot family members who dared to object. After their looting and killing was over, Russian troops have burned Georgian villages to the ground, destroyed towns, and mined roads—to ensure that no food or humanitarian aid can reach devastated Georgian citizens. Read the rest of this entry »

As always, summer in Western Europe is a quiet time. People tend to take much of the European Union mandated four weeks (at minimum) of paid work leave during August. Official discussions about managing the crisis created by the Ireland’s early June rejection of the Lisbon Treaty have been put off until October, although last week Ireland’s European Affairs Minister, Dick Roche, hinted at the next step by saying that a second vote was necessary if Ireland wants to remain an integral member of the European Union. The implication being that Ireland must continue to vote until they come up with the right answer. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom’s economy falters, and the Poles are going home.

According to a report released this summer by Britain’s Institute for Public Policy Research, nearly half of the Eastern European migrants who moved to Britain when EU enlargement made it possible in 2004 and 2007, have returned home as the U.K. economy continues its regression. The United Kingdom’s Office for National Statistics found that even though the population grew by 388,000 in 2007 (one of the smallest jumps in recent years), the proportion of growth attributable to immigration decreased.

The Poles and other Eastern Europeans have left the U.K., and if they’ve not gone home, they’ve gone elsewhere—to France, for example, which opened its employment ranks to the 12 newest members of the European Union in July, a year ahead of schedule. While economists likely applaud the economically driven pattern of trans-European migration, it seems it is just what social nationalists fear—migrants driven purely by financial motives rather than a desire to relocate and become part of a national community.

France, which assumed the presidency of the European Union in July, introduced a draft European pact on immigration and asylum this summer. It addressed the issues of national values and identity with these lines in the preamble:

“The European Council recognizes the interest of the integration contract for third-country nationals who are admitted for long-term residence on their territory and encourages member States to propose it at a national level. This integration contract must be compulsory. It will include the requirement of learning the national language, European national identities and values, such as respect for other people’s physical integrity, equality between men and women, tolerance, compulsory schooling and education for children.” [Emphasis mine]

As I wrote in the summer 2008 issue of World Policy Journal, even politicians have difficulty defining their country’s identity—of which “values” form the essential part—as independent from those of Europe. The European Union is expected to adopt France’s pact when it reconvenes in October.

Yet while Western Europe has been fairly quiescent on their long summer holidays, the Balkan region, which includes several states that are next in line to be considered for EU membership, has been roiling. Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s be frank: NATO is no longer needed. Indeed, this has been true for some time: once the Warsaw Pact closed up shop there was no good or honest reason for keeping NATO going. The threat that NATO was created to deter disappeared when the Soviet Union collapsed.

It is now time to let the European Union take the strain—whether by trade, investment, diplomacy, or political intimacy (indeed, the hallmarks of a successful union that has mastered the art of expansion and influence by clever use of the carrot)—while America deals with its own problems, brought about by its quest for global influence and application of the Bush doctrine of “preventive war.”

As Mark Leonard, the director of foreign policy at the Center for European Reform wrote in his clever little book of three years ago, “The contrast between the two doctrines is stark. The Bush doctrine attempts to justify action to remove a ‘threat’ before it has a chance of being employed against the United States. It is consequently focused very closely on physical assets and capabilities, necessarily swift in execution and therefore short term in conception, and unavoidably entirely military in kind. The European doctrine of pre-emption, in contrast, is predicated on long-term involvement, with the military just one strand of activity, along with pre-emptive economic and legal intervention, and is aimed at building the political and institutional basis of stability, rather than simply removing the immediate source of threat.”

Passive aggression—the outward expansion of the Eurosphere—is just what the continent needs. For countries such as Turkey, Serbia, or Bosnia, the only thing worse than having the Brussels bureaucracy (with its multitude of new rules) descend on their political systems is to have its doors closed to them. Read the rest of this entry »

Russia’s invasion of Georgia should compel the United States and Europe to alter their policies of using economic engagement to promote democracy.

After the Cold War, the United States and Europe sought to integrate Russia, China, and their satellites into the Western market economy. Policymakers believed this would encourage democracy, human rights and a peaceful demeanor toward their neighbors.

Policymakers believed robust foreign commerce and free markets—privatization, private property, and business law—would expose these societies to Western culture and instigate expectations for personal freedoms and free elections. Market economies function best when individual initiative and property rights are protected by elected governments. Democratic capitalism has decidedly outperformed autocratic communist and fascist regimes. And prosperous nations, invested in global commerce, are less inclined toward aggression.

Russia instigated wide-ranging privatization and other market reforms, opened to foreign investment, and had a rocky experiment with democracy. From 1990 to 1995, gross domestic product (GDP) dropped 50 percent, thanks to falling prices for oil and metal exports, inadequate commercial law, cronyism, and corruption. Output stabilized for a few years, but then sank further after the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Boris Yeltsin, largely discredited, turned over the presidency to Vladimir Putin in 1999.

Mr. Putin may be a capitalist, but he is no democrat. He maintained essential elements of a market economy but compromised elections, asserted control over regional governments and the judiciary, squelched personal freedoms, and sought to reestablish Russian influence, whenever possible, in former Soviet republics. Read the rest of this entry »

BERLIN, GERMANY—Barack Obama has come and gone, but excitement remains, along with sober analysis. Obama was again on the front of every newspaper the day after his appearance, and most of the coverage and photos were flattering. (In a recent New York Times op-ed, Susan Neiman refers to Spiegel Magazine’s sardonic cover, but Spiegel is always sardonic and condescending, about everyone; it’s hardly representative.)

The day of the speech, people were already making their way to the Siegessäule hours before Obama was scheduled to take the stage. The crowd was international and ethnically mixed, and largely young. The mood was not so much passionate as curious. One longtime American resident of Berlin called it an anti-Bush demonstration of a sort (though with many people waving American flags)

I asked an Eritrean friend I met on the way, who’s lived in Berlin for years and is now a German citizen, what people were saying about Obama. He told me everyone likes him, but they don’t believe Americans will actually elect him. That is, indeed, a concern; many people have asked me whether I really think he has a chance.

Obama’s speech touched on many of the points Germans, especially younger people, are most interested in, but he also alluded to some issues they are not excited about. Back where I was standing, there was little applause for his call for more German troops in Afghanistan or his praise for NATO. To me, his rhetoric about the Cold War and the airlift came across as clichéd and somewhat condescending, but not everyone saw it that way; the airlift still means something to Berliners, particularly older ones. He received a great deal of applause when he spoke of Darfur, several times, and Zimbabwe; of ending the Iraq war and eliminating nuclear weapons; of climate and the environment; and of breaking down barriers between races and religions.

Still, Obama’s rhetoric is American, for example in its tendency towards what one commentator called “light and darkness metaphors,” and sounds strange to German ears. One young woman I spoke to afterwards found the speech superficial (“bullshit” was one of her adjectives). And others have made the same arguments as Roger Cohen in the New York Times—that it was abstract and feel-good.

The staging of an American campaign is equally alien. In a poll by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on the day of his appearance, a majority of respondents nationally felt either that too much fuss was being made, that Obama was using Berlin for his campaign, or that European expectations of him were too high. Most people seemed quite aware that the speech was, in fact, aimed more at the U.S. then at Germany. But many commentators, as well as listeners, found substance in the speech nevertheless. Obama’s admission that the U.S. has made mistakes, for example, and his acknowledgment that many Europeans see the U.S. as a cause of the world’s problems, meant a great deal.
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Barack Obama will speak to an anticipated crowd of 100,000 people in Berlin tonight, and the city is brimming with anticipation. Pretty much every newspaper and magazine has featured him on its cover or front page. A few weeks ago, the story was where he would speak. At the Brandenburg Gate? Angela Merkel (Christian Democrat) opposed a foreign politician making a campaign speech at such a historic site; her foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier (Social Democrat) didn’t see the problem; and Berlin’s mayor, Klaus Wowereit (Social Democrat), seemed to be looking forward from the start to a photo op with Obama anywhere in the city. But the Obama campaign, loath to create friction, decided on a different location: the Siegessäule or Victory Column. Not that the Siegessäule doesn’t have its own issues: as many have pointed out, it’s a monument to Prussian victories over Denmark, Austria and France, and the Nazis liked it too; they even made it taller. Berlin’s like that, though—there’s hardly a spot in the city without some problematic history, be it Prussian, Nazi or Communist. It’s sometimes hard to remember, with surveys showing a majority of Germans opposing Bundeswehr participation in Afghanistan, but Germans weren’t always pacifists…
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For those of you not passionately following the Euro 2008 soccer tournament (which every four years pits Europe’s top 16 national teams against one another), let me be the first to tell you that the semifinals have arrived. There are two big games over the next couple of days, but something feels slightly off.

The streets of London won’t fall eerily silent as Brits pack the pubs, the Champs Elysees won’t be thronged with reveling Parisians, and there’ll be no splashing about in Rome’s Trevi fountain: Europe’s traditional powers have all been knocked out. England didn’t even place high enough in qualifying to make the tournament.

Instead, the final four teams remaining in Euro 2008 are Turkey, Russia, Spain, and Germany. Pardon the crude turn of phrase, but Europe’s outliers, once knocking at the door, have let themselves in, looked through the fridge, and sat down at the table.

In some ways, soccer—particularly in Europe—has been an acute barometer of politics and demographics, if not an agent of change itself.

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