| Submit your comments on this article |
| Europe |
| American View of Europe |
| 2003-01-24 |
| By Martin Walker WASHINGTON: âYou want to know what I really think of the Europeans?â asked the senior State Department official. âI think they have been wrong on just about every major international issue for the past 20 years.â âThey told us they could fix the Bosnian mess all on their own. Wrong.â âThey told us the Russians would never accept NATO enlargement. Wrong.â âThey told us that the Russians would never accept National Missile Defence. Wrong.â âThey told us that if we withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 the whole structure of international arms control agreements would come crashing down. Wrong.â âThey told us that the Kyoto Protocol was a good and worthwhile treaty, more than just cosmetics. Wrong.â âThey told us that the European Unionâs new common security and defence policy would improve the military abilities of the NATO allies in Europe. Wrong.â âThese were also the people who were wrong about Ronald Reagan and the Evil Empire, the same âfriendsâ who helped vote us off the United Nations Human Rights Commission. These are the people who whine about our Farm Bill when they are the worldâs prime protectionists. They are not just repeatedly wrong; they are also a bunch of hypocrites. So why should we pay attention to a single thing they say?â The official, a career diplomat who speaks fluent French and likes to vacation in Italy, sat back and took an appreciative sip from his glass of good red wine from Bordeaux. âOne more thing,â he added. âWhenever I use the word Europeans, I donât mean the Brits.â It was perhaps the most interesting and informative off-the-record lunch this reporter had attended in some three decades in the news business. The speaker was not a political appointee with a cursory knowledge of international affairs, but a professional and highly experienced Foreign Service officer with a wide range of friends and contacts across Europe. He is a cultivated and courteous man, but he was angry, in that dangerous way quiet men can be. And the unveiled contempt in his voice and the curl of his lip when he drawled out the word âEuropeansâ said as much for the depth of his feelings as his bitter rhetoric. Europeans do not yet get this, the great sea change that has taken place in the American foreign policy establishment. It would be easy to date this from the terrorist attack on 9/11, but it goes back further. I can recall hearing the first faint notes of this leitmotif of American contempt, like the distant hunting call in some Wagnerian opera that foreshadows the musical thunder to come, during the Bosnian crisis in 1993-95. Perhaps we should have recognized hints of it back in the 1980s, over the sanctions against the Siberian gas pipeline and over âStar Wars.â Most European diplomats dismissed these arguments at the time as clumsy Reaganism, the embarrassing kinds of excess to be expected from provincial American politicians. Doubtless, they smugly assured one another, Reaganâs crudities would soon be tamed by their good friends in the foreign policy establishment: the State Department; the Council on Foreign Relations; and the Op-Ed pages of The New York Times and The Washington Post. Well, the Europeans may still be able to count on the sympathies and cultural deference of many East Coast journalists, but something has shifted among the diplomats, the think tanks and even many of the academics. At a think-tank meeting last week, when a European diplomat asked rather patronizingly what all these American weapons were actually for, a renowned liberal academic simply quoted Kiplingâs line about âMaking mock of uniforms that guard you while you sleep.â And then he turned on his heel and walked away. Americaâs foreign policy establishment is composed largely of people who seldom pay much attention to military matters, but since the Kosovo war they have come to appreciate the vast disparities between the U.S. armed forces and the rest. It is now widely understood that of all the Europeans, only the British can begin to fight on the same modern battlefield as the hugely expensive and technologically advanced American forces. The rest of the Europeans are so many free riders on the readiness of American taxpayers to spend twice as much as Europeans on what remains the common defence. That is the background to the NATO summit that opens next week in Prague. It should be a triumphant coda to the grand achievement of the Atlantic Alliance at the end of the Cold War, the fulfilment of the first President George Bushâs stirring call to âa Europe whole and free.â But unless the Europeans recognize the glitter of contempt in the American eye, and the new resolve that lies behind it, it may become NATOâs epilogue. âTWT The writer is the Chief International Correspondent of United Press International I can't add anything to this. Pretty much sums it up. |
| Posted by:tu3031 |
| #6 Ike took over command from Monty of the land battle on 1 September 1944 when the German army on the western front had virtually ceased to exit. Ike nearly sacked Monty in the middle of the Ardennes crisis (December 1944) - the written apology you talk about - but I think you can see that Sept-Dec 1944 was not altogether a successful period. Monty was made the scapegoat for the American humiliation in the Ardennes - but if he had been sacked think what that would have done for US-UK relations! |
| Posted by: A 2003-01-25 04:08:58 |
| #5 I believe I read it in "Decision in Normandy: The Unwritten Story of Montgomery and the Allied Campaign." He predicted disaster for the Americans at virtually every turn, and was a constant thorn in the side of Eisenhower. Monty - the guy famous for saying that MARKET-GARDEN was 95% a success. At one point during the war, he went so far in insulting Eisenhower that Ike demanded a written explicit apology, and go it. He also received a public rebuke from Winston Churchill, something that Monty never forgave him for. I'm no fan of Monty, but he was a damn sight better than the guy he replaced ( General Ritchie) |
| Posted by: Frank Martin 2003-01-24 19:17:24 |
| #4 " - The Americans will face defeat on the beaches of france as a result of their ill advised plan for the invasion of europe ( Field Marshall Montgomery) " I haven't heard that quote - what plan was he talking about? Monty commanded the allied Normandy invasion and the actual plan was mostly his. |
| Posted by: A 2003-01-24 18:16:20 |
| #3 This guy's probably only been in the business for 20 years, but I'm quite sure he knows the history.The amazing thing? He works at the State Department. And we thought they were all weenies. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2003-01-24 14:08:09 |
| #2 âI think they have been wrong on just about every major international issue for the past 20 years.â 20 years? try the last 100. For that matter ,when have they ever been right? Heres a few recent nuggets of genius from Europe. - Herr Hitler is a man who can be reasoned with.( chamberlin 1938) - We shall not attack the germans within germany, we will maintain our security behind the maginot line. ( French Minister of defence October 1939) - If President Reagan puts Pershing missles in Europe, it will mean war with the soviet union. ( French Minister of Defense October 1982) - The US cannot keep Berlin by flying in supplies, the Soviets have won. ( De gaulle 1949) - The US will face a 'quagmire' in Afghanistan ( russian foreign minister 2001) - US Army will serve as replacements of British troops under the command of the British Expeditionary Forces ( General Haig 1917) - The Americans will face defeat on the beaches of france as a result of their ill advised plan for the invasion of europe ( Field Marshall Montgomery) - The future is world socialism. Capitalism is dead. ( too many to count) |
| Posted by: Frank Martin 2003-01-24 14:01:53 |
| #1 Thanks. I'd read this a long time ago, and wanted the link. |
| Posted by: Ptah 2003-01-24 13:35:29 |