Robert Kagan's Bipolar Disorder. posted by Richard Seymour

"America is from Mars, Europe is from Venus", declares Robert Kagan in what is otherwise an elegant and concise treatment of a pressing topic, "Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order", 2003. The zeitgeisty references are presumably intended to elevate what is otherwise a slightly gnarly polemic, but these and the homely analogies he serves up as if to elucidate crucial arguments only raise doubts.

Crucially, Kagan argues that Europe and America don't really agree on what the state of the world is or should be. The pretense that they do, a hangover from the Cold War, needs to be dropped if we are to understand present divergences of strategy. Europe's approach fundamentally derives from its weakness. Just as America was once "enamoured of this constraining egalitarian quality of international law" on account of its weakness and its liability to be kicked around by European powers, so Europe now wants to constrain other nations by rendering military power relatively unimportant compared to "soft" economic and political power. The changing opinions is a result, primarily, of two World Wars and one Cold War. The two world wars virtually destroyed the old European empires, three of them disintegrating in the first war, the rest collapsing not long after the second. The French and British were slowly forced to abandon old colonial property to the protective custody of the United States of America which had plucked "the torch of world leadership" from the "chilling hands" of the British. Europe, considerably weakened, feeling threatened by an emergent Russian empire on its Eastern borders and unable to project real power over any lengthy distance, relied upon America to underwrite the peace.

While the American government was eager for European countries to raise the military expenditure and share the burden of imperial power more equally, the European electorate would not sacrafice the social programmes or pay the additional taxes necessary to sustain this kind of investment. And while America was content to accept responsibility for the security and prosperity of the free world, Europe was content to abide its terms. Ostpolitik and gaullism were manifestations of the drive both toward independence and away from reliance on American protection which was seen as too confrontational, too willing to have a fight. Here, Kagan offers the first of his down-home analogies. Quoting a European official who says "[w]hen you have a hammer, all problems start to look like nails", retorts that "[t]his is true. But... [w]hen you don't have a hammer, you don't want anything to look like a nail."

American power renders one too punchy, European weakness renders the other too chickenshit. The analogy fails for two reasons. First, because hitting a nail with a hammer usually doesn't incur death or destruction of property. Second, because if Europe was so willing to entrust the security of the world to America, there is no need for them to be either in denial or weak-kneed. They've got the hardest man on their side, so they can do what the fuck they want. And the passages relating to US "willingness to assume responsibility for protecting other nations" referring to the Cold War and after, remind one of the vulgar refrains that "if it weren't for us, you'd all be speaking German". The reality is, quite naturally, the converse of what Robert Kagan implies. Europe, to be sure, was terrified of communist insurgency. In several European nations, quite sizeable majorities wanted to align with the Soviet Union rather than America, be it by joining the USSR (Greece) or simply forming strategic alliances with it (Italy). It was partially the actions of British and American interventions in subverting elections and killing partisan resistance (in Greece) that prevented this from happening. However, both the United States and Europe were perfectly well aware of the limited nature of Stalin's imperial ambitions (see John Lewis Gaddis, "The Origins of the Cold War", 1977) while it has latterly emerged that the partition of Germany resulted from American disregard for agreements as much as Russian perfidy (see a concise review in Gore Vidal, "Three Lies to Rule By", "Dreaming War", New York, 2003).

Since the end of the Cold War, European and American perspectives on the world have grown increasingly apart. Europe, it seems, has greater tolerance for "threats" posed by "rogue states". Europeans argue that this is because America has long been isolated from military incursions and genuine threats and therefore has an unreasonable aspiration toward "perfect security", whereas Europe has been through centuries of colonial war and has lived with evils right on its doorstep. They are therefore more relaxed about such threats. Kagan refutes this by pointing out that America has not been as immune to attack as some think. Not far back in their history, Americans were subject to being bullied around by Britain and France. On the other hand, Europe's colonial past suggests it has not always been as relaxed about "threats" or perceived "threats". The real difficulty for Europe is its own weakness, and its own inclination to seek "multilateral" agreement, not some cultural aversion to excessive militarism enjoined by bloody experience.

The trouble with Kagan's reasoning is, again, bifurcate. America may have once been subject to imperial aggression, but for a century it has lived without any serious threat of invasion from anyone. No nation has been as insulated from the consequences of great power politics than America. At the same time, we might again mention that if Europe is truly frightened to confront threats because of its own military weakness, then why not simply allow America to get on with it? Why confront America at all, be it in the UN Security Council or elsewhere? And Kagan writes for all the world as if many of the "threats" he alludes to are not the direct or indirect consequences of US geopolitical strategy since 1945. Need we recite the roll call? Need we demonstrate again how General Suharto was a "nail" not qualitatively different from Saddam Hussein? Are the differences anything other than circumstantial?

The reality of American power and European weakness is, according to Kagan, obscured by such "facile" assertions as that common refrain that "America can't go it alone". On the contrary, he argues, America can and does go it alone. If it weren't for this fact, there would be no endless discussions on the problem of "US unilateralism". America has objectively more interest in using its power, even though it would prefer to work with allies, while Europe has more interest in the straitjacket of international law. Again, however, his analogy fails him.

Think of a bear in the woods. Now, the guy with the knife is less likely to want to tackle this threat than the guy with the gun. The former sees more risk in tackling the bear, while the latter sees more risk in letting the bear stroll around. Now, that analogy would work if only he stipulated that the guy with the gun and the guy with the knife live in well-built, fenced, alarmed and secured mansions hundreds of miles away from the forest, while the bear has his own fish to fry.

Kagan's vulgar apologetics don't stop with his feeble analogies. Here he is on Kosovo:

"Americans had a compelling moral interest in stopping genocide and ethnic cleansing". (Page 50)

On US power:

"The United States is a behemoth with a conscience... Americans do not argue, even to themselves, that their actions may be justified by raison d'etat... [T]o the extent that Americans believe in power, they believe it must be a means of advancing the principles of a liberal civilisation and a liberal world order." (Page 41)

On the EU vs the US:

"Europeans hope to contain American power... by appealing to its conscience." (Page 41).

Without rehearsing what is a simple matter of record, let's take the last quote first. It is a consistent theme of Kagan's that a) Europeans have shown little to no interest in taking steps to form a military counter-power to the US and b) this is because they know America is a benevolent power rather than an imperial aggressor, who will defend them and to whose conscience they can always appeal. The compounding theme is that America's matchless capacity to project force over long distances renders it totally unnecessary for it to take any heed of the Europeans or anyone else. America can go it alone and does go it alone.

Yet, on page 52, Kagan acknowledges that Europeans have attempted to counter US power with military power of their own via the 60,000 strong European Defense Force. He acknowledges too that the reason this hasn't reached any fruition is not solely Europe's belief in America's benevolence; it is also about the nature of the nation-states involved, their different experiences and tendencies. However, his crucial argument is that Europe does not really feel threatened in the world, because whatever global threats exist are more than taken care of by America. If they really felt threatened, they would overcome EU regulations and national differences.

Perhaps. But perhaps the Europeans are accurate in their surmisal that no genuine threats presently exist. America, while it does destabilise the world through its relentless imperial campaigns, is unlikely to bomb such a valued trading partner as Europe. So, it isn't necessary to believe in America's munificence for European governments to conclude that high defense spending is unnecessary and more of a risk internally than a safeguard externally.

Nevertheless, this is the formula to which Kagan repeatedly returns. The Europeans can only enjoy their "postmodern Paradise", their Kantian world of perpetual peace, because the United States continues to live in the Hobbesian world in which force is the only way to deter brutal enemies. It is necessary for a double standard to operate. The US is the protecter of "the West" and cannot be constrained as it stands at the gates. The Europeans live behind the walls, stable and secure and all the US asks in return is that they do not attempt to restrain the US through legal or other means in their operations... This is all rather fanciful. Kagan is perfectly well aware that there has rarely been a murderous dictator that the US has not backed, or an invasion in which the US has not had a hand, or a coup that was not sponsored by them. He worked for the State Department from 1984 to 1996, and was involved in policy toward Nicaragua upon which he has written a deeply dishonest book. In that sense, Kagan fits perfectly into the mould that Chomsky described in "The Backroom Boys", the urbane, authoritative intellectual who poses as a "problem-solver" and a fixer. Divorced from the reality of what their actions entail, it is easy enough for them to sound like hard-headed realists when they talk about the need to overcome moral squeamishness about this or that murderous policy.

This book has two agendas, which it is quite open about. One is that the EU should drastically increase its share of defense spending and sacrafice crippling "social programmes" to do so. The other is that the EU would then be less likely to complain about US policy if it had a similar "strategic purview" provided by increased military strength, and that they should therefore shut their yaps until they're ready to be drawn back out into the "Hobbesian world". He doesn't say that the US will go broke if it tries to sustain the Empire on its own, and therefore they need the European Union - the only likely strategic ally - to help out with the rent.

This is where his triumphalism fails. He believes the EU cannot constrain America - noone can. Yet, here we are, and America is begging for international assistance in Iraq. It is begging for European help, and all it gets is France saying Iraq must be given to the Iraqis. Shee-ut! Don't they know it's a Hobbesian world out there? If you give people their country back, you don't know WHAT they might do!

Kagan lives in a moral universe light years from the rest of humanity. Indeed, one often wonders if he even inhabits the same physical universe. But I can heartily recommend this book as a useful insight into prevalent neoconservative thought in America, provided it is supplemented with a barrel or two of salt. It is at least honest about what the US intends, and if we extricate his arguments from the useless self-exculpating pap with which he pads out his polemic, we can clearly perceive a few deadly trends in policy, as well as a few of the optical illusions which will be used to justify them.