We moan about the Americans running the show but no one else wants to be the world's policeman

We moan about the Americans running the show but no one else wants to be the world's policeman Tuesday March 5, 2002
The Guardian

To be discussing the European role in the world on a tropical island halfway between Tokyo and Hong Kong may seem a trifle weird. For there really is no such thing as a European role in Okinawa. The meeting was part of an annual EU effort to get European and Japanese journalists to exchange ideas. To do this in Okinawa actually made perfect sense. For the main topic of discussion, mulled over in tones that ranged from melancholy exasperation to envious pique, was the US domination of the world. Lulls in the conversation, often as not, would be filled with the sudden thunder of Phantoms or F16s streaking through the sky. Almost half the main island of Okinawa is taken up by US bases. It was from here, as much as anywhere, that the Vietnam war was fought.

Okinawa is one of those tragic places where the people were sacrificed in the battles of far-away powers. A third of the civilian population died in 1945, when the allied troops landed and the imperial Japanese army decided to fight to the last man. When food ran out or Okinawans got in the way, Japanese soldiers ordered civilians to commit mass suicide; families were forced to slash one another with razors or broken bottles; bullets could not be spared.

And now the island is a living symbol of US military domination. There are some advantages attached to this dubious status. Nature is beautifully preserved in the large no-go areas. And the bases provide many precious jobs.

Still, if there was one issue that glum Luxemburgers, sad-eyed Germans, and despondent Japanese could agree upon, it was that US domination was not a good thing. We tried to cheer ourselves up with some valiant talk about "Japanese-European initiatives", about the superior wisdom of our more "mature" nations, about European dialogues with North Korea, about Japan alleviating poverty in the world, while the gung-ho Americans go to war, and so on. But all this was really nothing but a brave mask to cover our collective sense of humiliation. There is no way around it, especially in Okinawa: the Yanks are running the show. And with their planned defence budget, the gap between them and us will grow even wider.

This situation is bad for America, for it creates a combination of hubris and splendid isolation. And it is bad for us, for it has an infantilising effect on our politics. Japanese and Europeans often resemble rich and rebellious teenagers, whining about their overwheening father, while remaining utterly dependent on his protection. In the end, at the Okinawa conference, it took a plain-speaking British socialist, the estimable Glyn Ford MEP, to say what the Japanese least wanted to hear. It is time, he said, for Japan to pull its weight as a military power once again.

There are some Japanese who think so to, but they tend to be unsavoury rightwingers with a disturbing penchant for singing the old wartime songs. To mention a change in Japan's pacifist constitution, and talk about a Japanese military role, makes most Japanese gaze stonily at their feet as though someone had offered a drink to a reformed alcoholic. They have got used to the US taking care of the dirty business of war, while Japanese concentrate on business, basking in the moral glow of their constitutional pacificism. The Germans, firmly established in the EU and Nato, and governed at present by former student radicals, are less shy these days of talking about war, but even they cannot bring themselves to think of Germany becoming a driving force behind European military initiatives.

One of the main reasons, then, for American domination is not the alleged cowboy spirit of a Bush, or a Rumsfeld, but our own desire to stay out of trouble. We have wanted it that way since the second world war. We wished to be locked into arrangements which not only kept the communists out, but the Germans and Japanese down. And since Germany and Japan are the only countries with sufficient weight to take over some of America's policing duties, this has become a problem.

Or not. We could continue to enjoy our wealth and refuse to pay more money for new weapons, and talk about our superior wisdom, our lessons from the past, and how much better it is for Japan and Germany to be beacons of peace. And we could let the Yanks bail us out, as they did in Bosnia, when we have let the villains run out of control. All this is fine, but then we must stop complaining about American domination, for we clearly like the alternatives even less.

Do you read the articles you yourself post? Sounds like he's bashing the Euros and Japanese, if he's bashing anyone at all.

Not to mention he's raised some excellent points.

This is just a prelude to their banding together to form a world army under the control of the power hungry United Nations. The U.N. want's it's on tax system on the total world population, it's own standing army, it's own court system, and it craves freedom from the influence and power of the USofA.

it has an infantilising effect on our politics. Japanese and Europeans often resemble rich and rebellious teenagers, whining about their overwheening father, while remaining utterly dependent on his protection.

I think that this is the true crux of the matter...the whiners are dependent upon America for protection from the Big Bad Wolf but they like to posture and pretend that America is too arrogant and that they resent being taken care of...they are infantilizing themselves by not spending some serious money on defense and staying weak.

Oh, they can have the rest of the world because I keep wondering why we even bother reading what these other countries think about us. But they can't have us.

I may be old and pudgy, but I'll take to the streets over that one!

"It's the British and the French who are actually in the best position to build up their military and ease our military burdens, former imperial powers with connections all over the world, who were a lot nicer to the natives than the Japanese and the Germans--they just lack the will to make the sacrifices necessary to achieve that goal."

Top 10 Nations ranked by GDP (billions)

1 United States $8,511,000.0
2 China $4,420,000.0
3 Japan $2,903,000.0
4 Germany $1,813,000.0
5 India $1,689,000.0
6 France $1,320,000.0
7 United Kingdom $1,252,000.0
8 Italy $1,181,000.0
9 Brazil $1,035,200.0
10 Mexico $815,300.0

I think the reason they always say Germany or Japan is they are the biggest so called, civilized nations after the US. The US is the 800 lb gorilla though. It would take all of Europe working together to equal the military of the US.

Actually, I read this not so much as bashing America, although it is clear the writer does not like the US, as an admission that it is the US and only the US which has both the will and the means to even try and keep the peace in the world. I think, from his tone, that he would be even more horrified by an America which said, "A plague on both (all) your houses. Kill yourselves all day long, if you want to. But touch one hair on one American's head and you'll answer to US!"

Well...I agree with the title. Europeans often complain that America acts way too unilaterally, but when bad things happen, or when a complete psycopath tries to take over the world, we are always the first ones to defend ourselves and everyone else. It is easy to complain, less easy to do.

Actually, this is quite a good article. This guy seem to have found the core of the problems. It's time the EU and Japan stopped naval gazing and pull their weight. Everyone complains about us then they blithely spend their money on other things while tut-tutting over Americas overwhelming military power.

Well hey, if nobody else is going to bother about defense, the one with sense has to do it.

How exactly has our being a superpower hurt these people. It seems to me that we spend our dollars and give our lives to protect these people. We don't get anything out of it, certainly not a thank you.

In a very real sense, America has played the strategic role in Europe that a united, peaceful, democratic Germany should. Germany is the natural leader of Europe but because it does not want the responsibility, America must play that role.

Similarly, a peaceful, democratic Japan would be the natural leader in the Western Pacific. Japanese Special Forces should be hunting Abu Sayyah in Mindinao. But Japan does not want the responsibility because it really is not sorry for its wartime behavior and sometimes embarrasingly lets slip that it really has no respect for other Asians.

The tragedy is that America must play the worlds' policeman because the other countries powerful enough to help mightily in that regard fear that one sip from the cup of military power and they will lapse from pacifist abstinence to staggering goose stepping militarism.

I agree that Europe is punching far below her weight and should increase defence spending if only on modernising her existing armouries.

But let us not forget when Europe started mooting the possibility of creating a European Military many in America in both the present government and in the American Military opposed this.

You may complain about America being forced to deploy her military all over the globe, but your government and Military will not have it any other way, yes they want Europe to increase defence spending but only under the American umbrella.

A fully resurgent and military powerful Europe and Japan, will be seen as a threat at worst and a annoyance at best to American world wide interests.

Cheers Tony

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