Posted on 06/01/2005 9:25:40 PM PDT by Destro
EUROPE ESCHEWS 'UNION': RETURN OF THE TRIBES
By RALPH PETERS
June 1, 2005 -- TODAY, the Dutch vote on the proposed European Union constitution. They're expected to reject it, as the French did Sunday. But whatever the result of the referendum, something's happening in Europe that international elites swore was impossible.
Tribes are back.
In Europe, they're called nations, which sounds more distinguished.
For Europe's political elites — accustomed to docile, bought-off populations — the turn against further EU integration has been an enormous shock.
Satisfying to watch? You bet. But the pleasure we can take in the humiliation of Schroeder and Chirac masks the fact that, for all their rhetoric and anti-American posturing, they were do-nothing, status-quo leaders whose authority never rose above the nuisance level. We may come to miss their fecklessness and gourmet-level pandering as nationalism swells among their electorates.
Whenever Europe's nationalist tide flows back in, the innocent drown.
The EU is far from Europe's first attempt at integration. The medieval church exercised transnational authority until the Reformation galvanized German identity. The multicultural Habsburg empire split in two, thanks to primitive nationalism. After the Great War, its Austro-Hungarian remnant shattered under nationalist pressures.
Group identity is indestructible. Despite genocide, Armenia rose again. Poland's back. The phony Yugoslav identity died in a storm of bullets, leaving behind antique nations. The Soviet empire dissolved into bloody nationalism.
We may discover that Europe has changed less than any other part of the globe, that all the bureaucrats in Brussels can no more suppress the local tribes than could the Roman legions. For all of our concern about a European super-state, we may live to regret the return to a Europe of nations.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
The neocons loved the idea of the EU as it was to exist with this treaty - big and slow and unresponsive but still open for trade.
What the Neocons fear now is the end of the EU as we know it (harmless) and the emergence of alliance blocks.
It also makes it difficult for the neocons grand scheme for the EU - the EU was supposed to help in the break up of Russia into even smaller units.
Where will the Oranges in the Ukraine find money for the economy now? Poland?
Russia's position just grew a little bit more secure from the Western wolves.
Peters is a retired army colonel.
Myths of globalization - By Ralph Peters - "Every generation has its illusions. One of ours is that "globalization" - the internationalization of trade, services, investment and information-sharing spurred by the Internet - will shatter states and change humankind for the better. While globalization itself is real enough, the visions imposed upon it by idealists and con men alike only make it harder to grasp what's happening"Doesn't sound like a neocon to me.
Only if a feckless American President elects to send our troops over their to die. They won't fight in the nations we're squatting in.
PS: Peters is a registered Democrat.
Or is it just that anyone who wants America to be the most powerful country in the world is an enemy to an anti-American traitor like you?
When Portuguese warships wrested control of the Indian Ocean from the Ottomans and their clients at the dawn of the 16th century, they provided a model of strategic hegemony that remains in place today. Then, Lisbon's caravels and carracks controlled the spice trade. Today, U.S. Navy carriers guarantee the oil trade. The commodities have changed, but not the strategic geography.
So that's American Empire to you? That's right, you anti-Americans aren't fond of free trade are you?
They cleave not one to another like iron and clay.
I want to see that picture! 8-)
Maybe you like making Red China green with our money - I have aproblem with it. Especially when added to the neocon call that America's military should protect Chinese trade routes.
Neocons are against free trade with China. You don't know what you're talking about and you have no idea what neo-cons believe in.
Do some reading and stop just making up "neocon" conspiracy theories off the top off your head and then you won't be so full of shit all the time.
Peters may be onto something with respect to the EU, but it will take more than the present level of nationalistic enthusiasm to provide defense for its member states. That will take a level of expenditure that is rather more difficult to attain than a public relations campaign, both in terms of manning and finance.
Tribal and national identities are two very different things, incidentally. Even such a relatively atomic level of national identity such as "French" subsumes a number of ethnic subcategories that may at any time fracture into tribal rivalry - to a degree these already have there, and in Yugoslavia they have fractured the overall national identity completely. And then there is always Lebanon.
And then, at the other end of the scale, there is always the United States. Attempts by the left to Balkanize the overall U.S. political identity are not accidental - they really do want to break up the overall national structure for reasons of ideology. Yet it refuses to break, at least for now. It is this sort of national identity that the European political elites thought could be theirs on command. It turns out to be quite a bit more difficult than that - if Peters is correct, impossible. Ours was forged in blood. That may be what is required there if I may take his case to a distressing conclusion, or it may work in the opposite direction. If I understand Peters correctly he is implying that certain member states may overcome the military atrophy I alluded to above only to dissolve into a wasteful mutual bloodshed. They have done it before.
I think Peters' fear is not new Euro-empires arising but inter Euro border/ethnic wars that pop up and even when they end set the groundwork for the next war until you get a snowball effect.
This all seems to me to be a bit abstract, but rest assured that real political decisions were and are being made on its merits. Or at least I would hope so. The alternative is positing national policies based on truly reflexive anti-Americanism - "the Americans must be opposed because...because...because, well, because they're American, that's why." I would prefer that to be a joke, but I wouldn't bet that way.
The Cold War had created an artificial peace under artificial conditions with nations that were artificially allied to each other. The Cold War froze in place the continuing turmoil set in place by the end of WW1.
PS: The hope is that globalization and the EU process would end this post WW1 wars of nations.
Isn't that his point? The minute you stop squatting they start fighting again. No matter how long you squat.
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