Posted on 03/03/2003 12:23:41 AM PST by giotto
Very perceptive, and I largely agree. However, this begs the question, How exactly to "win back Germany to the fold". Moreover, what is "the fold"? If it is the Anglosphere, then Germany will understandably feel like a fifth wheel, a tolerated junior partner at best, a linguistic and cultural outsider at worst.
Also, while the next German government will certainly correct the horrible Francophile tendency of the Schroeder administration (Berlin has all but signed over its foreign policy to Paris), you cannot expect that the Germans will ever go along with isolating France as "the enemy".
Complicating this is the difficulty Germany has in coming to grips with the diminished importance of the country in international politics.
It will all sort itself out, eventually. The US administration is much like a pater familias keeping a worried eye on a close relative sliding into drink and shabbiness. Interfere too much, and you run the risk of making things worse, in addition to being resented for your meddling. Turn your back on the guy, and he may embark on a life of crime, and make far bigger trouble for you down the road.
The assumption, in many minds, seems to be that whereas individual powers act on the world stage according to the brutal rules of realpolitik, the U.N. represents legitimacy and projects an aura of idealism. In fact, more than half a century of experience shows that the U.N. is a theater of hypocrisy, a sink of corruption, a street market of sordid bargains and a seminary of cynicism. It is a place where mass-murdering heads of state can stand tall and sell their votes to the highest bidder and where crimes against humanity are rewarded. For many people the true nature of the U.N. was epitomized by the news that Libya, a blood-soaked military dictatorship of the crudest kind, is to chair the U.N. Commissionon Human Rights.
Agreed!
Other than that, the U.S. should put its trust in the seas and oceans, ...................... America should always have the means to act alone, in any area of the globe where danger threatens and with whatever force is necessary.
A simple and profound case for seapower, and lots of it.
The moment Euro-whinnies realise that US is really preparing to withdraw its forces from Western Europe, they'll stop to pretend that Russia is an equal partner and a trusted party to the European process.
Because it isn't.
They know that without the deterrent of the American presence, Russia immediately would resume its aspirations for continental dominance.
Then, all the politically correct bullshit talk will cease, and for the first time Europe will be trully united in a horrified cry: PLEASE DON'T GO AWAY!
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