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The Travails of Union: The American Experience and its Implications for Europe 103
The Travails of Union: The
American Experience and its
Implications for Europe
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Charles A. Kupchan
Europe’s ongoing process of integration has entered an uncertain and
tentative phase. Member states have agreed upon a constitutional treaty,
but ratification is by no means assured. From the United Kingdom to
central Europe, candidates questioning the merits of deeper union have
fared well in recent elections. Scepticism of the European Union (EU)
runs strongest on matters of geopolitics. The Iraq War continues to
divide the union, prompting observers and policymakers on both sides
of the Atlantic to be generally dismissive of the geopolitical consequences
of European integration. This attitude is hardly surprising in the United
States, where the EU tends to be seen, even among the foreign policy
elite, as little more than an economic union. But Euro-scepticism is also
mounting in Europe itself, revealing a worrisome level of self-doubt.
‘Taking a long-term strategic look at the present EU’, Wolfgang Munchau
recently wrote in the Financial Times, ‘it is difficult to see how it can fail to
split’.1
To fret about Europe’s future and dismiss its geopolitical relevance
may be fashionable, but it is neither justified nor wise. To be sure, the EU
is hardly on the cusp of becoming a superpower; it is still struggling to
establish the institutions needed to forge a common foreign policy and to
come up with the manpower required to carry out modest military
missions in the Balkans and Afghanistan. But Europe’s trajectory, when
put in a comparative and historical context, points definitively to its
successes, not its shortcomings. Acts of political union are always slow
and difficult, their geopolitical implications becoming apparent only
gradually.
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Charles A. Kupchan is Professor of International Affairs at Georgetown University and
Senior Fellow and Director of European Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. His
most recent book is The End of the American Era: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Geopolitics of the
Twenty-first Century (New York: Vintage, 2003).
Survival, vol. 46, no. 4, Winter 2004–05, pp. 103–120 © The International Institute for Strategic Studies
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Consider the case of the United States. A federation of Britain’s
former colonies began life in 1789, with the ratification of the
Constitution. It was another 70 years, however, before the union had a
single currency. In military terms, the United States remained strikingly
weak for decades. A century after the union’s foundation, the US army
maintained an active force of only 25,000 men. America’s governing
institutions were similarly underdeveloped. Federal institutions were
weak throughout the nineteenth century, falling prey to the continuing
power of the separate states and to paralysing struggles between the
executive branch and Congress. All the while, however, the United States
was quietly but steadily altering the balance of power across the
Atlantic, gradually driving European influence from the Western
Hemisphere. At century’s end, imperial aspirations accompanied the
consolidation of the federation and the country’s increasing naval
strength. Over the course of the next five decades, the United States
emerged as the world’s pre-eminent military power.
This article draws on the early history of the United States to put
European unification in historical relief, suggesting that Europe’s
accomplishments after five decades of integration are anything but
trivial. On the contrary, they are singularly impressive. Europe’s
experience with union hardly parallels that of the United States, and the
EU is unlikely to attain a federal character similar to America’s – at least
for the foreseeable future. Nonetheless, a comparative perspective makes
clear that political unions take shape in incremental fashion and not
without setbacks, indicating that Europe’s ongoing experiment is
proceeding apace and hardly irrelevant in geopolitical terms.
Indeed, the geopolitical consequences of European integration are in
part responsible for the turmoil that has beset Atlantic relations: greatpower peace and political union mean the end of Europe’s strategic
dependence on the United States. It is not the case, however, that
Europe’s mounting ambition need come at the expense of its link to the
United States. The rise of a more muscular Europe, if handled adeptly by
both Europeans and Americans, has the potential to salvage a
transatlantic alliance that is currently strained to breaking point. Building
a strong Europe is a critical step toward rebuilding a strong Atlantic
community.
The travails of integration: the United States
After attaining independence from Great Britain after the Revolutionary
War of 1776, the American colonies formed a loose union in 1781. The
governing institutions established by the Articles of Confederation
quickly proved too weak to sustain the union – Congress did not even
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The Travails of Union: The American Experience and its Implications for Europe 105
have the authority to raise taxes or regulate inter-state trade – resulting
in a second attempt that led to the Constitution ratified in 1789.
Although the United States was nominally a federation from 1789
onwards, it was not until the twentieth century that the country attained
a distinctly unitary character with a strong federal government and
common national identity. Throughout the nineteenth century,
Americans grappled with many of the same issues that Europeans have
been confronting amid their ongoing effort to construct a political union.2
Divided loyalties: the states versus the union
Fearful that a strong central government would imperil the freedom of
its citizens, the founding fathers deliberately designed federal institutions
whose power was divided among executive, legislative and judicial
branches. The miniscule size of the civil service further weakened the
reach of the federal government, as did the power of the individual
states, which retained the right to raise their own militias and had
authority over many other matters, including economic regulations,
police and law enforcement. In addition, northern and southern states
were deeply divided over a host of core issues, including slavery,
protective tariffs, westward expansion, and the pace of industrialisation
and urbanisation.
During the union’s early decades, state legislatures not infrequently
resisted the authority of the federal government. Consider the response
of Virginia and Kentucky to the Alien and Sedition Acts passed by
Congress in 1798 to limit foreign influence and domestic dissent during
conflict between France and Britain. The legislatures of Virginia and
Kentucky endorsed resolutions contending that state governments had
the right to declare acts of Congress ‘void and of no force’. The
Kentucky Resolution (drafted by Thomas Jefferson) maintained that the
Constitution was a ‘compact’ between the states and that the ‘parties to
the constitutional compact … in their sovereign capacity’ should be the
‘rightful judges in the last resort, whether the bargain made has been
pursued or violated’. The Virginia Resolution (drafted by James
Madison) declared that ‘in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous
exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact’, the states
had the right ‘to interpose, for arresting the progress of the evil, and for
maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and
liberties appertaining to them’.3 Although the legislatures of Virginia and
Kentucky endorsed these resolutions, they were not enforced, preventing
an open clash with the federal government.
The centre was weakened not just by the determination of the states
to resist its authority, but also by the fact that contrasting political
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cultures divided the union. More religious settlers tended to gravitate to
the North, whose culture was heavily influenced by Calvinist, Puritan
and Quaker teachings. The South attracted settlers seeking to escape the
constraints of religious authority and moral obligation, leading to a
libertarian outlook that historians have dubbed ‘Cavalier’ in coastal
regions and ‘Scotch-Irish Highland’ in the interior. Whereas northerners
were interested in building communities infused with social and moral
purpose, southerners preferred a rugged agrarian individualism. These
differences impaired the consolidation of the federation and slowed the
spread of a common national identity.
The individual states asserted a strong hold over political identities
and loyalties through much of the nineteenth century. When Robert E.
Lee, an officer in the US army and ardent opponent of secession, was
facing the prospect of choosing sides on the eve of the
Civil War, he stated his intention to head to Virginia
and fight against the union, claiming ‘I shall return to
my native state and share the miseries of my people’.4
Before the late nineteenth century, a plural verb
always followed the use of the term ‘the United
States’, connoting a grouping of semi-autonomous
polities, not a unitary nation.
The outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 revealed just
how contested and fragile the union was by the
middle of the nineteenth century. Although the war
did settle most of the political issues that had divided the union, thereby
strengthening the hand of the federal government, the power of federal
institutions began to weaken soon after the fighting ended. Burdened
with the debts accumulated during the war as well as the costs of the
reconstruction of the South, Washington was in no position to argue in
favour of an expensive expansion of the civil service. So too did the
nation only slowly surpass the states as the primary locus of political life.
Soon after the Civil War, Americans deemed the United States
sufficiently unitary to begin using a singular verb following references to
the country’s name. But a sense of national unity remained elusive, with
local and state loyalties continuing to exert a strong pull. It was not until
the two main nation-building experiences of the twentieth century –
widespread industrialisation and great-power war – that a strong
national identity eventually took shape.
Contrasting
political
cultures
divided the
union
The regulation of trade and monetary union
Prior to the Revolutionary War, each colony oversaw its own economic
policy, including the setting of import duties. The independent states
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retained authority over fiscal policy under the Articles of Confederation,
one of the reasons that Congress proved unable to govern. The
Constitution transferred to Congress responsibility for setting duties for
the union as a whole and for regulating interstate trade, making the
United States a customs union. Rather than speeding political and economic
integration, however, a common external tariff proved extraordinarily
divisive. An industrialising North sought protective barriers for its infant
manufacturing base while an agrarian South preferred an open market for
its cotton, tobacco and other agricultural products.
The diverging economic interests of individual states not infrequently
induced them to challenge the federal government’s authority over
matters of trade. The economy of New England was crippled by the
trade embargoes and blockades that accompanied the War of 1812. A
regional protest movement culminated in the Hartford Convention of
1814, at which the states of the region came close to breaking with the
union and adopting their own trade policies. In similar fashion, in
response to the tariff bills of 1828 and 1832, the legislature of South
Carolina passed the ‘Ordinance of Nullification’, declaring both tariffs
‘null and void’ within the state’s boundaries. President Andrew Jackson
charged that South Carolina was ‘on the brink of treason and
insurrection’, and threatened the use of military force to compel the state
to collect duties.5 Due in part to a tariff compromise in Congress, the
crisis was resolved without conflict.
Clashing economic interests were to play an important part in the
outbreak of the Civil War, the outcome of which strengthened the union’s
hold over economic matters. But even after the war, individual states
and local communities retained significant control over economic policy
and regulation. It was not until the late 1800s and early 1900s, with the
rapid expansion of interstate trade and a national railway network, that
the federal government and courts intervened to establish economic
regulations and regulatory agencies.
As for monetary matters, the Constitution expressly granted to
Congress the right ‘to coin money’. Nonetheless, the United States did
not have a single currency for another seven decades. From the
ratification of the Constitution until the Civil War, notes issued by statechartered banks served as the primary paper currency in circulation. Fear
of centralisation was the primary impediment to a common currency.
Alexander Hamilton argued in favour of establishing a national bank, but
many others feared the accumulation of economic power in the hands of
federal authorities. Legal considerations also played a role: the
Constitution gave Congress the right to regulate and standardise coins,
but not to issue paper notes.
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To finance the Civil War, the federal government finally began to issue
paper money. Although the Supreme Court initially found the issuance of
‘greenbacks’ to be unconstitutional, it eventually reversed its position, and
federal issue soon supplanted the notes of state-chartered banks. The
United States thus did not enjoy a single currency until almost a century
after its first attempt at union under the Articles of Confederation.
National security policy
From its founding until the end of the nineteenth century, the United
States remained a geopolitical lightweight, possessing neither the will nor
the capacity to project influence outside its immediate neighbourhood.
Throughout the 1800s, America’s diplomats were few in number; the
Department of State was housed in a few rooms. Most US emissaries
abroad occupied honorary rather than professional posts. Even
adventurous presidents found themselves unable to flex the country’s
muscle, stymied by a Congress that checked repeated presidential
attempts to expand US commitments in the Caribbean and Pacific.
Writing about the decades following the Civil War, Fareed Zakaria notes
that ‘the United States could not expand because its policymakers
presided over a weak, divided, and decentralized government that
provided them with little usable power’.6
America’s armed forces, like its geopolitical ambition, remained
limited until the end of the 1800s. During the union’s early decades, state
militias constituted the country’s main fighting units, numbering about
700,000 at the time of the War of 1812. The regular army focused
primarily on conflicts with Indians. In 1861, this force consisted of only
16,000 men, most of them serving at posts on the Indian frontier. The
army swelled in size during the Civil War, but it was rapidly
demobilised thereafter, with the active force soon dwindling to roughly
25,000 men. By 1890, the United States was a world-class economic
power, but it ranked fourteenth in the size of its army, just after Bulgaria.
The US navy also remained limited in size and mission during the
balance of the nineteenth century, focusing primarily on coastal defence
and commerce protection. Before mobilisation for the Civil War, some
7,600 men served in the navy, about one-tenth the manpower of the
British navy. After increasing in size during the 1860s, the navy
demobilised quickly after the war. Between 1864 and 1870, the number
of naval vessels fell from 700 to 200, only 52 of which were operational.
When Benjamin Harrison took office in 1889, the US navy ranked
seventeenth in the world.
The 1890s proved to be a crucial turning point in America’s career as a
great power. The federal government embarked on a major naval
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The Travails of Union: The American Experience and its Implications for Europe 109
building programme, drawing on the country’s economic strength and
industrial base to build a fleet that ranked seventh in the world by 1894.
With political power centralised in the hands of President William
McKinley – and with a new battle fleet at his disposal
– the United States in 1898 began to flirt with formal
empire, driving Spanish forces from Cuba and
colonising the Philippines and a host of other islands.
Backed by a muscular brand of popular nationalism,
the United States appeared ready to emerge as a
geopolitical heavyweight.
Even with its new military power and centralised
institutions, however, America’s appetite for global
engagement remained quite limited. The United States
preferred neutrality during the First World War,
entering the conflict only after German attacks on US
shipping. After the war, it quickly retreated into
isolationism, resisting global leadership until President Franklin Roosevelt
and Pearl Harbor convinced Americans of isolationism’s folly. America’s
rise to power was thus slow and belaboured. But the long decades of
incremental union were step-by-step changing the face of global politics.
The 1890s
were a turning
point in
America’s
career as a
great power
The travails of integration: Europe
History appears to be reversing itself. Over the course of the nineteenth
century, America’s political union gradually came together, endowing the
United States with the will and capability to challenge Europe’s
hegemony over global affairs. Now, Europe is slowly but surely building
a political union, endowing it with the will and capability to contest
America’s dominating sway.
To be sure, this historical analogy must be qualified. Americans may
have had to overcome potent regional differences, but Europe faces more
enduring cultural and linguistic dividing lines. America’s states fought
only one war against each other, whereas Europe’s have fought many.
European nation-states, each with its own armoury of history and
communal myth, are poised to remain the primary locus of political
identity and loyalty – at least for the foreseeable future. These obstacles
to deeper integration may put an upper limit on the ultimate scope of
Europe’s union.
The difficult course of US amalgamation does, however, shed
optimistic light on Europe’s past and future. Even with a common
language and religion, it took well over a century for the US federation
to cohere and exhibit geopolitical ambition beyond the Western
Hemisphere. America’s pursuit of a federal union faced not only regular
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setbacks, but nearly collapsed amid civil war. In light of this record, it is
par for the course that Europe, after 50 years of working at union, should
still face struggles between Brussels and national capitals, experience
periods of political malaise, and have yet to forge a common approach to
foreign and security policy. Some EU members remain hesitant to enter
the euro zone. Others may balk when it comes to ratifying the
constitutional treaty. But such setbacks pale in comparison with the
destruction and bloodshed of America’s Civil War. Judging from
America’s past, the EU is on, if not ahead of, schedule.
The United States may have had a constitution from the start, one that
specified – at least in principle – the balance of power between the central
government and the states and among the different branches of the
federal government. But it was not until the twentieth century that a
relatively stable equilibrium emerged among these competing centres of
authority. Furthermore, the balance of power between the states and the
union remains unsettled, with the two still contending for authority over
a host of issues, including education, gay rights and civil liberties.
In similar fashion, Europe’s institutions have evolved as integration
has proceeded. The European Commission and Parliament have
substantially more power than they did several decades ago. A
constitutional treaty has been agreed upon and member states are now
gearing up for ratification. If adopted, EU institutions would be
immeasurably strengthened. The Council would have a chief executive
who serves for two and one-half years rather than an unwieldy
presidency that rotates every six months. Europe would have a single
foreign minister and its own diplomatic corps. The EU is certainly not
headed toward a US-style federalism, but it may well consolidate in a
manner sufficient to make its geopolitical interests and its military
capacity major factors in shaping the global landscape.
Europe already enjoys a single market with an aggregate economic
output comparable with that of the United States. The EU now has a
population of 450 million, compared with 295m in the United States. It is
true that Europe’s population is poised to shrink while that of the United
States is expected to grow. But at current rates of fertility and
immigration, America’s population will not draw even with that of the
EU until 2040 or later. For the next four decades, Europe’s market will be
substantially larger than America’s.
The EU’s introduction of a single currency has been an unqualified
success. The German mark and French franc are gone for good, and the
British pound may soon follow. The euro has gained considerable ground
against the dollar over the past two years, indicating investor confidence
in its ability to serve as a reserve currency. The euro accounts for almost
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The Travails of Union: The American Experience and its Implications for Europe 111
20% of the foreign exchange reserves held by national central banks.7
As the euro gradually takes its place alongside the dollar as a global
reserve currency, the US Federal Reserve will increasingly have to share
power with the European Central Bank in managing
the international monetary system. This transition
could occur more quickly than expected should
America’s eroding fiscal situation induce international
investors to rush toward euro-denominated assets.
Europe’s progress on matters of defence
admittedly lags behind its success on other fronts. But
that is to be expected; the units that come together to
form unions as a matter of course cling tenaciously to
their sovereignty when it comes to security. In the
United States, the individual states for decades
insisted upon maintaining their separate militias and only gradually
became comfortable with the prospect of a sizable army and navy under
the control of the federal government. A full century after formal union,
America’s army ranked fourteenth in the world and its navy seventeenth.
Although EU member states have yet to integrate their defence
policies and their militaries, an aggregate look at Europe’s armed forces
reveals considerable capability. In terms of aggregate defence spending,
the EU ranks second in the world, well behind the United States, but
ahead of China and Japan. It also ranks second in the total size of its
armed forces after China. To be sure, these aggregate numbers need to
be discounted because of the relatively low readiness and quality of
European forces and the absence of a unified policy or command
structure. But they do indicate impressive potential should Europe’s
integration on matters of defence move forward.
Indeed, Europe may well be ready to turn the corner on the defence
front, decidedly moving toward greater integration on matters of both
policy and capability. The EU has established the European Defence
Agency to oversee military planning and procurement. It is gradually
assuming responsibility for peacekeeping operations throughout the
Balkans. In August 2004, the Eurocorps took over command of the
NATO operation in Afghanistan. Individual member states are
implementing important defence reforms intended to give their forces
greater firepower and mobility. Europe may well pursue these efforts
with added urgency now that Washington has announced its intentions
to withdraw America’s main combat units from the European theatre.
The EU may well be passing through a period of institutional
transformation and centralisation not unlike that experienced by the
United States at the end of the nineteenth century.
The EU’s single
currency has
been an
unqualified
success
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The geopolitical consequences of European integration
Under the best of circumstances, the European Union will have a modest
military capability by 2010, giving it the ability to fight a regional war in
Europe’s periphery and to contribute in a limited manner to operations in
other areas. It is inconceivable that Europe will acquire within the next
decade or two a military capability in any way comparable to that of the
United States. In this respect, it is quite likely that the United States will
remain the sole military superpower for the foreseeable future.
Europe’s ability to contest America’s military primacy is, however, far
too high a standard for determining whether European integration is of
geopolitical consequence. The United States did not become a global
power until the Second World War, but its rise had global implications
far earlier. During the nineteenth century, America effectively drove
European powers from the Western Hemisphere, irreversibly altering
the distribution of power across the Atlantic. And by the end of the
nineteenth century, the United States was exerting its influence in East
Asia and the Middle East, ending Europe’s exclusive influence in these
regions.
In similar fashion, the EU is extending its democratising and pacifying
effects eastwards, obviating Europe’s need for its American protector.
The United States is accordingly getting ready to decamp from the
Continent. Coupled with EU enlargement, America’s departure from
Europe will give the EU a new sway across Eurasia. The future of pivotal
states, such as Turkey, Russia and Ukraine, will be more heavily affected
by decisions taken in Brussels than in Washington. The EU, not the
United States, may soon be the most influential actor in the world’s
‘strategic heartland.’ In addition, the EU is already deeply engaged in the
Middle East and is broadening its political and economic presence in East
Asia. The EU’s geopolitical weight is being felt far ahead of its emergence
as a major military power.
Many observers of transatlantic affairs dismiss the geopolitical
consequences of these ongoing changes in the relationship between
Europe and the United States. The two sides of the Atlantic, they
contend, form a stable security community, with the West resting on
durable institutional and normative foundations capable of withstanding
international change.8 A shift in the balance of power is of little relevance
because the Atlantic community no longer plays by the rules of
realpolitik.
Recent events suggest otherwise. Power balancing across the Atlantic
was generally absent during the Cold War, but the Atlantic security order
that emerged after the Second World War is fast coming undone. The
political divide that opened over the Iraq War may well prove to have been
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The Travails of Union: The American Experience and its Implications for Europe 113
an extreme moment of transatlantic discord. But even if so, it marks the
end of the transatlantic era that opened amid the Second World War.
The United States and its principal allies on the European continent –
France and Germany – have parted company on fundamental matters of
war and peace. The failure to reach a consensus about the merits of
attacking Iraq stemmed from a broader divergence in strategic outlook.
As an independent task force sponsored by the Council on Foreign
Relations recently concluded, the divide over Iraq marked ‘the first
major crisis within the alliance to take place in the absence of an agreedupon danger’.9 The Atlantic allies certainly took opposing positions
during the Suez crisis and the Vietnam War, but the ongoing threat posed
by the Soviet Union limited the strategic consequences of these
disagreements. Absent the sense of common purpose engendered by the
Cold War and amid diverging views on how best to confront the threat
of terrorism, the strategic divide that emerged over Iraq marks the
beginning of a new – and much more troubled – era of Atlantic relations.
The long-term implications of the transatlantic rift over Iraq have been
magnified by the diplomatic confrontation that accompanied and
followed the war. Germany and France, along with Russia, not only
opposed the war, but actively campaigned to organise a blocking
coalition in the UN Security Council – and succeeded in doing so. Such
behaviour does not constitute ‘balancing’ if that term is limited to mean
the mobilisation of countervailing military force, but it certainly
constitutes behaviour of considerable geopolitical consequence. The war
was denied the legitimacy of a UN blessing, eroding public support for it
on a global basis. As a result, the United States has had great difficulty
convincing other countries to send troops to Iraq, leaving coalition forces
dangerously exposed and Iraq plagued by violence and instability.
Despite the dire strategic predicament in which the United States has
found itself in Iraq, NATO – the institutional and symbolic foundation of
the transatlantic alliance – could muster the will only to dispatch a limited
mission to help train the Iraqi army.
Washington responded in kind, working to separate a pro-war
faction of EU members from the anti-war coalition – effectively backing
away from decades of US support for European unity. The United States
was taking advantage of the fact that the war was at least as divisive
within Europe as it was across the Atlantic. In this sense, the transatlantic
rift over Iraq cannot be directly attributed to the successes of European
integration. Indeed, most of the governments that supported the war did
so largely to avoid a strategic separation between the EU and the United
States, preferring that both remain firmly anchored within the Atlantic
alliance.
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It is the case, however, that Berlin and Paris – along with most
European publics – were prepared to break with Washington precisely
because Europe is at peace and no longer needs its American guardian. In
this sense, the rift was directly related to the success of European
integration and the consequent desire of many Europeans for strategic
independence from the United States. Furthermore, the transatlantic
divide over Iraq is in the long run likely to advance rather than hamper
European unity on matters of defence – for a number of reasons.
Firstly, those European governments that backed the war have paid a
heavy political price for doing so, especially in light of the ongoing chaos
in Iraq. As a result, pro-European sentiments have been strengthened at
the expense of Atlanticist inclinations. The fall of the Aznar government
in Spain was a critical turning point in this respect, weakening the prowar coalition and complicating the political fortunes of Tony Blair, Silvio
Berlusconi, Alexander Kwazniewski and other leaders
who aligned themselves with Washington. Central
Europeans have also been disgruntled with the
absence of tangible rewards for their loyalty, with
Polish citizens asking why their companies have not
been awarded lucrative contracts in Iraq, why they
still need a visa to visit the United States, and why
the US forces based in Germany are leaving Europe
rather than relocating to Poland.
Secondly, the war has driven home to many
Europeans that they are increasingly on their own in
geopolitical terms, with the United States focusing its
attention and resources on other quarters. The
Pentagon has announced plans to bring home the main combat units that
have for decades been deployed in Europe. Even if many Europeans
were to remain staunch defenders of a tight strategic bond with the
United States, Europe’s traditional Atlantic option is no longer available.
Whether they like it or not, countries like Britain and Poland will have no
choice but to look to a stronger and more collective EU to manage
European security.
Thirdly, anti-American attitudes are at least for now informing
electoral politics in many EU member states. What began as popular
opposition to the Bush administration and its policies appears to have
deeper and broader political implications, with surveys revealing that
some two-thirds of the public in France and Germany have unfavourable
views of the United States.10 Furthermore, rather than seeking to
moderate anti-American sentiment, a number of European leaders have
been capitalising on it for electoral purposes, magnifying its political
European
governments
that backed
the war have
paid a heavy
political price
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The Travails of Union: The American Experience and its Implications for Europe 115
significance and intensity. This trend gives a boost to European unity by
adding allure and urgency to the call of some Europeans for the EU to
serve as a counterweight to America. It also, however, marks an
unfortunate and dangerous development; the emergence of a Europe that
defines itself in opposition to the United States would have adverse
consequences for not just Atlantic relations, but also the broader
international community. Competitive instincts would be reawakened on
a global basis should balance-of-power logic again divide the two sides of
the Atlantic.
Europe and the United States have thus reached a strategic turning
point, one at least as important as that of a century ago when an
integrating America crossed a critical threshold in its evolution as a
union, embracing a new level of geopolitical ambition and fundamentally
altering its relationship with Europe. At the turn of the twentieth
century, Britain had the good sense to make room for America, paving
the way for a peaceful power transition across the Atlantic. At the turn of
the twenty-first century, the challenge ahead is to ensure that the current
strategic transition between the two sides of the Atlantic is as peaceful as
the last.
Renewing Atlantic partnership: the need for a strong Europe
The traditional Atlantic alliance is gone for good. The United States is
ending its days as a European power at the same time that the EU and its
member states are becoming ready to emerge from the shadow of
American influence. A central question emerges amid the political rancour
and conceptual confusion that accompany these tectonic shifts: are the
prospects for reclaiming an Atlantic partnership more auspicious if the EU
emerges as a stronger and more unified geopolitical actor or if it remains
primarily a civilian power with decentralised policies on matters of
security and defence?
Proponents of a civilian avocation for the EU have several arguments
in their favour. A more unified and muscular union would, at least at the
outset, lead to more transatlantic tension, not less. As it has in the past
few years, Washington would likely react with affront to the prospect of
an increasingly autonomous EU – as well as one in which a common
security policy makes it difficult for the United States to partner with
individual member states as it sees fit. It is also the case that the
international community will continue to rely heavily on the EU’s civilian
profile; its capacities in nation-building, peacekeeping and democracy
promotion are poised to remain crucial assets for years to come. 11
The Atlantic partnership, however, will be far better served by a
militarily capable EU rather than by one that defines itself as a civilian
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116 Charles A. Kupchan
power. A division of labour in which the United States fights wars while
the EU focuses on nation-building will prove uniquely corrosive over time.
Americans would resent the fact that they would be running far greater
risks than their European counterparts. With the US homeland now facing
the threat of terrorist strikes, Americans have become particularly sensitive
to the contributions of others in neutralising this threat. In turn, Europeans
would resent their ancillary strategic role as the clean-up crew of the
international community. They would also bristle at the permanently
diminished influence that comes with such a role. A civilianised EU is a
recipe for dismantling the Atlantic partnership, not rebuilding it.
A more capable EU would restore a measure of balance to the Atlantic
community, providing the foundation for a meaningful and equitable
sharing of tasks along the full spectrum of missions. It is true that
Washington may well take umbrage as the EU fashions its own security
policy and embarks on a more independent course, but Americans would
ultimately welcome the prospect of an EU able to shoulder more
responsibility in Europe and to contribute to operations elsewhere –
especially those aimed at combating terrorists and preventing the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The Iraq war has placed
extraordinary strains on America’s military, making the United States
particularly aware of the importance of securing the help of capable allies
in the future.
Greater EU capacity also increases the likelihood that the United
States and Europe succeed in forging a consensus on vital strategic issues.
The more capability the EU has to offer, the more Washington will work
to secure its help, listening to Europe’s concerns and modifying US
policies accordingly. In addition, when the EU’s capabilities are more
robust, its perception of threats may also be in closer alignment with
those of the United States. How parties perceive threats is at least to
some degree shaped by the means at their disposal to deal with them.
A stronger and more unified EU is paradoxically less likely than a weak
union to cast itself as a counterweight to the United States. Anti-American
sentiment in Europe stems in part from Washington’s dismissive attitude
toward Europe, an attitude that would change in step with the EU’s
evolution. So too does European pique arise from Europe’s frustration
about its own weakness; standing up to America is to some degree a way
of compensating for the EU’s inability to affect outcomes through any
other means. A stronger EU would enable Europe to contribute actively to
international missions, thereby removing this important source of antiAmerican resentment and clearing the way for shared interests to
promote joint action. Even if a more autonomous EU and the United
States might at times pursue separate paths, Europeans and Americans in
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The Travails of Union: The American Experience and its Implications for Europe 117
the end share a common purpose and a commitment to democratic values.
Each is still the other’s most natural and reliable ally. A more capable
Europe would bring these commonalities into greater relief.
Finally, the EU needs to improve its military capacity in order to pick
up the strategic slack left by America’s impending departure from
Europe. Europe’s periphery is almost certain to experience violent
conflict in the years ahead; the EU needs to prepare itself accordingly – or
find itself exposed and impotent. The EU would not be the only party to
suffer. When Europeans proved incapable of stopping ethnic conflict in
the Balkans in the 1990s, political tension and mutual recrimination beset
the Atlantic community, not just Europe.
*
*
*
This analysis points to several policy recommendations for leaders on
both sides of the Atlantic. European elites need to restore to the
European project the political momentum that it has lacked in the recent
past, making deeper union – and, in particular, a more common and
robust security policy – a top priority. Britain has a particular role to play
in this respect, with its military experience and capability critical to
turning the EU’s geopolitical aspirations into reality. Precisely because
enlargement may make it difficult for the union as a whole to move
forward on defence issues with alacrity, a vanguard group leading the
way is not only desirable, but vital. In the meantime, EU leaders should
intensify efforts to reach out to their counterparts in the United States.
Making a greater contribution to missions in Afghanistan and Iraq and
working to counter anti-American sentiment within the EU would be
helpful steps.
Washington can do its part by returning to a steadfast policy of
supporting European unity, ending its counterproductive efforts to foster
divisions within Europe’s ranks. The United States should also welcome
unambiguously the construction of an autonomous and capable EU
defence force, its current ambivalence only giving some quarters in
Europe an excuse for failing to tackle the urgent task at hand. Finally,
Washington needs to return to the centrist brand of internationalism that
guided US foreign policy for the last six decades. Only by doing so can
the United States restore confidence among Europeans that they still
have in America a responsible and reliable partner. Only then can
Europeans and Americans refashion an Atlantic community capable of
anchoring a stable and prosperous international order.
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The future course of European integration is anything but
foreordained. Only a clairvoyant could have foreseen in the late 1800s
that the United States was headed for political centralisation and global
pre-eminence. The EU today is similarly a work-inprogress, with the character of its governing
institutions and the scope of its geopolitical ambition
still evolving. America’s integration admittedly cannot
serve as a model for Europe’s; political unions are
radical and contingent experiments, whose results are
always unpredictable. Nonetheless, the history of
America’s arduous ascent does make clear that
Europe has already made remarkable progress along
the path of political integration. This insight reveals
little about Europe’s ultimate disposition – but a great
deal about the urgent need to begin adapting Atlantic relations and
global politics to the realities of Europe’s emerging union.
Political
unions are
radical and
contingent
experiments
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The Travails of Union: The American Experience and its Implications for Europe 119
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Jonathan Monten
and Rositsa Petrova for providing
research assistance.
Notes
1
2
3
4
5
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6
7
‘An à la carte Europe is likely to split,’
Financial Times, 4 October 2004, p. 15.
This historical overview draws on
Charles A. Kupchan, The End of the
American Era: U.S. Foreign Policy and
the Geopolitics of the Twenty-first
Century (New York: Vintage, 2003).
For further discussion and citations,
see pp. 160–177.
See Walter Hartwell Bennett,
American Theories of Federalism
(Tuscaloosa, AL: University of
Alabama Press, 1964), pp. 92–100; and
Thomas Bailey, The American Pageant:
A History of the Republic (Boston, MA:
Heath, 1956).
Cited in Michael J. Sandel, Democracy’s
Discontent: America in Search of a Public
Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1996), p. 15.
John Blum et al. (eds) The National
Experience: A History of the United
119
8
9
10
11
States (New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, 1977), pp. 218–219.
Fareed Zakaria, From Wealth to Power:
The Unusual Origins of America’s World
Role (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1998), p. 55.
International Monetary Fund, Annual
Report 2004, 30 September 2004, p.
103, Appendices, table 1.2.
G. John Ikenberry, After Victory:
Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the
Rebuilding of Order after Major Wars
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 2001), esp. pp. 246–256.
‘Renewing the Atlantic Partnership,’
Report of an Independent Task Force,
Henry A. Kissinger and Lawrence H.
Summers, co-chairs, Charles A.
Kupchan, project director (New York:
Council on Foreign Relations, 2004),
p. 9.
Pew Research Center for the People
and the Press, ‘A Year After Iraq War:
Mistrust of America in Europe Ever
Higher, Muslim Anger Persists’, 16
March 2004, p. 24.
See Andy Moravcsik, ‘Striking a New
Transatlantic Bargain,’ Foreign Affairs,
vol. 82, no. 4 July/August 2003.
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