I don't know. 
But I've just found an interesting article written by Graham E. Fuller, a former high-ranking CIA officer and former vice chairman of the CIA's National Intelligence Council.
http://www.iht.com/articles/86370.html
What do you think of it ?
Here is the full article :
Old Europe – or old America?
From power to consensus
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's recent scathing remark that it was only "Old Europe" that opposed the U.S. plan to attack Iraq produced a sharp reaction from France and Germany, the countries he obviously had in mind. But who really represents the "old" thinking here? The better case might be made that it is America that stands for "old" values, and that France and Germany represent "New Europe" - or even "the coming world."
Think about it. France and Germany have put five centuries of wars behind them, including two devastating world wars, to form a new union with shared currency and desires to forge a broad common foreign policy. Such a step is revolutionary among ancient nation-state rivals with different cultures.
But it doesn't stop there. The European Union is a remarkable experiment - the first time in history when states have been willing to give up real hunks of their own national sovereignty in order to join a new civilizational project. Turks, Bulgarians and Latvians are begging to pay the considerable admission fee to be let in.
The reigning premises of the Union are that states must be truly democratic, they must protect human rights and civil liberties, and that war among its members should be an unthinkable option. These states see themselves as a gradually expanding community, acquiring ever new members and geographical spread - but only after they meet strict criteria. They aspire to form a new force in the world - and are well on the way. This is the first time we have witnessed the emergence of an "empire" built on consensus and common desire rather than power and conquest - hardly the stuff of the "Old Europe."
It is America that represents the "Old World." This is not a pejorative aspersion. The United States now sees itself as the benign hegemon - or policeman - of the world, undercutting any and all efforts by potential rivals, friendly or not, to cast a shadow over overwhelming U.S. power.
This Pax Americana may have many positive as well as negative features, but because it is founded on monopolization of power rather than consent, it can hardly be described as the "New World." When other states, even friends, feel they have no voice in the way the unelected sheriff runs the town, we are working on principles that have been the basis of the "old order" down through the ages, according to which power, and not international law, holds sway.
But isn't America the "new world" in terms of its multiethnic character? Not really. While America is a remarkable and pretty successful experiment at multiculturalism, it is almost unique in being a nation of immigrants in a world of ethnic homelands. Europe, which has forged its homelands into a new cooperative whole, is the model for a world in which immigrant nations are rare.
Power will still be required to meet the challenges of a dangerous world in which Saddam Husseins and Kim Jong Ils will never disappear entirely. But it will be the power of a gradually expanding international community of consent that will slowly emerge to fulfill that function.
This is not some utopian sketch of an ideal. The world has for some time been heading slowly and painfully in the direction of freely established communities of common consent. The United Nations can be frustrating, even ludicrous, in its dithering and querulousness - but so can the U.S. Congress. These are not the fastest mechanisms in the world to get results. But think how far we have come in less than a century: An international organization is starting to exercise real clout on numerous issues, including human rights, standards of behavior, international fact-finding and inspections, peace-keeping and the provision of troops. This reality has forced even the Bush administration to seek UN blessing and support where possible. These, too, are signs of a world evolving away from perpetuation of rule by power and toward communities of consent.
America's task should be to work with this evolutionary process, not against it. That doesn't mean we don't go to war in Iraq, but it does mean a high premium should be placed on trying to work according to the forces of the future, not the king-of-the-mountain rules of the last several millenniums.
Of course, France and Germany have their own interests and agendas, which are often scathingly dismissed as petty and narrow by Washington policymakers. But doesn't the United States also have its own narrow, parochial interests? Don't Americans, too, want oil? Doesn't America, too, want the vulnerable oil states of the world to "buy American" when the arms dealers come around? Isn't it domestic American politics that grants the most right-wing government in Israel's history carte blanche in doing what it wants in the occupied territories? Doesn't Washington thrive on the inability of other states to ramp up huge arms budgets?
Before America's eyes, the French and the Germans have turned a fateful corner, beyond which the old automatic alliance with the United States no longer holds. Insults aside, those days are not coming back.
But I've just found an interesting article written by Graham E. Fuller, a former high-ranking CIA officer and former vice chairman of the CIA's National Intelligence Council.http://www.iht.com/articles/86370.html
What do you think of it ?
Here is the full article :
Old Europe – or old America?
From power to consensus
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's recent scathing remark that it was only "Old Europe" that opposed the U.S. plan to attack Iraq produced a sharp reaction from France and Germany, the countries he obviously had in mind. But who really represents the "old" thinking here? The better case might be made that it is America that stands for "old" values, and that France and Germany represent "New Europe" - or even "the coming world."
Think about it. France and Germany have put five centuries of wars behind them, including two devastating world wars, to form a new union with shared currency and desires to forge a broad common foreign policy. Such a step is revolutionary among ancient nation-state rivals with different cultures.
But it doesn't stop there. The European Union is a remarkable experiment - the first time in history when states have been willing to give up real hunks of their own national sovereignty in order to join a new civilizational project. Turks, Bulgarians and Latvians are begging to pay the considerable admission fee to be let in.
The reigning premises of the Union are that states must be truly democratic, they must protect human rights and civil liberties, and that war among its members should be an unthinkable option. These states see themselves as a gradually expanding community, acquiring ever new members and geographical spread - but only after they meet strict criteria. They aspire to form a new force in the world - and are well on the way. This is the first time we have witnessed the emergence of an "empire" built on consensus and common desire rather than power and conquest - hardly the stuff of the "Old Europe."
It is America that represents the "Old World." This is not a pejorative aspersion. The United States now sees itself as the benign hegemon - or policeman - of the world, undercutting any and all efforts by potential rivals, friendly or not, to cast a shadow over overwhelming U.S. power.
This Pax Americana may have many positive as well as negative features, but because it is founded on monopolization of power rather than consent, it can hardly be described as the "New World." When other states, even friends, feel they have no voice in the way the unelected sheriff runs the town, we are working on principles that have been the basis of the "old order" down through the ages, according to which power, and not international law, holds sway.
But isn't America the "new world" in terms of its multiethnic character? Not really. While America is a remarkable and pretty successful experiment at multiculturalism, it is almost unique in being a nation of immigrants in a world of ethnic homelands. Europe, which has forged its homelands into a new cooperative whole, is the model for a world in which immigrant nations are rare.
Power will still be required to meet the challenges of a dangerous world in which Saddam Husseins and Kim Jong Ils will never disappear entirely. But it will be the power of a gradually expanding international community of consent that will slowly emerge to fulfill that function.
This is not some utopian sketch of an ideal. The world has for some time been heading slowly and painfully in the direction of freely established communities of common consent. The United Nations can be frustrating, even ludicrous, in its dithering and querulousness - but so can the U.S. Congress. These are not the fastest mechanisms in the world to get results. But think how far we have come in less than a century: An international organization is starting to exercise real clout on numerous issues, including human rights, standards of behavior, international fact-finding and inspections, peace-keeping and the provision of troops. This reality has forced even the Bush administration to seek UN blessing and support where possible. These, too, are signs of a world evolving away from perpetuation of rule by power and toward communities of consent.
America's task should be to work with this evolutionary process, not against it. That doesn't mean we don't go to war in Iraq, but it does mean a high premium should be placed on trying to work according to the forces of the future, not the king-of-the-mountain rules of the last several millenniums.
Of course, France and Germany have their own interests and agendas, which are often scathingly dismissed as petty and narrow by Washington policymakers. But doesn't the United States also have its own narrow, parochial interests? Don't Americans, too, want oil? Doesn't America, too, want the vulnerable oil states of the world to "buy American" when the arms dealers come around? Isn't it domestic American politics that grants the most right-wing government in Israel's history carte blanche in doing what it wants in the occupied territories? Doesn't Washington thrive on the inability of other states to ramp up huge arms budgets?
Before America's eyes, the French and the Germans have turned a fateful corner, beyond which the old automatic alliance with the United States no longer holds. Insults aside, those days are not coming back.
