Without Bipolarity the old rules need not apply. The French were quick to recognize this, American liberals and much of our Bipartisan Foreign Policy elite have not. The former have learned how to reap advantages through obstructionism and leveraging the EU and UNSC, the latter are trying to breathe life through demonstrations of multilateral goodwill into the dead husks of Cold War era alliance structures. It can’t work. The old relationships can endure in new forms but trying to conduct American policy as if a new strategic dynamic has not emerged from the Soviet collapse and globalization is like ignoring the oncoming car because you have the right of way.
So, to sum up my long-winded answer – we had common rules within the Core and now we are struggling over what will be the New Rules. If the French-EU-Transnational Progressive-International Law extremists win this debate it will not be the Core that connects the Gap but the chaos of the Gap that creeps into the Core. – they are championing rules to systematically maximize disconnectedness because that scenario rewards regional powers, NGO’s, transnational entities and superempowered individuals at the expense of everyone else.
UPDATE: ” Mr. Soft Power” Joseph Nye in a CSIS sponsored event to address the Future Transatlantic Relationship. Y’Know, everything high-powered meets everywhere else except in Chicago. It’s irritating. And if it does meet here it’s usually closed to the public.
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Anonymous:
October 26th, 2004 at 10:21 pm
May I adopt this as my sig?
“If the French-EU-Transnational Progressive-International Law extremists win this debate it will not be the Core that connects the Gap but the chaos of the Gap that creeps into the Core.”
Alene
mark:
October 26th, 2004 at 10:30 pm
Alene,
Be my guest :o)
a from l:
October 27th, 2004 at 11:10 am
If it existed a hundred years ago, what were the then-Core’s rule-sets?
In Europe the principle of monarchy was a strong (albeit sentimental) unifying factor since all the major powers (except France which was a republic) were either actually or nominally ruled by individuals related to Queen Victoria and there was a strong sense of a European “family” that transended national boundaries. This fell apart for reasons that have never been adequately explained (ie what caused the European civil war that is known as the First World War? Thousands of books have been written on this subject, but none of them really explain why it happened).
Anonymous:
October 28th, 2004 at 2:40 am
In a recent article in “Asia Times”, the pseudonymous Spengler, whose point of view is somewhat askew from the ordinary, puts the case for preemptive war. Discussing WWI, he says:
” From the Congress of Berlin in 1878, when Germany and Austria set limits to Russian expansion in the Balkans, Pan-Slavism set Europe on a course toward inevitable war. France allied with Russia, seeking help against Germany after its humiliation in the Franco-Prussian War of 1871. Already in demographic decline, France knew that it could not wait to attack Germany one more generation. Germany knew that if Russia completed its railroad network its bulk might make it undefeatable a generation hence.
If Kaiser Wilhelm II had had the nerve to declare war on France during the 1905 Morocco Crisis, Count Alfred von Schlieffen’s invasion plan would have crushed the French within weeks. Russia’s Romanov dynasty, humiliated by its defeat in the Russo-Japanese War and beset by popular revolt, likely would have fallen under more benign circumstances than prevailed in 1917. England had not decided upon an alliance with the Franco-Russian coalition in 1905. The naval arms race between Germany and England, a major source of tension, was yet to emerge. War in 1905 would have left Wilhelmine Germany the sole hegemon in Europe, with no prospective challenger for some time to come. Germany’s indecision left the initiative in the hands of Russia, elements of whose secret service backed the Serbian terrorists who murdered the Austrian crown prince in 1914, forcing Germany into war under far less favorable circumstances.”
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FJ19Aa01.html
Alene
mark:
October 28th, 2004 at 1:12 pm
I will have to check out the link and read ” Spengler ” firsthand but my immediate reaction is that the British would, even without von Tirpitz’s naval arms race, still be alarmed about German domination of the continent and would have either intervened – probably to try and force a diplomatic settlement that preserved more of a balance of power – or gone to war against Germany full force.
mark:
October 29th, 2004 at 4:03 am
Alene,
Just read it.
While I agree with a number of Spengler’s examples I still stick to my contention about the Brits. The Cold War was another exception. War with Stalin’s Russia would have been prohibitively costly compared to waiting for the system to implode ( that however was a gamble – there was no guarantee of a ” soft landing” in 1991. A second Russian Civil war might ave been another outcome of the August Coup)