FINANCIAL TIMES COLUMN: …Europe’s elites are post-historical. Living in history means living in a world of constant threat where there is no nightwatchman to keep the peace among nations, so nations must keep the peace themselves by maintaining a balance of power. But for 70 years Europe has relied on the US to do exactly that: guarantee its security, so that Europe can spend relatively little on defence and relatively much on providing for the good life. Seventy years is much longer than the distance between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war; or between the end of that conflict and the outbreak of the first world war.
Europe’s elites are post-historical. Living in history means living in a world of constant threat where there is no nightwatchman to keep the peace among nations, so nations must keep the peace themselves by maintaining a balance of power. But for 70 years Europe has relied on the US to do exactly that: guarantee its security, so that Europe can spend relatively little on defence and relatively much on providing for the good life. Seventy years is much longer than the distance between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war; or between the end of that conflict and the outbreak of the first world war.
This American security umbrella will not stay up for ever. Barack Obama’s alleged lack of resolve in dealing with Mr Putin may say less about the US president’s own foreign policy than about a gradual shift in US opinion. Why should America defend a continent that will not defend itself?
The last of America’s second world war veterans will soon be dead. The European-oriented elites that have influenced foreign and defence policy in Washington are gradually being replaced by bright young men and women — many of them the offspring of immigrants from Asia and Latin America — who bring with them different family histories and emotional priorities. This coincides with the security challenges and opportunities that America encounters outside Europe, particularly in Asia, where American allies are willing to maintain robust, deployable militaries… (more)
