North America has not paid sufficient attention to Europe in recent years.
Norwegian friends, a few years ago, told me that many Europeans were embarrassed that the US (Clinton in this case) had to go into Eastern Europe and put an end to the genocide rather than Europe cleaning up her own house. There is a metamessage here that extends beyond this specific incident.
To understand the importance of the metamessage, we need to take an historical perspective. The US, from 1900 to 1950 had an overall strategic policy aimed at reducing Europe's military and political might. If you imagine what international affairs were like in 1900, you will realize that the US was a small-time player. Europe dominated Africa and most of Asia. Even the Pacific rim was mostly European colonies. Most worrisome to the US, Spain and Portugal controlled most of Latin America, South America, and the Caribbean; Spain's influence magnified by the inability of those countries to develop stable governments of their own. In 1898, the US instigated the Spanish-American War on the flimsiest of pretexts so that he could put Cuba and the Philippines under American control. It was particularly important to Roosevelt that he have a military presence in the far east that was equivalent to the British colony of Hong Kong so that he could ensure that the US would have certain access to markets in Asia.
Europe, foolishly, ignored the American desire to dominate international affairs and squabbled among themselves culminating in their near self-destruction in WWII. The US used this opportunity to establish a major permanent military presence in Europe by stationing about a hundred thousand troops in Germany.
Europe did not object, but welcomed the American presence because it meant that the Americans were spending money in Europe as well as ensuring that the European countries stopped their mutual self-destruction. Europe was free to spend its efforts on domestic economic development rather than supporting huge military expenditures. In fact, it used the opportunity to create the European Union, which would eventually become a sufficiently powerful economy to re-establish Europe's position in the world.
When I read articles about contemporary Europe and listen to my Western European friends, I hear Europe trying to convince itself to rebuild its muscle. They are chiding themselves into action. The first step was the creation of a unified European Union Army in 2000 - a move that has been below the radar of most Americans, but whose significance cannot be over-emphasized. The next step is to increase the strength of that army. This is a hard sell because, to be effective, the European Army would have to have greater military capability than any of the individual European countries. Given Europe's historical penchant for war, control of that force is contentious, to say the least. The current metamessage underlying much discussion in Europe is that it is time to support an large increase in the strength of the unified European military capability.
At the same time, the US is weakening itself. It is getting ever more entangled in the Middle East - a mess that Europe, particularly Great Britain, created in the first place. It is running huge deficit budgets. And it is picking away it its own intellectual capability with PC high schools and universities that will soon be afraid to teach basic science and history.
A strong, belligerent Europe is bad for Canada. It is not that long ago that Charles De Gaulle was openly proclaiming France's support for Quebec separation. Denmark is trying to establish sovereignty over a large chunk of the Canadian Arctic. Canada has many times the amount of a number of strategic resources as all of the European countries combined, including fresh water, food, fossil fuels, and a number of minerals. And global warming is increasing the accessibility of these resources, as well as opening the North West Passage.
In our grandchildren's lifetime, Europe is going to invent excuses to come and take resources out of Canada by force and the United States will be too weak to protect us.
Some days I feel rather vulnerable.
Yours,
Thom Whalen