George Friedman
When I visited Europe in 2008
and before, the idea that Europe was not going to emerge as one united
political entity was regarded as heresy by many leaders. The European
enterprise was seen as a work in progress moving inevitably toward unification
— a group of nations committed to a common fate. What was a core vision in 2008
is now gone. What was inconceivable — the primacy of the traditional
nation-state — is now commonly discussed, and steps
to devolve Europe in part or in whole (such as ejecting Greece from
the eurozone) are being contemplated. This is not a trivial event.
Before 1492, Europe was a
backwater of small nationalities struggling over a relatively small piece of
cold, rainy land. But one technological change made Europe the center of the
international system: deep-water navigation.
The ability to engage in
long-range shipping safely allowed businesses on the Continent’s various
navigable rivers to interact easily with each other, magnifying the rivers’
capital-generation capacity. Deep-water navigation also allowed many of the
European nations to conquer vast extra-European empires. And the close
proximity of those nations combined with ever more wealth allowed for
technological innovation and advancement at a pace theretofore unheard of
anywhere on the planet. As a whole, Europe became very rich, became engaged in
very far-flung empire-building that redefined the human condition and became
very good at making war. In short order, Europe went from being a cultural and
economic backwater to being the engine of the world.
At home, Europe’s growing
economic development was exceeded only by the growing ferocity of its
conflicts. Abroad, Europe had achieved the ability to apply military force to
achieve economic aims — and vice versa. The brutal exploitation of wealth from
some places (South America in particular) and the thorough subjugation and
imposed trading systems in others (East and South Asia in particular) created
the foundation of the modern order. Such alternations of traditional systems
increased the wealth of Europe dramatically.
But “engine” does not mean
“united,” and Europe’s wealth was not spread evenly. Whichever country was
benefitting had a decided advantage in that it had greater resources to devote
to military power and could incentivize other countries to ally with it. The
result ought to have been that the leading global empire would unite Europe
under its flag. It never happened, although it was attempted repeatedly. Europe
remained divided and at war with itself at the same time it was dominating and
reshaping the world.
The reasons for this paradox
are complex. For me, the key has always been the English Channel. Domination of
Europe requires a massive land force. Domination of the world requires a navy
heavily oriented toward maritime trade. No European power was optimized to
cross the channel, defeat England and force it into Europe. The Spanish Armada,
the French navy at Trafalgar and the Luftwaffe over Britain all failed to
create the conditions for invasion and subjugation. Whatever happened in
continental Europe, the English remained an independent force with a powerful
navy of its own, able to manipulate the balance of power in Europe to keep
European powers focused on each other and not on England (most of the time).
And after the defeat of Napoleon, the Royal Navy created the most powerful
empire Europe had seen, but it could not, by itself, dominate the Continent.
(Other European geographic features obviously make unification of Europe
difficult, but all of them have, at one point or another, been overcome. Except
for the channel.)
Underlying Tensions
The tensions
underlying Europe were bought to a head by German unification in 1871 and the
need to accommodate Germany in the European system, of which Germany was
both an integral and indigestible part. The result was two catastrophic general
wars in Europe that began in 1914 and ended in 1945 with the occupation of
Europe by the United States and the Soviet Union and the collapse of the European
imperial system. Its economy shattered and its public plunged into a crisis of
morale and a lack of confidence in the elites, Europe had neither the interest
in nor appetite for empire.
Europe was exhausted not only
by war but also by the internal psychosis of two of its major components.
Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union might well have externally behaved
according to predictable laws of geopolitics. Internally, these two countries
went mad, slaughtering both their own citizens and citizens of countries they
occupied for reasons that were barely comprehensible, let alone rationally
explicable. From my point of view, the pressure and slaughter inflicted by two
world wars on both countries created a collective mental breakdown.
I realize this is a woefully
inadequate answer. But consider Europe after World War II. First, it had gone
through about 450 years of global adventure and increasingly murderous wars, in
the end squandering everything it had won. Internally, Europe watched a country
like Germany — in some ways the highest expression of European civilization —
plunge to levels of unprecedented barbarism. Finally, Europe saw the United
States move from the edges of history to assume the role of an occupying force.
The United States became the envy of the Europeans: stable, wealthy, unified
and able to impose its economic, political and military will on major powers on
a different continent. (The Russians were part of Europe and could be explained
within the European paradigm. So while the Europeans may have disdained the
Russians, the Russians were still viewed as poor cousins, part of the family
playing by more or less European rules.) New and unprecedented, the United
States towered over Europe, which went from dominance to psychosis to military,
political and cultural subjugation in a twinkling of history’s eye.
Paradoxically, it was the
United States that gave the first shape to Europe’s future, beginning with
Western Europe. World War II’s outcome brought the United States and Soviet
Union to the center of Germany, dividing it. A new war was possible, and the
reality and risks of the Cold War were obvious. The United States needed a
united Western Europe to contain the Soviets. It created NATO to integrate
Europe and the United States politically and militarily. This created the
principle of transnational organizations integrating Europe. The United States
also encouraged economic cooperation both within Europe and between North
America and Europe — in stark contrast to the mercantilist imperiums of recent
history — giving rise to the European Union’s precursors. Over the decades of
the Cold War, the Europeans committed themselves to a transnational project to
create a united Europe of some sort in a way not fully defined.
There were two reasons for
this thrust for unification. The first was the Cold War and collective defense.
But the deeper reason was a hope for a European resurrection from the horrors
of the 20th century. It was understood that German unification in 1871 created
the conflicts and that the division of Germany in 1945 re-stabilized Europe. At
the same time, Europe did not want to remain occupied or caught in an ongoing
near-war situation. The Europeans were searching for a way to overcome their
history.
One problem was the status of
Germany. The deeper problem was nationalism. Not only had Europe failed to
unite under a single flag via conquest but also World War I had shattered the
major empires, creating a series of smaller states that had been fighting to be
free. The argument was that it was nationalism, and not just German
nationalism, that had created the 20th century. Europe’s task was therefore to
overcome nationalism and create a structure in which Europe united and retained
unique nations as cultural phenomena and not political or economic entities. At
the same time, by embedding Germany in this process, the German problem would
be solved as well.
A Means of Redemption
The European Union was
designed not simply to be a useful economic tool but also to be a means of
European redemption. The focus on economics was essential. It did not want to
be a military alliance, since such alliances were the foundation of Europe’s
tragedy. By focusing on economic matters while allowing military affairs to be
linked to NATO and the United States, and by not creating a meaningful
joint-European force, the Europeans avoided the part of their history that
terrified them while pursuing the part that enticed them: economic prosperity.
The idea was that free trade regulated by a central bureaucracy would suppress
nationalism and create prosperity without abolishing national identity. The
common currency — the euro — is the ultimate expression of this hope. The
Europeans hoped that the existence of some Pan-European structure could grant
wealth without surrendering the core of what it means to be French or Dutch or
Italian.
Yet even during the post-World
War II era of security and prosperity, some Europeans recoiled from the idea of
a transfer of sovereignty. The consensus that many in the long line of
supporters of European unification believed existed simply didn’t. And today’s
euro crisis is the first serious crisis that Europe has faced in the years
since, with nationalism beginning to re-emerge in full force.
In the end, Germans are
Germans and Greeks are Greeks. Germany and Greece are different countries in
different places with different value systems and interests. The idea of
sacrificing for each other is a dubious concept. The idea of sacrificing for
the European Union is a meaningless concept. The European Union has no moral
claim on Europe beyond promising prosperity and offering a path to avoid
conflict. These are not insignificant goals, but when the prosperity stops, a
large part of the justification evaporates and the aversion to conflict (at
least political discord) begins to dissolve.
Germany and Greece each have
explanations for why the other is responsible for what has happened. For the
Germans, it was the irresponsibility of the Greek government in buying political
power with money it didn’t have to the point of falsifying economic
data to obtain eurozone membership. For the Greeks, the problem is the hijacking
of Europe by the Germans. Germany controls the eurozone’s monetary policy
and has built a regulatory system that provides unfair privileges, so the
Greeks believe, for Germany’s exports, economic structure and financial system.
Each nation believes the other is taking advantage of the situation.
Political leaders are seeking
accommodation, but their ability to accommodate each other is increasingly
limited by public opinion growing more hostile not only to the particulars of
the deal but to the principle of accommodation. The most important issue is not
that Germany and Greece disagree (although they do, strongly) but that their
publics are increasingly viewing each other as nationals of a foreign power who
are pursuing their own selfish interests. Both sides say they want “more
Europe,” but only if “more Europe” means more of what they want from the other.
Managing Sacrifice
Nationalism
is the belief that your fate is bound up with your nation and your fellow
citizens and you have an indifference to the fate of others. What the
Europeanists tried to do was create institutions that made choosing between
your own and others unnecessary. But they did this not with martial spirit or
European myth, which horrified them. They made the argument prudently: You will
like Europe because it will be prosperous, and with all of Europe prosperous
there will be no need to choose between your nation and other nations. Their
greatest claim was that Europe would not require sacrifice. To a people who
lived through the 20th century, the absence of sacrifice was enormously
seductive.
But, of course, prosperity
comes and goes, and as it goes sacrifice is needed. And sacrifice — like wealth
— is always unevenly distributed. That uneven distribution is determined not
only by necessity but also by those who have power and control over
institutions. From a national point of view, it is Germany and France that have
the power, with the British happy to be out of the main fray. The weak are the
rest of Europe, those who surrendered core sovereignty to the Germans and
French and now face the burdens of managing sacrifice.
In the end, Europe
will remain an enormously prosperous place. The net worth of Europe — its
economic base, its intellectual capital, its organizational capabilities — is
stunning. Those qualities do not evaporate. But crisis reshapes how they are
managed, operated and distributed. This is now in question. Obviously, the
future of the euro is now widely discussed. So the future of the free-trade
zone will come to the fore. Germany is a massive economy by itself, exporting
more per year than the gross domestic products of most of the world’s other
nation-states. Does Greece or Portugal really want to give Germany a blank
check to export what it wants with it, or would they prefer managed trade under
their control? Play this forward past the euro crisis and the foundations of a
unified Europe become questionable.
This is the stuff that banks
and politicians need to worry about. The deeper worry is nationalism. European
nationalism has always had a deeper engine than simply love of one’s own. It is
also rooted in resentment of others. Europe is not necessarily unique in this,
but it has experienced some of the greatest catastrophes in history because of
it. Historically, the Europeans have hated well. We are very early in the
process of accumulating grievances and remembering how to hate, but we have
entered the process. How this is played out, how the politicians, financiers
and media interpret these grievances, will have great implications for Europe.
Out of it may come a broader sense of national betrayal, which was just what
the European Union was supposed to prevent.
George Friedman, Stratfor,
September 13, 2011
"The
Crisis of Europe and European Nationalism is republished with
permission of STRATFOR."
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