Europe - Back to the Future

Prior to 1945, Europe's history was bipolar. It was marked by a permanent tension between Bismarckian "balance of power", Berlin Congress-like, alliances - and, when these failed, armed conflict. In the decade following the end of World War II, the continent - both West and East - was under foreign military occupation (Soviet and American).

The Cold War was an alien geopolitical agenda, imposed by the United States and the USSR on a Europe devastated by two horrific conflagrations. The USA deployed its pecuniary prowess (the Marshall Plan, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund-IMF) and its formidable army to create NATO, almost single-handedly and often against the express wishes of a Europhobic Britain and an Americanophobic France.

The demise of Communism signaled the end of this aberrant and unprecedented phase in European history. Post 1989, continental politics is back to normal. Europe's nation-states are furiously at work forming supranational political and economic alliances intended to offset Germany's dominance either by co-opting it - or by deterring it.

The foreign policy of the kernel of continental Europe (France and Germany) has significantly diverged from that of its erstwhile ally, the USA. Most Europeans are also busy creating an alternative to NATO, now merely a long arm of the US military. NATO's bases are shifting to the former Soviet colonies. No longer a defensive pact, it provides logistical support and peacekeepers to overextended American troops abroad.

Gradually, as NATO is being Americanized, the European Union (possibly with a corresponding military wing) emerges as the only truly European forum. Euro-Atlanticism seems to have served its purpose. The Europeans' main concern now is not Russia but a resurgent Germany, replete with its re-acquired hinterland (namely the new members of the EU in Central Europe).

It is back to the 19th century. Britain is steeped in glorious isolation. France, wary of Germany, is trying to harness it to the common project of the EU. Germany, aware of its economic might, is reasserting itself diplomatically and militarily. The enlargement of the EU eastwards is the price that France had to reluctantly pay to keep Germany inside the European tent.

The EU is not the first common market in the continent's history - neither is the euro its first monetary union. All previous attempts at unification and harmonization ended in failure. There is no reason to assume that the fate of the current experiment will be any different.

The assertion that Western Europe has seen the last of its wars defies history and geography. It is only a matter of time before another European conflict erupts between the big four: Russia, Britain, France, and Germany. The USA will again be forced to intervene, no doubt.

World in Conflict and Transition
Articles and essays about countries and economies in conflict and transition.