Pax Americana or bi-Polar World

The Malta Independent on Sunday 

This is basic the dilemma facing the EU as it strives to adopt a common foreign and security policy.

The North Continental West European members of the EU, particularly France and Germany, seem to have a vision of a bi-polar world where Europe unites and offers a counter-balance to the over concentration of military and economic strengths currently in America’s hands.

Britain, Spain, Italy and most of the new East European candidate members prefer a vision of Pax Americana. They see the EU as an integral component of NATO where American leadership can depend on EU support to impose an American view on the world.

This division of opinion was exposed in an unmistakeable way by the war of Iraq. The USA did not find the support of France and Germany to do war on Saddam and with France enjoying a veto in the UN security council the US was forced to proceed to war without UN approval and outside the NATO shield. They did so with Britain’s active support, and with the endorsement of Spain, Italy and the 10 east European candidate countries who have joined or are expecting to join NATO.

With Malta joining Ireland, Sweden and Austria as the fourth neutral EU member state which vision of the EU are we to encourage?

It is almost natural to suggest that in line with our neutrality provisions we should be quite neutral about the issue and let others sort this out for themselves. However as members of the international community and as Europeans in the wider context beyond the boundaries of the EU we should probably have a natural preference for the bi-polar world.

A world where the current US domination in economic and military power is matched by development of the EU into a strong economic region sharing a common reserve currency matching the holding attraction as that currently commanded by the dollar. Where the EU’s military and defence powers would make the US share the role of acting like justice for the world, helping the EU to take direct control of the Mediterranean and its immediate neighbourhood to ensure an orderly neighbourly relationship and the establishment of peace in the region.

Although the US would probably discourage developments in this direction, stressing the importance of preserving the strong trans-Atlantic structure they dominate and echoing Blair’s view that the EU should hold hands as the junior partner of the US in administering a Pax Americana solution for the world, it is quite probable that the time will come where the process of the EU giving shape to a bi-polar world becomes unstoppable and indeed desirable.

As the US is discovering in Iraq, it is much more difficult to win peace than to win war. Much more resources are needed and for much longer period in order to fabricate a stable structure that could guarantee some sort of peace and democracy in Iraq than was actually needed to topple a long standing dictator and invade the land.

Iraq is absorbing such a high percentage of the available resources of the mighty US defence machine, that constraint is created in their handling other delicate situations which tend to emerge with monotonous regularity in a world where peace remains an elusive butterfly. With the US and British troops inextricably committed to nursing Iraq painfully back to normality as understood in western democracy terms, other more imminent turbulences, such as the nuclear threats from North Korea or civil war in Liberia, raise their head at a time when the US cannot seriously threaten military discipline with its resources so much committed elsewhere.

Even in economic terms the US could well be manufacturing an explosive situation where guns and butter cannot co-exist and the American people will be called to tighten their belt to finance the great military cost of imposing their peace on far away regions of the world. Huge balance of payments deficits and sharp deterioration in public budget over the last 3 years cannot be a sustainable alternative and will ultimately translate itself into a sharp reduction in the value of the US$ as happened under Carter in 1978 when the bills from the Vietnam war had left a huge hole in US finances.

Would the US electorate be prepared to pay for the cost of exporting the American dream by tight-belt taxation, in Bush Sr.’s read my lips style, and higher interest rates that may have to be imposed on a fragile economy still trying to recover from the fallout of the tech bubble? Probably the attraction of a bi-polar world where the EU would share the responsibilities and the cost of a super-power role will not remain so unattractive to US strategists. And having a super-power that shares their basic concepts of democracy would be much more attractive for US interests than the situation of bi-polarism during the cold war.

What would be challenging is the attraction of democratic Russia to one of the poles in order to prepare for the inevitable emergence of a third pole as China achieves economic weight and political power.

In an emerging multi-polar world our neutrality could regain the significance it has lost in the current scenario of American domination of international politics. Hence why I am inclined to disagree to any changes in the Constitution to tailor it to current circumstances. Circumstances change and continuous constitutional changes are too onerous. It is the interpretation that needs to be adapted to the emerging circumstances.