Airstrip One

An Old Pattern Re-emerges...for the last time?

Victor Davis Hanson, in the National Review, argues that the Anti-Americanism articulated by Schroeder and other members of the Left in Germany during their election campaign, was symptomatic of an older resurgence of German nationalism. Whilst he draws parallels between the rhetoric utilised by the moderns to their counterparts in the Weimar Republic and various echoes of the nationalist Sonderweg, Hanson also debates whether this development is a permanent seachange in Mitteleuropa with a resurgent Deutscheland encroaching on its neighbours.

There is not enough evidence to support this thread and, as Germany needs American friendship, rather than vice versa, we have already seen the abandonment of the rhetoric employed during the election campaign. The shadow cast remains as President Bush tends to personalise his relationships with other political leaders and can hold a grudge better than any other Texan.

However, the interesting part of the article reads:

And that fact may well usher in a slow return, after a half century, to an inevitable bilateralism with particular European states — with all its attendant dangers that we have seen in that part of the world over the last 130 years.

In the current crisis, we have seen bilateral relationships with the United States amongst the nation states of Europe ranging from participation to opposition. But is this a last hurrah? When the EU dominates a common foreign policy after 2004, or possibly even earlier if the Irish vote 'No', there will be far less manoevrability for the bilateral relationships that we see today, as the multilateral approach of the EU will take precedence.

Such a policy would be antipathetic to US interests and would hasten Europe's relative economic decline.