THE U.S. AND EUROPE, 1945 TO TODAY

Immanuel Wallerstein

la rivista del manifesto

numero 51 giugno 2004

Since 1945, a primary objective of U.S. foreign policy
has been to keep western Europe as a subordinated,
highly integrated, part of its geopolitical strategic
resources. This was easy to achieve in the aftermath of
the Second World War, when Europe was economically
exhausted from the effects of the war, and when a
majority of its populations, and even more of the
political and economic elite, were fearful of Communist
forces, both because of Soviet military power and
because of the popular strength of western European
Communist parties. The U.S. program took the form of
Marshall Plan economic assistance for European recovery
and the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization.

It is within this context that the moves to create
European institutions took place. At first, these
efforts were limited to six countries - France, West
Germany, Italy, and the three Benelux countries - and
involved limited economic arrangements. There were also
early efforts to create European military structures,
which were not successful. The movement in this
direction was strongly supported by European Christian-
Democratic parties, but also by Social-Democratic
parties. They were strongly opposed by the Communist
parties in these countries, who saw these structures as
part of the Cold War. From a U.S. point of view,
European structures seemed desirable, both because they
strengthened European economies (and therefore made
them better customers for U.S. exports and
investments), and because they seemed to be a way of
allaying French fears about German military rearmament
and integration into NATO.

By the 1960’s, two elements in the equation began to
change from the U.S. point of view. First, Western
Europe was becoming too strong. It was emerging as an
economic peer of the U.S. and therefore as a potential
serious competitor in the world-economy. Secondly,
Charles de Gaulle came to power once again in France.
And De Gaulle wanted to have European structures that
would be politically autonomous, that is, not
subordinate segments of U.S. geopolitical strategic
resources. At this point, U.S. enthusiasm about
European unity began to cool. But the U.S. found itself
politically unable to state this openly. There were
further shifts in the situation. The Communist parties
of Western Europe grew weaker electorally. And their
politics began to change in the direction of what was
then called Eurocommunism. One of the consequences was
a shift in the position of these parties about European
structures, which they began cautiously to support, or
at least tolerate.

This was the period in which the U.S. was losing the
war in Vietnam, which took a serious toll on the U.S.
geopolitical position. The combination of this
political-military setback, combined with the emergence
of Western Europe and Japan as major economic
competitors, meant the end of unquestioned U.S.
hegemony in the world-system and the beginning of a
slow decline. It required a major shift in U.S. foreign
policy from the simple outright dominance of the
earlier period. The shift started with Nixon - détente
with the Soviet Union, and more importantly the trip to
Beijing and the transformation of U.S.-China relations.
Nixon initiated the policy of what I call soft multilateralism,' a policy that would be pursued by every successive U.S. president from Nixon to Clinton, including Reagan and George H.W. Bush. In terms of Europe, the main consideration was how to slow down what seemed to be a growing trend towards European political autonomy. To do this, the U.S. offered Europe geopoliticalpartnership’ (that is, a
degree of political consultation) on two fronts - the
continuing Cold War with the Soviet Union, and the
political-economic struggles of the North versus the
South. This was supposed to be implemented by a
multitude of institutions - among others, the
Trilateral Commission, the meetings of the G-7, and the
World Economic Forum at Davos. The program on the Cold
War resulted in the Helsinki agreements. The North-
South program resulted in the drive against nuclear
proliferation, the Washington Consensus (in favor of
neo-liberalism, against developmentalism), and the
construction of the World Trade Organization.

In the 1970s and 1980s, one could say that the adjusted
U.S. foreign policy was partially successful. Although
Europe’s political autonomy increased - remember
German’s Ostpolitik and the gazoduc linking the Soviet
Union and Western Europe - by and large Europe did not
wander very far from the U.S. geopolitically. In
particular, attempts to create a European army were
effectively blocked by continuing opposition by the
United States. In practice, although not in words, the
U.S. had become hostile to European unity.

U.S. policy seemed even more successful on the North-
South front. Most Third World countries fell in line
with the IMF’s structural adjustment policies, and even
the socialist countries of east-central Europe moved in
this direction. Popular disillusion with the national
liberation movements in power and with the Communist
regimes in the socialist bloc muted any remaining
militancy and created a sense of morose pessimism among
the world left. And of course, the final triumph' was the collapse of the U.S.S.R. But thistriumph’ did not at all serve U.S. foreign
policy interests, least of all in Western Europe. For
it removed the last major argument as to why Western
Europe should accept a subordination to U.S.
geopolitical leadership' around the world. Saddam Hussein seized the moment to pose an overt challenge to the U.S., something he would never have been able to do in the previous Cold War days. The Gulf War ended in a truce at the line of departure, which, as the decade went on, seemed less and less acceptable to the U.S. Clinton nonetheless pursued the Nixon policy ofsoft
multilateralism’ in the Balkans, the Middle East, and
East Asia, and the west Europeans still declined to
break openly with the U.S. on any major issue.

Meanwhile, to ensure that western Europe would stay in
line, the U.S. pushed hard for the incorporation into
European institutions (and NATO) of the now non-
Communist east and central European states, feeling
that these states would be eager to maintain and
reinforce ties with the U.S. and would thus
counterbalance the emerging autonomist sentiments in
western Europe.

Enter George W. Bush and the hawks. They viewed the
Nixon-to-Clinton foreign policy as incredibly weak and
a major contribution to the continuing decline of U.S.
power in the world. They were particularly disdainful
of any reliance on United Nations structures and
especially anxious to contain Europe’s aspirations to
political autonomy. In their view, the way to do this
was to assert U.S. power unilaterally, and militarily,
in a blatantly forceful way. Their target of choice,
well announced beforehand during the 1990s, was Iraq,
for three reasons: The Gulf War had been humiliating' for the U.S. in that Saddam Hussein survived; Iraq would be an excellent site for permanent U.S. bases in the Middle East; Iraq was an easy target, militarily, precisely because it did not have weapons of mass destruction. The theory of the hawks was that the conquest of Iraq would demonstrate the unbeatable military superiority of the United States, and would therefore have three effects: It would intimidate the western Europeans (and secondarily the East Asians) and end all aspirations for political autonomy. It would intimidate all aspiring nuclear powers and induce them to abandon any pretensions to obtaining such weapons. It would intimidate all Middle Eastern states, and induce them to end all aspirations for self-assertion geopolitically as well as get them to accept a settlement of the Israel/Palestine issue on terms acceptable to Israel and the United States. This policy has been a complete fiasco. The seemingly easy target of Iraq has turned out not to be such an easy target. At the moment, the U.S. occupation is facing resistance and an ever-growing uprising which will minimally end with an Iraqi government not at all to the taste of the U.S. and maximally with a total withdrawal of U.S. forces, as happened in Vietnam. The attempt to split Europe into two camps - the so-calledold Europe’ and new Europe' - had momentary success. But with the Spanish elections, the tide has turned entirely, and Europe is on the verge of establishing its geopolitical autonomy for the first time since 1945. Nuclear proliferation has not been slowed down. If anything, it has been speeded up. And Middle Eastern states are pulling away from, not edging towards, the United States (with the exception of Libya, a policy that may not last). And Israel/Palestine is in total deadlock, which will persist until it explodes in a way that cannot be contained. The macho unilateralism of the hawks has failed, and support for such a policy within the United States has declined considerably, even among Republican conservatives. However, what is the alternative? What the Republican moderates, and even more the centrist Democrats, led by John F. Kerry, offer in its place is a return to thesoft multilateralism’ of the Nixon-to-
Clinton years. Can this work now? It is very doubtful.
It is almost certain that, in the next decade, the
siren of nuclear armament will attract a dozen states
at least, and that we shall be going from eight to
twenty-five nuclear powers in the next quarter century.
This provides a real constraint on U.S. military power.

There seems no likelihood that Middle Eastern realities
will move in any direction the U.S. will like. This is
particularly true of Israel/Palestine. What of Europe?
Europe is the big question mark of world geopolitics at
the moment. Even the most Atlanticist' of Europeans has become wary of the U.S. government, and even of a:multilateralist’ U.S. But Europe still shares one
interest with the United States - the North-South
struggle. The adoption of a serious European
constitution is still in doubt, especially since a
single negative vote on a referendum in any one country
can undo any agreement. And in particular, the European
left is not yet cured of its post-1945 doubts about
European unity, and is therefore not yet ready to throw
itself wholeheartedly into European construction. This
is particularly true in the Nordic countries and in
France, but there are some similar reserves almost
everywhere.

A strong autonomous Europe is a first, and essential,
building block of a multipolar world. An autonomous
Europe that would be willing to work towards a
fundamental restructuring of the world-economy in
directions that would actually start to overcome the
continuing North-South polarization would constitute an
even greater change on the world scene. Both are
eminently possible. Neither is at all certain.

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