…even under Barack Obama. Nice piece in the FT on European angst about American power, and the continent’s inability as yet to offer a unified foreign policy with punch. Ideally, EU foreign and defense policies could serve as a counterweight to the G-2, read: China and the U.S. The latest flare-up of this angst involved a French official complaining about U.S. heavy-handedness in managing relief in Haiti. Alleged American heavy-handedness — and not from W, but from Barack Obama. Have a read…
One of the problems the Europeans have had since the end of WWII is their happy laziness with being a “free rider” under the American security umbrella. No one in Europe wants to increase defense spending so that they would actually be taken seriously as an alternative force in the world. After tens of millions dead in the first half the 20th century at the hands of European geopolitics, is it simply that they still do not trust themselves? Probably not. More likely that it is easy and cheap to remain a free rider.