Of Paradise, Power, and Pachyderms

Abstract

Although global consensus on some key political principles (democracy and respect for human rights, for example) seems greater now than ever before, political conflicts fester where they might least be expected. U.S.-led war in Iraq highlighted a blistering divide over the unilateral use of force, generating claims of anti-Americanism and talk of a fundamental transatlantic rift. Although transatlantic differences have been encountered in the past (for example, the 1956 Suez crisis, President John F. Kennedy's handling of the Berlin crisis, the value of theater nuclear weapons, con tributions to the costs of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO], etc.), rifts have appeared especially acrimonious in recent years. American neoconservatives have most confidently trumpeted an apparent crumbling of the West as a coherent moral community and solid geopolitical axis. In the realm of foreign affairs, it is often claimed that Americans stand for a boldness that accepts the value of force in the pursuit of ideals, while Europeans prefer a limp-wristed and ultimately counterproductive commitment to diplomacy and consensual multilateralism. For instance, Henry Kissinger observes, The early crises within the Alliance were generally in the nature of family disputes, having to do with differing interpretations of the requirements of an agreed common security. Today the very definition of common security and, indeed, of common purpose is being questioned.1 In his much-quoted book, Of Paradise and Power, Robert Kagan warns, It is time to stop pretending that Europeans and Americans share a common view of the world, or even that they occupy the same world.2 In the view of Harvard's Daniel Pipes, The