Wednesday, February 04, 2004
The Other Half
An interview of Chirac is commented on in the WaPo, and it seems that despite a rhetorical softening, he's still adamant about European influence:
What a list. It should be China and India, with maybe South America in the distant future. At least they have military capabilities on par with what one might expect. Unless Europe gets its act together and develops military capability (unlikely since it can't even get its economy together) it'll be playing second fiddle to the US, China, and India.
I'm really kind of glad that Europe can't find the resolve to develop arms. Any organization in which France tries to exert a great influence is going to have severe problems. As I like to say about France, which as it's been pointed out many times has lost quite a few wars and been occupied, has been on a slow and steady decline since Napoleon was exiled.
Chirac begins with what I count as a small semantic concession. (Words do still matter in France.) "Multipolar," he says, is not a code word for challenging and reducing U.S. power, as some critics charge. It is instead a way of describing a view of the world "that should reinforce the transatlantic relationship.
"Inevitably in this new century we will see a number of important powers assert themselves," Chirac notes. "China, India, Europe, South America are examples. This leads to what I call a 'multipolar world.' Given human nature, the development of a number of big powers -- that is, of strong multiple poles -- could expand the risk of conflict. Those dangers are already quite large due to the power of modern weapons.
What a list. It should be China and India, with maybe South America in the distant future. At least they have military capabilities on par with what one might expect. Unless Europe gets its act together and develops military capability (unlikely since it can't even get its economy together) it'll be playing second fiddle to the US, China, and India.
I'm really kind of glad that Europe can't find the resolve to develop arms. Any organization in which France tries to exert a great influence is going to have severe problems. As I like to say about France, which as it's been pointed out many times has lost quite a few wars and been occupied, has been on a slow and steady decline since Napoleon was exiled.
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