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Of
Paradise
and Power
by
Robert Kagan.
Summary of the Book
Prior to WWI and WWII, European countries were competing against
each other militarily.
What they saw happened in WWII caused them to
determine to something so that it will never happen again. So, they
stopped building military power, and instead relied on other methods of
resolving disputes.
In WWII US made them win, and they realized the might and loved
the presence of US in
Europe
. After WWII in cold war decades, US protected them against
Russia
, and they did not spend much in military, but grew economically. That
is the paradise of US or the West.
While the Europeans now want to resole world conflicts non
militarily, US, being militarily strong and giant does not want to
surrender its freedom of decisions upon any global organization.
Thus Europe depends upon the
US
, but still does not want to support US in its unilateral stance.
Below is quote within << >> from the last part of this
small booklet of about 100 pages.
<< The problem is that United States must sometimes play by
the rules of Hobbestian world, even though in doing so it violates
Europe's post modern norms. It must refuse to abide by certain
international conventions that may constrain its ability to fight
effectively in Robert Cooper's jungle. It must support arms control, but
not always for itself. It must live by a double standard. And it must
sometimes act unilaterally, not out of a passion for unilateralism but
only because, the
United States
has no choice but to act unilaterally.
Few Europeans admit, as Cooper does implicitly, that such
America
behavior may redound to the greater benefit of the civilized world, that
American power, even employed under a double standard, may be the best
means of advancing human progress - and perhaps the only means. As
Niebuhr wrote a half century ago,
America
's "inordinate power,' for all its "perils," provides
"some real advantages for the world community." Instead, many
European today have come to consider the
United States
itself to be the outlaw, a rouge colossus.
The danger- if it is a danger- is that the
United States
and
Europe
could become positively estranged. Europeans could become more and more
shrill in their attacks on the
United States
. The
United States
could become less inclined to listen, or perhaps even care. The day
could come, if it has not already, when Americans might not more heed
the pronouncements of the EU than they do the pronouncements of ASEAN of
the Andean Pat.
To those of us who came of age in the Cold War, the strategic
decoupling of Europe and the
United States
seems frightening. e Gaulle, when confronted by FDR's vision of a world
where
Europe
was irreverent, recoiled and suggested that the vision "risked
endangering the Western world." If Western Europe was to be
considered a "secondary matter" by the
United States
, would not FDR only "weaken the very cause he meant to serve- that
of civilization?"
Western Europe
, de Gaulle maintained, was "essential to the West. Nothing can
replace the value, the power, the shinning example of the ancient
people." Typically, he insisted this was "true of
France
above all." But leaving aside French amour
propre, did de Gaulle have a point? if Americans were to decide that
Europe
was no more than an irritating irrelevancy, would American society
gradually become unmoored from what we now call "the West"? it
is not a risk to be taken lightly, on either side of the
Atlantic
. >>
A couple of points are worth noting:
1)
Europe
and US are united under the banner of the "West" or
Christendom. While Europe talks of no war any more and wants to use
non-war solutions, it relies on sheer brute unilateral power of US to
protect it, even if
Europe
goes against US. This I see as two faces of Christendom. Similarly Islam
also has two faces: The Islamists and the human right Muslims within
world human right org.s
2) The paradise of the "West" that never want a war
again, needs a giant military power - US - to keep the paradise alive
and well. This basically is the non ahimsa stance of a powerful.
3) It is said that Gandhi's ahimsa got freedom for
India
. Now, what percentage of people actually marched against the armed
Brits nonviolently? Very few percentage of the population. Why this made
the Brits to quit
India
? Because:
a) They wanted to show the world that they are nice people, not
quitting would not be nice of them.
b) Suppose they continue beating and killing the unarmed small
army of Gandhi, there is a fear that the vast majority of the population
may get really angry and violent even if Gandhi had said them not to be
violent. If that happens, they cannot get back alive. All know that
there is always some limit as to how much injustice/violence one can
tolerate when one is not at any fault or has done no wrong. This fear
could also have forced them to quit.
c) Of course it is known that the Brits were tired of WWII.
This also comes to the same point that absolute ahimsa cannot work
for a society/ nation.
Therefore, kshatriya spirit is needed in each
varna
, and each
varna
can fight in many non violent ways. In the time of peace a nation needs
to prepare and be ready to fight any time.
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