The EU gained serious traction through the late 2000s as the Lisbon Treaty was ratified and the EU's executive and legislative branches became significantly more powerful bodies than they previously were (as I've mentioned before, they begin to rival the powers of the former Articles of Confederation).
But as we know, a unified European continent is verging on the single greatest threat to the US' security. Obviously, the US is relatively preoccupied in the Middle East, but it is not this preoccupation that has kept the US from pressing on the EU (certainly the US is pressing on China and Russia).
Ultimately, the EU is a mixed blessing for the United States. There are some downsides--with a "united" foreign policy representative, it will be "easier" to stand up to the United States on foreign policy matters as a group with collective bargaining power (think of a trade/labor union). The EU could, as a group, threaten all sorts of nasty stuff as a whole, including pulling out of Afghanistan, or otherwise not supporting a US policy, that each state on its own would not be able to credibly do. But these downsides are mitigated by the very things that caused me to use sneer quotes earlier; the EU is not actually a terribly unified place, and probably won't be for a long time, if ever (in the US, it took over 100 years for states to shed their strong unique identities). Most EU countries have a very strong unique identity that the United States lacked when they came together, and already there is a fair amount of discord within the ranks. Italy is up in arms about an EU Court ruling over crucifixes in its schools. The UK is now majority in favor of full withdrawal from the EU (in order to protect its own sovereignty). With the Tories bound to be elected by March, this may end up happening--and if it does, countries like Poland and the Czech Republic may follow.
In general, a fair chunk of EU countries would rather not give up their sovereignty and independence to the extent that the Lisbon Treaty asks them to do, even for the economic benefits entailed by the Eurozone. But in general, the idea that many countries with such disparate geopolitical interests could get along is tough to imagine. The US has the dual advantage of coasts on its east/west, and relative weakness to its north/south (a number of wars have made that the case). Unity is geopolitically sensible for the US, but the EU has very different needs on its West (where it sees relative security) and its east (where Russia looms and the Balkans remain a hotspot). Western and eastern European geopolitical interests and needs will clash in the future as Russia tests the EU, and it may fall apart as the east forms its own alliance bloc with the US and UK (NATO largely faces the same risk as western Europe decides it would rather not suffer through standing up to the Russians again).
Ultimately, the EU will remain geopolitically fractured and weak. The bureaucracy of getting anything all done in the EU is horrendous, especially so for such a new institution. The EU will remain facing inward, trying to find a hopeless balance that works for everyone, instead of looking outward to challenge the US or even Russia. It will, at least, have a strong internal trade, which will ultimately be good for the US--a richer EU will mean not only more high quality products, but a bigger market to which the US can eventually export.
The EU will be an irritation in America's side for a bit as the US and EU diverge on geopolitical topics ranging from the Middle East to Russia to global warming, but the EU's very structure largely prevents it or any other European power from becoming a major geopolitical threat to the US, something with which the US should ultimately be quite pleased.
2 comments:
What about the advantages of a unified EU? Whenever I bring up defense policy in conversations, especially how much we spend on it, the retort I normally get from pro-defense people i that we're the only super power so we're responsible to police the world. And we have the largest military (in hardware like carriers, etc.) by far.
If we have a strong EU, wouldn't that allow for them to possibly take up a more dominant role in their own defense, freeing up our military resources for better operations or domestic spending?
Anthony,
You bring up a great point; thanks.
I definitely think that a stronger EU would have the capability to do some of our policing, and that would be great. I'm just not sure that's how it would turn out.
As much as policing is a pain, it's often the best way the US exerts its influence in the world. Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines, formerly staunch US allies, are starting to drift simply due to apathy--China now means more to them than we do.
The same might happen in the EU--if the EU was strong and unified, we'd likely lose the strength of alliance that we have with Poland and the Czech republic, and we'd probably see a continued decline in Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon, and Morocco.
Running the world doesn't seem like the best of jobs, and it isn't. But the biggest threat to the US' national security in the very long term is a highly unified enemy and a lack of support on our side. A strong EU (with a larger GDP than we have) with a strong military would ultimately be able to sap our influence from its region and stand up to us on major policy issues, one at a time, until the world doesn't look as much like we'd like it (for our own security) as it does now.
Remember also that a unified Europe would pose almost as much a threat to the US as the US does to Europe--European ships would be able to rival our hegemony of the Atlantic much more easily than Chinese ships in the Pacific, even, if they had the strength. The only thing that would keep them weak(ish) would be if the Russians were strong enough to move attention to the East.
Don't get me wrong--I don't think the Europeans are a threat in the medium term at all. We're friends. But one of the reasons we're friends is that most of them are not strong enough to shape the world on their own, so they look to the US--their closest superpower ideologically--for help, which means getting along. In the long term, the need to cozy up to us would erode, and we would find more to fight over.
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