PATRICK LAWRENCE: Bidens Missing Link with Europe
February 22, 2021
While the Continent welcomed the Cold Wars end, America which would be
utterly lost without an enemy never has.
President Joe Biden at the White House, Feb. 1. (White House, Adam Schultz)
By Patrick Lawrence
Special to Consortium News
President Joe Biden at last got his chance to sit at the head of the table
when he addressed (virtually, of course) the annual Munich Security
Conference on Friday. Finally, he was able to repeat for Americas
traditional European allies that endlessly rehearsed line of his, America
is back.
It does not appear that those in attendance, notably the German and French
leaders, tucked into their shared repast with anything remotely close to
gusto. Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Emmanuel Macron seemed to
wonder more or less out loud whether to take Bidens America is back as a
promise or a threat.
Americas political elites are so accustomed to swindling their citizenry
with abandon that they make the fatal mistake of assuming they can bamboozle
their counterparts abroad just as easily. Uh-uh. What it comes to, time and
again, is lousy statecraft that leaves America and Americans that much
further from the 21st centurys perfectly obvious realities chief among
them that the table is round now and nobody sits at its head.
We must demonstrate that democracies can still deliver for our people,
Biden told the Munich session from the East Room of the White House. That
is our galvanizing mission. Democracy doesnt happen by accident. We have to
defend it. Strengthen it. Renew it. We have to prove that our model isnt a
relic of our history.
There are two ways to read these remarks. One, Bidens apparent intent was
to curtain-raise the global summit of democracies his regime plans to
convene with Big Joe again at the head of the table later this year. As
a tin-eared attempt to recapitulate the Wests superiority over the rest,
this venture is so fated to flop that it is a fair question whether Bidens
people will go through with it.
The West Grows Weary of the West
Apart from the U.S., even the West grows weary of the West, it seems. This
is an excellent thing. My bet: The main-chancers managing Bidens foreign
and national-security policies will quietly ditch this project to spare
their boss the embarrassment.
Two, one can but marvel at Bidens nerve in going anywhere near the matter
of delivering for our people. Promised relief checks are nowhere to be
found, there will be no student debt forgiveness, no public option
incorporated into our health care system, no $15-an-hour wage, millions of
Americans cannot meet their bills, there are bread lines across the country,
privatized public goods are failing: Does Biden think the rest of the world
does not notice and can be as cavalierly flimflammed as those suckered into
voting for him last November?
April 16, 2015: Protest for $15 minimum wage, Los Angeles. (SEIU Local 99 |
Education Workers United, Flickr)
Here is Chancellor Merkel , speaking after Biden called on the Europeans to
prepare together for a long-term strategic competition with China, to
revive the NATO military alliance, and to sign on for a common response to
all those alleged Russian interventions for which no shred of evidence has
ever been presented:
In recent years, China has gained global clout, and as transAtlantic
partners and democracies, we must do something to counter this
. Russia
continually entangles European Union members in hybrid conflicts.
Consequently, it is important that we come up with a transAtlantic agenda
toward Russia that makes cooperative offers on the one hand, but on the
other very clearly names the differences.
And here is Macron, who famously termed NATO brain dead in an interview
with The Economisttwo years ago and who evinces a pronounced Gaullist streak
on the question of Europes strategic autonomy, as he puts it:
I do believe in NATO
. I do believe NATO needs a new political momentum and
clarification of its strategic concept. NATO needs a more political
approach
. I do believe the best possible involvement of Europe within NATO
is to be much more in charge of its own security.
This is how Europeans have come to humor American blowhards such as Biden.
Yes, we must do something about China and we must name the differences
with Russia both thoughts falling well short of the new Cold War Biden
urged. Yes, NATO is OK, but it ought to think politically as against
militarily, and as a Cold War institution it is indeed outmoded.
European Parrying Act
We can also call this parrying, an activity Europeans have got very good at
since it became clear, at least as far back as the Obama administration,
that Americans simply do not understand the dynamics of our new century.
Here is Merkel again, at a moment she slipped the gloves partly off:
Our interests will not always converge.
Macron, in a similarly forthright mode, reiterated his compelling argument
that European security required not animus and more NATO advances eastward
but a dialogue with Russia.
The Munich Security Conference was Bidens first turn as a statesman on the
global stage. It is important we do not miss its significance.
In the immediate, what lies out front in transAtlantic relations is lip
service in response to Americas incessant efforts to keep the world as
thoroughly divided and on edge as possible. Europe, meanwhile which
understands and favors multipolarity as a 21st century imperative goes its
own way as measured by facts on the ground.
The European Union and China, let us not forget, signed the most extensive
investment accord in Chinas modern history at the turn of the year this
over the 11-hour objections of Jake Sullivan, since confirmed as Bidens
national security adviser. Germany will go along with the ridiculous
charade involving Alexei Navalnys now-disproven poisoning, but it will
complete Gazproms Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline despite Washingtons frantic
efforts to block it.
World Leaders at the Nord Stream opening ceremony in 2011. (Kremilin,
Wikimedia Commons)
Let us now watch as Germany chooses Merkels successor later this year.
Armin Laschet, the just-named head of the Christian Democratic Union and the
front-runner for the chancellorship, is uninterested in Washingtons Cold
War-ish machinations in favor of cooperative relations with Moscow and
Beijing alike.
In these immediate considerations we can detect a longue durée, a deeper
current of history, that has been evident in transAtlantic ties since the
Cold Wars end. No U.S. administration has understood this force in the
slightest, and Bidens may prove the stupidest given how swiftly this
dynamic now drives European thinking. Certainly. it was evident in what
Merkel, Macron and other Europeans had to say in Munich.
Europe welcomed the Cold Wars end as America, which would be utterly lost
without an enemy, never has. During the three decades since, the Continent
has faced two questions it will ineluctably have to resolve in years and
decades to come. Geography is destiny in both cases, fair to say.
Berlin 1989: Soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9. (Raphaël
Thiémard, Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)
One question concerns the industrial democracies position at the western
end of the Eurasian landmass. After many years of dithering and fumbling,
which Europeans are also good at, they are now addressing this reality more
directly and not to be missed in their own interest. This is what we
heard at the Munich conference.
Look at a map: What we call the Continent shares a border with Russia, whose
identity is European and nonWestern all at once. Beyond Russia lies China,
whose Belt and Road Initiative, despite problems of poor planning and
overreach, is about nothing if not the natural unity of the landmass that
stretches from Shanghai to Lisbon.
It would be folly to suggest that any sort of decisive breach in
transAtlantic relations is in the offing. European leaders are very clear
on this point. Is the Continent likely to emerge as a separate pole of power
bridging West and nonWest? This is a separate question, and my answer is a
cautious yes providing European leaders cultivate and maintain a thorough
grasp of history and their place in it.
The second question concerns Europes periphery. One way or another, the
Continent will have to develop a sustainable settlement with the Islamic
nations of North Africa and the Middle East. The U.S. can bomb and disrupt
these nations with impunity because they are distant. Europe enjoys no such
luxury, if luxury is our term.
I see few signs Europeans are at all aware of this second imperative, but
there are a few. When the E3 France, Germany and Britain broke with
the U.S. after the Trump administration withdrew from the nuclear accord
with Iran, it was an announcement that, just as Merkel said in Munich last
week, European and American interests can no longer be assumed to be
congruent.
I recall no previous time when an intellectual grasp of underlying global
realities, along with a literate awareness of historys turning wheel,
mattered more than now. It is early days, but the Biden administration
appears to be woefully deficient on both counts.
Memo to Biden: Mr. Prez, forget the long refectory table with a headmasters
chair just for you at one end. The dining room has been refashioned.
