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America's Eurasian
reshuffle
By Francesco Sisci and Lu
Xiang
BEIJING - The terror attacks of September
11, 2001, seemed close enough to Samuel P Huntington's
forecasts in his famous The Clash of Civilizations
and the Remaking of World Order,
but the consequences for the world appear now, some
18 months after those events, completely opposite.
France and Germany, the bulwark of Western
civilization according to Huntington, are on a collision course against
the United States; ironically, the European countries
closer to the US are the ones further from Huntington's
"nordic" culture: Spain, Italy and Eastern Europe.
France and Germany, partly because of their
significant domestic Muslim minorities, are in fact
rediscovering 13 centuries after the Arab conquest that
split the Mediterranean in two, north and south, that
the center of Europe is something that is only partly
"European". In fact the projection of northern and
continental Europe toward the southern and eastern
shores of this sea is something that has been attempted
routinely for centuries, from the times of the Crusades
until a few decades ago, when France controlled Algeria
and Tunisia. The opposite was also true, as the Arabs
held Spain, in all or in part, until the 15th century,
and the Turks battled Vienna in the Balkans until the
18th century.
In this case for France and
Germany the opposition to the US war in Iraq could be
part of a grander strategy. On the one hand Paris and
Berlin, commanding the largest economies on the
continent, could form the nucleus of that "Kerneuropa"
(Core Europe) which could be the real pole of union for
Europe. The project is even more important as the
European Union is expanding in all directions,
incorporating the Baltic republics and Turkey. A union,
moving from 12 to 15 and then to 22 and who knows how
many more members, loses focus and decisiveness. The
rules in the EU are democratic and differentiate among
the size of member states, in theory granting the same
power for the six-month presidency to Luxembourg and to
Germany encourages divisions within larger countries.
Provinces, such as Bavaria in Germany or Lombardy in
Italy, could feel they could get better representation
in the EU if they stood as independent states rather
than as part of a larger country. This is particularly
true in Italy, where Lombardy is one of the richest
areas in Europe but within Italy it must live with
provinces that are some of the poorest areas of the
whole union.
At the same time, the collapse of
the Soviet Union in the east has erased the 50-year-long
strategic challenge to Western and Central Europe. The
defeat of the radical Muslim world in the first Gulf War
has erased the other challenge from the southern and
eastern Mediterranean. This second Gulf War is set to
start without an open provocation from Iraq like its
previous invasion of Kuwait, and likely without the
much-ballyhooed smoking gun proving Saddam Hussein's
evil intentions. This could antagonize the Muslims in
Europe and in the Middle East, and widen the rift
between the northern and southern Mediterranean.
On the contrary, a greater cooperation between
France and Germany and their projection toward the
Muslim world could, in time, produce the double bonus of
forming a center of European decisions and extending a
friendly hand to the Middle East. This friendly hand is
especially important as, for the first time since the
Roman Empire, there could be some degree of cultural and
political agreement between the north and the south of
this sea. In Europe in the same fashion France and
Germany stand alone but strong within Europe, thus in
effect marginalizing other countries. The position of
France and Germany also offers a Western interlocutor to
moderate Muslims seeking viable alternatives to
radicalism. This could be especially important as Iraq,
unlike Saudi Arabia, is not a radicalized country, and
its defeat could open the floodgates to greater Muslim
fundamentalism.
All of this is not necessarily
negative for the ongoing US war in Iraq, but
certainly imposes a new strategic paradigm between the
two sides of the Atlantic, where France and Germany do
not accept playing second fiddle to the United States.
However, from the US perspective, the United States was
able to fight for France, the center of the present
dispute, three times in the past century - in both World
Wars and in the Cold War - but France is dragging its
feet on a war for the US.
But it is not a matter
of exchange of favors and certainly not one of
civilizations: it is geopolitics. France and Germany
could move up their political integration, and project
themselves to Africa and the Middle East, appease Moscow
while integrating Poland, the Baltic and even Ukraine
into a bipolar Europe. In one there can be Framania
(France plus Germany) and the dwarves who wish to join
(Belgium, Luxembourg etc) and in the other everyone
else.
The appeal of this design is enormous, and
whatever the results of the war it could build a sizable
economic nucleus that, in time, could do without the US.
The present growth of the euro is also part of this
appeal, as the European economy appears slower but less
volatile than the turbulent economy of the United
States.
On the security issue, in theory France
and Germany could do without the US, as Russia is no
longer a real threat, the greatest cause of conflict in
the continent for centuries, the clash between France
and Germany, has been solved thanks to US intervention.
Furthermore Framania feels it could handle the Middle
East better without the United States, or at
least with less US intervention.
Go east,
young man
The picture of this geopolitical
reshuffle is not complete without looking at the other
side of the Eurasian continent. Here China, Japan, but
also Taiwan, South Korea and Thailand have a greater
financial integration with the US than Europe has. They
have built a virtuous circle in which the US buys their
products, and in turn these countries buy US debt in the
form of US Treasury bonds. In this way the US keeps its
inflation down and the Asian countries are able to
produce more efficiently. The Asian countries boost and
upgrade their production, as the US supports the
continuous improvement of Asian production lines. This
contract has built a mutual bond from which it is
practically impossible for either side to withdraw.
The bond has grown stronger after the defeat of
Japan in its challenge to the US in the late 1980s and
the weakening of the yen vis-a-vis the dollar.
Furthermore, the region has weathered the 1997 financial
crisis in which Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji refused to
devalue Asia's second-strongest currency, the yuan, and
break the peg between it and the dollar. In 1998,
Washington and Beijing intervened together to stem the
continuous devaluation of the yen, which was making life
difficult for the yuan and its peg to the dollar. Now in
times of a weak dollar, it can be argued that the peg of
the yuan, sustained by the buoyant Chinese economy,
helps support the greenback against the euro. And even
while thinking of a greater integration in Asia with the
Asian Cooperation Dialogue, promoted by Thailand, the
ACD has launched an Asian bond, which is denominated in
US dollars.
On a strategic level, while the US
is not necessary in continental Europe, as internal
conflicts have subsided and clashes with the Muslim
world could be solved possibly, thinks Framania, with
less US intervention, the United States is more
necessary than ever in East Asia.
The North
Korean crisis shows the reality of threats from the
peninsula to the islands of Japan. Before these threats,
China was not able to control them, and the mutual
suspicion between Beijing and Tokyo is light-years away
from the entente cordiale between Berlin and
Paris. Therefore either the US intervenes and spearheads
a solution, or Japan could very well rearm, something
that would prickle many sensitivities in China and the
rest of Asia. Similarly, if not worse, problems exist
between China and India, where there is an unsolved and
difficult border issue, and the open wound of Kashmir
and low-intensity war with Pakistan, a traditional
Chinese ally. Whereas both in Beijing and Tokyo in the
past decades there have been many movements, largely
aborted, to improve the political climate, such gestures
have not even started to be exchanged between Beijing
and New Delhi, where the list of problems is dauntingly
long. In Southeast Asia the situation is better, but
only in appearance, because these nations are torn
between contradictory loyalties, to Beijing, Tokyo or
New Delhi, with each country harboring its own agenda,
priorities and suspicions. For example, Vietnam is more
wary of China than Thailand is.
Even China,
considered by the US to be the biggest threat to the
region, would have a very difficult time doing without a
US presence in East Asia, as it would be left without a
net to deal with Japan and India. Tensions could quite
easily arise, which could potentially derail Beijing's
ultimate concern of economic growth.
East Asia
is far from the lack of strategic flashpoints of Western
Europe, which managed to stand up, with the US, to the
communist threat for 50 years and the war in Yugoslavia
for 10 years without breaking up. In Asia for instance,
the simple withdrawal of the US from its protection of
Taiwan could ignite several conflicts. Without US
protection, would Taiwan resist the temptation to
declare independence and thus provoke Beijing into a
war? Would China resist the temptation to pressure
Taiwan more? In both cases, whatever the outcome, Japan
would feel threatened, and Japan is the single largest
economy of Asia, making up alone most of the dollar
value of the regional production and trade. Japan
therefore is not like Britain, which is a large economy
but does not make up the largest part of the welfare of
Europe. Differences of political regimes in different
countries hamper further trust and political
integration. The resolution of political systems and the
soothing of wariness could take at least 20 years. In
the meantime the US is the only huge buffer among the
many potential conflicts of the continent.
In
other words, differently from Europe, there is an
economic and strategic integration across the Pacific
far larger than across the Atlantic. Moreover, whereas
in Europe there are objective interests to decrease the
US presence, none of these interests are present in
Asia, nor will be for the next two decades.
The
war in Iraq could well be a catalyst of both trends. It
could deepen the Atlantic divide, and strengthen the
Asian reliance on the United States. Framania might be
tempted to show greater difference with the United
States whereas Asia would fear a US pullout from the
continent, which would do away with the huge buffer
provided by the US. However, especially in the case of
US failure in Iraq, Asia might look with greater
interest at Framania, as a counterbalance to the buffer
role of the United States in the region.
It all
depends on the results of US actions in Iraq. Iraq is no
Afghanistan. In Afghanistan it is just important to take
Kabul and make sure the many tribes won't host foreign
fundamentalists, something that most would gladly do, as
they saw Osama bin Laden and his cohorts as some kind of
foreign interference or invasion. In Iraq, one must
rebuild a state, and in recent times there have not been
many successful examples of state rebuilding. But the
very idea of rebuilding a state comes from the US, which
after World War II successfully rebuilt Japan and
Germany. In theory, Washington could do it, provided it
does so in earnest and considers the concerns of other
countries in the region and throughout the world.
The success of peace in Iraq could as well set a
new tone in relations across the Atlantic, but could it
really unwind the new notion of Framania? The concept of
European union pales in comparison of the new Framania.
And Italy, naturally straddled halfway between the
Middle East and Europe, can hardly resist the sirens of
Framania singing the tune of bridging the gap with the
other shore of the Mediterranean. With Italy,
France-Germany would stop being simply "Framania" and
would become something very much like a new version of
the Roman Empire.
Then, what would be the
relations across the Atlantic? There are many "ifs" in
this story, but one certainty: after a short period of
glory, is definitely time to say adieu to Mr Huntington.
(©2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights
reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com
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