In the NYT, Timothy Garton Ash argues that Americans systematically underestimate the power of the European Union, but welcomes signs of change:
President Bush is preparing to take the European Union more seriously as a union - not just a collection of diverse states from which Washington can pick and choose its allies. This is a welcome development, since only by working together can the United States and the European Union hope to surmount the challenges that face these twin heirs to the Enlightenment in today's dangerous world.
I wonder, however, whether Ash doesn't overstate the EU's strength relative to the US.
Robert Kagan describes the difference between America and Europe as the difference between power and weakness - American power, that is, and European weakness. This description is sustainable only if power is measured in terms of military strength. In the way that some American conservatives talk about the European Union, I hear an echo of Stalin's famous question about the Vatican's power: how many divisions does the pope have? But the pope defeated Stalin in the end. This attitude overlooks the dimensions of European power that are not to be found on the battlefield.
In economic power, the European Union is the equal of the United States: the combined gross domestic product of the union's 25 member states is some $11 trillion at current exchange rates, about the same as the G.D.P. of the United States. American business has long recognized the importance of the European market, and it is also beginning to understand the influence of its regulators. Three years ago the union blocked the merger of two American companies, General Electric and Honeywell - after American regulators had already approved the deal.
Here's what he's not telling you: While the EU's GDP is roughly equal to that of the US, the EU's population (in 2003) was 456 million to the US' mere 292 million. GDP per head thus is much higher in the US than in the EU. (See page 9 of EU versus US.) According to the authors of EU versus US, this disparity results from a "slow, gradual process over a long succession of years, during which the American economy has all the time been growing somewhat faster year by year than the European economies." (11) [BTW, the study includes a good discussion of why GDP is the appropriate measure rather than indices that try to track the nonpecuniary benefits of living in Europe.] Finally, Ash doesn't tell you that the US population is growing a lot faster than that of the EU. According to the Economist ($):
America's fertility rate is rising. Europe's is falling. America's immigration outstrips Europe's and its immigrant population is reproducing faster than native-born Americans. America's population will soon be getting younger. Europe's is ageing.
Unless things change substantially, these trends will accelerate over coming decades, driving the two sides of the Atlantic farther apart. By 2040, and possibly earlier, America will overtake Europe in population and will come to look remarkably (and, in many ways, worryingly) different from the Old World.
So what, you say? As the US' population catches up with that of the EU, probably sometime between 2030 and 2040, our economy will become even more important (and that of the EU less so), or so opines the Economist:
With 400m-550m rich consumers, the American market would surely be even more important to foreign companies than it is today. And if so, American business practices?however they emerge from the current malaise?could become yet more dominant. ...
Higher fertility rates and immigration produce not only a larger population but a society that is younger, more mixed ethnically and, on balance, more dynamic. ...
If Europeans are unwilling to spend what is needed to be full military partners of America now, when 65-year-olds amount to 30% of the working-age population, they will be even less likely to do more in 2050, when the proportion of old people will have doubled. In short, the long-term logic of demography seems likely to entrench America's power and to widen existing transatlantic rifts.
Back then to Ash's analysis. He opines:
The European Union is also strong in a less tangible kind of power - what is known as "soft power." The European way of life, its culture and societies, are enormously appealing to many of its neighbors. Meanwhile, the policies of the Bush administration have prompted a wave of hostility toward America around the world, while its security measures have made it more difficult for foreigners to study or work in the United States. So Europe may currently have a comparative advantage in the exercise of soft power, if only temporarily.
Right. Sure. And whose movies do they watch? (At a recent Dub ai film festival, "big American movies such as "The Grudge," "Polar Express" and "Ocean's Twelve," proved the biggest draws.") Whose music do they listen to? Whose culture does the world follow? Here's the invaluable Daniel Henninger's latest column for OpinionJournal.com:
We see where a curator at France's Pompidou Center says his museum is opening a branch in Hong Kong, because "U.S. culture is too strong" there, and "we need to have a presence in Asia to counterbalance the American influence." With the Pompidou Center?
"American influence" is the great white whale of the 21st century, and Jacques Chirac is the Ahab chasing her with a three-masted schooner. Along for the ride is a crew that includes Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, Vladimir Putin, North Korea's Kim Jong-Il, Kofi Annan, the Saudi royal family, Robert Mugabe, the state committee of Communist China and various others who have ordained themselves leaders for life. At night, seated around the rum keg, they talk about how they have to stop American political power, the Marines or Hollywood.
Back to Ash:
Yet the most distinctive feature of European power is a fourth dimension - one that the United States wholly lacks. It is the power of induction. Put very simply: the European Union is getting bigger, and the United States is not. Haiti cannot hope to follow Hawaii into the American union, and even an American territory like Puerto Rico faces resistance in becoming the 51st state. But Ukraine can hope to follow Poland into the European Union.
This is sleight of hand. Yes, the EU's landmass is getting bigger. As far as population and economic growth goes, however, we've seen that the US has long-term advantages.
Why does it matter? Am I solely engaged in a jingoistic exercise? No, because I want to join issue with Ash's last point:
The history of the European Union can be told as a story of the expansion of freedom: from the original six postwar democracies in western Europe; to 12 member states, including three former dictatorships in southern Europe; to 25, including many of the former Communist states of central and eastern Europe; and now on to the Balkans, Turkey and, one day, Ukraine.
As an outsider observer, however, it seems to me that EU expansion has not expanded the freedoms of Europeans. We routinely see references to problems such as the EU's "democracy deficit," the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe, and even infringements on basic rights.
If Ash were right, and the EU really were equal in power to the US, I would argue that that would be cause for great concern. I'm not convinced that the EU is a force for good within its own borders, let alone in the wider world, where appeasement and coddling of dictators seems to be the order of the day. The good news therefore is that the EU is not equal to the US in power. The even better news is that the trendlines are in our favor; not theirs.
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