Nice collection… if it hadn’t been for the horrors of the Iraq war (and the political split that in the end also doomed the outcomes of the Constitutional Convention), it would really have been an enjoyable intellectual debate about European integration.
Anyway, I think that Obama’s election did matter for more than his last name not being Bush: “German Euro-Gaullism” in 2003 was mostly a reaction to the Bush Administration’s contempt towards the United Nations. I think that most German intellectuals actually don’t want a break-up of the “West”, but rather an intensification of global governance, which has to take place via international law and in the framework of the correspondent international organisations, mainly the UN. It was only when the American government made clear that it would stick to a unilateral approach, ignoring international law and relying only on an ominous “coalition of the willing”, that German intellectuals switched to a self-asserting (and anti-imperialist) notion of European independence.
Now, it was a central element in Obama’s electoral discourse to restore multilateralism and to show greater respect for the UN – and in fact, there haven’t been any more such blatant violations of international law as the Iraq war. (Of course, one might discuss whether the Libyan war was inside the UN mandate, but then again, the leading powers in Libya were not the US, but France and the UK, and I think most Europeans saw it as a legitimate intervention according to the Responsibility to Protect doctrine.) This allowed German intellectuals to return to their generally positive view of the USA, which underlines the commonalities of the West (or the world in general) instead of the differences. Of course, the Tea Party is causing astonishment and concern, but as long as Romney/Ryan don’t win the elections in November, it is still seen as a minoritarian and hopefully ephemere movement.
That’s a fair point although it’s partly what I was getting at when I referred to Obama as “polite” It is true that most Bush-era lawlessness that has been maintained (warrantless wiretapping, indefinite detention and Guantánamo) and the new lawlessness (secret drone campaigns, assassination of U.S. citizens) are more violations of the U.S. Constitution than they are of international law (and thus has far less reason to interest Europeans). I do think that it is worth stressing that U.S. opposition to international law is definitely not “ephemeral” as it is bipartisan can be traced as far back as the Clinton era if not before (International Criminal Court, Kyoto, land mine ban, bio-weapons convention, rights of children convention, material support for Israeli settlements, etc, etc..).
Nice collection… if it hadn’t been for the horrors of the Iraq war (and the political split that in the end also doomed the outcomes of the Constitutional Convention), it would really have been an enjoyable intellectual debate about European integration.
Anyway, I think that Obama’s election did matter for more than his last name not being Bush: “German Euro-Gaullism” in 2003 was mostly a reaction to the Bush Administration’s contempt towards the United Nations. I think that most German intellectuals actually don’t want a break-up of the “West”, but rather an intensification of global governance, which has to take place via international law and in the framework of the correspondent international organisations, mainly the UN. It was only when the American government made clear that it would stick to a unilateral approach, ignoring international law and relying only on an ominous “coalition of the willing”, that German intellectuals switched to a self-asserting (and anti-imperialist) notion of European independence.
Now, it was a central element in Obama’s electoral discourse to restore multilateralism and to show greater respect for the UN – and in fact, there haven’t been any more such blatant violations of international law as the Iraq war. (Of course, one might discuss whether the Libyan war was inside the UN mandate, but then again, the leading powers in Libya were not the US, but France and the UK, and I think most Europeans saw it as a legitimate intervention according to the Responsibility to Protect doctrine.) This allowed German intellectuals to return to their generally positive view of the USA, which underlines the commonalities of the West (or the world in general) instead of the differences. Of course, the Tea Party is causing astonishment and concern, but as long as Romney/Ryan don’t win the elections in November, it is still seen as a minoritarian and hopefully ephemere movement.
That’s a fair point although it’s partly what I was getting at when I referred to Obama as “polite”
It is true that most Bush-era lawlessness that has been maintained (warrantless wiretapping, indefinite detention and Guantánamo) and the new lawlessness (secret drone campaigns, assassination of U.S. citizens) are more violations of the U.S. Constitution than they are of international law (and thus has far less reason to interest Europeans). I do think that it is worth stressing that U.S. opposition to international law is definitely not “ephemeral” as it is bipartisan can be traced as far back as the Clinton era if not before (International Criminal Court, Kyoto, land mine ban, bio-weapons convention, rights of children convention, material support for Israeli settlements, etc, etc..).