- 1
- 2
‘A Stupid Conversation’
On issues where the transatlantic partnership really does have the lead, it's hard to see forward progress. In Afghanistan, NATO is paralyzed by the fact that only the Canadians are willing to send troops to the Kandahar region. If the alliance cannot scrape together another battalion to send to the region before NATO's Bucharest summit next month, then the Canadians will withdraw.
On trade, no one at the conference sees any forward progress on the Doha Round; experts were advocating a "pause" in those talks. Trade liberalization is a negotiation process in which the parties ostensibly see a win-win. If the United States and European Union cannot agree on reducing agricultural subsidies, how can they possibly agree on how to reduce global warming?
Perhaps the West's difficulties are overstated. Perhaps conferences like the Brussels Forum allow Americans and Europeans to vent their frustrations as a first step toward problem solving. Nevertheless, both the Bush administration and the Barroso Commission are in their lame-duck years. At a time when urgent action is needed, status-quo policies are likely until 2009.
Perhaps the magic is still there, but as Kouchner gloomily concluded, "I knew what was the West, and I don't know what the West is now."
Daniel W. Drezner is an associate professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He is the author of "All Politics Is Global: Explaining International Regulatory Regimes."
© 2008
- 1
- 2
Loading Menu
Member Comments
Posted By: sound off @ 03/28/2008 11:54:55 AM
Comment: The reaction to the current trend in the leading World Countries decline in Economic, Technological and World Military Power is to by pass the UN using ??? Coalition of the Willing??? increase NATO member ship, Pre Emp Nuclear Strikes all brutal, blunt force methods, that are Killing innocent Babies, Women and Men. Our World must use Statesmanship, Dialog, the UN, to resolve issues not the escalating expansion of military egression and power. ???The Law is the Number of soldiers on the ground??? is no longer valid in the year 2008. IRAQ, KOSOVO, ISRAEL, are prove of that. The yardstick of Wit and Common Sense is the new measure of power. Will and can America survive and prosper in this new environment.
PS. Holding on to our MANUFACTURING SECTOR , stopping all outsourcing, curtailing all IMPORTS, Sell more than we Buy ??? be very selective of what and how much we sell would be start towards peace.???
Posted By: nyoped @ 03/22/2008 10:51:27 PM
Comment: "(German and Austrian representatives) agreed that Russia was more a part of Europe than Turkey"
That's bad news for Russia. Correct me if I am wrong but did not Germany see France and Britian as "truely European" before WWII and then... bomb them?
A typical German solution to complex problems: They are not exactly like us.
Posted By: clikdawg @ 03/21/2008 8:22:16 AM
Comment: NATO's "state-building" exercise in Afghanistan is in trouble because Afghanistan is the Venus Fly-Trap of nations; one of history's little jokes at the expense of vastly more rich, powerful, and "enlightened" world hegemonists. "It oughta be so damned EASY to make them do what we want, 'cause We Are The Apex of Human Development -- what's the hold-up here?" So has said one great power after another for the last thousand years -- and one after another they fail. But I guess every new Big Kid on the Block has to take his shot at The Last Stop on the Super-Power Super-Highway ...