The End of the European Sisyphus:Implications on World Politics?

The nation state and the Westphalian system of state reigns supreme and there can be no challenge to it. The floundering and the potential break up of project Europe is testimony to this. The so called widening and deepening of the Union ultimately became its Achilles’ heel and it was the fallout from the economic travails of Ireland,  Portugal, Spain-the laggards- and then finally Greece that catalyzed the current structural crisis. While the potential fall out of the break up will have significant ramifications on the global economy, the break up may in the scheme of things be good. It will be good for the world and for Europe as well. The world may heave a sigh of relief given that the European behemoth was a mere political pygmy politically. It could neither come up with a coherent foreign policy posture (this was inherent to it) nor could contribute in any meaningful way to world order and politics.(Doling out aid to Africans , in no way, can be said to constitute meaningful contributions. It merely added to the structural morass that is Africa and sated the so called post modern European guilt over colonialism).

The potential split and break up raises a host of questions:  Was project Europe a flawed and false economic construct from the word go? Was this project sold to a war weary peoples who accepted it rather reflexively? Did the technocratic nature of the project render its potential splitting inherent to it? Who and what is the real Europe? And what implications would the split or break up have on world politics and order?

It was, to belabor the point, the political entrepreneurship of the visionary Jean Monnet and other political entrepreneurs that sought to transcend the nation state paradigm and the attendant balance of power politics and create a union of states from the ashes of war. These visionaries tied the major states of Europe into an economic gridlock. The creation of the European Steel and Coal Community was the precursor to a broader and wider union. The premise was economic and the politics of the union rested on hope.  This, in retrospect, could be held to be the fatal flaw in the design, form and shape of Europe. This project was then presented to  a war weary peoples who did not see the real implications and consequences of the union. Overlaying this was the Cold War and the vigorous support for the Union by the United States. (This critical support has been met with ingratitude in Europe where gratuitous anti Americanism runs rife). Once the existential threat of the Cold War was out of the picture and US support for the Union mellowed, problems began to emerge. This condition was complemented by the ‘widening’ and deepening’ of the Union wherein ‘wannabe European’s’-Eastern Europeans and the Mediterranean countries- were incorporated into the Union. This unsustainable expansion along with the democratic deficit wherein the European Union was ruled by a distant bureaucracy, the European Commission and its unelected technocrats brought the artificiality of the Union to the fore. The economic travails and problems engendered by the laggards-Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Greece- may, in the long duree scheme of things, be said to be mere corollaries.

If the Union was an artificial construct, what then constitutes real and existing Europe? It could be safe to posit that the Anglo phone Britain and the hitherto implacable enemies-France and Germany -constitutes real and existing Europe. The rest are merely wannabe Europeans with pretensions to Europe. And it is here problems of a political nature arise if the Union splits and breaks up. The Union had becalmed the rivalries that have historically defined these entities for much of their modern history. The breaking up of the Union may potentially lead to recrudescence and recidivism. This will axiomatically have grave implications and consequences. Among other things, the potential break up of the European Union is statement on the so called complex interdependence having an ameliorative effect on inter state relations, state craft and real politik. States are states and nationalism continues to be a potent force in world politics. And states will behave like states no matter how ‘tied’ they are in the webs of commerce and trade. Nations and peoples will give their loyalties to abstractions like the nation states and not to distant bureaucracies. Thucydides, Hobbes and Machiavelli continue to remain relevant.

  All in all, this then creates a problem for the United States. How is the country to deal with the new uncertainty?   The United States now may not have to face the Kissingerian conundrum of who to speak to in Europe? It will be individual nation states that the US will have to deal with. Inherent in this problem is also an opportunity. This lies in the fact that the United States my no longer have the option of retreating into itself. It will have to, on account of the potential break up of the Union, by default, have to re engage the world and insert itself into the politics of these states. This then means the return of balance of power politics in Europe with the United States holding and maintaining the balance The world does not want  or need Europe reverting to its fratricidal and conflictual mode.  And it is only the United States that can prevent Europe from conflict, chaos and disorder. It is about time that the country gird itself for this role.