Europe wants a larger global role but doesn't know what to do:
Yet today’s Europe seems unsure of its global role. The United Kingdom has officially exited the EU. Rising populism is producing polarization, paralysis, and internal pressures so severe that the Union’s very survival no longer seems certain. And investors have noticed: the region’s stock markets have consistently underperformed for two decades, implying a lack of faith in the bloc’s long-term prospects.
But it is far too soon to write off Europe. In my view, there are four key areas where the EU could establish itself as a global player.
I personally think Europe hasn't had a global role since World War II. Europe could think they had a global role in the Cold War because in that global struggle between America and the USSR, Europe was the central front:
As others have noted, the Cold War largely disguised the fact that European nations no longer were powers with real global power (other than the British, that is). The continent’s role during the Cold War was to be a huge tough immovable block of concrete that the Soviets could not shove into the English Channel. The fact that this very local responsibility had global consequences hid the lack of real global power. The inability of the Europeans to mount an invasion of modest proportions in the Balkans in 1999 and their equally embarrassing lack of air power, finally laid bare this truth.
The Europeans just had to roll out their base gates, take off, or leave port to be key players in a potential fight. But losing there would have been a global loss. So it was a strange global role.
The author of that article says that Europe can seek a role in trade, regulatory prowess (!), managing the China-American competition, and the defense of Western values.
These are problematic areas.
Trade as a source of global power ignores that Europe relies on trade for prosperity. How do they leverage that for power when trading partners will have as much or more power over Europe than Europe can exert over trading partners?
Regulation? Of technology especially? Stick to cheeses, dudes. I'm laughing too hard to even address whether other countries would want to subcontract their regulations to the Europeans' dizzying intellect.
Managing the China-US competition is kind of revealing. So the Europeans are going to abandon being an ally of America in order to balance America and China? I am not shocked that the European Union would think that way.
That leaves us with the fourth, the defense of "Western" values. That probably isn't what you think and we should worry if Europe is the key defender:
Fifty years ago, democracy was in a minority globally, but lucky enough to be led by a powerful America.
In a review of a new book on the spread of democracy in the West, a reviewer states of the author:
He reminds us how, at the start of his period, democracies were rare: Europe was not merely severed by an Iron Curtain, but Greece was run by the Colonels, Spain by Franco and Portugal by Salazar. Outside the English-speaking world and north-western Europe there was little democracy; and his book is an account of democracy’s triumph, as Gorbachev lets the Soviet bloc go.
Indeed. I've noted that the Western tradition did not fully embrace democracy until after America entrenched in Europe following World War II and spread our influence. As I wrote in this post about the threat to America that could arise in Europe[.]
I'm thinking that if Europe has to choose among these four options they should try dominance in the cheese regulation area. Although I'm pretty sure America will take a hard pass on that. But good luck elsewhere.
Isn't it revealing that a fifth European option for having a global role isn't supporting America in defense of free trade and Western values--including keeping technology from supporting autocrats--in opposition to China, which rejects Western values?
I'm not a fan of the European Union, if you haven't caught on by now.
*If you don't get the title:
UPDATE: This is a long but related post on defining what makes a great power.
