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MEMORANDUM
TO: OPINION
LEADERS FROM:
GARY SCHMITT SUBJECT: The President’s Trip to Europe & Kagan’s “Power and Weakness” This week President
Bush will visit Germany, Russia, France and Italy. Much of the focus of
the trip will be on the new relationship being forged with Russia and
the effort to build a Europe “whole and free” through NATO’s
continued expansion. In these matters, considerable progress has been
made and the administration can rightly point with some pride to that
success. However, the president
is also likely to talk about the significant and growing gap in military
capabilities between the United States and our European allies. In this
connection, I would like to draw your attention to a new essay (“Power
and Weakness”) by Project director Robert Kagan. (The article
is being published in the June-July issue of the Hoover Institution’s
Policy Review and is available on-line at www.policyreview.org.) In the
article, Kagan argues that not only has this gap “produced differing
strategic judgments, differing assessments of threats and of the proper
means for addressing threats” but is itself a product of a deeper
divide between Europe and the United States on the “principles regarding
the utility and morality of power” itself. Whether the gap in
military capabilities can be overcome in any significant way without first
addressing the larger division in strategic culture is doubtful. However,
if President Bush is serious about the long-term health of the transatlantic
alliance, it is essential that the latter be as much on the trip’s
agenda as increased defense spending on the part of our allies. |
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