Hope for the EU?

Last year, Europeans were from Venus, Americans were from Mars. Or so said the neoconservative commentator Robert Kagan, who published an influential pamphlet that depicted Europeans as lotus eaters in a Kantian paradise or, more accurately, an artificial Eden that only existed because eagle-eyed American sentries were manning the walls.1 At a time when France and Germany were vocal in their condemnation of the war against Iraq, the book struck a chord. What right had Europeans to predict that Iraq would descend into postwar chaos? Had they no faith in America’s can-do spirit? They should take off their philosophers’ robes and put on combat fatigues if they want to criticize.
This year, everything is fine in paradise. Jeremy Rifkin, a prolific writer on contemporary social trends, argues in a recent book, The European Dream, that Europe’s vision of the future is “quietly eclipsing” the American dream and that the European Union (EU) is the prototype of a new form of governance ideally suited for a world of complex interdependency in which states are no longer the principal actors.2 Europe, not America, is the political model for the future. And besides, those guys really know how to live: “People still stroll in Europe.”