QandO

June 25, 2004

Old Europe, New Europe
Posted by McQ

I stumbled upon an interesting foreign policy take by a fellow named Mohammed Al-Jassem (editor-in-chief of a Kuwaiti newspaper, Al-Watan) in a back issue of the magazine "Foreign Policy". I'm not sure the link will do you any good since its a subscription service, but I've got the meat of it below. Al-Jassem make a very good observation when comparing "Old Europe" to "New Europe" and the resulting split in how each viewed the run up to Iraq. To me it was quite telling:

President George W. Bush’s foreign policy initiatives tend to be better received in the former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe than in most West European countries. The roots of this generally benevolent attitude can be found in the region’s past. Many people in “New Europe” philosophically oppose the idea of war, but their experiences with the likes of Romania’s Nicolae Ceausescu and Hungary’s Matyas Rakosi give them little patience for dictators such as Iraq’s Saddam Hussein or Syria’s Bashar Assad. What Old Europeans perceive as American oversimplification of complex international issues, New Europeans tend to see as principled stances reminiscent of those that helped bring down the Soviet empire in the late 1980s.

And his point makes sense when one reviews the participants in the so-called "coalition of the willing". Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Albania, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia and the Ukraine. 15 formerly communist eastern European states who, unlike the Old Europe to the west, seeemed to understand the importance of liberating Iraq.

The other point which bears repeating is that while Old Europe wanted to dismiss the US Iraqi policy as an 'oversimplification', New Europe saw it for what it was ... a stand on principle, based in self-defense and with a long term goal of defeating terrorism and stabalizing the region. Having suffered the effects of dictators in its recent past, its patience with them and their ilk is far less than the appeasing likes of Old Europe.

That's not to say they wouldn't favor diplomacy if diplomacy had a chance of success, but hard earned experience had taught them long ago that dictators are rarely amenable to diplomacy. Their support is based in the fact that totalitarian regimes are never good and this one was especially bad and had to go. Their recent experiences with just such regimes and their overthrow gave them the understanding of the reality, of what is required to do that, which Old Europe was (and is still) apparently unable or unwilling to grasp.

When West Europeans ridiculed former President Ronald Reagan’s description of the Soviet Union as the evil empire, East Europeans understood exactly what he was talking about. And today, even as West Europeans reject Bush’s remarks about the “axis of evil,” many East Europeans listen sympathetically. Although a large number of them may not favor military intervention as a means of bringing down brutal regimes, they don’t mind too much when force is used to achieve that goal.

Again, 15 former Eastern bloc European nations signed on as opposed to 7 nations of "Old Europe". This speaks volumes, at least to me, as to which nations have a grasp on the reality of the situation in the Middle East. By the way, for anyone in the anti-war crowd reading this and prone to mouthing the myth "the US is going it alone", that's 22 countries and counting. In case you're interested the total was 55. Hardly a unilateral venture.

East and Central Europeans also feel stronger loyalty toward the United States than do their Western counterparts. Not only do they remember the U.S. role in bringing down communism, but many also remain grateful to Washington for pushing NATO expansion to the east even as the European Union (EU) was hesitating on its own enlargement. Europeans in former communist countries are more open to the idea of exporting democracy to the Middle East—a concept some West European intelligentsia dismiss as unrealistic. Eastern Europe remembers that, during the communist era, many West Europeans did not believe their neighbors were mature enough to have democratic societies, while Americans “naively” believed that freedom and democracy were universally valid aspirations.

You might recall the point in the article "Why the left shares some of the blame for "why they hate us" which Bernard Lewis makes about the attitude and approach that in the past has so angered the people of the middle east. Al-Jassem makes precisely the same point, except he makes it about the former Eastern bloc countries.

Unlike Old Europe, New Europe rejects the "attitude and approach" which says it can't be done. It rejects the argument that the region has no history or desire or ability to embrace democracy. They have no problem believing what Old Europe characterizes as the "naive" American nonsense disguised as foreign policy which believes it can succeed in bringing freedom to Iraq and the Middle East. After all, New Europe has been the beneficiary of such American "naivete" in the past. Instead of the sniffing condescension and inaction of Old Europe, New Europe brings success fueled optimism to the venture as does the US.

Perhaps New Europe can, in the next few years, pass along the benefit of its hard won experience to the arrogant and self-absorbed states of Old Europe. It would certainly be a boon for the future of the EU.

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