This is a very long article, but is very worth the read. Here is a small sample:
The psychology of weakness is easy enough to understand. A man armed only with a knife may decide that a bear prowling the forest is a tolerable danger, inasmuch as the alternative ? hunting the bear armed only with a knife ? is actually riskier than lying low and hoping the bear never attacks. The same man armed with a rifle, however, will likely make a different calculation of what constitutes a tolerable risk. Why should he risk being mauled to death if he doesn?t need to?
This perfectly normal human psychology is helping to drive a wedge between the United States and Europe today. Europeans have concluded, reasonably enough, that the threat posed by Saddam Hussein is more tolerable for them than the risk of removing him. But Americans, being stronger, have reasonably enough developed a lower threshold of tolerance for Saddam and his weapons of mass destruction, especially after September 11. Europeans like to say that Americans are obsessed with fixing problems, but it is generally true that those with a greater capacity to fix problems are more likely to try to fix them than those who have no such capability. Americans can imagine successfully invading Iraq and toppling Saddam, and therefore more than 70 percent of Americans apparently favor such action. Europeans, not surprisingly, find the prospect both unimaginable and frightening.
The incapacity to respond to threats leads not only to tolerance but sometimes to denial. It?s normal to try to put out of one?s mind that which one can do nothing about. According to one student of European opinion, even the very focus on ?threats? differentiates American policymakers from their European counterparts. Americans, writes Steven Everts, talk about foreign ?threats? such as ?the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, and ?rogue states.?? But Europeans look at ?challenges,? such as ?ethnic conflict, migration, organized crime, poverty and environmental degradation.? As Everts notes, however, the key difference is less a matter of culture and philosophy than of capability. Europeans ?are most worried about issues . . . that have a greater chance of being solved by political engagement and huge sums of money.? In other words, Europeans focus on issues ? ?challenges? ? where European strengths come into play but not on those ?threats? where European weakness makes solutions elusive. If Europe?s strategic culture today places less value on power and military strength and more value on such soft-power tools as economics and trade, isn?t it partly because Europe is militarily weak and economically strong? Americans are quicker to acknowledge the existence of threats, even to perceive them where others may not see any, because they can conceive of doing something to meet those threats.
link to the full article
The psychology of weakness is easy enough to understand. A man armed only with a knife may decide that a bear prowling the forest is a tolerable danger, inasmuch as the alternative ? hunting the bear armed only with a knife ? is actually riskier than lying low and hoping the bear never attacks. The same man armed with a rifle, however, will likely make a different calculation of what constitutes a tolerable risk. Why should he risk being mauled to death if he doesn?t need to?
This perfectly normal human psychology is helping to drive a wedge between the United States and Europe today. Europeans have concluded, reasonably enough, that the threat posed by Saddam Hussein is more tolerable for them than the risk of removing him. But Americans, being stronger, have reasonably enough developed a lower threshold of tolerance for Saddam and his weapons of mass destruction, especially after September 11. Europeans like to say that Americans are obsessed with fixing problems, but it is generally true that those with a greater capacity to fix problems are more likely to try to fix them than those who have no such capability. Americans can imagine successfully invading Iraq and toppling Saddam, and therefore more than 70 percent of Americans apparently favor such action. Europeans, not surprisingly, find the prospect both unimaginable and frightening.
The incapacity to respond to threats leads not only to tolerance but sometimes to denial. It?s normal to try to put out of one?s mind that which one can do nothing about. According to one student of European opinion, even the very focus on ?threats? differentiates American policymakers from their European counterparts. Americans, writes Steven Everts, talk about foreign ?threats? such as ?the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, and ?rogue states.?? But Europeans look at ?challenges,? such as ?ethnic conflict, migration, organized crime, poverty and environmental degradation.? As Everts notes, however, the key difference is less a matter of culture and philosophy than of capability. Europeans ?are most worried about issues . . . that have a greater chance of being solved by political engagement and huge sums of money.? In other words, Europeans focus on issues ? ?challenges? ? where European strengths come into play but not on those ?threats? where European weakness makes solutions elusive. If Europe?s strategic culture today places less value on power and military strength and more value on such soft-power tools as economics and trade, isn?t it partly because Europe is militarily weak and economically strong? Americans are quicker to acknowledge the existence of threats, even to perceive them where others may not see any, because they can conceive of doing something to meet those threats.
link to the full article
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