Out of Control by Zbigniew Brzezinski

Author:Zbigniew Brzezinski
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Touchstone

The foregoing provides the foundation for making the case that in the foreseeable future Europe could become the catalytic “state” of the global community. Indeed, its rich philosophic and artistic traditions perhaps could help to infuse into American mass culture—to which the European youth has become very susceptible—greater intellectual content, thereby somewhat tempering its crass and vulgar edges. Also to much of the world, the European centers of learning—notably in Great Britain and in France—still exercise considerable attraction, even though American graduate schools are now considered to be globally preeminent.

The cultural heterogeneity of Europe is a further asset. Much of the world has been influenced by, and remains still within reach of, the French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, or German languages. To the extent that Europe, as it unites, becomes probably trilingual, it will be in a position to challenge America’s dominant role in the ongoing global chatter and certainly will not have the difficulties Japan faces in participating actively in the global political or intellectual dialogue.

Though the hold of religion on European culture has greatly waned, and Europe today—even more so than America—is essentially a secular society, the impact of the common Christian tradition still lingers. It gives Europe the underpinnings of a shared ethical system and simultaneously infuses European culture with a universal philosophical relevance. The location of the Catholic church’s Holy See reinforces that condition, creating a special bond with the hundreds of millions of Christians in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Unlike Japan, Europe in its very body and soul has been universalist rather than exclusivistic.

European nations also have had a deeply ingrained will to greatness. Historically, this expressed itself in the dynamic out-reach of its explorers and then empire builders, and more tragically in the European fratricide that ultimately led in the twentieth century to Europe’s political suicide. In recent history, the will to greatness has assumed a European identity, embodied most ambitiously by France and Germany respectively. Charles de Gaulle, perhaps the most eloquent articulator of national grandeur, was seized with the idea that true greatness in this historical epoch could only be achieved through a common European effort and in a common European home stretching to the Urals—even if still led by France.

Much of the impetus for Europe’s unification has been derived from a more widely shared sentiment rooted in that common aspiration. There is an awareness that a united Europe would not only put behind itself mutually destructive national conflicts but would also automatically become a preeminent world-class superpower. To many Germans, Britons, and Frenchmen—especially among the political elites—that vision still exercises a powerful attraction, derived from deeply internalized national ambitions. History of past greatness, and even of unfulfilled national aspirations, is a significant source of the motivation to build a single and eventually powerful Europe.

A politically united Europe would have to have military power. Notwithstanding American objections to the emergence of a European military component outside NATO, the political unification of Europe would almost inevitably push Europe toward some integration of its armed forces.

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