E3G

Europe’s Mars Mission

By John Ashton

Third, we need to connect better with the anxieties that drive policy in the US. Currently the most powerful driver is security. That is what persuaded Congress to approve expenditure in 2003-4 of $160 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan alone. The basic condition for security in the 21st century will be sustainable development – but the EU needs to make that case more eloquently. Senator Lugar, the powerful Republican Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is now calling for a new commitment of US civilian resources for nation-building in failed states. Europe should tap into that impulse.

Fourth, we should remember that the US is not the same as its Administration. There is no more multifaceted society on the planet. There are many forces that can be mobilised beyond the Administration, from powerful States like California, to multinational companies and professional associations. Europe
must learn to engage them.

Fifth, we need Europe’s strengths to be better understood in the US. Many there have never got beyond Kissinger’s question – who do I call if I want to speak to Europe? But that is the point. The EU is the world’s most advanced experiment in sharing sovereignty while maintaining diversity. That achievement, and its significance for dealing with the stresses of a globalising world, would resonate much more strongly in the US if we explained it better.

US commentator Robert Kagan characterised Europeans and Americans as “two peoples living on separate strategic and ideological planets” – with Americans on Mars and Europeans on Venus. In terms of politics, culture and values that is a grotesque and misleading caricature. For the environment, the notion is a luxury we cannot afford. But if we are to learn to live sustainably on the single planet we share, we each need to try harder to understand each other.