Can Europe become a world power?
A house divided can never stand. This is Masophers warning to Europe’s ambitions. Like modern China, Europe is undertaking a grand social experiment. China’s social experiments had its share of abysmal failures under Mao and Deng Xiaoping even as it has achieved monumental successes. The United States for all its bravado also has had some historic failures particularly in the area of fighting ideological battles against guerrilla forces on their home turf.
However where China and America differ from Europe is the inherent unity of these entities while Europe timelessly displays none. Divisions over Kosovo, Afghanistan, energy, farmers subsidies, banking regulations, economy, government, borders; Europe has more intellectual fissures than it has borders. Each country is deeply divided internally and nightmarishly complex externally. The right of the UK divorces itself from the right in the main body of Europe, countries flat our refusing to integrate financially despite the web of illegal and legal financial networks that bind them, no consensus on….well anything.
Militarily, economically Europe remains a vassal of the United States and a peon of Russia. Any global or regional investment or conflict must, by necessity include these two powers because without them there can be no force.
There is no use saying never or wondering ever with these things. Europe could easily fall under the influence of a charismatic regional personality and unite to some common goal but as at this moment Europe has no personalities and no goals. When the most talked about leaders are philandering Italians, impotent Englishmen, scrambling Germans and power hungry French all being threatened by ominous Russians then Europe has not advanced passed the unity seen in the early 20th or early 19th Centuries. The sundry of upstart nations, behind the scene monarchies and poor relative countries scarce deserve mention as they too have always been this way.
Forget for now Europe playing a part in the global stage, individual European countries scarcely have parts in each others actions. Except for the massive spending the countries themselves have very little hand in their own parochial affairs.
