Newsnight, with Gavin Esler
Tonight, Newsnight covers an issue that has been the subject of thousands of words on my weblog—US-EU relations.
Historian Timothy Garton Ash and author Robert Kagan discuss the future of US-EU relations with Gavin Esler. Brilliant stuff. Start watching at the 13th minute for a debate on Polish membership of the EU. Scroll forward to about the 16th minute where the debate between Ash and Kagan begins.
Also Newsnight Review with Kirsty they discuss John Malcovicha, Hunter S. Thompson and George Orwell. You can click here to view the show. Below is a transcript that I typed out:
Esler: Well I’m rejoined from Brussels now by Robert Kagan and from Oxford by Timothy Garton Ash of St. Anthony’s College who was with the Prime Minister in Poland today. Robert Kagan first of all Tony Blair seems to think that your view that Europe and the United States are going their separate ways is wrong because you don’t recognise effect in how complicated Europe is, that’s its far from being a monolith and all this.
Kagan: Well I think that’s its true that obviously, Europe is not a monolith and that there are different points of view and that there are obviously…there’s a competition going on and its clear from Tony Blair’s speech today that he intends to carry on that competition very vigorously. I’m not sure at the end of the day where this leads necessarily but I certainly…again I hope that Tony Blair succeeds in his efforts.
Esler: Timothy Garton Ash, a competition, a Blairite view effectively of Europe as an ally to the United States economically liberal and so on, as we just described, and perhaps a different view of a rival to the United States.
Ash: Absolutely, I was glad to hear Robert Kagan saying earlier on that he’d like if it was wrong because I think that Europe is actually contributing to proving him wrong. It’s rather arrogant of us to suggest that the rest of, or much of Europe, is subscribing to a Blairite vision. I mean Blair gave, I think, a very good speech in Warsaw today but the Poles have arrived at their position on their own, for their own reasons, namely that their economic and political future lies with Europe but their security depends on the United States. And I think that as Bob Kagan said that there’s a great argument going on in the whole of the West about whether we’re going to have an Atlanticist Europe as Tony Blair wants and the Poles want and I now want, or a Gaullist Europe as Jacques Chirac wants.
Esler: Are you saying Timothy Garton Ash that Jacques Chirac is out on his own about this perhaps with a bit of Mr. Schroeder appended to him?
Ash: No absolutely not. In tomorrow’s European newspapers that I’ve got in front of me there will be a remarkable piece by leading German and French intellectuals saying that the States of the original six should go ahead and make a ‘core’ Europe with a single foreign policy as a counter-balance to the United States, in effect a rival superpower to the United States, so that school is still quite strong. My own view is that a great deal depends on Germany. Germany is a swing power and if, as Tony Blair hopes, Germany swings back to an Atlanticist position, then I think the clear majority will be, as it were, on the Blairite side.
Esler: Robert Kagan I was struck reading your book a couple of months ago that, whether the problems in the trans-atlantic relationship, are as you describe them philosophical, almost structural, or whether a lot of it is actually that Europeans finding George Bush precisely the kind of leader that they find it very difficult to love or like or even respect.
Kagan: Well there’s no question that personalities have played a big part in this latest split on both sides of the Atlantic. Americans are not fond of Jacques Chirac either, in a personal sense. But I guess at the end of the day I think that the larger forces is at work are more important and I think that what Bush is done perhaps has given Europeans a rude awakening to some underlying realities that I think Europeans would rather not have to face about the United States. And so I think Europeans make a great mistake if they think that somehow George Bush is a tremendous abhorration in American foreign policy, I think that’s not true.
Esler: Timothy Garton Ash, we are going to have to deal with these ideas whether George Bush is in the White House or not?
Ash: Yes I think that’s true, and in fact, Clinton obscured the differences between the United States and Europe because Clinton was the graduate of Oxford University, was a kind of honorary European we were growing apart anyway, and now we’re having the argument that thanks to Bush, thanks to 9/11, thanks indeed to Robert Kagan. The question is where is the argument going to come out. And this is where I think I disagree with Bob Kagan. I think it depends on two things: whether Europe defines itself as Jacques Chirac wants as a rival superpower to the United States and on the other hand whether the United States says we want a strong united Europe or said we would rather divide and rule which is what they are doing at the moment.
Esler: Bob Kagan what do you think on that latter point, what does the United States want out of Europe?
Kagan: Well one could make a large mistake, and I say this unhappily, but one could make a large mistake thinking that the United States is thinking a great deal about what it wants from Europe in any direction. The notion that the United States has had some grand strategy to divide Europe I think is wrong, I think Europe has divided itself, and the United States maybe exploited that division. But I’m also.. how does the United States feel about the way Europe structures itself and I think that the honest truth is they don’t much care. Just Europe is not looming as large in American calculations as it once did and I think that’s natural, but perhaps regrettable, but again I think that’s just the reality we are dealing with here,
Esler: Timothy Garton Ash?
Ash: I rather disagree with that. It is true that Europe divided itself. Its also very true that quite a lot of people in the Bush administration are quite happy to see Europe divided, they don’t want to see a strong difficult rival. Incidentally with a currency, the Euro which is now stronger than the dollar... and several Senior State department officials were asked the other day what is the policy towards Europe? The answer was one word: disaggregation i.e divide and rule. Punish France, coo to Germany, woo Poland, Britain and Spain
Esler: Ok we’ll leave it there. Thank you.
Disaggregation. I think we will be seeing more of this word. It came up in an article last week by John Vinocur. It does not appear in my Word dictionary.
11:29:15 PM 
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