Newsgroup: it.politica.pds
Titolo: Un giornale arancione a ciascuno

Il mio e' il Financial Times. Vi posto un articolo di Martin Wolf, lucido
economista, che condivido in pieno.
Si tratta del rapporto tra Europa e Stati Uniti, e si sostiene che la
alleanza transatlantica non e' piu' un elemento strategico ne' per l'
America ne' per noi. Di conseguenza (il corollario e' mio) la sinistra
socialista e liberale dovrebbe muoversi per promuovere un ruolo europeo
antagonista a quello americano.
Quando esprimo questi concetti mi spavento un po', perche' ho paura che mi
prendano per il Capitano. Ma poi penso che finche' sono a destra del
Financial Times (e di Chirac) nessuno mi dara' del no-global. Almeno spero.
JP
Martin Wolf: The transatlantic alliance is in trouble
By Martin Wolf
FT.com site; May 20, 2003
The US is no longer a status quo power. Attendance at this year's Bilderberg
meeting, in Versailles, made clear how big a challenge this poses to the
health of the transatlantic alliance. I went to the meeting convinced that
divorce between the US and Europe had become possible. I left thinking that
it could easily become unstoppable.
Clyde Prestowitz, a former member of the Reagan administration, has
expressed the worry in his provocatively entitled new book, Rogue Nation.*
In this he makes two significant points. The first is that "the imperial
project of the so-called neo-conservatives is not conservativism at all, but
radicalism, egotism and adventurism articulated in the stirring rhetoric of
traditional patriotism". The second is that this radicalism both frightens
and enrages foreigners. What astonished me at the meeting is that these
emotions are felt by pro-American businesspeople, politicians, academics and
journalists. Americans believe that French and German opposition to the war
in Iraq was a betrayal of decades of support. But many Europeans believe
recent US behaviour was a betrayal of what the US has taught them. The
ideological gulf is wide.
Americans and Europeans share many values. That is hardly an accident. The
US devoted much blood and treasure to turning Europe into a stable continent
of liberal democracies. But in many ways, Europe and the US have become very
different. Most important, the US has now adopted old European theories of
international relations, while the Europeans have embraced a newer American
one.
The classic European system rested on the sovereign independence of states.
In their relations, states recognised neither legal nor moral constraints.
But states also agreed not to interfere in one another's internal affairs.
Today's European states reject this view of the world, because it engendered
catastrophe. Operating within an unstable balance of power, illiberal states
fomented wars that brought the deaths of millions. European civilisation
foundered.
The answer, Europeans decided, was to embrace the ideals proffered by the
American president Woodrow Wilson: peace, free markets and democracy. Within
Europe, under American auspices, they created a supra-national order that
stood the classical system on its head. Instead of sovereign independence,
Europe would have a supra-national authority and a shared commitment to
democracy and human rights. Sensible Europeans are not naive enough to
believe the world can operate without resort to force. They are also
grateful to the US for its ability and willingness to apply that force. But
they are Wilsonian, for an obvious reason: if Germany were to announce its
adherence to the doctrines that now animate the US, stability in Europe
would vanish.
Today's US is not Wilsonian. It is important, however, to define in what way
it is not. In doing so, we must recognise the tension within the
administration between nationalists and neo-conservatives. Where they agree
is in their rejection of moral or legal constraints on the sovereign
independence of the US. Where they disagree is on how far pursuit of those
interests requires interference in the internal organisation of other
states. Nationalists focus only on direct threats, principally state
sponsorship of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. Neo-conservatives
desire to embed liberal democracy, as well, since its absence explains, in
their view, why states generate these threats.
Nationalists then are anti-Wilsonian in both their means and their ends.
Liberal imperialists are anti-Wilsonian in their means, but Wilsonian in
their ends. Yet both groups unambiguously reject the secular religion of
contemporary European elites, which is Wilsonian in means and ends. The new
US doctrines are, from the general European point of view, poison. They
invite them back to the world of Bismarck. For many Europeans the
contemporary American ideology is made more bitter by the perception that it
represents a betrayal of what they have learned from the US.
A transatlantic alliance cannot be sustained if the US remains dedicated to
its current doctrines, except as a state of dependency on one side and
mastery on the other. There are, instead, two alternatives. The first is a
divorce, with abandonment of the institutions that bring the two sides of
the Atlantic together. The second is a pragmatic partnership, in which the
two sides work together in areas of common interest.
This is the approach advanced by a number of foreign policy thinkers, from
both sides of the Atlantic, in a statement released at the end of last
week.** The proposition is that common interests do exist both over
immediate issues, such as Iraq, Israel-Palestine, Iran, terrorism, the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and over longer-term issues,
such as development, trade and even global warming.
Yet if practical co-operation is to be achieved, much will depend on US
behaviour. Tony Blair now plays a pivotal role. Should the credibility of
his support for the US be destroyed, his country may range itself more
closely alongside Europe's principal powers. For the UK, too, is thoroughly
Wilsonian. Should the US replace an Iraqi tyranny with enduring anarchy, as
has happened in Afghanistan, or fail to alter the dynamics of the
Arab-Israeli conflict, it will be hard even for this prime minister to
support the US in further ventures.
The US believes in unbridled freedom of action. Europeans believe in
international rules. The US wants to transform the world. Europeans want to
manage it. The difference reflects differences in power and in attitudes to
its legitimate use. The transatlantic relationship is now a partnership of
convenience. It is already no more than that for the US. Europeans should
adopt a similarly utilitarian view. If they fail to do so, the amicable
co-operation that is indispensable to both sides may become impossible.
* Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions,
Basic Books, 2003;
** Declaration on Transatlantic Relations: How to Overcome the Divisions,
May 2003, 
www.cer.org.uk
marti...@ft.com

 JP
Antiamericano!
Comunista!
Capitalista rosso!
Va beh, domani leggo pure l'articolo, ora vado a nanna :-)
Ciao
Socius 

 prendano per il Capitano.
Non credere che basti cosě poco.......  :)
devi anche non eslatare i golpisti della confindustria venezuelana!!!
Ciao!
P.S. pare interessante l'articolo....