Power And Weakness

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Recommended: Global history chapter 30 the cold war

Study of the essay "Power and Weakness" by Robert Kagan

Robert Kagan, American neoconservative scholar and political commentator created an international sensation in 2002 with his essay "Power and Weakness," that he later expanded into a bestselling book entitled Of Paradise and Power. His essay announced that "Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus."

Here is a summary of his essay and the different steps of his analysis of the deteriorating US-Europe relationship.

According to Kagan, a new phase in the relationship between the United States and Europe has begun. Indeed Europe is hiding from power beyond laws and rules, whereas United States is using power because laws are not reliable enough. This results in a difference in the way to lead Foreign policy. The United States are less patient with diplomacy; they want to solve problems quickly. This leads to unilateralism in international affairs.

Europeans are more tolerant, preferring negotiation, diplomacy. They use economic ties to unite nations together.

What is the source of these differing strategic perspectives?

For Europeans the peaceful strategic culture is pretty new. The power has shifted

200 years ago when the United States were weak, and practiced the strategies of indirection, now that the United States are powerful, they behave as powerful nations do and European countries see the world through the eyes of weaker powers.

1. Power gap: perception and reality

Europe has been militarily weak since World War II, but it remained unnoticed because of the unique geopolitical context of the Cold War: it was the strategic pivot between the United States and the Soviet Union. With the "new Europe", in 1990s, everybody agreed that Europe will rest...

... middle of paper ...

...the evolution of this dichotomy, explaining how Europe and America have always played opposite roles.

Europe, as Kagan points out, is economically strong but militarily weak, while the United States is strong on both fronts. How to settle the world's problems is seen very differently, then, depending on whether one is negotiating from strength or from weakness.

Clearly the gap between Europeans and Americans is deeper than many think, and both sides have some serious issues to discuss. But, do Europe and the United States really have different roadmaps that are bound to clash an increasing number of times in the future?

At last, "The obvious answer is that Europe should.... and build up its military, even if only marginally", leaves me with a mystery. Is Kagan implicating that Europe has no military power at all or is it that he wants to begin a new military race?

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