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Not a transatlantic split

The Europeans seemed to have adopted Robert Kagan's "Paradise and Power"-analysis; Europe takes somewhat of a pride in being averse to military means, we have a running criticism of American gun-culture. There doesn't seem to be an appreciation of the fact that the American reaction to, say, the attacks on the embassies in Africa or the Unabomber, was so totally different from that which followed 9/11. Could you try to reflect on the differences in the response to these terrorist acts, as they all were? 

DH: 700 Europeans were killed on September 11th. It wasn't an attack on Americans, it was an attack on the world: many Muslims died in the World Trade Center. It was an attack on symbols, on what people stood for. So that is one difference: the Unabomber didn't kill Europeans, people, families in Europe suffered tremendous tragedy on that day. 

I am not so sure about taking pride in the Kagan-thesis: that, like any observation of that kind, is a bit simple: if you look in fact at what the EU has done since then, and you look at the strategy-paper Javier Solana's team has put out, you find basically an EU argument that, yes, preemption – pre-emptive attacks might be necessary. So despite this whole academic debate - castigating the Bush administration about the notion of preemption, you find the EU document basically starts to endorse it - at least consideration of it. And it certainly says that Europe will have to consider military force when necessary.

You also find, as often in Europe, different traditions. It is the EU that intervened in the Congo - not the United States, and has forces there. French forces have intervened in a lot of places: the British and the French have a different strategic perspective than some other European countries. I think you have talk about individual, European differences - and that is the other thing we've seen: that the divisions of the past year run equally through Europe as they do across the Atlantic. In that it is not a European-American debate as much as a debate within the West about what we do in this world. 

Yet there seems to be a tendency, probably more pronounced in Europe than in America, that the population does not feel the threat or feel very aware that there should be any immediate danger from terrorism. If you talk to politicians and journalists, they will have a different kind of sensibility - which could account for what you described is going on in the EU. 

DH: That was my first point: there is not the sense of urgency and immediacy to the threat, although, abstractly, the Europeans will say: we understand that it's there. And I think that's the different premise: there is an immediacy and an urgency in the US. There is also something of a different culture: Americans want to act - and it is also a unitary state: if we decide we act, we do it. We are also often seen as a somewhat powerful state with huge resources. In Europe, first of all, the urgency isn't there. Second of all, in order to have a European response, you have to have huge amounts of consultations and it is very difficult. Third, whether the Europeans have the adequate instruments to deal with these kinds of issues is questionable. So, there we are: we look at different issues. 

One point I would make though is what we see in Iraq: our country is superbly equipped to fight wars, but we are not so well-trained to win peace. There is the notion of 'the spectrum of conflict': that preventive action to stop conflict is just as important as winning the war once it happens. Or the rehabilitation and the reconstruction efforts, nation-building, if you will, after a conflict, is also the key to security: it is just not well-developed here. We spend $400 billion on our military, we spend only $15 million on the civilian crisis management issues. That is a very lop-sided capability: we need to get more balance in our policy. 

In Europe, would say, it is almost the opposite: I think the EU has done well in some areas of you know, equipping police to send abroad; judicial training; the headline goals of the EU in the civilian area are actually quite interesting. Noone pays attention to them, but they're interesting. And there is the EU's ability to provide financial support for regions. But the EU has not kept up in terms of its capability to act quickly and fight fast-breaking crisis and to make decisions and to also consider the role of the military, when you have to take action. That's where it is falling down. So we will have something to work on. And I think that actually our relative weakness is the other's relative strength.

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 Illustrationsfoto: The White House (Tina Hager)

Portrætfoto: American Institute for Contemporary German Studies, The Johns Hopkins University