Reviving the West: For an Atlantic Union

Charles A. Kupchan

From Foreign Affairs, May/June 1996

Article preview: first 500 of 4,539 words total.

Summary:  The West has triumphed over its adversaries, but all is not well in the realm. Its voters are unhappy, its politics adrift. Now is not the time to pursue ambitious plans that would simultaneously deepen and broaden existing institutions. The West must lock in and eventually extend the greatest achievement of the past century: the creation of a community of democratic states among which war is unthinkable. The mechanism would be a transatlantic union committed to a single market and collective security.

Charles A. Kupchan is Senior Fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations and Associate Professor of International Relations at Georgetown University. His most recent book is Nationalism and Nationalities in the New Europe.

The West has cause to rejoice as this century draws to a close. The fundamental ideological and geopolitical cleavages of past decades are no more. Democracy and capitalism have triumphed over fascism and communism, and this ERA?s three revanchist powers -- Germany, Japan, and Russia -- are quiescent. Regional disputes that festered for years, such as those in Northern Ireland and the Middle East, are moving toward resolution. And the world economy is growing more liberal and vibrant as old markets expand and new ones come on line.

But the West is not celebrating. Without the Cold War to induce unity, politics among and within the liberal democracies are fragmented and disoriented. In the Bosnian conflict, the West remained paralyzed until the United States wrested control of the diplomatic process. Voters across Western Europe and North America are in a foul temper, profoundly weakening their governments. Politicians and analysts alike bemoan the West?s identity crisis and the breakdown of civic democracy; last September even President Bill Clinton admitted that America had descended into a ?funk.?

To reverse this trend and breathe new life into the established democracies of the West, its leaders are seeking to broaden and deepen the collaborative institutions that served the Atlantic community so well during the Cold War. The European Union (EU) is persisting in its quest for a federal Europe while at the same time opening its doors to the continent?s new democracies. The borders of NATO are expected gradually to stretch eastward, ensuring America?s engagement in Europe and defending an enlarged democratic community.

Despite their good intentions, these leaders have embarked on a course that will lead to the demise, not the renewal, of the West. They are trying to broaden the community of peaceful, democratic nations even as they deepen it. But if enlargement is to be both politically feasible and strategically desirable, they must first loosen the West?s structures. Were the Soviet Union still around to fuel integration, a federal EU might make sense, but plans for monetary union, a common foreign and security policy, and centralized governance of Europe are Cold War legacies that will founder as states resist further attempts to whittle away their sovereignty. Worse still, the futile push toward federalism will distract the EU from its most urgent mission: enlargement to the east. Meanwhile, NATO is misdirecting its energies into a heated debate over when and how to admit new members from Central Europe, failing to recognize that the problem lies in the very nature of the alliance, not its membership. NATO?s formality and the rigor of its territorial guarantees are no longer necessary or politically sustainable.

Unless the EU and NATO undertake fundamental reform, they risk coming apart just as they draw within reach of their historic mission to unite Europe under the banner of democracy and peace. The excessive ambition of the current policies will undermine the transatlantic community as member states attempt to escape unwanted responsibilities. To preserve and enlarge the West, leaders must ...

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