Europe is an appalling mess. In its western half, economic stagnation has reached even Germany, which can look forward to virtually no growth next year. An ambitious plan to turn the European Community into a full economic and political union is floundering in the opposition of Danish voters and the British Parliament. To the east, the overthrow of totalitarian rule has led to political chaos. In what was once East Germany, sinister right-wing groups–brazenly displaying Nazi paraphernalia–are attacking foreign immigrants daily. Anti-Semitism is boiling up in Poland, Hungary and Russia, Last week the Baltic Republic of Lithuania voted the communists back into power. They still control Slovakia and Serbia.
American interests are directly affected by all these developments, most of which were foreseeable–yet were not foreseen. In the rush of enthusiasm that followed the peaceful East European revolutions of 1989, the United States joined its allies and former enemies in proclaiming a “new world order” to be articulated around a prosperous, peaceful and democratic Europe. The sudden disappearance of cold-war tensions was seen as offering a heaven-sent chance not only for nuclear disarmament but also for a dignified American retreat from its half-century-old responsibilities as Western Europe’s defensive shield. The European Community, buoyed by its recent success in creating a real single market with 360 million consumers, was set to take up the defense burden, oversee the recovery of Eastern Europe and take its place as co-superpower with the United States.
Nothing has turned out quite as planned. The former communist states have absorbed tens of billions of dollars of Western aid, but remain economic and political basket cases. In September, high German interest rates led to the collapse of the European Monetary System. Germany, Europe’s largest and richest nation. has found that simply financing its new eastern states puts intolerable strains on its resources.
Bill Clinton cannot solve all of Europe’s problems by himself. He cannot, for example, replace France’s President Francois Mitterrand and Germany’s Chancellor Helmut Kohl, both in office for more than a decade and both deeply unpopular with their electorates. Nor can a U.S. administration salvage British Prime Minister John Major, who has frittered away an electoral triumph last spring by bobbling every economic ball he had the chance to field. It is the 12 member states of the European Community that must rewrite the Maastricht Treaty on political and economic union and rebuild its imploded monetary system.
There are a number of things, though, that the United States can do quickly. At the most basic level, it must convince itself that Europe matters. Some American critics of Europe contend that the notion of Europeans as allies is a relic of the cold war. They could scarcely be more wrong. Not since the end of World War II has the alliance been more necessary. Neither the United States nor Europe, alone, can deal with the economic mess in the East. And neither, alone, can revive the world trading system or impose a real cease-fire on Yugoslavia.
Bill Clinton first needs to make it plain that he is no isolationist, that he recognizes the intimate connection among the world’s industrial democracies–nearly all of them in Europe. He should propose an early summit to revamp NATO, giving the Europeans a larger voice in their own defense in return for a promise to pay for it. He should say how many troops he proposes to keep in Europe and for how long. In the vital trade area, he should come down hard in favor of a balanced, far-reaching new accord under the aegis of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which could help to rekindle growth throughout the world.
All those moves would be preliminaries to the real business at hand-making peace in Yugoslavia, forestalling ethnic chaos in the rest of the old Soviet bloc and laying plans for bringing the ex-communist nations into the fellowship of the industrial democracies. These are huge tasks, but they must be done. Already Clinton should be urging European allies to move into Bosnia and Herzegovina and stop the killing, as a united team. Only slightly farther down the road, a revitalized Western Alliance, inspired by but no longer dictated to by Washington, should propose an ambitious plan to revive the tattered economies that communism left behind it–a Marshall Plan for the end of the millennium. These are radical steps. They will cost blood and treasure. But they must be taken. And we need the full cooperation of our allies to achieve them.
