Eur-Asia
MAGAZINE
June 2003
By Graham Humphries
EUROPE TODAY
Since the Maastricht Treaty was signed by EU members in 1992, the EU has been bent on a course of establishing a European army. Further treaties concluded by members of the EU in Amsterdam in 1997 and Nice in 2000 raised the prospect of the development of a European rapid reaction force. In language which took due care not to raise alarm or revive memories of the military horrors of 55 years ago, the Eurocrats couched the proposal for this military force in terms that bespoke a force for crisis management and peacekeepinga sort of support to the UNs traditional role.
But, once again, using the events of September 11 to justify their unseemly rush, the Eurocrats, who agreed to a target of 2003 as the year to launch this combined military force, brought forward this initiative by more than a year and announced they were kickstarting it last month on December 14!
Not only this, but even before launching this fledgling forceno longer seeing the need to allay the fears of those who still have a memory of the history of Europes two greatest warsThe EU is studying the possibility of extending the mandate of the future EU reaction force beyond crisis management and peacekeeping and eventually include common defense
(
www.EUobserver.com, Nov. 30, 2001).
German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, brashly disregarding concerns over German history of the past two centuries, told the press Germany supported an extension of the present mandate of the future EU force to allow it to cover the whole range of operations relevant to the security of the Union (ibid.).
Former British Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Alun Chalfont bluntly declared, What is now being proposed is nothing less than a European armylike the common currency, a potential building block in the construction of a Eurostate.
[It reflects] the determination of some European leaders to turn an economic union into a single European state (Salisbury Review, Autumn 2001).
The rotten heart of the lying core of this serpentine union of European nation states is revealed in Lord Chalfonts following comment: [T]he meeting in Helsinki in December 1999
outlined the Common European Policy on Security and Defense.
The conclusions of the conference insisted that this does not imply the creation of a European armya mantra repeated endlessly in the debate about this matter. Of course, it is a European army and in the minds of many people that is what it is intended to be. To quote the words of Romano Prodi, the President of the EU Commission, When I was talking about the European army, I was not joking (ibid.).
Enlargement
Ancient Rome was a colonizing power. A powerful military force was fundamental to the success of its colonizing prowess. This was the case from the time of their overseas excursions as a republic in 282-146 B.C. to the rise to imperial greatness and the birth of the Byzantine Empire in the 4th century.
All subsequent resurrections of this ancient empire, from Justinian to the alliance between Mussolini and Hitler, were aggressive in their efforts for increased hegemony. This was particularly the case under the Germanic emperors, who constantly strove for Lebensraumliving space.
We should not be surprised, then, to see the consequence of Germanys first foreign-policy enactment upon its reunification in 1990. As our editor in chief points out in his article on page 2, it was Germanys unilateral action in recognizing Croatia and Slovenia as nation-states separate from the Yugoslav federation that caused the Balkan wars of the 1990s, culminating in the virtual economic takeover of that volatile peninsula by the EU. The Balkans are now held to ransom by the German-dominated EU via a German-initiated reconstruction pact funded by EU largess and secured by mostly EU military personnel. This is designed to ultimately give the Union political control over this vital crossroads of the European continent. With the Balkan Peninsula fairly well secured, the EU is feeling more aggressive in its intent to extend its colonization to other areas.
Slippery Diplomacy
Within that which British economist Bernard Connolly describes as the rotten heart of Europe, there is a desperate evil. It will consummate in the elevation of one leading individual who is described in Daniels great prophecy as a common flatterer: And in his estate shall stand up a vile person, to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom: but he shall come in peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries (Dan. 11:21).
This word flatteries comes from a Hebrew term meaning smooth, treacherous, slippery. The king of the north will be an especially slippery customer! Watching the backslapping and rubbing of hands of a couple of the EUs top leaders certainly reminds one of the slippery nature of EU politics and diplomacy.
This treacherous diplomacy seems particularly suited to the changeable nature of the German character. Stolid, supremely well organized, brilliant in engineering, favored in the appreciation and perpetuation of high culture, industrious, the Germans have one great character flawtheir mutability.
That masterful commentator on the nature of the Europeans, Luigi Barzini, an anti-fascist journalist, had a common-sense view of where the EU was leading even before unification was a reality: The future of Europe appears largely to depend today once again, for good or evil, whether we like it or not, as it did for many centuries, on the future of Germany (The Europeans).
Barzini had a thorough grasp of the unstable nature of the German character, likening it to the mythical Proteus: It is therefore once again essential for everybody
to keep an eye across the Rhine and the Alps and the Elbe in order to figure out, as our fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers, the ancient Romans, and remote ancestors had to do, who the Germans are, who they think they are, what they are doing, and where they will go next, wittingly or unwittingly. This, of course, was always impossible to fathom. How can one tell? Germany is a trompe loeil protean country. As everybody knows, only when one tied down Proteus, the prophetic old man of the sea, could one make him reveal the shape of things to come. But he couldnt be pinned down easily; he continued to change. He could be a roaring lion, a harmless sheep, a slippery serpent, a charging bull
(ibid.).
Thus it is that this protean German character has, under the leadership of the chameleon-like Chancellor Schröder, come out of the closet to bury the past and assert itself on the world stage as a diplomatic and political force to be reckoned with.
In the words of one newspaper, Mr. Schröder said the September 11 attack on the U.S. had prompted a turning point in Berlins foreign policy, with its role as a secondary player in international affairs now over.
We Germans, more than anyone, now have a duty fully to meet our responsibility, said the chancellor, referring to the former West Germanys reliance on the U.S. and European partners for its security. Mr. Schröder made clear that the new phase in foreign policy would be characterized by a readiness to accept military commitments on a scale not comparable with the past.
This is a new phase in German foreign policy, said Karsten Voigt, coordinator for German American relations in the foreign ministry. Germany is showing itself increasingly prepared to bring in the military element as a component of foreign policy (Financial Times, Oct. 12, 2001).
Those with a deep appreciation of history and the changeable nature of the German character would do well to think on three occasions over the past 130 years when German chancellors and ministers of government made similar assertions1870, 1914 and 1939! The words of Friedrich Nietzsche, the darling of Western socialists, powerfully echo Schröders claim of the uniqueness of the German duty to the world: One must seek to make amends for ones superiority. To be ashamed of ones power. To use it in the most salutary way.
Awe-inspiring power. The only way to use the present kind of German power correctly is to comprehend the tremendous obligation which lies in it (The Europeans, p. 93).
Yet it is not only the Germans who need watching in Europe. Fifty-six years after he was shot and strung upside-down in Milans Piazzale Loreto, Benito Mussolini is enjoying a revival as Italys shame about the dictator yields to fascination.
This present rehabilitation of the man who allied himself politically and militarily with the Nazis, who persecuted Italian Jews without prompting from Hitler, who dragged Italy into a disastrous war, is not surprising. It is a reflection of serious changes in Italian society and politics, wrote James Walston, a historian at the American University in Rome
(Guardian, Sept. 10, 2001).
Spain too is feeling its Euro-oats: The Spanish foreign minister, Josef Pique, has threatened Britain with a very negative deterioration of relations if Spain does not get what she wants over Gibraltar. What Spain wants is that Gibraltar becomes Spanish (
www.panorama.gi, Sept. 19, 2001).
The Shape of Things to Come
As historian Walston has seen, serious changes are afoot in Europe. The pendulum has swung, and Europe is unitingor rather being unitedby a powerful Franco-German politicizing and bureaucratizing influence in Brussels. By force of Teutonic diplomacy on the world scene it is moving into the role of aggressive peacemaker.
The current resurgence of Europe is deeply rooted in history and clearly delineated in prophecy. Heres what to watch for over the coming months and the years just ahead.
Watch for a continuing rise in neo-Nazi disturbances associated with Europeans of fascist leanings coming out of the closet, as Europe continues its political swing to the right.
Watch for the betrayal of Gibraltar by the British government in a handover of that crucial sea gate from British to Spanish sovereignty.
Watch for the stitching up of the Balkans under EU administration and military security tied to the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
Watch for continuing, more overt diplomacy by German-led EU missions to Pakistan, Russia and Iran as the EU asserts its role to influence the outcome of the war in Afghanistan. At risk is access to Middle Eastern oil, crucial for the European economy.
Watch for the EU to play off Russia and the U.S. to its advantageparticularly in relation to Caspian oil.
Watch for a strengthening of more open alliance between the Vatican and the EU, and for the EU to play a stronger mediating role, via trade and aid, in bringing Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy closer together, as this Union enlarges eastward.
Watch for the U.S. to be replaced by the EU as chief negotiator of peace in the Middle East.
Watch for the rise of the old alliance between Germany and Japan to take on greater significance as Japan looks increasingly away from the U.S. and toward the EU as its major trading partnerif only temporarily.
Watch for the drafting of a European Union constitution, based on a common currency, common police, judicial and security system, and a common defense force, which will revive the old imperial system of the ancient Roman Empire in this 21st century.
Watch for economic and social destabilization in Europe to rise in the wake of the launch of the euro.
Watch for the coming destabilization of society in Europe to spawn the political, economic, social and religious climate ripe for the rise of a treacherous demagogue, who gains office by flatteries, destined to wreak great havoc on the world scene.
