Victor Davis Hanson spells out his ideas for an adjusted U.S. foreign policy in Europe, including recommendations for NATO and the U.N., to reflect new realities:
Given the antics of Belgium with its wild criminal courts and anti-American rhetoric, it is a cruel joke to house NATO in Brussels. Better to move the headquarters to Warsaw or perhaps Rome. France should decide whether it is in or out of the alliance, but it can no longer be both...It might be wise also to lift all quotas on skilled Europeans who wish expedited American citizenship — both for our own good, and to discover how many talented people might prefer leaving a creeping socialism......Reform at the U.N. should be a centerpiece of our new policy. There is no reason why a billion people of a nuclear, democratic India, an increasingly confident Japan, or a vast country like Brazil should not be represented as permanent members of the Security Council. In addition, we must move to require democratic government for participation in the General Assembly; it makes no sense to give despots the privileges they don't extend even to their own people. Let the U.N. become an assembly of free peoples, and allow Libya, Syria, North Korea, and Cuba to form their own United Tyrannies
And thanks VDH, for speaking out in favor of reform of our own State Department. It's long overdue..
Our ambassadorships....should be carefully examined to ensure that we have resolute, principled men and women there to present our new views forcefully, rather than apologizing for the United States or triangulating within the Bush administration. Now is not the hour for oil men, think-tankers who have taken or will take Saudi money, State Department apparatchiks, or Atlantic Alliance yes-men whose careers are predicated either on pleasing their bosses, making money, or hopping in and out of academia. For these radically new times, we need folk of a different nature, who are convinced the events of the last two years were not an aberration.
He speculates on why "the angst arises" in Europe, and anti-Americanism replaces Christianity as the "religion" of the times...
could it even be because we are optimistic about the future, and believe we can still assimilate our newcomers, grow the economy, expand our military, and promote freedom — even while they fret about stagnant growth, a demographic time bomb, and rising unassimilated minorities. Maybe, too, the angst arises because of the youth of Europe, who desire America’s popular and often crass culture enough to worry their older guardians of hallowed values? Who knows? Who cares?Posted by dan at May 2, 2003 11:36 AM