16 January 2008
The thrill of power
Some interesting speculation by Gideon Rachman in the Financial Times yesterday on the motivations of politicians. They want excitement – like anyone else, I suppose – and they find excitement in a crisis. He spoke to an official involved in British government crisis management:
“What was it like?” I asked him. “Brilliant,” he replied. “There are all the video screens and generals and admirals sitting around in uniform. You have to say things like: ‘It is 3.45 pm and I am now bringing to a close this meeting of Cobra emergency command.”
Is my friend uniquely juvenile? I suspect not – just unusually honest. He certainly believed that all the other officials around the table were delighting in the little rituals of crisis management. “I guarantee that everybody around that table had an erection within five minutes,” he mused.
Extrapolating slightly, my friend developed what you might call “the erection theory of British foreign policy”. His argument was that British government’s bias towards the “special relationship” with the US, in preference to the European Union, has something to do with the thrilling nature of American power. “If you fly into Camp David on a helicopter,” he assured me, “it’s instant arousal. But if you have to go to a European summit in Brussels, it’s so depressing you’re impotent for a week.”
Of course, there is a reason why European politics is based on discussion and agreement and the search for consensus. The Europeans have already tried the other approach – issuing threats and wielding force – and it has repeatedly led them to disaster. (I wrote more about this here http://www.federalunion.org.uk/world/reorder.shtml.) The new style of European politics may be comparatively boring but at least nobody gets hurt.
“What was it like?” I asked him. “Brilliant,” he replied. “There are all the video screens and generals and admirals sitting around in uniform. You have to say things like: ‘It is 3.45 pm and I am now bringing to a close this meeting of Cobra emergency command.”
Is my friend uniquely juvenile? I suspect not – just unusually honest. He certainly believed that all the other officials around the table were delighting in the little rituals of crisis management. “I guarantee that everybody around that table had an erection within five minutes,” he mused.
Extrapolating slightly, my friend developed what you might call “the erection theory of British foreign policy”. His argument was that British government’s bias towards the “special relationship” with the US, in preference to the European Union, has something to do with the thrilling nature of American power. “If you fly into Camp David on a helicopter,” he assured me, “it’s instant arousal. But if you have to go to a European summit in Brussels, it’s so depressing you’re impotent for a week.”
Of course, there is a reason why European politics is based on discussion and agreement and the search for consensus. The Europeans have already tried the other approach – issuing threats and wielding force – and it has repeatedly led them to disaster. (I wrote more about this here http://www.federalunion.org.uk/world/reorder.shtml.) The new style of European politics may be comparatively boring but at least nobody gets hurt.
Posted by Richard Laming at 20:36
Yes, this is all very well, but it only works within the European Union—which is now domestic politics anyway.
Outside of our common external boundaries, in order to be successful and strong, we Europeans must be willing to be more Martian in the wider world. That is to say, we must be willing to exercise power over foreign countries; this is particularly so when dealing with other great powers like China and (to a lesser extent) Russia. They only understand power, and will have no respect for weak Venusians.
If we want to be credible and listened-to in the current century, especially if resource competition increases as projected—we must be able and willing to project power in the service of European interests.
This is naive beyond belief. Whoever wrote it should research what happened to the Chatham Islanders. They too believed that everyone should be all lovey-dovey together. Then some silly outsiders came along and eat them!
DW
Read more about the Chatham Islands here http://www.federalunion.org.uk/blog/2008/02/lessons-from-chatham-islands.html
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