What is Europe's Role in a World Shaped by the USA and China..?

There is a Second World War memorial in the centre of my home town that I stop by and look at whenever I pass. Above the long lists of names of those who gave their lives in conflict to protect the life they swapped for the trenches, are the words Pro Patria – a stirring reminder of the honour attached to the defence of the small part of the world that belonged to the dead – it makes you proud, because you feel part of the successes and sacrifices of men and women like you. This feeling is, by necessity, a microcosmic phenomenon. The more localised the victory, the more personal it seems. But the last decade has seen an exponential acceleration of the globalisation of community due to the ever-shrinking boundaries of time and distance, leading to the obsolescence of such mutuality.
Europe is becoming a throwback to a time when people lived and died in one place. It is no surprise that communities expand and merge – it has been happening since early man struck stone on stone and saw in the resulting flames a future so great and terrible he should, had he been ruled by sense over greed, doused the fire and his own potential in favour of the simple life. And just a few hundred years ago, England itself was divided into many kingdoms. The absorption of culture into one cosmopolitan community has already seen hundreds of separate territories united – it is, after all, the only way to increase strength. But at what cost does such power come? Along the way, things must be discarded if total unification is to be achieved: languages must amalgamate; cultures must widen their horizons and expect dilution; prejudices must be laid aside, and leave in their place a new, fully-realised concept that is blander and more manageable than the sum of its constituent parts.
North America provided the expansionist Europeans with a clean slate, onto which they could write their own history. They walked onto that continent, took it for their own and, in doing so, erased the memory of their heterogeneous road to homogeny. The Americans were at once a race with a head-start. Now, as the youngest western nation, they are also the most powerful, while the Europeans look on across the Atlantic, wondering what role they are left to play in world governed by international powerhouses.
China is the world’s fastest developing country. Within its borders live one sixth of the world’s swelling population and amidst their ranks stands the largest army in the world – a fearsome three million strong.
A Gall-Peters map shows Europe to be not only incredibly small in comparison to the US and China, but sandwiched uncomfortably between the two: like a child rubbing shoulders with giants. And like a child, Europe is confused where the giants are decisive: slightly stupid and inconsiderate perhaps, but swift to act and strong enough to defend their mistakes. Europe’s continuing diversity is a beautiful thing, but it also makes it weak. It cannot project a united front that even comes close to the uniform outlook of China and the States, because of its internal disorder.
Continuing in this way is untenable for long-term survival, and so Europe is left with two options: either ally with one or the super-powers, or become a third contender. But both roads may prove dead-ends.
With so many ideas and ideals, Europe’s cultural complexity has seen it evolve into a hotbed for political diplomacy. Unfortunately, the EU is primarily a peace-corps with one fatal flaw: peace, ironically enough, can only be kept when those entrusted with its maintenance possess a legitimate military threat. As it stands, Europe is able to function as little more than a mediator. But words can not stop bullets and, in the case of war, Europe would be forced to support one super-power or the other – it cannot do both.
Conversely, Europe could strengthen itself by homogenising the continent. If boundaries could be stripped away; if France, Germany, Britain and all the rest became states, not countries; if government was centralised; if Europe was overseen by an omnipotent president, then maybe it could compete with the big-boys.
But how many moves would this course of action leave us away from the situation faced in George Orwell’s 1984? Three super-powers always at war: it would be naïve to think that any other eventuality can come of this. Three will become two and, eventually, what was many will become one.
Cruelly for Europe, whose diversity looks set for extinction, the step that follows worldwide unification will probably be a reversion to disparateness. By then, of course, all of what we know now will have been lost, but these things move in cycles and the demise of Europe and global diversity will eventually give rise to something new: the only question that remains is whether it will be built from steel, brick or bamboo.


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