A worrying new world order
Charlemagne
Sep 11th 2008
From The Economist print edition
Europe frets about its place in a different world order
Illustration by Peter Schrank
NEVER has the European Union enjoyed such diplomatic prominence as this week, when Nicolas Sarkozy of France led an EU delegation to Moscow to secure yet another promise of Russian troop withdrawals from Georgia. Seen from Brussels, the Georgian crisis has exposed a tectonic shift in the global balance of power. It is not just that Russia is back. The crisis has also confirmed Europe’s sense of an America in relative decline.
The EU has been slow to act in the Caucasus, and too wary of upsetting Russia, concedes one deeply Atlanticist minister. But the sad reality is that, in Georgia, “the Americans have been struggling to know what to do.” It is a revealing comment. A previous generation of EU leaders, such as Jacques Chirac or Gerhard Schröder, dreamt of a multipolar world, in which several powers would wield clout. Now something like it may have arrived. Yet today’s European leaders are not crowing. Talk to ministers and officials in private, and they admit that the new world order is making them anxious.
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Sep 11th 2008
From The Economist print edition
Europe frets about its place in a different world order
Illustration by Peter Schrank
NEVER has the European Union enjoyed such diplomatic prominence as this week, when Nicolas Sarkozy of France led an EU delegation to Moscow to secure yet another promise of Russian troop withdrawals from Georgia. Seen from Brussels, the Georgian crisis has exposed a tectonic shift in the global balance of power. It is not just that Russia is back. The crisis has also confirmed Europe’s sense of an America in relative decline.
The EU has been slow to act in the Caucasus, and too wary of upsetting Russia, concedes one deeply Atlanticist minister. But the sad reality is that, in Georgia, “the Americans have been struggling to know what to do.” It is a revealing comment. A previous generation of EU leaders, such as Jacques Chirac or Gerhard Schröder, dreamt of a multipolar world, in which several powers would wield clout. Now something like it may have arrived. Yet today’s European leaders are not crowing. Talk to ministers and officials in private, and they admit that the new world order is making them anxious.
--MORE--