Gee, I always thought that the third empire referred to Hitler's imperial ambitions and that he viewed his dritte Reich as a successor to post-Bismarck/pre-WW1 Prussia (second empire) and before that, Europe under Charlemagne aka Karl der Grosse. How peculiar to refer to modern Germany as the third empire!
19
Your writer seems confused in his imperial nomenclature. Although he rightly describes Bismark's empire of 1871 as the first "modern" German Empire, most historians number differently, as follows:
The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (German: Heiliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nation) of the Early Middle Ages is generally counted as the first German Empire, although Voltaire remarked caustically that "This agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire."
Therefore, Bismark's Empire of 1871 counts as the second, and Hitler's Germany as the third. That would count your columnist's imagined EU empire as the fourth, not the third.
In any case, I disagree with his arguments. The EU is no more an empire than is the USA.
16
If I read one more American musing effectively "the Germans let the refugees in so their aging society gets rejuvenated" I will not take that person seriously anymore. Merkel is a "Christian Democrat" with "Christian" not meaning "raging right wing hypocrite" as its connotation has become here. You know, refugees, like Mary and the guy, Jews being hunted down, running away from war and slaughter? Civilization, my friend, civilization. What we pay taxes for, if not for decent infrastructure, good schools and public transportation.
16
Let the lazy Europeans go be poor on their own. The Germanic countries are the wealthy ones; they will stick together.
Just as in the united failed states: the wealthy, decent ones - i.e., Blue States - should simply let the rest take care of themselves for a change. They will soon be starving.
#calexit
4
Hey I love trolling my backward cousins to the East but even I would refrain from calling them the third reich. Maybe the first caliphate but not the third reich. I find their thinking mystifying (so strange considering they are so close) but Germans are basically known for their autism. An inability to understand the feelings and the consequences of their actions on others. You shouldnt put human beings in cages or gas them. To us this is simply common sense to Germans it is not. Should we allow in millions of migrants into Germany well wir schaffen das ! Ok ..
7
Thanks to Ross Douthat, now we know:
Liberal democracy is bad if it is supported by Germany.
11
Another perspective is presented in The Road to Unfreedom by Timothy Snyder who teaches at Yale and whose specialty is central Europe and totalitarian movements.
1
Fine, except nationalism at an economic level is increasingly redundant and unrealistic. These tiny countries don't have much traction on their own. As EU members, they're somebodies. As standalones, they're pretty second rate. The EU, in the form of France and Germany, is a much stronger, far more credible, force. Say the EU lost Italy, a mishmash economy with major flaws, and massive debt, including debt to the EU and still right next to the EU. It'd be as dumb as Brexit, a ridiculous chase after an image, rather than an economic fact. Britain is far stronger economically than Italy, and it's in an absurd position to renegotiate trade deals for no reason other than Brexit.
Call it populism, call it fascism, call it stupidity, the fact is that these absurd tinpot nationalist tantrums don't govern well. Ignoramuses with only one circus trick aren't exactly the formula for a very complex global economy. Germany can stand alone. So can France. The massive weight of EU capital against a few words and empty gestures? No question who wins. Dropping a few stones in to the sewer of internal politics may make a few ripples, but can't really change anything.
7
Identifying the current EU as the German Third Reich is pretty ridiculous, Ross, but I guess it sells papers. Putting that absurdity aside, why not just say that you believe the EU should return to its pre-Maastricht self? No EMU and no Schengen open borders. I think that is what you are proposing is completely feasible and reasonable. You don’t need to peddle vague, grandiose generalizations à la Oswald Spengler to make this simple, cogent, and defensible point.
4
This is truly an awful essay and shows that the writer has no clue about Germany, nor other Europeans, apart from a few bits of history he acquired somewhere and put in a blender, out comes the pseudo intellectual slurp. Ms. Merkel did not open Germany to Syrien refugees because she wanted to „atone“ for the Holocaust, but because it was the right thing to do. Ms. Merkel is the daughter of a reverend who left in the early fifties Western Germany and moved to God-forsaken East Germany because he wanted to care for the Christian flock there. You can imagine, that her upbringing was imprinted by following ethical core values. Of course, such principle driven life styles may be hard to understand by columnists of the N.Y. times, who are mostly interested in the color of the socks of Mr. Trump. Secondly, what Mr. Douthat doesn’t understand is that Germany is, under the blanket of all the political bruhaha, still a consensus oriented society, and that, other than in the US, „leadership“ doesn’t play such a conceptual role for known historic reasons. What the Germans in essence did, was to partially clean up the mess originated by the last catastrophically failed Iraq war, which was entirely rammed by the US onto the rest of the world under false premises and naive concepts (and in which, ironically, the Germans decided not to take part, a decision for which they were castigated here). Now to blame Germany for Eastern European xenophobia and right wing awakening is just an insult.
37
Aside from the “too” typographical error in the last paragraph, the biggest problem with this ambitious essay is the assumption that there is resurgent Germany wagging the EU around in a dictatorial fashion, and neglecting the cataclysmic loss of world influence of the United States at the hands of a clueless pseudo-nationalist racist demagogue. You want to see cultural shock in a deflating balloon? Look here, not Europe.
7
Fall ofGerman Empire?More like American illiteracy.Austria is German as are Dutch, Swiss, Belgian, &Scandinavian. Common histories.First Reich,Charlemagne,Second Prussian dominated unification,&Third Reich.Germany is not an Empire,since the US,Britain,& France created modern Germany.Europe has had the same opportunities as all European countries to create an exceptional economies.Please ask them why they did not? Greece cannot live within a budget or collect taxes & took out loans with American financial organizations.Repeat this in Italy & Spain.Americans have a difficulty with a parliamentary system.Europe has the same problems we have had with Virginia &Massachusetts,in this case Germany & France. Britain is New York ,which also wanted to secede from the Union in the Civil War. Spain is Texas. In our early history, New England & Atlantic States were "anywhere but Massachusetts" & Puritans (religious freedom". This is Poland & Hungary today. You have it correct of Russian meddling by financing campaigns in Poland/Hungary/France.But then again,even more interference in the US 2016 elections.As to Chancellor Merkel, you should read her speech as to immigrants & refugees, she uses the immigrant nation ideology of the USas her basis for future wealth &dynamism,nothing about a redemption message. Also she is the daughter of a missionary. So you would be better served to analyze America's Columbian Empire & the end of democracy as we know it.
5
Why does this sound op-ed read like the kind of thing one encounters on alt-Right websites?
8
This is how I've understood the structure of the European Union -- it exists to advance the economic interests of Germany along with other rich northern pan-German European countries like the Netherlands, Sweden and Austria. The Slavic and Romanic serf states gave up national sovereignty and democracy so they can share in the wealth in the good times but in the bad times, German bankers get to drive them into the ground and demand repayment for bad loans. The EU is run by unaccountable, obstinate Germanic technocrats who don't care that their austerity regime was both stupid and cruel. The waves of misguided populism are an obvious response to these incompetents. The serf states have been trapped in a kind of debtors prison, but the pressure of that resentment will likely lead to the EU's fall.
3
Americans would be doing themselves a favour if they refrained from speaking about the rest of the world. It's just too embarrassing for the rest of watch.
19
People like you constantly rail about liberalism as some "abstract liberal project" & yet have no solution--not even any tentative proposals, for how to deal w/a world full of competitive nationalism & mounting intolerance.
If "liberal capitalism" or "globalization" or whatever you want to call it is to blame for the repeated political upheavals of the modern world, & 1989 was NOT in fact the end of history--then what's the conservative plan?
Is it to try some way (via religion maybe?) to put the "liberal genie" back into the bottle and return to an 18th century world w/out widespread literacy, nationalism & senses of cultural identity that reach beyond the local community?
Conservatives are constantly shaming everyone who disagrees w/them, accusing all of them of being "out of touch elitists" (probably because they want to blame someone for Trump and Marine LaPenn). And maybe some of them are elitists, & maybe they deserve some of the blame, but what is the conservative palliative for angry Poles and Hungarians? How will YOU make their communities more stable and secure? Sure you can tell the refugees to go somewhere else, but where? And what about their economic situations? Will they somehow developed broad mid. classes who spend more & create widespread prosperity, or will of their wealth filter in to the coffers of the Waltons, Gates & Bezos, just like ours does? And on top of that, if this is all "liberalism's fault", why are some many of the beneficiaries conservative?
4
Western culture is not universally seductive. It is obviously boko to many.
1
This column and the writers it cites (Branko Milanovic and Damir Marusic) are spot on as it pertains to Poland. "Nationalism" has a different connotation in the USA than it does in nations like Poland, which from 1795 to 1918 was partitioned among three empires, the Prussian/German, Russian, and Austro-Hungarian. Given that Germany invaded and occupied Poland during World War II, it's no surprise that Poles are sensitive to pressure from that source.
Ross Douthat also perceptively makes the connection between Germany's migration policies and its guilt over its Nazi past. When the European Union called for freedom of movement across borders, this concept applied to movement across borders within the EU among EU member nations, not migration from outside Europe.
3
Mr. Douthat is espousing Trumpism without Trump. That's an improvement, but still not anything good.
1
These are arguments that I have put forward on my blog for several years. They go back to people like Joseph Schumpeter and the Marxist writers on imperialism from Lenin to Hilferding and Rosa Luxemburg. Still, well done Mr. Douthat!
2
If only there was a German Empire, a liberal power with the military strength to match its economic clout, enabling it to stand up to the bullies, be they in Warsaw, Budapest, Moscow or Washington. I never thought the day would come when I would root for Germany over the US. Another Trump miracle I guess.
9
http://www.dw.com/en/the-dying-rural-communities-in-eastern-germany/a-41...
The bigger cities in the east — places like Leipzig, Dresden, Magdeburg and Erfurt — are growing. Meanwhile the smallest communities are bleeding residents, as the aging population sees little recourse but to move to larger places to get the essential services they need. Alwine, for instance, has no stores and the local rural bus line doesn't stop there.
This trend is not the fault of refugees.
3
The United States doesn't seem to mind imposing its form of empire -- with its appeal also dressed in the language of universal liberalism -- on most, if not all, of the same countries. That's how empires operate, regardless of accent. Maybe it's the empires themselves that are the problem.
Mr. Douthat is close to having the correct assessment of what the problems of Europe are, but his unwillingness to consider capitalism itself as the problem prevents him from reaching it. Because the problem IS capitalism in its current incarnation of neo-liberalism with a dominant position for an international predatory financial class that extracts from the productive parts of the economy for the benefit of the .01%. As a practicing Catholic he only has to go back to the famous Rerum Novarum (Pope Leo XIII, 1891) for an answer- "Among the many and grave duties of rulers who would do their best for the people, the first and chief is to act with strict justice - with that justice which is called distributive... Justice, therefore, demands that the interests of the working classes should be carefully watched over by the administration, so that they who contribute so largely to the advantage of the community may themselves share in the benefits which they create-that being housed, clothed, and bodily fit, they may find their life less hard and more endurable." And his answer of a United States of Europe is correct, as long as he understands that means strong transfer payments from the wealthier parts of Europe to the poorer, just as the USA transfers resources from Blue states to Red for the benefit of the country as a whole. I applaud you, but Ross, Capitalism is NOT what will deliver what you're asking for.
3
An interesting echo of Trump's call for "Sovereignty" in Eastern Europe. The timing is perfect, as the U.S. leaves alliances and norms and embarks on it's own, confusing quest. It would appear that America is joining Poland and Austria, on the periphery of the nexus of liberal democracy.
1
It can succeed but they need to be willing to remove states who take EU money but refuse to live up to EU ideals. Adherence to the later seems to be weak on its eastern side.
2
The European Union was the product of a century of nationalism, militarism and the history's most horrific wars. It represents political maturity learned the hard way. The Poles and Hungarians are not just reacting to EU or German repression, they are being hoodwinked by demagogues who are temporarily succeeding because the Eastern European populations (and southern European in a different way) are politically immature, citizan children turning into rebellious adolescents. They haven't got it that nationalism is passé. It's going to be tricky to bring them up to where the French and Germans and Dutch and Belgians are, who have the experience of once being great powers, and longer democratic tradition. Douthat implicitly praises the tribal atavistic instincts and destructive ideologies. I am not surprised that he appears to be in the slipstream of Balkan-born writers. BTW the first German Empire was the Holy Roman Empire which lasted after a fashion from ca. 800 AD to 1812.
7
For a demographically and nationally cohesive country to take in substantial numbers of refugees is not unlike a family deciding to adopt grown, often damaged children from outside their culture. It may be the humane thing to do, but it can also be deeply stressful, even dangerous, and requires complete self-understanding and consensus.
5
Ross twists more facts than a Southern lynching did bodies. Like lynching, he fits his pre-determined ideology to blame. He misses entirely the rising economies of the Danube States (Eastern Europe), the fastest growing in the EU, on par with SE Asia. Germany is efficient but not innovative. Its growth slows as its markets mature.
The rise in racism (not populist!) is the regional response to the global phenomena of displacement and waste that has enriched a limited few and corporate organizations; it is reflective of the waste vs. wealth dynamic driving tensions in the world order, as populations seek their rightful share of wealth extracted from their labor and national resources, and the legacy of interior violence (stateless violence) left them, that many on both sides have adopted.
Left or right, the trends show anti-democratic forces rising to power and increases in interior violence and displacement.
5
This is a very insightful essay. Germany does indeed exercise hegemony within the EU, masking policies good for Germans as policy good for everyone (egregiously, austerity in the South). Mr. Douthat's focus on the urge for affirmation of national identity in regions (on-and-off independent countries) of Central Europe also is spot on. I suppose that citizens of powerful countries can more easily be globalists than subject people. Yet nationalism is a divisive and dividing impulse. What is more, open economies and open societies are more vital and produce more goods, services and cultural exports. I hope some sort of increase in federalism within Europe can preserve the drive to cooperate on most big issues, even as populist nationalists pull cultures apart.
2
Two points here are misleading:
1. Germany did not "impose" financial restraint on southern Europe after the 2008 crash. Germany did refuse to provide a huge bailout to countries unable or unwilling (or both) to live up to their agreements as Euro zone members. One could make an argument against the latter decision, but it is something quite different than the former incorrect claim.
2. Merkel did not "make migration policy" for the EU (let alone the "whole continent"). It would be far more accurate to say that she made a one-time humanitarian welcoming of some deserving refugees (many of them highly skilled people who are becoming quite beneficial additions to the German economy, by the way) who ended up on Germany's doorstep as a consequence of the lack of any credible and sustainable refugee policy in Germany or anywhere else in Europe.
If any lecturing across the Atlantic is called for, in the current era, American punditocrats (a world historical example of deer caught in headlines, when it comes to dealing with a disaster in chief in their White House) should be on the receiving not sending end.
14
Correction: I meant "headlights" but "headlines" also fits.
1
It is a sad state these days. Look at the world and all we read about is turmoil, unhappiness, rejection, failures. Can any country today claim peace among their populace. We gave up too much too quickly. I see the world today will soon look back over their shoulder and say where they came from was a lot better place than where we are today. And change will then really come. Brexit is a beginning of that thought, and eventually other countries in Europe will follow suit. The U.S. is so messed up it will take at least a generation for them to return to normalcy. Probably a third party us their only hope.
1
I was born in Germany in 1956, lived there from 1970-1973 (Army brat), and have been fascinated with that area of the world ever since.
I experienced hostility as an American youth in Germany. Only later did I reflect that some of those hostilities were directed toward me from former German soldiers. It made some sense upon reflection.
I remember Thanksgiving of 1972 because I spent it in what was then West Berlin with my family. When the "Wall" came down, it had special significance to me.
Like it or not, Germany is in a leadership role in Geopolitics. America, under this child-like presidency, has opted out for now.
9
There are many comments here from those who have no concrete idea about what's going on in Germany at the moment, that they tend to defer to the simplistic 'liberal vs. anti-liberal' argument Mr. Douthat has laid out before them.
When if anything, he sounds more like he's talking about what's going on in the U.S. under the present administration than what's happening in Germany with Chancellor Merkel. It's also curious that Mr. Douthat failed to note her primary reasoning behind opening Germany's borders in 2015, was based on the humanitarian gesture to offer asylum to refugees fleeing war-torn Syria -- and not just some scheme to atone for the country's Nazi past, and to secure a steady supply of cheap labour.
Unfortunately, we already know how this all turned out: For the first time in 70 years, a right-wing nationalist party like the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland), has found a place in the German Bundestag, while their popularity continues to grow and Germany struggles to integrate over a million refugees from alost every other country in the Middle-East, Africa and the E.U. as well.
And this resulting immigration explosion, coupled with the rise of populist sentiment is taking place not only all over Europe, but also here in the U.S.; which is why I tend to think that what Mr. Douthat is really talking about is 'The Fall of the American Empire'. Because Pax Americana is not looking too good for us these days either.
11
It is really a population explosion complicated by politically and environmentally driven migration.
1
Here is our President of the United States as a very brave soldier.
"Trump famously drew five draft deferments ... He would later joke, repeatedly, that his success at avoiding sexually transmitted diseases while dating numerous women in the 1980s was 'my personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave soldier.'"
7
Germany seems stronger than the United States to me at this point in history. Our fall in the eyes of the world has been swift and staggering.
11
When the US gets around to updating its own constitution, it could use the one the Allies wrote for West Germany after WW II as a good starting point.
2
The EU is a construct of federalism that is designed to make the whole of Europe stronger economically. One of the basic tenants of such a system is the free movement of labor between EU countries. This is one of the reason eastern European countries wanted to join the EU. An unintended consequence of the free movement of labor is the movement of skilled workers from countries with weaker national economies to move to the EU member countries with better economic opportunities. This was one of the reasons for the Brexit movement where low skilled workers felt they were losing jobs to labor from other EU member countries willing to work for lower wages. The weaker EU countries thus get hit with both a brain drain and an influx of unskilled immigrants from Syria and African nations. Thus, the issues are much more complex then the simple nationalism proposed by Mr. Douthat. The economic union of the EU is still the best system for European countries to try to work through these issues. Politicians, and some journalist, however, find it easier to stir the masses by hanging the issue on ideas of nationalism. Of course, our President does the same. Let's hope more intelligent minds prevail.
6
Liberalism needs educated, knowledgeable and participating citizens in order to function optimally. Maintaining and governing a democratic republic is hard work.
On the other hand a fascist, theocratic, reactionary autocracy, whatever the nomenclature or description, is easier to maintain and govern than is a liberal/progressive democracy. Neither thinking nor governance are required to maintain an autocracy.
5
Exactly. Have realized lately the reason I'm such a nervous wreck (and unfortunately reading How Democracies Die) is that I'm most concerned about trump's authoritarianism and its danger to our democracy. Just saw a focus group of trump supporters who basically loved the economy and "America First", although they at least he wished he wouldn't tweet so much. Someone has to start asking these people about their thoughts on democracy and their willingness to defend it.
4
Hapin, your conclusion is valid, but misses the key term here in the correct identification, when you should say, "Neither thinking nor governance are required to maintain an (Empire)".
BTW, fellow-commenter, AJ, if your "realization" (albeit nervously) that Levitski and Ziblatt's "How Democracies Die" is a wake-up, you may also enjoy Gilens and Page's "Democracy in America?", and "The Post's" new 21st century slogan "Democracy Dies in Darkness" ---- which, of course, the "Times" could easily one-up by replacing their legendary (but 19th century) slogan of "All the News That's Fit to Print" with a more revealing (and alliterative) 21st century slogan of their own, "Democracy Ends Under Empire".
2
Very informative piece. It's both fascinating and horrifying to see the shift towards authoritarianism in Europe and elsewhere. Mr. Douthat puts the shift in perspective and he makes the important point that there are no political innocents in the game. Although not the focus of the piece I think it should be noted that it's not just the southern European countries balking at Germany making "making immigration policy for the continent". Some Germans are reacting badly to Ms. Merkel's policies. Still, I think that the ball rests with the leaders of the EU to figure out how to stop inadvertently pushing the south, and their own citizens, to extreme nationalism. No one wins if that continues.
1
This article was written by an American who has no understanding of Europe. All it would take is for the EU to take an extremely hardline position against one rebellious or departing member for the rest of them to get in line. If they were to deny the UK all benefits of membership as they watch their economy justifiably collapse you can be sure the rest of the EU would behave very quickly. I think the EU should have been more selective and limited invitations to nations that shared core values as well as economic interests. Hungary and Poland have no business being in the EU. Yes nationalism unites people but so do ideals and beliefs. Anybody who thinks the USA is a model for anything should have their head examined. The current state of affairs is a bunch of spoiled people who want to eat their cake and have it too. I'm am American who grew up in Italy and after years in New York I currently live in Switzerland. As anybody who knows anything about Italy knows, don't write about its government. By the time the article is published they will have a new one. I'm just hoping the economy crashes in the near future for a few months. I'm in the market for property in Milan.
3
'And the liberal aspect of the European system wouldn’t be under such strain if the imperial aspect hadn’t been exploited unwisely by leaders in the empire’s German core.'
Exactly. Very well said.
Merkel is the single most important reason why the old order is slowly but surely being replaced in Europe by the new order by 2 significant, profound, and irreversible decisions:
1) doing the bidding of the German banks by squeezing the Greeks to death by imposing crippling austerity measures
2) possibly as a completely misguided compensation for 1), opening the borders to chaotic and uncontrolled mass migration of 1.5M mostly young men of another culture and 2 continents away.
Merkel is reaping what she unfortunately has sowed, and unfortunatnely, the EU is paying the very expensive price for these ill-advised decisions.
4
Dear Philly, once and for all:
The were two options only in 2010.
The first:
"Let the Greeks go bankrupt - we don´t care anymore. If they will run out of money and be down and out then - their problem. The classic "European (French) style" bankruptcy. This means smashing, not restructuring.
No programs, no squeezing, no SS cartoons of Ms Merkel and Mr Schäuble and no nasty comments in the Dollar zone by interested people fighting the Euro.
So good riddance, Greeks.
You want eat? Grow some wheat. You want to have cars? Make yourself some if you can. You want to get som finance? Do it the "Friedman" way like Argentina in the 80ties - and never call us again. Period
This option was preferred by many Germans - the majority, there is no doubt - and Mr. Schäuble in the end.
The second:
"Keep them in the EU and NATO, keep "Dear Vladimir" out and to keep the struggling FRENCH banks alive(!)".
This meant to pay economically unjustifiable amounts by imposing harsh credit terms and strict monitoring in reverse. Try to get a personnally untenable business start up-risk-loan by your local bank and you might know what I´m talking about.
This worked in all other EU countries. Only in Greece it didn´t work.
Most Germans had preferred to let the Greeks be as sovereign as they wanted to be but without paying them one single German Cent from 2010 on. No one penny. Absolutely nothing.
The "ticket" Ms. Merkel got in 2017 Election -9 % loss- was in a big part because of this.
American leadership has disintegrated in the face of a reality we do not acknowledge.
The Soviet Union granted independence to their former satellite countries peacefully by mutual agreement.
Since 9/11, Pax Americana, global hegemony by virtue of our military and economic superiority, is the basis of our foreign policy.
The world is rearranging itself according to the new paradigm, and we are being left behind.
5
The USSR broke up from its humiliation in Afghanistan. It could no longer govern its Muslim regions. Russia's activities in Ukraine and elsewhere look like efforts to put pieces of the USSR back together again.
1
The Soviet Union collapsed from the weight of a corrupt bureaucratic planned economy that was unsustainable.
Urkaine is only 300 miles from Moscow. No matter who was President, the Russians would protect their borders from an aggressive hostile government that overthrew a democratically elected government.
Ross you lost me 1/3 of the way through.
Here are my thoughts imo.
America was always viewed as the leader of the west since WW2. This has effectively ended with the election of the rabble rouser, bigot, pathological liar, admitted sexual predator, philanderer, border line Russian spy, ego maniac demagogue Trump.
Until somebody else comes along, Germany and Merkle are the "poor mans" owner of the title now.
9
There is NO third German empire.
9
Germany has an empire built on high value added Industrialism, and their implicit credo, "Order is Life."
Now their culture and system of production have been overwhelmed by a problem not of their making, immigration from a Middle East torn asunder by the Iraq War. The problem was exacerbated by the market for derivative equities in the United States which collapsed and had repercussions worldwide.
There have been some large bumps in the road for Germany. But the Storm Troopers on television pulling traffic violators out of cars and off the streets in handcuffs are U.S. ICE agents.
America has a lot bigger problems than the ones we fomented for Germany. If their empire is falling, then ours has shattered.
Ross, with this bloviating, mendacious, venal authoritarian leading the United States, your disparagement of the German people amounts to the nitpicking of small parasites off the hide of the orange elephant in the room.
12
“... immigration from a Middle East torn asunder by the Iraq War.”
Turkey built a damn on the Euphrates River, diminishing the flow of fresh water to Syria. Syria is an arid land that suffers occasional droughts. The damn and an especially long drought forced farmers to drill deeper to find water. Apparently, government bureaucrats limited those who were given permits to drill deeper to those who would pay bribes. The families who could not pay ended up migrating with their large families to the cities where they were tinder for the rebellion against Assad.
This was part of the “Arab Spring”.
Arabs told the media that they, not the West deserved credit for the “Arab Spring”. Now you are trying to blame us for it. I think those in the Mid-east have to look at their own behavior. They have large families even though the entire region is arid, and one country thinks it has the right to dam a river even though this limits the water flowing to its neighbor.
Except for the land along the Nile, Egypt and Sudan are very dry. One of the Nile’s tributaries starts in Ethiopia which is now in the process of damning it. Will there continue to be enough water for the huge populations in Egypt and Sudan? Will you also blame their demographic problems on us?
5
Wordsworth, when you say, "their (Germany's) culture and system of production have been overwhelmed by a problem not of their making, immigration from a Middle East torn asunder by the Iraq War."
This immediately reminded me of Tom Brokaw's insightful but ignored comment of November 22, 2015 on "Meet the Press" when he accurately fingered the proximate cause:
"Well I agree, listen. You know, when Donald Trump talks about security or Ben Carson, we're talking about three-year-old orphans who are orphans and refugees because of American policy." --- which stops only a little bit short of the author of "The Greatest Generation" and most trusted news anchor doing a Walter Cronkite moment and openly saying, "orphans who are orphans and refugees because of (the) American policy" of acting like a global Empire.
4
As in the US, the Brussels/German/Euro types have no respect for people who have a different world view. Sound familiar? Their sneering condescension and intolerance is combined with an apparent feeling that those who disagree with them are inferior human beings whose viewpoints can be ignored because they are "illiberal" or, as they say, "deplorables". As someone who travels extensively in Eastern and Central Europe, studies the history and who has nothing but admiration for the countries are rising out of the ashes of first the German's then the Soviet's murderous rampaging, it is pretty clear to me that the peoples the leftys sneer at so much are, quite frankly, the betters of the self-appointed "elites". A simple, average Polish peasant has more character than the most pompous internationalist in the European Parliament. The Germans are lucky people in the US and many other places are illiterates when it comes to European history. Especially 20th Century European history. Especially the history of what the Germans did in the lifetimes of people still living. So I would give the Hungarians and the Poles and the rest of New Europe some slack and understand why they aren't ready to share in Angela Merkle's guilt assuaging trip - which is at their expense! In my opinion, the guilt should be a permanent stain on Germany and it is too bad people have already forgotten a part of history that should be told over and over again.
5
Give them some slack. But I would say cut their credit line and don’t waste EU € on them. These countries solely depend on these monies yet they offer every little in response. I am by no means an expert but I would be hard pressed to name one item that Hungary produces that is relevant to their economy. Same thing goes for Poland. Only with joining the European Union these countries were able to grow.
3
The Holocaust is not forgotten.
1
Most commenters here seem more focused on 'counting German Empires', or denying what countries are empires --- than they are on seeing the Empire right under their eyes!
As the old musical show tune goes, "We got trouble right her in River City, and that begins with 'T' and that rhymes with 'E' and that stands for EMPIRE" (right here at the confluence of the East, Hudson, and Potomac Rivers).
Wake-up and smell the Empire, folks.
BTW, nobody seemed to pick-up on Douthat's whopper of an oxymoron, "disinterested elite".
As anyone with any grasp of history should no, the ruling-elite of any Empire is anything but "disinterested" --- particularly in this disguised global capitalist Empire, where the ruling-elite UHNWI's have to not only direct the course of the Empire, but also select a perfect 'patsy-president' to play the role of faux-Emperor, take the fall, but without any risk of going 'off leash' --- as the last German Empire learned 'the hard way'.
3
There is just something annoying about this: an American journalist writing in an American newspaper about the problems in Germany.
He should go to Sankt Peter Ording before the end of June. Rent a bike and enjoy the good life.
“Empire”, what is that ? Is that a word that the average German even cares about, “empire” ?
What percentage of the German population, would you guess, looks at other places to live and guesses that life would be better there ?
The Germans are doing fine enough.
“Charity begins at home”, Ross. You would do better to focus your brilliant thinking abilities on a place that has real problems.
15
German journalists write in German newspapers about the problems in the US. No difference...
1
Germans have historically elected the worst leader at the worst time to get the worst result to complete their collapse phases. There are a lot of worsts in Germany, and the U.S. may be entering that phase now. Interesting to see if Europe recedes back to its roots in dealing with refugees, maybe taking a page from the Israeli playbook?
2
I am quarreling with two things here:
(1) Your NUMBERING. The FIRST German Empire was the so-called Holy Roman Empire. Was it not?
Bismarck got the SECOND Empire going in 1871. There was a groundswell of patriotic, German feeling right after the Franco-Prussian War. He took advantage of it.
Which is why the THIRD empire we call the third Reich. As in "The Rise and Fall of." No need to explain. Everyone knows what you mean.
(2) I have read of certain foreign persons--okay, I'll just say it--they were of Asian extraction. Meaning no offense.
. .. certain foreign persons, smiling broadly some years back and hailing (as they thought) the imminent demise of the "American Empire."
Demise? Okay. Maybe.
But I bristled at "American Empire." I wanted to shout out, "NO! We do NOT have an empire. We're not an empire-building country."
I would say that about twenty-first century Germany.
Lotta stuff here about economic policies and the European Union and Brexit--this that--this that. Okay, Mr. Douthat, you can run with it. That's fine.
But if I were German (which I am not). . .
. .. I would bristle at the title of your piece.
I would bristle long and hard. And by the way. . . .
. . . I ALSO bristle whenever I run into the word "liberalism" and "liberal." Most of the time, the person using it. . . .
. .looks with a cold, unloving eye. . .
. . .upon "liberalism" and "liberals.'
Just thought I'd mention it.
"Cause I sure don't.
7
Thanks for alerting Ross to his misconception about his Empire numbers.
You are absolutely correct pointing this out with Charlemagne as the first Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.
Of course, that included all of France at the time, to which Macron and all my French friend naturally take exception these days. :-)
America has territories over which it exerts jurisdiction but which have no representation at any level of government (look at what we've done to Puerto Rico -- this is classic colonialist exploitation). America routinely interferes in (ostensibly) sovereign nations' affairs, toppling their governments to install puppet dictators (this is why the Iranians hate us) and governments. America maintains military bases in 80 countries around the world. America uses its economic might to force countries to accept policies which favor American interests.
I am curious what constitutes an empire if America does not.
As to our "liberalism", in this context it refers to our concept of "liberal democracy". Which is, of course, something of a joke. Just ask the Guatemalans, the Chileans, the Salvadoreans, the Hondurans, the Iranians, the Egyptians, the Indonesians, etc., about the "liberal democracy" which America exported to their respective countries.
2
But they were Frankish, which leads to the French. Just as the Scotii were people the Romans met in Ireland.
Mr. Douthat betrays his shallow grasp of history by only looking as far as the 19th Century to explain the trajectory of German imperial power. Even if we are to accept the EU as a "German Empire" (and I don't), a much richer comparison could be made to the Holy Roman Empire (800-1806), a multi-ethnic association of Kingdoms, duchies, principalities, and cities that only had strong central governance depending on the will and skill of the reigning Emperor. Most members preferred to remain in the Empire than be absorbed by an absolute monarchy like France or Russia. This is also why all of the former Eastern Bloc states (spare Belarus) prefer the EU over Moscow.
5
There was also the Hanseatic League. Seems closer to the current trade oriented union.
1
"There are no political innocents here," Mr. Douthat writes. Well, that's for sure. And certainly there is no political innocence left in the Republican party within the United States of America.
Rather than imagine great clandestine meetings between Merkel and whomever you see her manipulating, whether in Brussels or in Berlin, imagine Ross, if you will, the many, many meetings with attorneys and with advisors going on in Washington DC as our nation grapples not with empire building but with an empire crumbling around us, through corruption, greed and graft.
Perhaps that could be the focus of you rnext commentary: How the Republican party stood by fiddling while Washington DC metaphorically burns down around us.Please. Leave Germany alone. The worries you imagine European nations having pale in comparison to our own. And why? Because no one in your party even wants to admit any of these issues exist! Look and see what is happening around us right now and let me see some outrage about that! I have never seen a sadder, more detached, less obsequious group than the current Republicans and their apologists like you Mr. Douthat.
2
This media agenda of continuous half baked tales concerning the German State is about as dull as another ghost story told after the Sun has come up. The world has moved on, with the understanding that historically factual information concerning this subject and written west of the prime meridian, more often than not, will be conveniently left out.
4
Since Germany already had the Third Reich (Empire), calling the present situation "the third German empire" is unfortunate terminology. Either that, or Mr. Douthat is mathematically-challenged.
5
While I hesitate to diagnose the complex relationships, dynamics, and interests swirling about troubled Europe thank you none the less for an interesting read. I intend to peruse the articles you reference.
As predictable as the sunrise, the NYT commentariat has little or no interest in engaging in the issues Douthat addresses (any more than our three major cable "news" networks where it's Trump soap-opera 24/7.) The world outside our borders cannot be ignored and Trump opponents act like his "Maga" crowd in doing so. Shame on you for acting like the "Murrica" First, white nationalist-populist no use for "furriners" crowd populating Trump rallies.
Attention must be paid. While Douthat may not have it right on all particulars, he does correctly diagnose that the European crisis is much more than liberalism versus illiberalism. Head in sand or Trump has me so flummoxed I don't care will not do. We live in an interrelated world and trade and jobs and alliances and interests are at stake.
1
It really is not hard to figure out – people want a national identity and want to share the same culture with their fellow citizens. For a society to function, there has to be something that connects members of the society together, figuratively, a glue. Any sociologist can tell you that. What is wrong with that?
Otherwise, you will have people compartmentalized, living in their own respective bubbles, and walking on eggshells with each other, where hostilities simmer beneath the surface, waiting to explode at the slightest misunderstanding or provocation.
An example of the former is very orderly Japan and an example or the latter is, take your pick, but Lebanon is as good an example as any.
The US is politically so divided, never were we so divided since the Civil War. It is not in-coincidental, that we also live in a period of globalism and mass migration, both legal and illegal. One side wants openness; the other side wants tight controls, and does not see benefits in having so many immigrants, especially from vastly disparate cultures, who have no interest to assimilating into the host's parent culture.
It is basically the same situation, maybe worse, in the EU, but it is a problem for all western countries.
It is so ironic that liberalism will be directly responsible for its own demise, because it did not have the self-restraint to moderate itself. Like a glutton, it did not know when to stop itself.
69
The US founders wrote that "pursuit of happiness" is the common objective of people who consent to be governed for the benefit of all.
5
For people like you who divide everyone into either "people who want open borders", and "people who (naturally) want immigration restrictions and a common shared identity", this is what I have to say:
YOU are the ones who imagine some ideal utopia--because there is NO MORE melting pot. Technology & globalization mean there is no longer a world where you can take in only the ones who are assimilable and keep out the rest. Well, you can try, but you won't succeed.
The world of mass migration & refugees crises isn't going to go away because people build walls, behave intolerantly toward minorities, or even terrorize them. People are on the move b/c economic globalization is disrupting traditional societies everywhere. Trying to stop all of this is like trying to stop water from running downhill.
The only way to not be "compartmentalized" & not "walk around on eggshells" is to accept that many people living around you will be DIFFERENT from you.
This world we are in, full of diversity, is INEVITABLE, whatever politicians may say--even JAPAN has an immigrant community, and they may not rival those in other western countries, but the numbers of minorities WILL continue to grow.
Someone has to stop talking about this as an "abstract liberal project" and re-conceptualize it as the inescapable reality of globalization. Or you can keep electing Trumps, and believe that angry rants will make water flow uphill.
12
I am a second generation Italian American. My grandparents lived in little Italy in my home town. My parents, aunts and uncles moved out of Little Italy and my generation became assimilated with the rest of the local culture. I am now living in California far from my hometown of Williamsport. I have observed the same assimilation over the generations with the Hispanic community. Given a chance, with education and opportunities, immigrants assimilate enough to feel American as well as their ethnic culture from their descendants. Right now we have a President who calls immigrants animals and worse. Most immigrants come because they are hungry or fearful of danger in their countries. We have to come to some reasonable agreement on how to handle this present crisis . Fear mongering and and dehumanizing these people are unacceptable in our country and gore against our principles as a democratic nation.
16
I think that there is as much disagreement between say, Mississippi and California as there is between Germany and Spain. We have very similar problems that the EU has.
You have thrown a straw man argument into the European mix without bringing in our very divided nation.
There are people here who want to secede, take up arms against the Federal Government, and there are States who want to ignore Federal laws.
Trump will continue his disastrous policies and some of us will continue to RESIST.
2
We Americans like to tout our exceptionalism -- and in one respect we're right to do so. Because America is not a nation-state, even as we call ourselves "one nation", we have historically done a better, quicker job of assimilating mass immigration than perhaps any empire since the Romans. Sure, there are (very) ugly patches, and sure, it's built on a skeleton of white supremacy, but most countries couldn't handle the waves of migrations that America has historically experienced.
Part of that is because America is, relatively, *new*. We wiped out all the natives here. There aren't thousands of years of history to support a shared narrative or history. We've got some tripe about pilgrims and the Mayflower that nobody takes seriously.
The fact is that every country, every nation-state, has a limit to how many new arrivals it can assimilate in so much time. The American ideological crusade attempted to upend this in Europe.
Thus the tangled web of "never again!" has become the tinderbox of "not again!" Europe reaps our whirlwind.
2
Kudos to Mr. Douthat tackling "The Fall of the German Empire" in only one column. Understandably, the piece has little meat on its bone in terms of meaningful supporting facts but is rich in foregone conclusions based on the writer's ideology.
What is the basis that a "fiscal policy" was imposed other than to stop spending money Greece did not have, seriously? The hard headed German bankers were willing to lend additional billions of Euros to keep a bankrupt country afloat after billions of Euros had been written off already. The Greek are proud people and put on a good show we all remember. In the end, they made the decision to stay in the EU and to take advantage of the resources available as result.
On that note, with the US Treasury being plundered by our current administration and Congress the US federal deficits are soaring to levels that will make your eyes water (a.ka. reach Greek proportions). Then we will be subject to hard headed bankers from empirical "Chyna"...
That could be the topic for one of your next columns.
4
Loans have two parties. German banks lent money to Greece that they shouldn't have -- just as subprime lenders here in the U.S. did to unwitting consumers.
Germany was happy to reap the rewards of a less-developed economy like Greece or Spain being in the Eurozone when times were good, but when big banks took the global economy for a joyride suddenly Greece needed to exercise some of that good ol'-fashioned "personal responsibility".
Spain suffered heavily, too. Their country was solvent with a fairly low debt-to-GDP ratio -- until the market crashed. Then the German banks and their sock-puppets with the ECB descended on Madrid and demanded austerity, dooming the country to a decade of mass unemployment that destabilized the government.
Germany and France pushed the euro for their own economic benefit, but when the chickens came home to roost they shielded themselves behind "independence" and "sovereignty" to justify leaving the southern periphery of Europe on the hook for excesses that were perpetrated by all.
Sweden avoided the fate that the southern eurozone countries did explicitly because it wasn't in the euro -- and indeed that was why Sweden never joined the currency union in the first place. Britain could have done so, except instead they just slashed social spending and prolonged their own suffering, setting the stage for Brexit.
2
"...the fiscal policy imposed on Southern Europe in the wake of the Great Recession..." You mean the fiscal policy donated by the Boys from Chicago to Pinochet in Chile? The fiscal policy demanded by the Kochs and served on us by Ryan, Mnuchin, and Trump? Douthat has zero credibility in preaching about the EU or Germany while still supporting, however sheepishly, the current wreck of a government.
3
I'm not sure how often the word liberalism appears in this peace, but it seems to be in every other sentence. How ironic then, that it is Germany's conservative party that has been more or less firmly in charge for the past decade or so. In a nutshell, to describe (and exaggerate) Germany's and Europe's current problems as a failure of liberalism is reductive and paradoxical.
3
Well Ross-
you are correct that Germany has projected power via its position as the largest economy in Europe. It has, however, done so in the context of the EU. It has enormous influence in the EU, but does not dominate it. It has issued no ultimatums to other EU states unlike the actions of the Trump administration in regard to Iran. This, by the way, doesn't mean that all of its influence has been used well.
Germany also has a vigorous internal debate about both economic and immigration policies in which all parties take part and appears to be able to compromise on many points. Again, this is a characteristic which seems to be lacking in the US these days- even more so than in the days of Bill Clinton and beyond.
I grew up in the US, have lived on both coasts- now live in England and lived in Germany as well. I read (too much unfortunately) the press in all of these countries.
Please don't simplify. Erdogan is not Orban is not Putin. They all exist in different environments and come from different histories. What does unite them, however, is a denigration of free speech and personal freedom. If you're against that it doesn't mean you're a liberal. It means you're a decent human being.
5
The world must give something to Germany. Without the EU’s ties to her dithering neighbors there is no telling what havoc she would wreak. Well actually you can look at history to see exactly what sort of havoc. Americans have their exceptionalism and their Constitution to hold them in check—somewhat and so far. But of course the quandary in Europe right now is whether the EU can impose the right kind of government on its members. I am surprised they don’t look more to Japan, which has been handling a similar demographic problem for decades.
2
A rather non combative, rather introspective Empire is Merkel's Germany. But indeed, the magnetic power of the EU's richest country cannot be underestimated.
You can check out any time but you can never leave as Greece, and nowadays the UK, so vividly are illustrating. As a result, the 'Union' is as flexible and assertive as the Rock of Gibraltar. That should change, if ever Europe should want to evolve into a coherent entity.
Monetary discipline and a well developed system of institutionalised contradiction should be the key to admission into such a (smaller) Europe. A German styled Europe, indeed.
1
I think Mr. Douthat makes some very perceptive points, and perhaps misses or chooses not to acknowledge a related tendency. As a leftist, I very generally agree that the analysis of what is going on in the EU is not, or should not be, restricted to the simplification of liberal vs. illiberal values; of backsliding on liberal and enlightenment principles. However, an additional angle that I think Mr. Douthat does a disservice not addressing is that one of the points of tension comes from the imperial (EU) imposition of neoliberal capitalist policies on its member states. The imposition of austerity (nothing more than the imposition of core neoliberal practice) flowing from German policy-making in the EU is at the very least equally to blame for member states looking to regain some notion of national sovereignty.
But across Europe, parties of the left long ago capitulated to capital and satisfied themselves, like Third Way capture of the Democratic party, with embracing neoliberal policy while trying to maintain socially liberal policy to ease the pain of the generally economically authoritarian system. When reaction against neoliberal policies reached a head with the coming of the Great Recession, the social democratic "left" in Europe had (and generally have with the exception of a resurgent Labour in the UK for example) no answers, leaving only one alternative being offered on the table: illiberal or authoritarian nationalism.
We need real socialist alternatives.
5
"We need real socialist alternatives."
When the 'real socialist alternatives' have the money to support themselves and to support those countries which cannot, they will be 'real'. As long as the money is coming from 'neoliberal capitalist' societies they have the right and the responsibility to dictate terms for their cash.
1
Mr. Douthat's argument that nationalism among the countries that emerged (or reemerged) after 1989 is embraced by those countries at least as much as liberal values sounds correct to me. And Germany's financial and economic hegemony over these states is also very true. But while a desire to preserve nationhood among countries where it has often been threatened may explain part of the growth of illiberal-ism among states along the EU's periphery, it doesn't explain the growth of illiberal-ism in Europe's own heartland including the growth of far right parties in Germany itself. Germany's "Empire" was built on the proposition that nationalism is bad because it can lead to war and should be replaced by something trans-national, which an Empire (or the EU) represents. The sudden growth of the far right suggests that nationalism is alive and well throughout Europe. There I think there are strong parallels with the rise of Donald Trump in the U.S.
6
Europe has vastly more social programs than the U.S. Since Douthat nowhere acknowledges the great victories of the European social charter I attach a copy of the European social union of 1961: https://rm.coe.int/168006b642
Read and weep at how far the U.S. has fallen in social/economic/employment/housing/education rights.
5
Douthat completely ignores the European Social Charter of 1961, a treaty to embody the values of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights including the right to employment and income.
While American states are in race to the bottom the European social charter mandates a race to the top. In the past decades the welfare state in the U.S. has been eviscerated while constantly growing in Europe. Extreme inequality and privation mestatizes over the U.S. while tamed in a Europe of strong unions and comprehensive protection in housing, education, income security, health care, and a right to employment.
The prison industrial complex, increasingly privatized in the U.S., is unknown in Europe. American education is in decline while education in Europe bounds ahead.
Nowhere does Douthat's pontifications acknowledge the ideals and realities of the social union and the social charter and its comprehensive social protections.
3
This column is nonsense. Far worse, though, it employs a vile rhetorical slur about a new Third Reich as the spine of its argument.
To call Germany an "empire" because of its economic strength comically overstates the "imperial" nature of the EU. But to call this the "third German empire" is to make an utterly mendacious connection to the Third Reich and Nazi stormtroopers.
If Angela Merkel's push for EU openness to refugees reminds Douthat of a new Third Reich, he's got a real problem.
One can have a reasonable debate about the wisdom of Merkel's position on immigration -- though it's in line with those of many other EU leaders. But to describe her as leading a "third German empire" -- a new Third Reich-- is to defile that debate with a fearmongering lie. It's unworthy.
6
To call the current German government the third empire is distasteful and dishonest. Undoubtedly you are well aware that the concept of the third empire (Das Dritte Reich) is a loaded Nazi term that stood for continued repression of other nations. Germany has moved beyond that, hopefully once and for all.
4
Mr. Douthat commits a pretty astonishing gaffe right at the outset when he calls his imagined current German Empire (which is, of course, anything but an empire) the third one. The 1871 Empire under Wilhelm I and II which evolved into the Weimar Republic after WW I was not the first German Empire by common definitions. That would be the Holy Roman Empire which, from 1512 on, was officially called “...of the German Nation”. More importantly, anyone reading of a Third German Empire (“Drittes Reich” in German) inevitably thinks of the Nazi regime, because that is what it called itself. Apart from everything else that’s questionable about this opinion piece, this strikes me as particularly foolish.
7
This is rubbish. What was to be the EU was not founded by Germany to rule other countries, it was invented by those other countries to moderate German power. What kind of empire has the supposedly oppressed countries lining up to join?
Germany is the outsize power of the continent and the last ~150 years of European history has largely consisted in Germany and its neighbours working out how to deal with that fact. The EU is by far the best answer we've come up with so far.
11
sneaky Ross throwing out some more craziness. grab your socks Ross, it's the 242 year old, greatest ever, experiment in democracy that's wobbling.
7
Germany was the strongest when it was split into two pieces after WW2. Then it was strictly staying alive on hope. The moment though it became one country (thanks Ronald Reagan) reality got the upper hand and this very weak country just died while constantly apologizing for Hitler's insanity with every single German constantly saying "ich habe es nicht gewusst" (I really didn't know that seven million Jews were gassed). In short, Germany started to disappear under Hitler but still doesn't know that.
1
I am so angry at this piece of nonsense that I am writing a second time: There was only one Germany Empire, period. It consisted of a fixed number of states and territories. Empire translates as Reich. Reich translates as Empire. The historically recognized German Empire ended in 1918, it was, however sometimes referred to as the Second Reich, though Germany before the Empire was hardly unified enough to claim the name Reich, or its translation Empire. In any case it was this tradition of calling the German Empire the Second Reich, that prompted Hitler to call his regime the Third Reich.
The nonsense that follows in this article in an insidious way implies that Germany of today no more than repeats its past, equating its influence and leadership with the pejorative notion of Empire, Reich, and power, and bolsters Ross Douthat's pejorative notion of liberalism.
8
Thought provoking, as many of Ross Douthat's articles have been for me.
But please note that the unconventional terminology sounds irritating to a native German speaker like me: Spontaneously, I would translate "Third German empire" into "Drittes deutsches Reich", but the Third Reich historically designates Hitler's rule.
6
Not stupid - it IS the economy...
Perhaps not:
"Free stuff for lazy people"
So, let's translate - from progressive to banker:
"Gift cards and introductory teaser rates for less industrious people"
Progressing further - from banker to fedbanker:
"Grants and prime-rate debt issuance for less-industrialized peoples"
Nothing lost in translation, Ross - not a single thing...
PS
"...the nation-states that emerged from ’89 tended to be ethnically homogeneous and proudly so...
Sounds more like a tribe than a nation - though the EU does sound more like a tribal nation these days than a continental union...
2
There is as much imperial domination in German (and French) leadership in the EU as there is in Empire State and California leadership in the US. "Sovereignty" and "states' rights" are most often demagogues' covers for illiberalism.
Mr William Burdumy (NYT pick) has it right.
2
In the US we have the same identity issues. I
though so when Trump started the birther rumor
that infected so many uncritical minds. He essentially tried to remove Barack Obama's identity. It is a form of assassination. In this case
racial and anti-intellectual. Why Evangelicals
put up with this implies that they too are struggling to keep identity. Why, when Pence was
inaugurated, he put his religion first, his nation
second, violating "church and state" law. We all
try to keep our identities, but empathy and perspective must control in a representative
democracy. This is not working right now.
Even Congress is silent. Ross shows that such
a silence inhabited the days of Hitler's coming
to power. Trump is a minor dictator, but he signals
a great illness in our public as he seeks only One
identity for all of us, HIM.
2
If anyone is descending it is the American empire . Blame it on unbridled capitalism. When finances replaced manufacturing as the driving force of the economy, our descent began. Replacing Henry Ford with Goldman Sachs was a big error .
15
It wasn't worth selling out the corporations people managed when high marginal tax rates limited how much would filter down to them from the buy-out.
And progressive tax rates would prevent the modern-day robber barons of Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, etc. No one wants to work that hard when 90% is going to the government. Worst thing this country did was cut taxes on the wealthy, and create a new billionaire class with the money and power to buy government. The greedy ingrates still outsourced and cut wages/jobs and now want to automate the lower middle class out of the remaining low wage jobs while they 'Hoover' up the profits and have the freedom to locate and move the money anywhere in the world that will give them tax favors.
1
This is insightful analysis, especially the part about German bankers claiming austerity was the only path for southern European countries. If they're so smart, why did they lend all that much money to Greece and Spain in the first place?
6
Bravo!
1
It's hard to accept someone's opinion, if they lead into that opinion with facts that are simply wrong. You begin by listing the german empires, calling Hitler's the second and this current "empire" the third. Well there is a reason the Nazis saw their Germany as the THIRD empire ("Reich") and that is that there were two actual german empires before them.
So that being said I wonder how much fact checking went into the things this whole opinion is based on.
6
"So that being said I wonder how much fact checking went into the things this whole opinion is based on."
I´m gonna tell you compatriote: Exactly zero as - always when Mr. Douthat is "going European."
It´s not against us. When he is writing about France it´s going to be worse so we are just honored. We all shall have to live with this. But he and NYT shall have to live with the fact that nobody here is taking these kinds of columns serious anymore.
If there is one good idea in this article- phantastic. If not then it´s a regular "Opinion" column on Europe only provoking thoughts like: "How can anyone be so ignorant about what´s up here?"
1
It has taken two centuries for Europe to achieve the French ideal of an enlightened political-military union and the German ideal of Zollverein, a supra-national customs union. The concepts may be under stress at present, but they will endure as long as the peoples of Europe remember their history.
6
The fact that EU was designed to contain Germany seems lost on the author.
14
Talking about a 3rd German Empire repeatedly isn't only cheap and needlessly provocative for a listless joke's sake, it's also dangerous because it puts Germany's decades long effort to find sustainable peace with its neighbours in a perspective that makes Germany looking selfish, manipulative and above all imperial. Your implied notion: Der Deutsche is hässlich and alway will be.
This is unnecessarily divisive and somewhat irresponsible if you think about the media penetration of the NYT.
A shame for an otherwise thoughtful article that has valuable insights into the inner life of the Easter Europe countries and their struggle with liberal democracy.
7
I lived for five years in Berlin : this title is a provocation (fine), but mostly an insult to Germany, a country that has done more than any other to deal with its history. There is but one Empire today, the American Empire, as exemplified by the orders tweeted by the newly appointed American proconsul in Germany.
The rules agreed upon in the EU are mostly economic common sense, as opposed to expression of a German diktat: countries must live within their means, that includes Italy, whose problems are not the result of EU rules, but of the ineptitude of a series of governments, whose achievements will be quickly surpassed by the current coalition.
As to the eastern belt, how about another reading : that a majority of people in countries that have no democratic tradition, or very little, are reasonably happy with semi autocratic regimes.
And happy to forget that their economic wellbeing comes largely from being integrated into the German industry. Not to mention the money transferred from (aargh!) Brussels. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you...
14
Why can't we instead see what is going on as what happens with stability. People forget the crises that were resolved. So those frustrated by the EU simply can't remember the alternatives that we worse. And the nations on the periphery are perhaps to self involved to understand the EU at all.
All institutions make missteps. The EU has. But we need to remember the struggles before there was an EU, and the cooperation needed to rebuild a destroyed continent.
By the way, we see this in the US where voters have largely forgotten how we generated the prosperity we had over most of the past 70 years.
Sadly, in Europe and America, there are folks who take advantage of the foolish.
2
Sigh - Imperialistic overreach dies hard. The US invasion of Iraq continues to be disastrous for US, and predominantly Germany's - well, as described...
2
Mr. Douthat's essay makes him seem oddly unfamiliar with Europe and Europeans, and ill-equipped to write about them. The sheer stupidity of the French and German bankers who over-lent to southern Europe, and their governments' determination to rescue them -- matched and compounded by behaviors among US financial firms and US government leaders -- are at the heart of current problems, not some imaginary empire. Capitalism is an important and dynamic force in the success of the West, but the international success of propaganda claiming that regulation is harmful and stupid -- the initiative of Reagan, Thatcher and Blair. and also the de facto attitude among the "classe politique" in modern Continental Europe -- is the fatal flaw leading to widespread cynicism and populism based in a very accurate perception of unfairness.
4
Eh, what is quite obviously ignored in this analysis is the fact that Eastern Europe has enthusiastically endorsed liberal policies for open borders when it means workers from (say) Hungary or Poland traveling to Britain or France to do construction work. THAT freedom of movement is OK, but not Syrians admitted as refugees after extensive vetting.
Let's see . . . what could be the difference here? Could it be pure fear and resentment of brown people practicing another religion? That certainly seems that's a strong source of the growth of right wing populous movements to me!
4
Obviously there is quite a bit of friction at the point of transition between a high birth rate catch as catch can survival strategy of an agrarian culture and a low birth rate long life span survival strategy based on knowledge and science of a technological culture.
1
I've been "next door" to Germany in Poland for fifteen years now. There is no empire here or in Germany either. What we and most other EU countries do have are functioning societies that provide health care for everyone, good public education through graduate and professional schools for those who meet stringent admittance standards, and well-designed and maintained public infrastructure which is rapidly transitioning from poor to state of the art in former Eastern bloc countries like Poland. Autobahns here in Poland, thanks to a prosperous economy and the financial support of the EU, are newer and subsequently in better condtition than those in Germany. As the country urbanizes, beautiful new homes and condominimums are being build and purchashed as quicky as they are completed, and shops and resturants are increasingly full. Poland is doing much better than muddling though.
Unfortunately, we Poles have our own set of egocentric, nationalistic leaders who are attracted to power and the grift. Self-promoting, eco-centric opportunists can alway be counted on to make government about enriching themselves and salving their ego rather than serving the average citizen. Forget about all this empire nonsense. We too are just people doing our best to keep right-wing politicians from stealing us blind and getting us killed in nationalistic conflicts for profit and glory.
8
Whoever edits Douthat at the Times should have advised him to start over. His op ed does not make sense. Germany is in the center of Europe and has the largest population, except for Russia, but it does not have cultural or political hegemony over Europe. Within the EU, Germany has insisted that the debts of Greece, Italy, and Spain be paid. Germany also unsuccessfully opposed monetary stimulus that benefited eastern Europe.
How have German policies weakened the development of liberal democracies in Eastern Europe? Germany's had hardly effect on those countries. What's weakened those democracies was indigenous to those countries. Specifically, in Poland and Hungary, voters think home grown dictators can lead them well because home grown dictators have done well in the past. Politicians who appealed to those voters won. Germany had nothing to do with those elections.
4
It is well-known that any rule by an entity outside of the nation state is an imposition on national sovereignty.
In the 19th Century, the Gold Standard served as a fetter on the ability of national governments to take action to offset an economic recession. As the currency was fixed in value, only reduced prices and wages could lower the cost of exports and preserve gold balances. The Euro has the same effect today.
Without the Euro, countries with independent currencies would have been able to devalue to import less and export more. The Germans, as cost leader in the Euro Zone, have been able to have an export balance of nearly 10% of GDP, a situation not possible in the absence of the Euro. It is the monetary straight jacket that France got Germany to accept as part of the re-unification deal that has unexpectedly led to German economic dominance of Europe.
As for the EU, it serves as a supranational authority that imposes rules and regulations on member countries. However, not all member countries have equal power to affect decisions, and resistance to Merkel's attempt to force other members to accept her immigration "diktat" can be seen as an attempt by others to re-assert some aspect of national self-determination.
Douthat confuses "liberalism" with "neoliberalism." The latter is the basis of the EU's economic policies; the former indicates Germany's stance on immigration. The rise of the AfD indicates that it is not accepted uncritically by all Germans.
2
Gold is just another commodity whose value is set by supply and demand. When gold changes hands, a fiat currency passes in the opposite direction. Gold makes a lousy fiat currency itself for too many reasons to mention here.
True enough, Steve, but the point had to do with the GOLD STANDARD, a 19th century mechanism that kept each currency value fixed in terms of gold. Consequently, when a country ran a trade deficit it would lose gold and be forced to have a "hard money" policy despite deteriorating economic conditions because the country could not devalue its currency. As well, with fixed currency/gold values, the price of gold did not change, unlike today. Global S&D conditions did not alter the price of gold - because it was fixed.
The empire may in fact have been so economically imperial as to have voided - or used as a pretext - that famed Western liberalism.
To join the EU the poor member states had to adapt their economies accordingly, which in practice meant sell off most of their industry. Many businesses were sold with kickbacks to the same old cliques under the guise of democracy.
A Yale professor said this recently: "In Eastern Europe, human rights activists concentrated on ousting old elites and supporting basic liberal principles even as state assets were sold off to oligarchs and inequality exploded." [https://nyti.ms/2vFkYx5] (Obviously, the "old elites" and the new "oligarchs" were the same people.)
While the Western media has focused on the money coming into Eastern European member countries from the EU, not one has bothered to describe how much money leaves these countries in the form of taxable income, because so many of their assets are owned by companies registered in wealthy EU member states.
As Poland's Prime Minister mentioned recently "The foreign capital that owns our assets is benefiting by dividends of some 100 billion zloty, while from the EU, we’re getting a net 25 billion. So we’re a large net payer of capital abroad." [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-16/poland-shines-light-o...]
Suggestion: less ideologizing and more following the money. Only that way can we make sense of the EU... if we really want to make it better.
3
Although my political views are way more progressive than Douthat's, he has clearly nailed it with this piece. The EU has made the rule of theory -- global capitalist economics and a programmatic multiculturalist social theory -- the basis of a new paternalistic and Germany-based world order that may be well intentioned but is often culturally and economically suffocating in practice, as the tragic clash between Greece and the EU recently illustrated. Douthat's analysis is an analytical masterpiece that lays bare the all too common Western tendency to value theory over the experience of life as it is lived by actual flesh and blood human beings whose lives and attitudes are far more complex and messy than any neatly plotted socio-economic data profiles could ever be.
1
Even for Ross, this is dangerously off the mark. What he is characterizing as "liberalism" is merely a recognition of the fact that the global economy is here to stay, and that increasing cultural diversity is an inevitable byproduct. What he is calling "populism" is really just the reactionary and often racist backlash to a changing world. Regardless of how this situation plays out politically over the next decade or so, the future is going to be an even more globalized economy and more cultural diversity. Countries that recognize this and adapt will thrive; those that adopt protectionist economic policies and attempt to enforce notions of cultural/racial purity will be left behind.
4
This is a rather clear headed piece, but it ignores the current crises endangering the Euro Zone. That would be Donald Trump's intention to blackmail Europe and their businesses over the Iran deal. This threat is most focused on Germany because so many of its businesses are focused on America. If Germany, England, France, China and Russia are to hold the deal together, they are going to have to shield their businesses from American sanctions, which will require a herculean effort to seal them off from the American financial industry. It will require working together as they never did during the recession. If they go forward, England with its tremendous financial sector, has a great deal to gain by stripping business away from the American financial sector. First, however, Germany must decide it is going to risk its trade with America, at least in the short term.
2
Yes, tensions in Europe (and America) are more than a conflict between liberalism and authoritarianism; but while issues of sovereignty are part of those tensions, the largest source of those other tensions is the excesses of unbridled corporate globalism, its strain on the economic security of the working class, and the failure of the progressive left in the US, the more diverse left in Europe, and traditional conservatism on the right (of which Angela Merkel is a part) in both regions, to confront those issues.
In the US, traditional liberalism has been so demonized by the right and so marginalized and compartmentalized by the left, that it no longer has the power to address these issues. The progressive left has until recently largely ignored them as it was dominated by neoliberal "New Democrats," who had more in common with Reaganite conservatives pushing unbridled corporate capitalism worldwide, than with traditional 70's liberals.
Enter the far right populists in both Europe and America. Already primed by decades of anti-liberal right wing secular and religious propaganda in America, they voted in Trump and the Republican Party. In Europe, they made large gains.
Until left wing political parties in Europe and America understand the need to address the hardships brought about by unbridled corporate globalism, sovereignty issues, the undermining of liberal democracy and ideals, autocracy and militarism, scapegoating and fear of immigrants will only become more potent.
4
Excellent article. The last paragraph really encapsulates the current political tensions playing out within developed democratic societies on a host of issues.
4
Respectfully, you have got it wrong. To make my point a synopsis of political theorist and philosopher on the subject, Hanna Arendt is in order. In the Origins of Totalitarianism, Hanna Arendt discusses the flight of the stateless, minorities and Jews in the wake of the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires, as the emerging states and those great powers you call empires, all forged identity based on European conception of nationally guaranteed rights which on matters of naturalization, nationality, and immigration denied those rights to the 'other', as opposed to liberal democratic conception of universal human rights. For all European countries with ethnically diverse populations this meant that in essence these rights can be denied to those with different or 'inferior' cultural religious identity- stateless, minorities, and Jews. Ultimately all democracies in Europe rejected this legacy. especially in the wake of totalitarianism use of 'de-natioalization' as a weapon against those who were the 'other'.
The proposition that going back to that era which help usher fascism and permitted states to create victim groups of the other (ethnic, religious minorities, stateless, etc.) is something good or natural reaction whether in small or large countries is awful.
Thus, you are mistaken when you say that this development is reassertion of sovereignty against 'empires', is natural or good. The history of Europe teaches us that we should resist both notions.
1
The photo leading this article is probably quite accurate with respect to both modern Germany and Europe. I believe that within the next ten years Douthat’s conclusions will be seen as prophetic. Both Germany and Europe are in for a rough ride.
3
And the United States isn’t ?
2
This is a magnificent column by Douthat, and it is exactly right. As the reader comments show, most liberals, on both sides of the Atlantic, will NEVER concede that liberal ideals may be tainted by commercial opportunism, or may conflict with other, fundamental human needs and interests.
All the countries that Ross mentions, including Britain, have long felt under the German thumb, not only on immigration policy, but also on economic policy.
Germany has long exploited a cheap Euro, and a beggar-thy-neighbor trading policy to created artificial trade surpluses with its trading partners, both in the EU and abroad.
At the same time, it has squeezed other EU members out of foreign markets, thereby contributing to the instability, both political and economic, that afflicts the EU today:
Joschka Fischer, German politician: http://tinyurl.com/qbfqy5d
Eduardo Porter, Harvard University: http://tinyurl.com/nrcr95a
Ben Bernanke, Brookings Institute: http://tinyurl.com/q9gm2u5
Benjamin M. Friedman, Harvard University: http://tinyurl.com/np2ra37
7
Perhaps the term "empire" is not the best. Modern Germany's "imperial" reach is due to its mercantilism - the idea that Germany must run a large balance of trade, that other nations must love Germany's products, and that Germany has various "national champions" (luxury cars, anyone?) that must be defended at all costs (there is probably more worry in Germany over the threat of Tesla's prospects than Trump's silly tweets). The fiscal arrangements of the EU are set up to guarantee Germany's mercantilism, and the countries of the EU are expected to purchase Germany's various products, especially value-added manufactured goods.
If the German "empire" were to fall again, it would be due to a collapse of this mercantilist system.
9
There is no mercantilism in Germany. Germans learn in school that mercantilism is unproductive and leads to inflation. There is no mercantilist policy. German politicians hate Germany's trade surplus because it leads to bad blood with other countries.
The trade surplus is the result of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of individual decisions by firms and individuals in other countries to buy German products or by Germans to buy non-German products.
The fiscal arrangements of the EU are not set up to guarantee Germany's mercantilism - why should the other 27 countries of the EU want to do that?
And why should the countries of the EU be expected to purchase Germany's various products, especially value-added manufactured goods, if they don't want to?
German mercantilism is a fairy tale. Of course, when one sees what people can be brought to believe - Trump voters, Brexit voters ...
1
After a long overseas trip from 1971-72 I believed that what distinguished the US from virtually every other place I visited was my obserevation that here there were no "foreigners"; everyone here was considered an American no matter where they came from or how recently they had arrived. I realized this was naive and romantic; but compared to the way ethnic minorities were treated in most other places, it was more true than not. What Ross says about the resurgent nationalism and xenophobia in Europe has its American equivalent, now much more in evidence than 45 years ago. I am disappointed that our enlightenment based American political culture, which in theory stated that all men are created equal, is being subsumed in a tide of ethnic and racial jealousy and fear. It was hoped that the lessons of the horrors of the 20th Century would not be lost; but human nature includes the potential for mob behavior. It is the job of responsible political leadership to emphasize what unites people, not exploit what divides us. We have often been lucky in having responsible leadership when we needed it. We don't have it now.
4
Churchill was right when said that Germany was always at your throat or at your feet. Nowadays it is much more “civilized”, but nothing has really changed; withdraw US troops from Europe and watch what happens. The road from Moscow through Berlin to Paris would reverberate with the sound of armor and troops within a decade. Another cheery thought in closing: no nation except Japan can survive in a currency union with Germany in the long run.
2
Looks like your world view has not evolved since Churchill.
3
Humans are tribal, the most basic tribal unit being the biological family, and alliances among tribes can work pretty well up to the level of citizenship in a common country as an identity. After that point, it gets a lot more difficult. We still experience some division between states in the US and the EU is finding out that when the going gets hard, the tendency to nationalism comes out, as it's human nature. Globalism will not work, ideally or pragmatically, and it will be our undoing imo. Until we accept that basic concept about human evolutionary psychology, we will keep trying to force people into unnatural societies and experiencing the backlash.
2
While I agree to some extent, large interconnected civilizations, as part of our evolutionary development time line, are extremely recent...interdependence and interconnectivity among nations is reducing the tribal barriers. Surely there will be fits and hiccups, Trump And Brexit to name a few, but all the data suggests we are slowly moving to a less violent, less tribalist world.
1
"...a more modest, self-critical and disinterested elite." Where on earth are you going to find such an individual or group? No such thing exists!
6
When reading Douthat's columns, I often feel a disconnect between his Catholicism (and its universalist tendencies) and his hard-nosed Realpolitikal analysis of the rights of nations (or working-class white Americans) to be ethnocentric. I don't doubt his sincerity in this piece, but if ethnic nationalism is so acceptable in Europe, why does he oppose ethnic identity politics (except, of course, when it is a backlash by Christian whites) here in the U.S.? I agree that identity politics can be taken too far, but why does that observation stop at the Atlantic ocean?
5
If the term of a “first empire” is to be used it should be associated with the Holy Roman Empire which lasted until 1806, the “second empire” would be then that from 1871, and the term “Drittes Reich” is usually associated to the Nazi regime from 1933 to 1945. There is no fourth German empire. The last one fell in 1945.
Some facts are plain wrong. Angela Merkel did not open the frontiers of Europe but simply allowed refugees who were already in Europe to move to Germany for humanitarian reasons. And, at the same time, she made sure through the deal with Turkey that most of the remaining refugees stayed there. Angela Merkel did not make a migration policy for the European Union. We have still the Dublin agreement according to which refugees would have to stay in the first EU country entered, i.e. most would have ended up either in Greece or Hungary (after taking the Balkan route).
7
This is what drove Hungary into the Orban orbit.
Thank you!!! Such a glaring error in just the first paragraph! The Third German Empire was the Third Reich, Nazi Germany. Post 1945 Germany is not an empire!!
2
Victor Orbán was already elected as prime minister in 2010. Later, in 2014 he won even a 2/3 majority in the Ungarian parliament which allowed him to change the constitution. This happened all before the refugee crisis.
Nice try to present the reactionaries of Hungary and Poland,the populists of Italy, and the confusenik Brexiteers as just some well-meaning patriots resisiting the third German Empire, but how would that explain that in, almost, all their positions they are aligned with the German fans of Alternative für Deutschland? Are AfD also fighting against German imperialism? That would be rather far fetched. A much simpler explanation, which is also true, is that the aforementioned populist reactionaries are taking advantage of economic and racial fears to advance their own political careers and/or assorted (and sordid) authoritarian projects. Germany does need to administer its power with care and self-restraint, but the alternative to an ever closer European Union is a Europe that would remind one too much of the past failed German empires for one's comfort.
6
It astonishes me how very often Ross Doutaht rounds up the usual suspects and declares "liberalism" (by which he apparently means everything from moderate democrats to communists) the root of all evil.
6
There goes the narrative of the reluctant hegemon.
Douthat desperately tries to find a scapegoat for the nationalistic and xenophobic rise in many european countries. He is just in denial, that this populism has always been there, it was just set free, like it has always been there in the US (which by the way is not part of the III german empire).
Which make Mr Douthat so angry is, that this III german empire was enabled by liberals like him. People like him dreamed of an mix of equals with no identity, just being petting citizens for the smart guys. While somehow the economy would by like the german powerhouse before the euro, but all could live like the greeks.
Mr Douthat, that never had worked that way, that's why we made rules, that's why every country we 'occupied' had to sign a treaty, that's why the ECB is in Frankfurt. Whoever was about to be 'conquered' had been told the caveats.
And still nations want to be annexed, today the turkish FM Mevlüt Çavuşoglu told berlin, he expects to be occupied by 2025, and he want it before we occupy macedonia or albania, who have also put themself on our list.
Maybe you should tell them the german emporer comes with rules and bureaucracy, that we want them to pay for joining the banquet.
And about refugees - this is stupid, this is like putting an footer to the inscription of statue of liberty 'give me your tired, your poor, your huddled ... not because we want to walk a higher ground, but because we have killed the first nation'.
4
Douthat is "angry"? Really?
Douthat cracks me up. He writes a long, drawn out article based on false suppositions and makes the fatal mistake that I am constantly pointing out to people I meet.
When comparing countries, etc, the US should be compared to the EU. This is not only because the US is huge and comprised of different cultures but also because the US has vastly different living standards depending on where one lives.
It's the same in the EU.
Douthat uses Hungary as a warning example. This is like using West Virginia as your base and claiming that all Americans are unemployed coal miners.
In the future, it would behoove Douthat to study a bit more, and preferably leave his bubble of security before he attempts to write such an article.
8
To call immigration, by Mr. Douthat as well by many comment writers, superfluous or even dangerous is a funny show. As an early age (15 years old) regular reader of "Der Spiegel" I am not a special friend of chancellor Merkels policies but I understood her gesture to open the frontiers to Syrian refugees as a great idea: the Occident helps the Orient.
What political damage can 1.2 million immigrants produce in a "mass heap" of 81 million German citizens? Please tell me. A recent poll revealed that around 60 per cent of the population of Frankfurt am Main have now foreign roots! This city s a prosperous hub of commercial and financial
Germany stopped the crisis, and cleaned it up, while the rest of europe was stunned. There are nearly no refugee slums in europe because of sweden and germany.
The rest of europe is a shame, especially eastern europe. Hungary wanted this visa-free travel so desperate, 300.000 hungarians are living in germany, and many on social benefits.
They hate the situation because they have been exposed as selfish free-loaders, they have been exposed as economic migrants themself. They hate germany and they way we handle the refugee crisis because it makes them look pathetic.
2
It's so refreshing to read pieces such as yours that frame issues as complex rather than simple. Thanks!
4
Douthat is not the first person to remark that Germany's economic hegemony in the EU makes it the ruler of an empire of roughly 500 million people. That Angela Merkel also single-handedly decided upon the immigration policy of smaller member states was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back.
Hungary is a nation of barely 10 million people. The Czech Republic is roughly the same size. By contrast, Syria (pre-civil war) is roughly 25 million, Morocco is 35 million, Egypt is roughly 80 million, Iraq is 37 million, Pakistan is almost 200 million. There are an estimated 1.5 billion people in third world countries who would like to move to a more developed country. One has to wonder if Merkel and her supporters are so eurocentric (and white supremacist?) in their thinking that they believe that the majority of the world's people are of European descent, and that "minorities" will also always be a numerical minority. Orban would never have been possible without Merkel.
2
What a twisted view of the EU. Germany is successful because of their strong work ethic, clever ingenuity and the fact that labor unions and management work together (not against each other like in the US) for mutual success.
The rise of nationalism in member nations is a result of resistance to the flood of immigrants, especially muslims; who refuse to assimilate to any degree. Just as important, because of the wide inequities in the financial success, especially employment between the have and have-not nations.
All this over analysis about 'isms' is pretentious academia.
7
Very perceptive piece. Two points not obvious to American observers:
1- a century of modern warfare is seared into the collective memory of Europe -- almost the entire continent has known destruction and death that Americans cannot begin to understand and because of that horror they will do almost anything to avoid going back to competitive nationalism. Hence the acceptance of the Euro, austerity and it's accompanying misery after the crisis.
2- Northern Europe believes its people are superior to the Mediterraneans but they envy their way of life which is why they go there every summer but can impose economic suffering whenever it suits them to do so.
Europe is a complicated, fascinating place.
6
To live well is: Wie Gott im Frankreich!
Simplistic analysis disguised as scholarship. And offensive to Germans (of whom I am not one).
9
If there is any nation on this planet that should understand what the ineffable root cause of genocide it is, it would be the land that speaks the language that coined the word "lebensraum". It is what tribes compete over. "Room to live".
It has to be said that some of the links between Western democracies and Central and Eastern Europe are weaker and more dysfunctional than were expected. The post-Communist elites did integrate with Western Europe and the global economy, to be sure. But it is less clear that they really adopted liberal-democratic norms in a genuine sense.
Also there is the increasing role of linkages to authoritarian states, most notably Russia and now Turkey. Moscow frequently supports radical-right populist parties in Europe, partly to weaken the European Union and any unity it might have on policy issues. The right-populists share Moscow’s Euroskepticism, social conservatism and nationalism.
And not to forget the Europeans against the Islamization of the West, which originated in Germany, but has spawned chapters in Estonia, Hungary, and Serbia.
Currently Chancellor Merkel is the only leader of any stature left in Europe, she might not halt the decline of Liberalism but she is the only one left that might save it.
In the end, Europe wishes to do in a mere few decades what it took us to do incrementally over more than two centuries under our current constitution; and we at least had a ruling class during our long formative period that was homogeneous in its values, its religion and its language. Despite those advantages, we had to fight a horrific civil war in part to impose on our states the acceptance that we were a nation and that “the United States” was not plural in terms of true sovereignty.
Europe may not need our two-centuries-plus, but they clearly need more time than has passed.
Then, Europeans can’t help but resent that they seem to be ruled by two masters, Brussels and Berlin; and Brussels as always is miffed that it must serve one master, Berlin, in many key areas.
Ross sounds a rational and balanced note: this is about the pain of giving up sovereignty to a central authority that is relativist at best (as it must be) with regard to cultural idiosyncrasies that characterize the constituent nations, and condemnatory at worst. However, if they truly want a “United States of Europe”, that must be the price.
4
The "ruling class during our formative years" showed the rest of the world how empire can be built on ethnic cleansing, enslavement and land grabbing. And, that process still maintains the ruling class.
1
ladps89:
Actually, it's polemicists, and usually the less insightful, MORE inciteful ones, who decide how this cathouse is to be run.
A thoughtful piece. A question I have, based in part on annual visits to inlaws in Budapest, does a community have a right to limit the extent to which their culture evolves (i.e. the Amish) ? If you answer yes, then a community would have the right to limit large-scale immigration of people from highly different cultures. If you answer no, then communities do not have the right to self determination. Reasonable estimates suggest that in the middle east, central asia, and africa, roughly 200,000,000 people would immigrate to Europe if feasible. Millions are actively engaged in the process. With effects of population growth and climate change highly likely to drive their motivation for foreseeable generations, is it not reasonable for members of european subcultures, who value the persistence of those subcultures, to be scared -- and hence exploitable by opportunists like V. Orban ?
4
This is a bit of a Germanophobe perspective.
As far as Brexit is concerned, let us be very clear:The British are not Europeans; they have never wanted to be part of Europe.As the historian knows, project Europe started with the Montanunion because of a dialogue between Konrad Adenauer and Charles DeGaule.It is probably correct that the Germans are truly interested in the project Europe.And , as it has been stated over and over:geography is destiny.Drive anywhere on the Autobahn on a Monday morning and you will find the right lane packed with trucks from Poland, Sweden, Belgium, Hungary---and yes, England.This time Germany does not want to be the tragic actor on the European stage---between the rock of accused imperialism and the hard place of lack of leadership.Ideally, France will have to share some of the burden and provide a vision for a Europe that transcends the Euro and meets the challenge of Czar Putin.
5
Sorry, Norbert, as every historian knows, project Europe did not start because of a dialogue between Konrad Adenauer and Charles DeGaule. De Gaulle was out of power when the Montanunion was agreed on, and nobody expected his return to power.
Yes Francis Fukuyama was naive proclaiming the end of history 25 years ago, but Ross draws some false parallels in describing enmity toward the EU in Europe. Britain is hardly an Eastern European nation liberated not even 30 years ago by the demise of the former Soviet Union, yet resentment over German economic hegemony in Europe largely governs Brexit sentiment. Needless to add, many Brexit supporters also fervently desire a return to empire, as expressed through their support for CANZUK, which can be negatively described as an attempt to rekindle ties among former colonies ONLY in the WHITE commonwealth.
Regarding multiculturalism, it's a concept pretty much alien to Europeans, especially those who themselves were recently subject to imperialism via the East Bloc. As for European nations having colonial legacies, multiculturalism is a reminder of how much they have fallen the past century. Indeed, while Australia, Canada and the UK are multicultural societies, Britain didn't become so upon its own volition. This major difference, moreover, shouldn't be ignored. One could argue the same applies to the USA, but that merits its own answer altogether.
The problem with celebrating the quietus of the EU is that said political entity is itself a reaction to the horrors of the 20th century. Worse, those who advocate the destruction of the EU offer no replacement themselves.
1
Um. The British became multicultural because they colonized and sapped the resources of many places around the world. I believe that was very much of their own volition. The fact that many people in the UK believe that they have right to the spoils of the colonies, while the colonized should be happy to live in the mess left behind is hardly sympathetic.
3
I cringe every time Douthat writes about Germany and the EU. I am afraid to say he has absolutely no clue. This article is also full of historical inaccuracies as others have already pointed out. "Germany's THIRD empire"...give me a break!
17
Stalin expressed the same thoughts when he tried to extend the Russian model to Poland. "You can saddle a cow, but that doesn't make it a horse". Pan-Euro liberals are finding the same thing now.
1
A very cogent column explaining the problems with the EU. Essentially the same problem that progressives face in the US, the elite wants to move too fast and then describes anyone who resists as a bigot, a racist or a xenophobe. Merkel’s attitude to the refugees is a clear example of the problem, the poorer countries of central Europe are told: it is the right thing to do to accept refugees, so shut up and accept them.
The important wrinkle that is missed, is that Germany is a paper tiger, unable to defend itself, it relies on the countries it disparages for its own security.
2
I know the focus here is on Europe, but since you inserted this: "Essentially the same problem that progressives face in the US, the elite wants to move too fast and then describes anyone who resists as a bigot, a racist or a xenophobe." I have to wonder at what pace you would be comfortable correcting the social injustices that underlie your comment. Racism has been rampant in the US a long time - when will it be the right time to come to terms with it?
If today's Germany is an empire, I want it to conquer the world in defense of Democracy, social justice and to replace ugly Anglo-Saxon capitalism by Rhenan capitalism. Unfortunately, the US will most certainly sabotage the EU project led by Germany (and France), the entity Mr. Douthat calls an empire. The US does not want to compete with the EU commercially in the future because it knows it will lose. The US is also willing to kill Democracy in Europe to prevail. As the old saying goes, the more things change, the more they are the same!
8
Germany is not really wrong to insist on
fiscal discipline. Calling it imperialism is
not correct. Greece, Italy, Ireland, Spain
borrowed excessively but mostly spent
ion consumption, real estate speculation.
with the bust of real estate in Spain, Ireland
these countries got into trouble requiring
bailout. Greece not only didn't invest borrowed
money on productive investment but
squandered on government projects to
overstaffed them, didn't collect taxes with persistence cheating. Germany has generated
budget surpluses with disciplined spending
control. It couldn't reward recklessness of
Greece, Ireland, Spain and Italy. France
has had anemic growth, unruly labor to
be an example of fiscal prudence. The
leadership mantle fell to Germany simply
by making reforms( Schroeder)and managing
its economy well. East Europeans have been
moochers sucking money from EU but not
sharing values, policies. If sovereignty is
important, values and policies unacceptable,
exit EU like U.K.
4
Theses countries' issues were well known way before the euro, and yet they were welcomed into a currency that was modeled closely on the D-mark. Ask yourself why. a) Countries with weaker economies balanced out the value of the euro and allowed Germany to export at lower prices, b) German banks gave huge loans to countries and invidivuals as if they had the German economy behind them. The whole architecture was flawed. But these countries are being punished for running deficits; Germany has never been punished for running surpluses, even though that's part of the euro deal too. Germany is not the saint here, and has been every bit as reckless.
"the liberal aspect of the European system wouldn’t be under such strain if the imperial aspect hadn’t been exploited unwisely by leaders in the empire’s German core"
Precisely why many of us in Germany don't like Merkel. Unfortunately, her heavy handed imperialism is also why so many Germans love her. "Wir sind wieder wer!", is often heard. Something some of us are deeply ashamed of.
2
When I read about the re-emergence of racist and antisemitic policies in these populist Eastern European countries, I am grateful for Merkel and Germany's sincere efforts to accept and integrate so many immigrants into the German economy and culture. In the long run, I believe their efforts will be rewarded with a stronger, more securely liberal Germany.
3
Excellent piece. I think Douthat is perhaps the best of the NYT opinion columnists, even if our views aren’t always aligned.
2
To keep the world safe for capitalism the US rebuilt Europe, especially Germany and Japan, after WWII. We went so far as to use the CIA to corrupt Italian elections that could have had results we didn’t like. Germany grew, prospered and dominated economically. Why deal with all those different monetary systems when exporting good German plugs? Let’s just rename the German mark and call it the euro. The Bundesbank becomes the European Central Bank, etc. Then you sell it to the politicians, business people and investors of England, Italy, Greece, etc. who make a ton of money from German bonds.
But wait, how many oranges does Greece have to sell to Germany to offset the cost of a car? So, we get an imbalance of payments that Greece and others can’t make up. Debt piled on debt and the Germans want their money. Oh, those lazy good for nothing Greeks. See how they party while good Germans toil. Take their pensions away from them while telling them that their problems are caused by those nasty brown and black people. Orban, Farage, Trump, no matter, it always works. The rest is rationalization.
3
As I read this piece, the word 'arrogance' kept coming up in my head. Bismarck's German Empire was in part born out of military arrogance, Hitler's out of racial arrogance, and the current one out of economic arrogance. Arrogance leads to the conviction that your way is the right way, and that things would be better all around if everyone listened to/followed you. But arrogance breeds resentment, especially from those who have long been subjected to arrogance, and resentment leads to revolt.
The opposite of arrogance is modesty. Approaching things with modesty requires being self-critical, self-aware and empathetic, qualities that are sorely lacking today among those who govern, whether they have liberal or populist tendencies.
5
Ross Douthat,
The southern European nations have essentially destroyed or driven away their wealth creating industries that created new wealth that was available for their governments to confiscate a portion to spend on various government activities.
How can the Greek people be convinced to go to work and generate taxable wealth instead of living off of Greek government checks and Greek government contracts?
It does not matter what form of government that the USA, Venezuela, Greece, Nigeria, or any other city, state, nation or family selects because every Republic, Democracy, Theocracy, Capitalist, Communist, Socialist, Fascist, Dictatorship, Kingdom, Principality or any other form of government still has to have their privately owned businesses continuously create sufficient new taxable national wealth in their nation so that there is enough available taxable wealth in that nation for that nation's government to confiscate a portion of that new taxable wealth and/or profit through income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, tariffs, etc., and other taxes to pay for their wealth consuming government activities such as creating new infrastructure and federal debt repayment.
This can only be accomplished by limiting government spending to less than the government collects in taxes from non-government supported businesses or that nation will face bankruptcy.
2
Right now, government in Greece spends a lot less than it collects in order to please the 'parnters' of which Germany is the one who counts. Greece's debt, as a result, is soaring, even though the putative reason for austerity is the debt. Right now in Greece nobody can start a business because entrepreneurs are being taxed to death. All the money is going to 'service the debt' i.e. to Germany, and so are the unemployed young people i.e. the generation that can generate wealth.
And where did the Greek debt come from? From borrowing. And why did the Greeks borrow so much? Because, for decades, they preferred to spend more than they earned.
And, by the way, they borrowed more from the French than from Germans.
The "possibility that" of "such" a fall of a regime that is "effectively" imperial due to a "sense of" crisis that appears "increasingly" nationalistic and is "covered more and more" as a "clash between" freedom and authoritarianism in the "wake of" books written since Trump's election ... is a load of speculative gibberish wrapped in the well-known history of Europe's linguistic, ethnic, and religious heterogeneity, offered apparently to prove that the European Union "project" [which means what? removal of tariffs and trade barriers? the quashing of ancient religion-based hatreds? or what?] is too "liberal" for the taste of a certain far-right Catholic theologian who, by the way, disapproves of most of the the new Pope has been doing.
The author creates his own terminology, but historians refer to the First Reich (800 - 1806), Second Reich (1871 - 1918), and Third Reich (1933 - 1945).
To view the EU as an informal Fourth Reich is provocative but ultimately a stretch. I agree the project is inherently unsound and not likely to last.
On the other hand, imagine what a powerhouse would result if, say, the Netherlands, Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland, and Slovenia got together and formed a CEU (Central European Union)?
2
I swear that Ross Douthat is slipping further the the right with each column. The Eu is nota a new German Empire. It is the opposite. It is a coalition of all the European states to promote economic stability, human rights and the end to the ceaseless wars that Europe had been victim to for several centuries. This essay makes about as much sense as to say that the Unites states is just a Californian Empire. While I enjoy Ross when he is n-making sense, this column is silly.
2
What you describe is how the EU started off. Since the euro, Germany has become dominant.
Germans did not want the Euro. It was forced on them by France and Italy as the price of German reunification.
Once the Euro was there, Germans made the best of it. France and Italy did not. Why?
History is replete with the wreckage of once-exceptional peoples, nations, and empires. It will undoubtedly continue to add to that roster till some catastrophe brings down the curtain on the human race.
But what strikes me about Germany specifically over the last 100+ years is how viscerally destructive to Western European Civilization it has been. The Germans could not kill enough young British, French, Russian and German men during the course of two world wars to satisfy that hatred.
Now they want to flood the continent with Muslims. The one implacable and thoroughly incompatible ideology that the West has been in existential struggle with for close to 1,000 years.
Liberals here and in Europe really (really) need to read their history.
3
Ross, your argument begins with a false premise/assumption: that the crisis in Europe began with the 2008 financial crisis. That's like saying Nazism was caused by the Great Depression. Both confuse coincidence with causation. The problem as I see it began much further back, with the unfettered faith in free market capitalism in the early-1980's. No, I'm not arguing socialism over capitalism. I merely argue that unfettered capitalism results in the type of rising inequality and reckless financial practices we've seen at least three times since the early-80's: the junk bond bubble, the tech bubble, and finally the mortgage bubble. Each worse than the one before, and each time we've trusted the free market to get us out, and each time it led us right back in. Now, we're trying to blame immigrants for the crisis created by our own greed. It's foolish name-calling and blame passing to point the finger at dreaded "liberals" and "immigrants" for a problem created by hyper-conservative, and repeatedly failed, economic policies. In the scheme of world economies, immigrants are barely a blip on the radar. Wealth inequality, resource imperialism, and misguided nation building overwhelm that radar.
2
Good analysis CS. We are currently in the 4th bubble, a stock bubble. Unfortunately, the collapse and massive loss of the current 'wealth' that exists on paper is going to occur at the same time the baby boomers are retired/retiring, thus decimating their retirement income. The subsequent burden on our already debt-laden economy to provide for them will be fearsome.
A few "fact based" comments:
1. Germany did not impose its immigration policies on other EU countries. Merkel's unilateral decision was to accept immigrants coming from other EU countries (mostly Italy and Greece) instead of sending them back to these countries as EU rules would have permitted.
2. It seems a bit weird to call it "imperial" and "undemocratic" to attach conditions to credits/payments that amount to a significant fraction of Germany's GDP. The "threat" was to not make these payments. Does democracy involve unlimited credit lines without payback guarantees?
3. About the empire counting: Historically, Hitler's evil empire was called the "Third Reich" (one was the medieval "Holy Roman Empire of German Nations" that deceased in 1806, two was the Prussian dominated state that was created in 1871). Whatever you may think about Germany/EU today, calling it the "Third German Empire" seems beyond unfair.
2
Dear Ross, as a Romanian-American, this is a brilliant analysis and I am happy to read something like this in the NYT! I used to love to read this newspaper for such brilliant pieces, but in the last few years they've been scarce; it has been 99 to 1 propaganda pieces that support desired outcomes vs. pieces like yours that offer a more complex and nuanced view on issues.
One one hand, the German influence on Eastern Europe has been phenomenal. Stores, from dry cleaners to malls to supermarkets to restaurants and cafes look MUCH better in Bucharest today, for example, (believe it or not!) than in Manhattan, where I've lived for the last 20 years, though there is still a lot to be learned from Germans re the cleanliness of the streets and the habits of the passersby who still litter leisurely.
On the other hand, one thing that tends to be neglected in editorials and op-eds such as yours is the BAIT AND SWITCH that happened with and after the EU accession. BEFORE accession o the EU, there was no hint or talk of releasing the migration policy from nation state level to Brussels! Since then Germany and Brussels have come more and more with creative bureacratic loopholes to steal power from the countries that make the EU, and the NYT has stayed silent each time this happened! Thanks for being the first at the NY to signal the push of this new Brussels /Germany Empire to render the countries on the axis of Estonia to Greece into a state of liberal colored-indenture.
I
2
Germany has a very low birth rate -- like Japan's -- and both desperately need young immigrants to work, pay taxes and thereby support the growing elderly population.
By contrast to Germany's 1.5 births per women, France's is 2.01. And Germany's birth rate has ticked up only due to non native births.
THIS is the big argument for immigration, and no discussion about economies in Europe, indeed globally, is complete without that foundational element.
The U.S.'s economy is vibrant because of working immigrants, but nativism here can destroy that, just as it is abroad.
2
Mr. Douthat's discussion of the tensions roiling under the surface of a peaceful Europe are insightful.
The pride of sovereignty and culture are difficult to sacrifice on the alter of a bureaucracy that could care less about either.
That same assessment can be made about the tensions roiling the our domestic political scene. The political will of the forgotten, the ignored, the marginalized, and the insulted is clearly visible in our body politic; our federal bureaucracy frequently ignores that fact that we are the United STATES of America, not a "peoples' republic.
The Tenth Amendment to our Constitution holds that all powers not expressly enumerated as powers of the federal government are retained by the STATES and THE PEOPLE themselves.
There comes a time when looking at our governance that we look at ALL of the terms and conditions that are imposed on the federal exercise of political will and recognize that federal overreach can, and will, be countered at some point, and those responsible will be held accountable by The People.
Accountability is bi-partisan; both left and the right feel the displeasure of The Voter in elections that turn the "bums" and "miscreants" out of office.
The past decade has seen The Voter turn on the liberals and Democrats...That may continue; then again, it may not. It is up to the right and the Republicans now to show that they can, in fact delivery the policies and programs that work. If they don't, they have problems.
2
Unfortunately, individual laws and SCOTUS rulings have set up a bloated bureaucracy that has infiltrated and subsumed states' rights. There is no easy or even probable way back to a Constitutional government. There are too many states that will die if separated from the federal teat for the populace to want to go down that road. Just look at how many corrupt career-criminal senators win re-election after re-election for no other reason than the fact they consistently bring home the federal tax bacon.
"the problems that have pitted populists against Berlin and Brussels — a common currency that remains misbegotten"
This describes "populists" against good guys. He says, "it has been covered more and more as a clash between liberalism and illiberalism, between freedom and authoritarianism." In his language, the populists are the illiberal.
His discussion misses that the liberals are not very liberal. The populists are not all illiberal, though some do take it that way. To bring that home, Trump made populist appeals, but so did Bernie, and one was maligned as neo-Nazi even as the other was maligned as socialist near a commie.
The real split is between leaders and people with needs ignored by leaders. It is between the minority of wealth served by neo-liberalism, and the majority suffering from the economic and political rape of their recent past.
It is the dying middle class that the poor had hoped to join by moving up rather than having it move down to meet them at the bottom.
That is here, but it is in Europe too. That better describes and explains than Douthat's premise of authoritarian, illiberal populists, though they exist too among the rest.
8
If the fall of the so-called German Empire is at hand, how far behind it is the Fall of the American Empire?
Germany and several of its EU neighbors suffer financially under the tidal wave of near East and North African refugees although Italy and Greece are directly being harmed. It is beset with direct Russian aggression and relies on petro resources from it and the refugee sympathetic Saudis.
Meanwhile, the jingoist Trump is pulling the security blanket from Germany and covering Israel in the midst of that country's creating a killing field in Gaza, with American bullets.
The new world order emerging is not pretty, if the last European bastion of the Enlightenment falls
5
Ross raises some very interesting points about geography and the thwarted destinies of many small nations that found themselves prisoners of hegemonic empires. In that regard, modern Germany, despite that it has transformed itself into a beacon of enlightenment, has work to do. But the new liberal-conservative divide contains an older, more virulent strain of exceptionalism; to wit, Ross's oft-mentioned "cosmopolitanism" versus provincialism. Here we must discuss the visceral enmities between progressive urban societies and their opposites in the hinterlands; and of course, politicians who tell their adherents that they were victims, and that there is no need to address crimes against their own minorities because there were no crimes. Hungary and Poland are evidence. Add Ukraine.
In Stalin's time and place, "cosmopolitan" was code for "Jewish." Little has changed.
Douthat is correct that Germany, with the largest population and strongest economy in the EU, dominates the EU. But he overlooks the historical fact that the EU and its predecessors were designed in the post-WWII era to integrate Germany with its European neighbors and to prevent Germany from ever again seeking a military hegemony over its neighbors. In that, the EU has been an important success. Douthat also overlooks the fact that the EU constrains Germany from exercising the economic power Germany would otherwise have if all of Germany's relations with its European neighbors were bilateral. That said, Douthat is correct that Germany must be mindful of how it exercises its power within the EU. It is ultimately in Germany's interest for the EU to succeed and for that it is important for European countries to be liberal democracies. Thus, Germany should support EU policies that allow liberal democratic governments to show their people that they are better off, ecomically and otherwise, than under nationalistic, authoritarian regimes.
2
This article is utter nonsense for a variety of reasons:
1. There is no empire here, but rather a loose federation of independent nation states who joined of their own free will and are free to to leave at any time albeit at considerable expense if they so desire.
2. Whereas an empire has means of coercion to insure the obedience and complicity of its member states, the EU does not.
3. As we are seeing with Brexit, the advantages of the EU far outweigh the disadvantages and the British are beginning to regret their hasty and ill-informed decision. The real supporters of the EU are the younger generation. That should say something about the European experiment.
4. In time of increasing nationalism, self-aggrandizement and immorality there is more need than ever for a guarantor for human rights and democracy in light of the US slide into Trumpism .
5. As to Merkl's handling of the refugee situation: Honestly, what other decision could she have made with a million hungry, homeless people standing at your border and is it too much to ask the other countries to take their share of the burden.
To top it all the country most of all responsible for this misery is the USA which has made and continues to make a shambles of the Middle East.
In closing, the American people should be happy there are still a few decent countries is this world who have not forsaken their ideals and are still willing to bear more than their share of the world's mistakes and misdeeds.
446
This comment is a perfect confirmation of Douthat’s thesis.
26
This comment sounds very much like the defense that the British made of their own crumbling empire back in the 20th century.
17
I find it utterly surreal to be discussing the fracture of polities in this crossroads of a shrunken planet.
8
It's disappointing how many commentators here are completely ignoring what Ross is saying so they can say something negative, accurate, and unrelated about Trump or Republicans.
Ross' point - that opposition to the EU is rooted in its imperialism and lack of democracy, and that these tendencies reflect poorly on its liberalism and openness - is an important one that liberals here in America ignore at their own peril.
2
The European imperialism you claim exist in your fantasy alone. 28 democracies form the EU. Authoritarian states don’t even have to apply. The European Parliament resides in Bruxelles. The final decisions rest with the 28 democratically elected leaders. Of course Europe has a large bureaucracy to govern its 500 Million plus citizens. But in its core every decision is made by democratic institutions or delegated. People demonize bureaucracies being a foreign and self serving bodies within democracies. As a matter of fact, democracies can’t exist without a functioning bureaucracy. Europe is no exception.
1
The so called big decision of the EU are taken by vote of the Presidents where a single veto kills a deal. However, all the big decisions in recent times have been dressed as small decisions and passed by an easily obtained majority of foreign or interior ministers (easy to assemble by a few big states) even when such decisions affect the sovereignity and immigration policy of a country. Here is where and how the German-Brussels empire hands tilts the scale.. Then are the economic pressures.
And I forgot to mention that the so called German-EU empire also bribes the politicians, intellectuals, and influencers in the small counties by offering them well-paid jobs in the EU bureaucracy and grants at prestigious German universities for whom everyone sells first their soul and later their country.
The European Union, composed of overpowering behemoths and smaller less conspicuous nations, remains a work in progress, trying to spread freedom to belong, according to the needs of any given country...and to the ability of each to contribute as equitably as possible for the well-being of the rest. Justice, essential to guarantee peace in European society, may be in the eyes of the beholder, as shown by the illiberal constraints imposed in Hungary and Poland by it's un-representative abusers of their power, as a lack of solidarity shows. You cannot take just what's good for you without simultaneously contributing in some way...to guarantee a healthy discussion of necessary changes...instead of unilateral constraints blocking any chance to face reality as is; and go from there. Having said that, Germany, if wise, would do well in exercise constraint when having the upper hand; bullying is always counterproductive. A careful balance of powers has some science in it but a lot of art as well. And good will. And always a touch of prudence (doing what's right, however onerous). One thing is clear, Europeans must steer clear from acting 'a la Trump', a death knell; a toll bell muffled by our tone-deaf ignoring of an institutionalized violence in search of 'cretins' willing to accept his constant lies, and insults, as the dogma truth (Ugh!). Did I mention it requires a delicate balance, while realizing that there is strength in numbers? Is there the Will to save our souls?
1
Germany is skillfully using the soft power instruments at its disposal (including, for example, its control of the EU purse strings) to maintain and extend its European hegemony
a good example is the current campaign of the EU against Poland and Hungary which is ostensibly because of their failure to live up to EU standards... Germany is careful to get EU politicians of other nationalities such as the Dutch Frans Timmermans to front this campaign, but it is driven behind the scenes by German interests, and beside bringing Poland and Hungary to heel, it is designed to pay these countries back for refusing to go along with Empress Angela Merkel's failed open doors asylum and immigration policy
3
Is migration about the periphery coming into the center or about the consequences of EU nations meddling beyond their borders?
Very interesting attempt to describe what is happening in Germany by applying an American set on political standards to it, Mr. Douthat, but the matter is far more intricate than just blaming liberals, because being 'liberal' in Gemany means something much different than it does over here. And I tell you this as a German-American.
Another major difference that you overlook is that unlike the U.S., Germany is not restricted to a two-party government, nor is it held hostage by an outdated Electoral College, which is basically how you ended up with Donald Trump.
And to be fair, Germany isn't the only country that ever had a Bismarck or a Hitler, and its wealth comes from more than just military might.
Germans work hard and expect others to do the same.
That Greece and Italy fell into fiscal ruin has more to do with years of over-bloated bureaucratic governments and embedded corruption than anything else and austere measures had to be taken. But then, that also resembles what Republicans are trying to pull off here.
As for the events of 1989, it was more than just a 'victory of liberal principles over totalitarian or authoritarian alternatives', it was a matter of life and death. I lived in a city divided by a Wall that people lost their lives trying to escape to, which is something most Americans didn't have to endure and why they take so many of their freedoms so lightly.
As for the rising populism in Europe, it can't all be pinned on liberalism.
Try again.
7
The immigration policies of the left (in Europe and the US) are going to lead to a further erosion of their political power.
Liberals have decided that foreigners are more important than citizens. They have abandoned every other policy in favor of immigration.
It is madness. They are tearing their nations apart to benefit illegal immigrants and economic migrants- most of whom are not liberal and oppose the basic values of the countries they are attempting to emigrate to.
For the first time in my life I am going to vote Republican.
71
Unfortunately, massive immigration and influx of refugees is a sweeping change throughout the Western world.
It's a direct consequence of corporate takeover of government. It's actually more of a right wing thing than a left wing thing.
Endless wars bring lucrative profits for international corporations and bring desperate newcomers working for lower wages.
One of the values of most immigrants is hard work for whatever their employer wants to give them. Another is acceptance of whatever their government hands them.
A Republican government that speaks for world-wide corporatism will not stop these global economic trends.
31
You paint with a mighty brush. I would bet your family did not originate here. What is so horrible about people wanting to improve their lives? Do you support our giving to underdeveloped countries? Are you content with our country sliding backwards? If so, voting Republican sounds right for you.
27
Our country has closed itself off from the world again. To those who say: only come here legally - I say PFUI! There is almost no way to come here legally other than 1) marry: 2) get hired; 3) political asylum. I want to bring my in-laws here from Brazil and lawyers have all told me there is no way. So again, I face the big American lie - it seems that illusion is what our country was built on. On the other hand I do have an unbegrenzte Aufenthaltsgenehmigung for Germany. The Germans educated me, an American, for free and instilled in me a respect for true democracy - no illusion with the Electorial College. I’ll takethe German path any day. They have learned from history what illusion means.
42
We should learn from Angela Merkel about compassion for refugees. There is not a lot going on in Washington that I would call "humane "...
119
We lesson we should learn from Angela Merkel is the fact that she is doing Putin’s work quite well. The “refugee” ploy went a long way to give us Brexit; probably got DT elected and now a band of anti-EU political parties are growing in strength - and continued Islamist inspired violence ensures they will only grow stronger. Europe is tearing itself apart and Putin is waiting.
6
One does not have to be a sophisticated academician or policy expert to recognize that what Angela Merkel did vis-a-vis refugees was just plain stupid, even as she was doing it. Brussels still has not caught up with the migrant situation in Europe, leaving countries to establish their own remedies such as they are.
6
"died with Hitler and his cult"
Hitler did not have a cult. He tapped into something deep in vast numbers of Germans of his time, based on fear and resentment and loss.
The distinction is important because that deep drive is still there, and among Hitler's victims as much as in the new German empire.
Ukraine was a victim of Hitler. It is now torn apart, with battalions proclaiming themselves "Nazis" because to them it means anti-Russian.
Hungary was a victim of Hitler. It is now led by Orban, who is exploiting fears and hatreds, aimed at the moment at Muslim refugees.
Poland was a victim. It is now following Hungary, with a right wing leadership attacking its courts and other nascent institutions.
France was a victim. It has held off LePen, but she did come in second, and her father came far too close before her.
Mussolini has followers in Northern Italy, a whole party where Germany had established him after the German occupation of Italy as the Salo Republic.
Of all the victims of Hitler, those who suffered worst spent this week shooting down unarmed women and children along a fence.
It wasn't just a cult, and it wasn't even unique to Hitler.
Now about this new German empire -- ask the Greeks what that feels like. Ask the quarter of the population that was driven out of the Baltic States by the German led economic austerity demanded of them.
The worst of the past is not at all safely in the past.
9
Douthat's "analysis" is either simply uninformed or an attempt at propaganda via distraction (which is faux-Emperor Trump's stock-in-trade).
Germany, like most countries that have been infected and destroyed by Empires --- "the disease of Republics" --- have learned Hannah Arendt's lesson well, "Empire abroad entails tyranny at home", which Germans, Japanese, and Russians learned 'the hard way'.
What Douthat seems, IMHO, to be doing is to focus on the subordinate 'issue' of only the chimera of a European Empire, HQed in Germany, in order to distract from the reality of this first Empire in all of world history which is an; 'effectively-disguised', 'truly-global', 'dual-party' Vichy, and 'capitalist-fueled' Empire, only nominally HQed in, and merely 'posing' as, our former country.
Yes, Ross, "Me thinks thou dost protest too much" of the rumor of a third German Empire, to disguise the reality of the better camouflaged one behind the curtain --- whose OSS/CIA "learned on Hitler's dime" that a mere single party Vichy regime is ineffective in fooling Frenchmen, whereas a far more sophisticated dual-party Vichy-political facade of faux-democracy implemented as a "Double Government and National Security State" under the guise of a 'rougher-talking' neocon 'R' Vichy Party and its cohort 'smooth-lying' neoliberal-con 'D' Vichy Party could come close enough to fooling all the people all the time.
3
As so often Ross Douthat writes about something he knows nothing about. The capsule history at the beginning of the piece is wrong. The third empire, that is, the third reich, was Hitler's regime. Beyond that the article is nothing but Douthat searching for reasons to challenge liberalism. His problem is he is a conservative voice--a minority--among mostly liberal voices emanating from a mostly liberal Newspaper which puts him in the awkward position of always seeking to rationalize his anti liberal Catholic views. What he say about Europe and Germany at this time may indeed be true, but he writes from no knowledge of his own and little understanding, passing gleaned information along as if it came from his own expertise. Sad.
3
Given that the USA has committed crimes against humanity since its attack on the Vietnamese, and more recently is the primary source of "shock and awe" (ie blitzkrieg) global terrorism, Douthat should read a little Hannah Arendt and revise this sentence, in light of the well-documented neo-nazi movement that is an important part of the GOP base: ** The second German empire was forged in a swift march of annexations and blitzkriegs; it lasted seven terrible years, from the Anschluss to the bunker, and died with Hitler and his cult.** The open air execution of Palestinians by Israeli "allies" while the Trump administration celebrated, reveals that the spirit of Hitler is alive and well, thanks to Douthat's political party. Party on dude!
2
Not a great start to an article with a historical blunder. Ever heard mention of the Third Reich? That would be Hitlers "empire".
The first German Empire is the holy Roman Empire dissolved in 1806. The second Bismarck's creation. The third Hitlers. Making the so called current empire the fourth.
7
It's interesting that the description of the non-Liberal portion of the European Union reminds me of the former Confederate States. They want to be free to live their own "Culture" while they suck up benefits from the Union. They want to continue their history of discrimination against ethnic and religious minorities while enjoying the right to benefit from open borders and free trade for themselves.
3
This is a real eye-opener, especially about the history of the domination of Eastern Europe by other empires. One small point: Douthat omits from his account the Holy Roman Empire, which lasted about a thousand years and was also multiethnic and based in Germany. That is why Hitler's regime comes out in the count as the Third Reich.
4
It is extremely disgusting of Mr. Douthat to call the current Germany the "third German empire". Empire is the English word for Reich, and everyone knows that the Nazi Regime called itself the Third Reich, and the Thousand Year Reich.
As a matter of fact, I suggest Mr. Douthat look into what is happening on these shores, namely that under this president the executive branch is acting more and more like a fascist regime, while their Republican sycophants in Congress are too afraid to speak up.
5
Evidentally Harvard University let Mr. Douthat down, as it has so many other students. When one studies history at any decent institution, the three German empires are described as: the Holy Roman Empire (begun by Charlemagne and abolished by Napoleon), then the German Empire founded by Bismarck (1871-1918), and then Hitler's Third Reich (1933-1945...12 years, not 7). For the purposes of this article's narrative, Mr. Douthat should have referenced a fourth empire.
9
It would be difficult to call a Federal Republic an Empire...
Then again, Trump may disagree. He may already have his crown forged as I am writing this.
If you insist on breaking down modern German history into "empires" (which is silly, by the way), then your counting is off. Hitler's 12-year run (7, you say?) was the Third Reich, not the second. And there is no fourth. Quite the contrary, as the Germans say: "erstes Reich, zweites Reich, drittes Reich ... Drittes reicht!"
2
This malady has afflicted the entirety of the western coalition. We ALL fall down, unless we smarten up and get involved in our government, and vote for those who want to make our country the epitome of the melting pot philosophy, with equal justice, equal opportunity, and equal consideration for all.
3
We here in the American Empire should be careful about predicting the demise of other empires.
After all, the American Empire was built upon an American form of "Lebensraum" - "living room" - through the "Manifest Destiny" that involved genocidal wars and broken treaties against the Native Peoples who lived here. The American Empire was built on the backs and blood of slaves, and then on the tactics of the Jim Crow era (which served as a model for German race law as described in Hitler's American Model by James Whitman.)
14
The Germans don't want a United States of Europe because they would be required to fund the poorer parts of the EU, in the same way, that taxes from Massachusetts help fund Mississippi. During Greece’s financial crises, Germany’s main aim was its own economic self-interest and protecting its banks. Greece's GDP fell by 30%. The Germans like exporting and the EU’s internal markets are very helpful. If Germany returned to the DM its goods would be 20% more expensive, the weaker European economies keep the euro undervalued. The Germans play lip service to the dreams of the technocrats in Brussels but they like the economic benefits of the status quo.
The Eastern Europeans were looking for a home after the fall of communism. The EU also gave them money. Orban is very popular and most Hungarians agree with his policies. Hungary has a population of 10 million and they have fought for centuries to preserve their independence and culture against the Ottoman Empire and the Soviet Union. The EU insists that the nation-state is no longer important. That is not going down well in countries that were ruled from Moscow. They don’t want to be ruled by Brussels. The EU has strange ideas about democracy and the views of nation-states are secondary. Membership of the euro has wrecked the Italian economy. According to Tim Geithner the EU replaced Berlusconi as Italy’s leader in 2009. The next Italian government is expected to be euroskeptic.
The EU can’t survive in its current form.
2
Mr Douthat feels instinctively that he will not endorse contemporary German politics and its influence on Europe, though he implies it is stable and self-sustaining. Nor will he endorse an emerging European alternative, Orban's, at least not until it is obviously self-sustaining.
I suggest Mr. Douthat's real interest in Europe is ex-Catholicity, hence his demurral on modern Germany.
Yet, while Mr. Douthat accordingly looks to Europe's east or south, he ought not ignore trans-Atlanticism's origins with the religious dissenters of northern Europe and England, thence America. It is the internal social logic of this group whose contemporary secular expressions is so often Mr. Douthat's foil, and whose dominance is lately in question, for example, in Hungary. That one of liberal democracy's origins may have been decidedly anti-Catholic should not discourage his interest.
And isn’t the EU experiencing a form of the 240 year-old struggle in the US between Federalism and “states’ rights”? Aren’t the regions of red states demanding freedom from the social and cultural demands of the blue state “coastal elites”? And now that the Federal shoe (or boot, depending on your level of adherence to rights-wing radio tropes) is on the other foot, aren’t blue states demanding sovereignty to not bow to Federal policies, say on immigration for example? And aren’t we continuing to read—endlessly, dispiritingly—the pointless debate about whether the drivers of this Trump-Putin-Orban et al retreat from the “end of history” is driven by economic factors, disrespect from the university-Hollywood crowd, or racism? In the US, unlike in Europe, we could defuse the tensions surrounding this civil “Cold War” if cynics, opportunists, political aristocrats and fellow-travelers, mostly in the Republican Party but some Democrats as well, were replaced by people who actually gave a damn about the future of this country, rather than their own futures exercising increasing political power or as lobbyists and talking heads on the Internet/cable TV blather-a-thon.
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This discussion tracks the problems of all large countries. In Iraq, the Kurds, the Shi'a and the Sunnis all struggle for domination, and to avoid being dominated by the others. In America, states' rights versus the federal government is a constant source of electoral and judicial conflict. In Indonesia, the people of Aceh, and the Balinese bristle at the power of Java.
In all these cases, there are three apparent choices; political accommodation and compromise, separation, or warfare. Most choose the political accommodation to avoid separation or warfare.
Often, the larger organizations fall under the sway of one of their constituent factions, which uses its power to exploit the others. If the others can't correct or mitigate this, separation or warfare enter the mix.
What do the Greeks have to offer the Germans, in exchange for superior German manufactured goods? Not enough to avoid going into debt. Until the EU can invent a way to balance economic power, the Germans will dominate and the Greeks (and others) will bristle. Maybe, just maybe, the current round of populism will cause Germany and Brussels to mitigate their behavior and strengthen the union. Or maybe not.
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There is much to recommend the analysis by Mr. Douthat of the competing economic and cultural forces in the EU, nevertheless the analysis is itself locked into old and well-worn views of Europe that only offer a limited perspective of what is happening.
Specifically, the technological revolution that has quietly overtaken much of this traditional society is playing a significant role in its transformation. For instance, the rail strike in Paris would have, in the past, resulted in massive disruption but that has not been the case. Through the use of smartphones and the Internet, riders have been able to be kept up to the minute as to the status of trains and therefore been able to reschedule their activities to minimize disruption. As a consequence, the strike is basically petering out.
The idea of a Third German Empire bestriding Europe may appeal to traditional columnists, but the reality is that power is more focused in individuals armed with their smartphones than any German banker ever dreamed possible.
Globalism is and has always been voluntary. To the extent there was a critical mass of globalist leaders, it could prevail. In truth, globalism has not been able to withstand the harsh test of reality. Obama's initiatives barely survived one election. One by one, globalist leaders are being replaced by citizens who hold a different view. Globalism has a place in organizations like the UN, where ideologies are debated. It was never a model for actually governing.
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In an area as culturally diverse as Europe there are bound to be tensions. Those tensions shape the nature of the political landscape--and always have. The history of Europe is a history of migrations; nothing new here. Each migration brings its own flavor to the cultural soup, making it more zesty. The right wing always harks back to a yesterday that never existed and convinces those who think they were part of that purer time that it's time to revert. We're in that mode right now, here in the US and in Europe--this too shall pass.
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Apparently technological civilization destroys itself when tribes acquire nuclear weapons.
Douthat ignores the fact that there wouldn't be nearly as many refugees as there are today if the Bush administration hadn't talked much of "the West" into invading Iraq and supporting the anti-Assad forces in Syria (and there are NO good guys in the Syrian conflict--just ordinary people caught in the middle).
"The West" needs to learn some humility and understand that it neither knows how to nor has the ability to fix the world.
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"The West" is still trying to figure out how to implement fairness and humility without being overwhelmed by greedy people from within and without. We seem to be going backwards, but it is a work in progress.
Invading Iraq was one of the worst mistakes "the West" made in a long time. But right or wrong, Europe and American cannot allow themselves to be overwhelmed by people with a different point of view or they will cease to be "western".
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Mr. Douthat‘s black and white portrait of the European status quo depicts Germany as an aging, ailing one-man band, too blind to read the notes in front of him. Without a doubt Europe, like the rest of the western hemisphere, is experiencing the growing pains of democracy‘s evolution. Populism has hit home in Germany, as in all of Europe, and the vulnerability of some voters to the cheap slogans of far-right politicians is downright scary, if not disheartening.
The European Union is still a work in progress, as is any and every good democracy. Thomas Jefferson himself said of democracy that it should be written anew by every generation if it should hope to survive. It‘s all about whether or not the idea of democracy is still valid for postindustrial Europe. I cannot imagine living in a Germany which is not the part of a greater, functioning Europe and I think most people here in Germany feel the same.
Finally, I‘d like to ask Mr. Douthat what he thinks Angela Merkel should have done differently than open the borders to the refugees back in 2016. Let more people drown in the waters off of Italy? Or perhaps leave the entire burden of taking in the refugees to Italy where most of them landed? Merkel‘s determination to „do the right thing“ was not the sign of German-centered bossiness, rather a hopeful sign of humanity in politics so dearly missing nowadays.
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not only do the gullible swallow the slogans but they are more likely to be fodder for the war that often comes when tyrants take over.
At least Europe doesn't have the compulsion to enact faith-based legislation that dogs the US.
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You might want to re-consider the unfortunate term 'Third Empire' in this context.
Following your reasoning the Weimar Republic would have been the Second Empire. Hitler coined his reign 'Das Dritte Reich'( The Third Empire) which would make the current political system a fourth. It's not an empire though but a democratic republic. The EU is an assembly of more/less democratic countries. Not an empire either and not understood as such by the citizens of Europe. The union consists mainly of financial and trade agreements and cultural exchange.
What's going to happen next is anyone's guess. It depends a lot on the actions of the USA or lack thereof to promote the great benefits for a person that can choose to live in a place were the rule of law governs equally along the legislative and executive branches.
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The difference is that the Weimar Republic was so riven with internal conflicts and restricted by the Versailles Treaty that it was in no position to act as a controlling influence in Europe. The current regime in Berlin certainly has the dominant economic position the continent. Of course, if France can manage to suppress its more disruptive socialist inclinations, it might be able to eventually regain parity with Germany again.
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Pretty sure Hitler was not referring to the Weimar Republic as the second empire either, when he called his the third one. Hitler despised everything about the Weimar Republic and would have never in a thousand years (pun intended) accepted it as an empire. I am pretty sure the lineage he saw for his Germany to be the third empire was 1) Holy Roman Empire of the german Nation 12th century - 1806, 2)The german Empire 1871 - 1918 and 3) His vision of the thousand year Reich.
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Why German Empire? I totally agree with Brian, and his definition of the European Union as trying to define itself with a number of nations who have had their ups and downs, but often have had their own empire which they are now giving up.
Very well put, as usual. Nothing is as simple as it seems.
The parallels with the US are striking. There is growing resentment against the Supreme Court, staffed and influenced by big money interests who choose the judges, ruling against local prerogative—think affirmative action or banningbthe right to regulate guns to gay marriage to corporate dominance of elections to gerrymandering to disenfranchise local voters, on and in. The increasingly dominant federal ifficials, while elected, still increasingly intervene in lical affairs and are resented for ut. The push back against distant unelected officials changing local laws is as severe here as in Italy.
Trump, the ultimate elitist, understands the game well and has manipulated frustrated local voters to gain ultimate power. He truly sees himself as the sole savior abd thus is emoiwerd to do whatever he wants, ignoring all input. The Emperor wears clothes, the federal government is naked
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Not Germany, but America:
"Old man in the Brothel: You see, Italy is a very poor, weak country and that is what makes us so strong, strong enough to survive this war and still be in existence, long after your country has been destroyed.
Capt. Nately: What are you talking about? America is not going to be destroyed.
Old man in the Brothel: Never?
Capt. Nately: Well...
Old man in the Brothel: Rome was destroyed. Greece was destroyed. Persia was destroyed. Spain was destroyed. All great countries are destroyed. Why not yours? How much longer do you think your country will last? Forever?
Capt. Nately: Well, forever is a long time.
Old man in the Brothel: Very long."
- Catch 22
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So what you are saying Mr. Douthat, is, do not ignore the power of human selfishness.
Rarely read such nonsense. This column was a classic case of seeing the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and failing to see the plank in front of your head. It is not that the German "empire" is failing, it is that the American electorate let the world down by electing the most incompetent, self-aggrandizing sociopath they could find into office.
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Ross you frame your own argument as beginning with the great recession and then go on to blame liberalism for German and European decline without establishing, first ,that the great recession came about due to an unfettered and unethical stock market that threw worthless paper at a unsuspecting world market. I believe the real culprit here might be unregulated Capitalism. Without that recession, all might still be well on the European continent.
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Thank you for pointing this out. Paul Krugman has been warning of this era thing in this same paper. It would be interesting if Douthat responded to his constant warning to the "deficit hawks" of Germany and the EU.
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Rick--A financial crisis, recession, perpetrated by right wing greedsters, like Donald tRump, Steve Mnuchin, and Sean Hannity, who cheerfully profited from other people's misfortune.
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Indeed, the culprit is world-wide capitalism and particularly the world-wide capitalism that makes endless wars and endless refugees the most profitable business on the planet.
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"It is also a struggle of nations against empire, of the Continent’s smaller countries against German mastery and Northern European interests, in which populist parties are being elected to resist policies the center sought to impose upon the periphery without a vote..." Huh? Policies of the Center? Really? You might want to go back and rewrite that one...more like policies of the Left.
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Final paragraph is an elegant rhetorical flourish but makes no sense. It’s incorrect to view this as a struggle between liberalism and authoritarianism, and being incorrect may result in the demise of liberalism, i.e. the view becoming correct?
We expected decency after WWII and we hand them Donald Trump who threatens to slap sanctions against them with 60 billion dollars in trade limbo after he pulls out of the only international deal on climate.
Donald Trump is breaking every decent deal with abandon. You call it the fall of Germany, I call it a swindle against them by everyone in Washington who allows Trump his way.
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Excellent piece. I hope Marc Santora and his editor find time to read it.
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What is happening in Europe today is similar to what is occurring in the US. A large number of Americans(The Deplorables) are rebelling against the Wall Street -Washington Money and Power Axis.A new form of States
Rights is beginning to form in Middle America.We are sick and tired of The Deep State control of our Government
which has turned our Democracy into an OLIGARCHY!
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Brilliant piece that captures the German hegemony and democratic deficit that are built into EU structures, which no one wants to talk about. Ross is the best op-ed writer on the NY Times page. Bar none.
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You lost me at the headline: Angela Merkel and Germany are, by all global accounts, leaders of the free world. A position we've not only abdicated, but spit and stomped on.
Ms. Merkel and Germany are now guiding the world.
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The same can be said of our politics. An arrogant liberal elite telling everyone how it's going to be and ignoring the perspective of anyone who disagrees.
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If you have a baby, in Germany, health care helps you very much: they visit mom, they pay a percentage of your salary while you stay home for five years, before school, for the next generation of Germany. Your job is held for you while you raise your child. Here, we have Republicans in charge, overturning the lowest teen pregnancy rate, marginalizing birth control, punishing Medicaid recipients if they are not working. I know several personally that go back to work the first week after birth-- ah, the smell of Democracy. For. teen to get birth control, its still $180 for a single visit to planned parenthood. Victory for Republicans
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The EU bureaucracy should stop telling everyone to do stupid things. It probably needs an overhaul before that happens. Unelected bureaucrats who always know what's good for everyone else are the bane of democracy.
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Germany will be destroyed from within by its own liberal social welfare policies. The famous German culture is being overwhelmed by Germany's political correctness as Muslims continue to flood into the country, taking jobs away from ethnic German citizens, and congregating in insular Islamic communities where their mullahs promote hatred for all things western. I saw this first hand when visiting Germany on business several times in the 90's. Friends there tell me the situation has only worsened since then. And the German government is doing nothing in response.
To fully rebut this ill-considered apologia for authoritarian nationalists not possible in this small space. So, here are just few observations:
First, if you didn't study history, then perhaps you should stay away from historical analogies. The Holy Roman Empire was the first German empire, Wilhelmine Germany was literally called the Second Empire, and Nazi Germany.... oh, yeah, that was the Third Reich. If anything, the polyglot and ineffectual Holy Roman Empire is the analogue to today's EU.
Secondly, to say that Merkel's immigration policy "is the major reason that populist parties rule today in Budapest and Warsaw" is ridiculous and also bad history. Both Orban and Kaczyński well predate the immigration crisis. To even begin to think about causality you have to be clear about chronology.
Finally, to blame the admittedly rough handling of the southern Europeans by German bankers can hardly be adduced as an explanation for the rise of ethno-nationalist authoritarianism in eastern Europe. So in addition to history, Brouthat can add geography to the list of things he apparently failed to learn while at Harvard.
If Brouthat thinks that Orban's flirtation with fascism and putting innocent immigrants behind wire fences is preferable to Merkel's humanitarian policies, and sees in it the rise of a bogeyman new German Reich, then he reveals a lot about his own dark proclivities, but precious little about the political dynamics of modern Europe .
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The Nazi German invasion and occupation of the Soviet Union left 27.5 million dead. After the killing of 30 million Chinese by the Japanese Empire it was the second deadliest human holocaust of World War II.
Populism is a euphemism for ethnic sectarian nationalism. When given a choice between fighting the fascist or the Bolshevik threats the West saw the fascists as the graver greater danger.
The British royal House of Windsor is really the German House of Saxe -Cotburg. There are more German Americans than there are any other kind of Americans by ethnicity and national origin. America is the natural German Empire heir. But Donald Trump is the German American antithesis of Dwight Eisenhower.
Morover, the purpose of the European Union, the European Zone and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is to keep Germany diplomatically, militarily, politically and socioeconomically peacefully tied to Europe. Vladimir Putin speaks fluent German. Putin was stationed by the KGB in the East German homeland of Angela Merkel. Putin has a different goal.
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The German bankers driving the Southern European economies into the recession/depressions seems very much like Wall Street bankers almost destroying the American middle class. The only difference is, in America we are held hostage by a dysfunctional political system and the politicians who will do the bankers bidding - doesn’t matter much if they are Republican or Democrat. Almost all US politicians take Wall St money.
The Southern Europeans (Greece, Italy, Portugal. Spain, etc) have the ability to break free from their German financial masters. Add in the German dictated migration crisis and it’s a toxic mix.....I really don’t know why anyone is surprised some of the countries want out.
As usual, America fails to foresee these completely predictable crisis because we are too busy spending trillions fighting unnecessary wars around the globe. And, the European migrant crisis is primarily caused by the American led wars and regime change efforts in the Middle East.
America seems doomed to repeat the all too familiar decline that historically happens to colonial empires - excessive spending on military and wars while the home country collapses under the debt and failure to address critical domestic issues.
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I believe that rather than climate change, immigration -- in particular what Ross refers to as "migration crises without end" -- is going to be the defining issue of the 21st century. Pious liberal politicians like Angela Merkel are avid to flood their countries with non-Western foreigners, because this proves that they are not like Hitler, and what could be more important than that? If Western civilization is to survive, guilt-haunted universalist liberalism must fall.
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was this meant satirically?
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Western civilization might have to adapt to the migration crises regardless of political thought due to climate changes beyond anyone's control.
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FYI: Climate change is the main reason for migration.
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A good article; thanks Ross!
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I'm not a student of the intricacies of Eastern European politics...but I'll call in a few plays from over here in the American bleachers. In order to proceed through the 21st Century, the Old Guard must be torn down, while the new systems ...planned out consciously or through reaction to the unpredictable....begin to speed up.
The constant is that German, Russian, and Turkish(moslem) forces are the big players....every other label is simply a narrow , non-democratic "tribal" construct using "culture" to resist change. Sounds a little like all those communist rabble rousers from the early 1900s, huh?
In the 21st Century, the same observation is still valid....only now, its German Trade Groups, Russian Trade Groups and Turkish Trade Groups that are espousing it.
If the EU ever changes to something other than an American-style "laboratory for capitalism/democracy"....it will divide along the lines of the Holy Roman Empire.....A French(latin) half and a German half. the German half will lock in trade advantages toward the East and Russia.....Turkey will participate as it always has but with a selfish goal of expanding the Moslem Caliphate which it believe is its Destiny to Rule.
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We are seeing the beginning of the end of Western Democracy especially liberalism. The fundamental problem of Western Democratic value is the notion that Homo sapiens are unique and better. Sadly, liberalism is against animal instincts and human nature. Homo sapiens are not different. Some fancy ideas cannot change the tens of thousands of years of evolutionary force. Stupid, it is in our DNA. The concept of democracy was formulated in homogeneous societies. Liberalism as its current form only exists for merely a few decades. Before that, slavery and colonialism run the course. Somehow, western scholars managed to ignore the ironies and hypocracies. The examples are everywhere. CA, as the "leader" of environmental protection, is the most environmental unfriendly place on earth! How could a desert and semi-arid area became an agricultural center? And look at the urban sprawling and traffics. Seriously, if CA is the model for the rest of the world, we are all doomed.
This self-righteousness makes many people including me sick. Of course farmers, ranchers and normal people become Republicans. And tell me why I am a racist if all I want is to protect America the beautiful? The disappearance of farm land and habitats is caused by urban sprawling, population growth and immigration.
I totally understand why some European countries want to break away from the doomed liberalism. Germany had problems with Turkish immigrants and it will face a bigger problem with the new immigrants.
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Some interesting perspective on the way right leaning Eastern Europeans see the European Union and their role in it. However Ross shouldn't try to make the case for them that Poland taking 20.000 refugees in means the loss of its national sovereignty. This is ridiculous. They Eastern European right might see it that way and it might be able to deceive enough people into believing that, but perceived irrational fears do not magically become real threats.
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I can always tell when things are going bad for conservatives/ GOP/ right wing politics by reading the conservatives columnists at NYT and WaPo....
When it is bad, they start writing pieces that feature esoteric philosophical debates...usually about the history of Europe or Religion or about the impending fall of liberalism
During the Obama administration, we were greeted with a constant barrage of criticisms that either focused on Obama's alleged naievity or his weakness in his dealing with our enemies and even our allies. Now nary word about Trump failures.
Also, there are virtualy no debates about the role of conservatism in creating the environment that destabilized Germany and Europe 75 years ago.
Nor are we told about how modern-day right wing politics and actions in Europe and the US strangely parallel the events foreshadowing the emergence of fascism in South America and Europe.
How about a peice discussing why there is a propensity of many Christians, particularly those from the more conservative/fundamental varieties, to support authoritarian personalities in so-called liberal or constitutional democracies?
Instead, we read piece after piece suggesting (overtly or covertly) that liberal concepts of multicultural inclusivity and individual freedoms to love, worship and live as one wishes in a secular world, somehow leads to the destruction of great European empires..........when it seems that evidence would suggest otherwise
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All Quiet on the Eastern Front. Prussian territory was once defined as most of northern Germany and northern Poland.
The Austro-Hungarian Empire held fast for a few years.....along with the wobbly, yet long lasting Ottoman Empire and Russian Empire. Aristocracy has now been re-labled as "Bankers"....who assert their Divine Right to Rule...why? Because they're bankers!(most of whom have family trees the extend back to Kings and Queens). Germany, Russia, Turkey are moving towards trade associations that divide up Eastern Europe along familiar lines....each with a long term plan towards total domination....which ultimately leads to the collapse of all three.
A thoughtful column, but ending on the wrong note. The answer to any of these problems, from Europe's to the United States', is not further centralization of power. It doesn't work well with Germany in Europe, and it doesn't work well with Washington in the U.S. The 'liberal ideal' never seems to grasp that its top-down style of government is inherently undemocratic - pronouncements from Berlin are like pronouncements from the U.S. Supreme Court - pronouncements. (O-great-liberal-ideal-and-power-center, you but speak, and we will listen.) Everybody but the liberal idealists and globalists themselves gets the fundamental fact that their world view is them on the top, us on the bottom. For a variety of reasons (mine are religious), we dissent. And we like populist leaders for two reasons, first, they undermine the hierarchy of the liberal-idealist-economic-masters (what could be better than listening to a hedge fund manager trash Donald Trump), a worthy outcome standing alone, and they offer some possibility that the systemic powers will be returned to the people whose lives are being governed.
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It seems like Douthat is projecting our own "states rights" tensions onto the E.U. with a reliable boogeyman, Germany, as his version of the Fed. I disagree with the austerity approach the E.U. imposed on Greece, England, etc., as a response to the Great Recession. But the fact is that Germany and France garnered resentment for being financially in a place for lending to the countries that needed help just as the Fed was our lender of last resort. Lenders are always evil in the eyes of the debtor. So he is right that it is not merely a choice of being for or against liberal values. Xenophobia, homophobia, racism, religious zealotry, nationalism and especially resentment will always exist, and they will be exploited by authoritarians who use them to seize power in times of weakness. The economic disaster and destabilization of the Middle East that were brought upon the world by G.W. Bush, acting as a tool of neo-cons and free market fanatics, are still being felt. Demonizing Berlin, or Washington, won't save us. Neither will authoritarian usurpers.
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Mr. Douthat, like so many others, overlooks that the two policies he cites as indicators of German imperialism are essentially contradictory. Merkel’s brief 2015 moment of humanitarian generosity towards refugees from Syria has created a deep backlash in Germany, mostly on the right, and has been disowned by her own party. None of the liberals in Germany who still defend this policy supports Merkel.
On the other hand, the fiscal austerity imposed on Southern Europe, especially Greece, was a fiscally conservative move that was decried by European liberals for its imperial appearance and its disastrous economic impact.
All of this is to say that identifying Angela Merkel as a liberal idol is patently ridiculous. By European standards, Angela Merkel is a conservative.
The second part that calls for some correction is the narrative of half a millennium European national resistance to imperialism. This nationalist narrative is actually part of the problem. It is historically flawed, and politically dangerous, as it has empowered the new nation states to discriminate against their own minorities (exhibit A: Hungary), and even has played a major role in the civil war and genocide in the Balkans. For many minorities, ethnic, political, social, and otherwise in the new nation states of eastern Europe the EU is the political institution they can look to to guarantee their civil rights and their freedom against majoritarian pressure masked as national liberation.
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Ross, you have obviously not been to Germany or know anything about Germans. If Germany is falling, then the U.S. is a pile of crumbling rubble. Germany builds. The U.S. takes apart. Germans have a deep national pride based on accomplishments. The U.S. has the lame National Anthem at sporting events a lot of military recruitment billboards!
I'm afraid, Mr. Douthat and a lot of other Americans need to spend more time outside the borders of the United Potempkin States of Disarray. There they will find cultures with long histories, diverse cultures and things like passenger trains, health care and food that actually tastes like food!
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It's unfortunate that you label Europe as a 'German Empire'. Thanks for not calling it the 4th Reich.
The forces people seem to be unhappy with - in Europe and here - are economic and social reality in the 21st Century. True, the bankers still solvent after the collapse were often German, but the truth they spoke was actual truth. German business has figured out how to compete worldwide in the 21st Century, to the point that Germany is the economic engine of Europe. Germany did open itself to refugees, but no matter what, refugees were going to flood Italy, Greece, and Spain. Fortunately they had Germany to go to.
The 21st Century is requiring people everywhere to adapt. A return to the Middle Ages won't work any better in Hungary that it will in Iran.
Some of us are currently too dysfunctional to adapt. The correct response is for us to get our acts together. Not to blame the Germans.
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Mr.Douthat,
You mention but the slide right by the role of German banks in the destabilization of the EU by their measures that hurt the general populace of the southern Europe countries while ignoring the transgressions of the moneyed classes who operate in a corrupt manner and don't pay taxes. Somewhat like the system we have come to in this country with the latest tax bill actually raising the lowest tax rate and effectively raising the rates on the middle class by taking away their tax deductions.
Then there is the push by Putin and Orban to link their power to that of the dominant church in their country, much as the Republican Party in this country (with your blessing) is using the Evangelicals and conservative Catholics to strengthen their hold on power in the US, at the same time pretending to love Israel while the teaching is that come the Final Days all Jews will be converted. Even the Mormon church has established itself in Israel to await the Final Days. So for those who read history in general and the Bible in particular it is left to wonder just which of today's "leaders" is the Anti-Christ with so many contributing to the ever increasing clashes in the Middle East.
Finally, whereas in the past wars were fought over "lebensraum" or to take the wealth of other countries, today they are being fought over just plain hatred of the "other."
Typical of Ross Douthat's ill-considered opinions. Not one mention of the centuries of German, French, Belgian, Italian, British or Spanish imperialism and violent exploitation of Africa. Now Europe is being overrun by migrants from Africa, and the right (represented by Douthat) is aghast! simply aghast and confounded by their inability to confront the problems that Europe has spent centuries constructing for themselves. Sheesh.
It's the same attitude that demonizes Iran, yet makes no mention of the United States-led coup against the legitimately democratic government of Iran in 1953. Which reinstalled the Shah into power, which led directly to the Islamic Revolution. Turns out people don't like to be led by ruthless dictators.
Ross, do you not like history? I don't get it.
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Ross is a cosmopolitan conservative. He may not be electable but his political outlook would be just about right for a post-Trump president in the view of this humble reader.
Roll over Beethoven....not yet anyway. Germany has ideas to stay in the fast-lane by designing a better Europe avoiding the icebergs approaching in rapid formation. Empires decline and fall which makes them not fit for purpose; avoid.
Ross Douthat is on to something here. Vaclav Havel despaired of leaving the Soviet Empire in 1989, only to rush into the arms of the "E.U. empire." He wished that the small nations had the breathing space to be "themselves." To return to the values of the brief time between the World Wars, when new nations forged societies on a human scale. A time when national parliaments ran the political affairs of the people and capitalism was the small business and businessman on the high street.
It is ironic that Orban references "Christian Democracy" because that is exactly what the CDU in Germany gave its people as an anti-dote to Hitlerism. Christian democracy that mirrored Havel's vision for post-1989 Europe as well. Now Germany's de facto empire has allowed Orban to win power with un=Christian democracy.
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I don't think the Federal Government of Germany needs lessons from this confused author about how to manage their European relations. Thank goodness for Germany in the face of such human trash that has arisen in the Governments of Hungary, Poland and Austria. If these countries can't abide by the core democratic values of the EU they should leave.
As for economic hegemony, what we've seen in the ferocious debates between Germany/Netherlands/EU Commission on the one hand and several Southern European countries on the other is simply the probably appropriate (for their conditions) fiscal conservatism of the North in face of the different needs of the South. It's what happens when economies with vastly different structures and problems are cemented together under one umbrella with one set of economic management rules where one size does not fit all. This is as much true of Canada as it is of the USA, except it doesn't play out in public because it is masked within the confines of the nation-state. The Europeans are working out these problems in their own way; it could well end-up in a more decentralized or a smaller EU or some mixture of both, time will tell.
The word Empire has no place in today’s world. The concept of Empire is primarily based on self proclaimed superiority over other countries, culturally, militarily and economically. This worked when other non Empire countries with their own way of life didn’t care about these Empires. Now with the advent of Globalization and self confidence these other countries are a threat to the traditional empires and they are beginning to fall or disappear. Fast forward 100 years we may not even know how to identify ourselves in one world
Angela Merkle presides over a rambunctious brood.
But Germany has weathered the Wall St. caused great recession and pulled them through.
The social safety net in Europe is more and more the envy of us Americans. Socialism is not such a bad word anymore. Government employees and fair taxation aren't frowned upon if they lead to a better life.
But Silicon Valley and the tech libertarians are nipping at her heels. She will need all her wiles to keep them in check, and keep Europe and the world on a somewhat even keel.
1
To Paraphrase: But if the test of America's [Europe’s] unity feels like a test for liberal democracy, it’s a mistake to see it only in those terms. It is also a struggle of Individual States [nations] against the last century of centralizing Government [empire], of the Small/Red States [Continent’s smaller countries] against Large/Blue States [German] mastery and Coastal [Northern European] interests, in which Republicans/Populists [populist parties] are being elected to resist policies the Democrats [center] sought to impose upon the periphery without a Bipartisan vote. Excluding of course, the 2016 popular vote, and the Obama Presidency. Thus, Anti-German Rhetoric aside, the regions on both continents that have prospered most over the last few decades have a choice of whether to engage with those who have been left behind, or not. And those whose conscious efforts have resisted joining the 21st century (Medicaid repeal anyone?) perhaps should also take stock of their own level of blindness to the needs of their populations.
No formal empire, but Eastern European EU members were stuck with unfavorable monetary and immigration policies which served German interests. Their societies were insular under Communism - now expanded interaction with more powerful neighbors to the west threatens their national identity and they turn to nationalist populism. Germany would be wise to learn from the example of the post-WW II Bretton Woods institutions, which sought to eliminate the structural causes of fascism by striking a balance between domestic stability and international exchange.
1
The major divide between Europeans, as well as Americans, is economic. It's the divide between those making major profits from corporate takeover of governments and from cheap labour supplied by refugees, and the average working folks squeezed by immigrants as well as Brussels and Berlin.
Just before he died in 1945, FDR warned about corporate takeover of government. He wanted to remove the industrialists and military brass from government and replace them with folks more closely linked to the majority of Americans. But he died before he could manage it. Corporations, world wide, have been growing increasingly powerful these last 70 years, maximizing profits, building a strong upper middle class as a buffer between the 1% of very wealthy and the common folk.
Democracy has deteriorated as international corporations run governments as corporations, cutting cost inefficiencies. Sovereignty is weakened as wealth has been concentrated in fewer hands. The middle class struggles to better itself. Workers suffer from stagnant wages. The poor are no longer a priority, dismissed with social welfare programs that provide only a subsistence.
3
Good analysis. Two things that could go a long way towards fixing things: 1. Make the Euro a reserve currency for all of Europe and let the nations reissue their domestic currencies that float against the Euro. This would loosen German induced austerity and enable inflation where needed. Crypto currencies could fill this role but with problems; however, further imperial intransigence might push the smaller nations in this direction. 2. Give Syria back to the Syrians. This could induce a new war in the Middle East if Russia opposes but Russia is no match for NATO if all of Europe and the US insist. Syria will not be solved with force of arms, it needs fresh water which will be the key to success. All of the region needs more fresh water than it has and designing a water system with desalinization at its heart would do much to stabilize the area.
1
Actually there is little or nothing new or insightful in this analysis, unless you don’t read much. Germany is the leading power on the continent in the west, and eu policies have downsides. What’s more interesting is douhatt ‘s clear separation of liberal democracy from conservatism. It used to be that modern conservatism embraced free markets and free governments. But there is an older conservative tradition that embraces autocracy and sees both capitalism and democracy as threats. Much of that ultra montane thinking has remained holed up in the Roman Catholic Church. Ross here casts his hierarchical distain at free markets, liberal democracy and implicitly Protestantism. In doing so of course he amusingly overlooks 1776, 1789, 1848, 1860-65, 1914-18, and 1940-45. The eu is a response to devastating wars that Europeans, even degaulle, hoped not to repeat even at the cost of some restrictions on nation state power. Ross’s evident preference for Franco style self autonomy is delusional.
7
Douthat quotes, approvingly, Branko Milanovic's assertion that "the nation-states that emerged from '89 tended to be ethnically homogeneous." Even granting that a weasel word like "tended to" leaves room for evasive argument, this is obvious nonsense - practically none of these states are ethnically homogeneous. The three Baltic states have sizable Russian minorities, Poland has a German one, Slovakia has Hungarian as well as Sinti-Roma mnorities, the Czech Republic has its Roma-Sinti population as does Hungary, and do we really have to dicuss former Yugoslavia with its patchwork of ethnic groups that does not coincide with national boundaries anywhere? Milanovic's argument needs to be stood on its head: the illiberal, obnoxious nationalism virulent in some of these countries is fuelled not by pride of national identity but by a deep insecurity about that identity, caused not least by the presence of the ethnic minorities whose existence Milanovic ignores.
3
Sorry, but Douhat is correct. These countries all have a very strong ethnic homogenous core with some minorities who have lived there for centuries, in the mix and mach of empires, and who share pretty much the same values.
Ross, I always enjoy your columns, and often agree except when you get too Catholic for me. No offense, but I am not religious and sometimes have a problem following someone who is obviously very bright and then goes off into what I consider to be "la la" land . Nevertheless, you are often attacked mercilessly by Times readers, for no good reason,often, and I think that many of these obsessively liberal commenters owe you apologies. All that said, this was one of your very best columns. I am in Vienna, as we speak, and my impression of most Europeans that I have met (many) is that by and large on a personal level they are very tolerant, but nevertheless they have a legitimate view that immigration on an excessive scale is a great problem, culturally, economically, environmentally, and on and on. They are not racist for having this view. There are many in America who also have this view regarding our own country and in my view they are correct. And there are those who have this view who absolutely loathe Donald Trump.
2
Germany is a model modern country with a few warts: a rich country, well-educated, well-managed, excellent roads, infrastructure, mass transportation and affordable healthcare....so why not throw it under the bus, Ross, for trying lend a helping hand to migrants ?
A little global context would be nice.
Who overthrew the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh of liberal Iran in 1953 for oil, Ross, and set in motion a destructively conservative, religious chain of events for that country for the next 65 years ?
The United States and Britain.
Who obsequiously coddled medieval Saudi Arabia for decades and championed the supremacy of the American gas guzzler cars and demonized public transit as oil money funded the global spread of destructive Wahhabism that produced the religious fanaticism of Sept 11 2001 ?
The good ole' USA.
Who blew up a very secular Iraq by force in 2003 based on forged evidence and created the seeds for ISIS to grow and blow up Syria ?
The USA and its puppy dog Tony Blair and the Allies.
Of course, the the Middle East also owns a share of the blame for its own destructive religious ways and for refusing to enter modernity, but the USA has been a handmaiden of reliable oil-based Middle Eastern disaster and instability.
What the world needs is less destructive American petro-politics, more solar and green energy, less religion and a Manhattan project for global female rights featuring free modern contraception for all.
Wake up !
143
Whew! You almost made it an entire post without the obligatory and nonsensical attack on peoples spiritual and religious beliefs. You had me worried. But I knew you would come through in the end.
4
Concernicus...it is eminently responsible, rational and sensible to point out the destructive effects of religion on societies all over the world.
To not do so would be intellectual malpractice.
Much obliged.
1
Canada is no longer a puppy dog but a society that tries to embody the values of the European social charter, the comprehensive welfare state nowhere acknowledged in the entire bloated bloviating of Ross Douthhat.
5
Should any American really be spending time criticizing other countries these days?
We have become a global joke due to the GOP and their leader.
15
Of course, Germany has a system superior to the US and is not involved in war games on the Korean Peninsula that threaten world peace. Germany has also not been involved in longterm wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. While the Fascists around the world might be rebelling against liberal democracy, which is something that happens from time to time, the reality is that liberal democracy is best for the world, especially one that is not based on military imperialism.
164
Before the wall fell, Germany had to use "guest workers," mostly from Turkey, to progress.
The immigration issue goes back to the Junkers running out of manpower.
4
We might also want to point out that Germany has, for the past 73 years has been living under the security umbrella of NATO without having to pay a significant portion of its GDP for its own defense.
The engine of the German economy has been subsidized greatly by the American taxpayer and the American soldiers stationed in Germany helping the German economy prosper.
9
I’m sorry, but the statement that Germany was not involved in Afghanistan and Iraq is simply not true. They were “coalition partners” with the US as described by our own military and have contributed both combat and training cadres.
4
Bravo! A really wonderfully written column, fascinating and insightful. My gut tells me that Mr. Douthat's analysis of the political dynamic in the EU is exactly right.
Germany has ceased to be an empire in 1918. It is also a pretty outdated term to describe modern national or international relations. To describe the EU as a German empire hits me as ludicrous in many ways. But most disturbing is the enumeration: third empire. Why would Ross use that number that undoubtedly readers will associate with the 3rd Reich?
4
The "triumph" of rationalist, enlightenment values would mean the end of humanity.
Nicholas Kristof, Steven Pinker and others have been writing lately of the inexorable trend toward greater happiness resulting from these so-called "enlightenment" values.
But perhaps TINA ("There is no alternative") is a myth based on these very same rationalist delusions.
The idea that there is another option beyond pallid liberal universalism (sound and fury signifying nothing - lacking the "fire" that Steven Hawking said was missing in the equations of physics) on the one hand, and Douthat's reactionary conservatism, is almost inconceivable for today's intelligentsia.
But the times are indeed a-changing. Michael Pollan, a near life-long exponent of aforesaid rationalism, has his views profoundly shaken after a 2 year exploration of psychedelics.
Barbara Ehrenreich, in yet another hysterical screed against mind-body integration (in her unnaturally named "Natural Causes"), unwittingly undoes her entire life work by ascribing agency not only to cells, but to subatomic particles throughout the universe.
World class neuroscientist Christof Koch essentially undoes 3 centuries of rationalist catechism in his turn toward panpsychism (along with numerous other neuroscientists finally coming to terms with the incoherent irrationality of the materialist faith).
Cultures cannot cohere without meaning. Neither liberalism nor retrogressive conservatives provides it.
2
Haberdash
If anyone in Europe is dreaming of restoring an Empire it's Macron who tries, Jupiter-like, to return La Gloire de la France .
2
Our nation including Mr, Trump should look to Germany as one of the few European countries not only holding together effectively its democracy but also attempting to maintain an ethical and moral posture. How I wish we could have the likes of an Angela Merkel at the helm of our country's ship. (Actually, we almost did.) But alas we have allowed ourselves to sail into The Perfect Storm by a ship of fools residing in DC's People's House.
To suggest that Germany will "fall" is a weak attempt to distract us from the fact that America itself is sinking and crumbling. Each day, each minute, Mr. Trump and his sycophants chip away at the moral fiber on which this country was founded. Without ethical and honest leadership we, too, will go down in infamy as a fallen empire.
306
I'm not so sure about how truly sound is Germany's democracy: with AfD getting 1/8th of the legislature, Merkel spending a year trying to form a government, and polls showing SPD and CSD losing ground to CDU and AfD; I'm more confident in Germany's democratic fragility than its strength.
There is a real chance that Germany will split into two in the next decade, with Bavaria, Pallatine, and Rhineland splitting off from "greater Prussia".
1
Unfortunately, while Trump makes it possible to see our country's "sinking and crumbling" in glaring lights, social and political deterioration takes several generations. It started well before Trump and will continue on after him because the causes are deeper than any President. He is the symptom, not the illness.
11
Funny. As I recall, numerous conservative economists recommended exactly the type of austerity measures Mr. Douthat decries Germany for supporting in the fiscal crises in Greece, Spain et al. The same here in the U.S. in the wake of the 2008 debacle that nearly wrecked the banking system. The alternative course of action supported by Keynesian economists with government intervention via deficit spending and increasing the money supply was just as loudly opposed by the GOP here. Their lack of support likely added years of pain to the U.S. recovery. But that is fine because they could then use it to blame the Democrat president for their own obstruction and put Trump in the White House.
Empires and illiberalism indeed.
11
Trump is planning to pull the U.S. out of NATO in the next year or two. Europe needs to build up militarily - with German leadership - or it will be swallowed by the Trump-Putin onslaught. Even if Trump does not 'formally' withdraw, be certain that when Putin's troops gobble up the Baltics and Poland (with Trump approval), that Trump will renege on the U.S. NATO role to help defend Europe.
5
I wonder if perhaps it might not be best for Germany - and for its Northern European neighbors - that this so-called German empire dissolve. These countries enjoy the world’s highest standard of living, and as Ross states, Berlin’s economic and immigration diktats have understandably caused resentment in other European nations. Who needs the headache? It’s not as though a larger EU wields enormous influence on the world stage (Trump’s recent shenanigans have sadly shown proof of that). And Germany and its more affluent neighbors wield significant economic power already. Again, who needs the headache?
The tension that Ross writes about is certainly real. My own European relatives change against what they see as arrogance by Europe’s ruling class. I’m generalizing a bit, but the European elite tend to hand down edicts in the name of lofty abstractions (our elites do so too, just a different set of abstractions)....and frankly I don’t see that changing. Perhaps a smaller project is best for all.
2
An unusually insightful column from Douthat. Calling Germany today an 'Empire' sounds extreme. But is it?
Germany that imposed austerity on the southern countries - countries it had encouraged to join the (Deutschmark-based) Euro precisely so that they would bring down the cost of the currency and thus boost German exports.
The financial and social cost to these countries of being unable to devalue currency to get out of the crisis – ironically largely caused by the reckless behaviour of German banks - was ignored. Yet Germany has maintained the fiction up (repeated in some comments) that these countries deserve their problems and that Germany is propping them all up.
In reality, the exodus from the South meant that Germany was able to fill vacancies in engineering and medicine with Spaniards, Italians and Greeks whose educations had been provided by their taxpayers. In reality, Germany is buying up prime state property, such as Greece’s airports, for peanuts. In reality, Germany follows a tight monetary policy for itself despite huge surpluses, in defiance of the how the euro should function.
Germany insists on a Germancentric policy that has undermined the EU. But this is the central flaw in the EU: its citizens only vote nationally, not for European-wide leadership. Just as the ‘small’ countries insist on sovereignty, so German politicians feel beholden only to their own voters. They seem to have forgotten that noblesse oblige.
2
The term empire is totally misplaced. Germany naturally is the dominant political and economic power in Europe. But it forces no other nation to join the EU. The benefits of the EU are mutual. And it’s China (a true emerging empire) that buys up ports and other major infrastructure in Greece.
9
I agree that sovereignty is a strong factor in the recent trends in Europe, but it's not the only one.
Does anyone think the immigation issues would be so wrenching if the immigrants were French citizens fleeing the high cost of croissants in Paris? The problem is not alone who controls immigation, but the tragic fact that the number of immigrants is huge, and are separated by vastly different language, culture, religion, social mores and education. Add to that the terrorism worries, real or inflated, and the objections are not merely based on political science.
The other problem comes from the right. You acknowledge yourself that the economic solutions to the Great Recession of fiscal austerity and cuts to the safety net, were inappropriate to many of the southern and eastern countries of Europe. Well, where did those ideas come from? They are the brainchild of the right. The low tax, small government, safety net doubting, theorists of the right percoluated these failed economic policies, which drove many of the weaker economies against the greater Europe. And now, the right is attempting to duck the blame by pointing fingers at imperial central planning. Yes, central planning doesn't work, but having bad ideas that are core to the right made the problems exponentially worse.
9
The EU crisis, like the U.S., stems from neoliberal policies that enrich the large banks of Frankfurt, London, and Paris at the expense of the middle class. There's a racial component—anti-immigrant sentiment; regional—Northern Europe vs. Southern and Eastern; and political—the cosmopolitan liberalism of Merkel and Macron vs. populist nationalism. Just as corporate America maintains its firm grip on the Red States, European banks still run the economies of Italy, Greece, and Poland, if not the politics.
5
Send me your subsidies but don't try to engineer our nations heritage!! Individuals, families, tribes, states and nations in that order. That is the major distribution lines. What happens when the strong decide, lets establish a common new line and wipe out the main barrier to it, the nation state. How can we do that? We buy them off with aid and subsidy. It was ever thus and continues to be so. Resentment builds as the strings tighten. Just look at California now acting as an independent nation as the Trump machine seeks to apply its policies to their state. Look at individuals. That desire for indentity and freedom of movement is universal. It takes sugar ((that addictive food))or money to buy people off. But eventually, eventually it isn't sufficiently satisfying, so revolt. Resistance. Push back.
Give me the money, keep the push to eliminate my family, my tribe and my state identity. So say so very many, over and over again.
5
Ross, you didn't need to invent this grandiose dialectic of a third German Empire to state your point: rural communities in the US and Europe are resentful about the rapid economic and cultural changes that are leaving them behind. Substitute rural for local and educated for liberal cosmopolitan and your column makes sense.
Just want to point out local/nationalist politics has been the basis for ALL the European wars since the 1850's including WW1 and WW2. You can see why the "liberal cosmopolitans" are sounding the alarm bells.
20
Can the EU survive without Italy? Yes. Can Italy survive without the EU? Good question. Perhaps there will be more incentive to transform it stultifying bureaucracy and black market sector into something more robust and beneficial. But, knowing Italy, not too likely, meaning that Italy loses its EU friends, but its government keeps bumbling along. The rest of the EU? It will do fine. And if it jettisons Hungary - well, good for sending a message to the rest of the EU - and when all those Hungarians working in Europe return home unhappy - BOOM! Things will change because Hungary needs the EU more than the EU needs Hungary - or Poland, or Romania...
15
Ross supports sovereignty, but like many with him, sovereignty really means the hope of advancing his cause by weakening the status quo. Not so much a plan forward as a hope that chaos will provide more opportunity for an agenda not spelled out clearly, and not popular enough to gain support on its own.
A poor plan.
8
This piece along with Mr. Friedman's today, illustrate the complexity of the world we now live in--with a whole host of economic, cultural, and national motives swirling around each continent. In fact, the level of complexity, makes every thoughtful strategy problematic. And then we come to our current administration led by a man whose every problem is solved with a hammer and his band of thoughtless ideologues---what could go wrong.
20
The world is, indeed, complex which as ACJ points out makes any governing strategy problematic.
However, in terms of our own leader, if the country or at least the majority of voters does not agree with him or his tactics, they can vote him out in 2020.
We can go back to having the liberal, world view running our country---and get nothing accomplished.
The GOP financiers are preparing a flood of dark money for 2020. Fox (Faux) news and right wing Christian media are standing ready to support Trump and Trumpians in 2020. The Russians are undoubtably preparing an even more sophisticated campaign of disinformation and media manipulation for 2020. I'm not so sure we can keep our democracy.
Angel Merkel is Germany's problem, has been since she came into power. She is a weak leader, revered by too many of her citizens who prefer to stick their heads in the sand or run like sheep after their blind and clueless "leader". As long as Wolfgang Schaeuble was around as her finance minister, Angela Merkel had a responsible competent helper to guide her. However, since Fukujima occurred, she has made one disastrous decision after the other. She allowed the refugee crisis to build up and when it finally collapsed under its own weight, she allowed it to wash over Europe. When a leader calls herself 'alternativlos', i.e. saying there was nothing she could do about it, that leader should resign in the same breath.
Angela Merkel effectively destroyed Europe and she continues to weaken its remnants as long as she hangs around.
17
Ross - where I can’t join your sympathy for the countries with a heritage of being dominated by the empires of the past is this: If they like their nation state so much and object to the trans-nationalism and it’s values of the European project, just don’t join the EU and receive, oh so willingly, financial support. When a French or German or Danish tax payer finances these countries, they accept distribution of means flowing from their local area to some far away country in support of a greater - peace and union enabling - identity. I don’t think it’s asked to much to get something in return - the support of the European Union through integrative government.
46
@Kreon
Its funny when an American without the slightest idea how the EU works, tries to opine in a way which fits his/her worldview.
The cohesion funds what you are citing, actually are mainly financing infrastructure projects: 50% EU funds %)% local gov. Guess where are the company's from which will build the EUR 2 bn bridge in Romania ?
On the other hand, these eastern countries had to open up their much less competitive markets to western companies. Local shops closed, you have all over Aldi, Billa, Spar and Tesco.
No, did you wonder where the profit is going to ???
2
Servus, Johann. Ich bin aus Berlin mit polnischem Vater.
The biggest net recipients of EU money are Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Hungary, Greece, Slovakia, Bulgaria...
I understand that this money isn't ending up in people's pockets but - as you say - in infrastructure projects (and education, for instance). But it makes a difference. I can say that first-hand from seeing how the money helped in Poland.
My bigger point here is that the willingness to transfer money out my pocket or my "village" to another place means I need to feel I care about that other place. The further away that place is, the more abstract the idea / vision / identity becomes that creates a sense of belonging. The EU spirit is a huge leap of faith into the value of transnational identity (not replacing but adding to national/cultural identity). I find, Orban and his ilk, for instance, shouldn't receive communal money if they only care for their tribe.
Angela Merkle's unilateral decision to let in over two million migrants/refugees into Europe and then demand that other EU countries take them in or face financial penalties - is perhaps the best example of Germany as Empire - combine this with the draconian approach to debt in places like Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Italy (at the behest of German Banks) and it has all the hallmarks of an empire doomed to fail. It's not only this new German Empire that is failing - but in its wake - democracy in Europe as we have come to know it (see elections in Austria, Hungary, Poland, Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, and the Brexit vote).
18
I have lived in Germany for over a decade and I can tell you they are the last ones (politicians and voters) who aspire to or regard their country as some kind of empire.
I would suggest that if any empire is crumbling before our eyes it's the United States in terms of lost influence and inward looking policies per medium of Trump and his GOP.
The German grand coalition brings together the two largest parties (CDU/CSU and SPD) once again to govern "for the sake of the country" Neither party is thrilled about it but that's how it happens here - they get on and make it work. Imagine that in the USA?
As usual the Germans are organized and have their heads down manufacturing and selling to China and other countries where the USA is (sorry to say) busy spending it's energy whining.
371
All too true. Germany has become the leader of the free world while the US has become Trump Inc, with policies being promoted mainly designed to enrich the oligarchy that has taken over major portions of the government.
68
Your letter makes the authors point exactly however. Even if imperialism in not the Germans intention, it is the clear result. Its not by chance the Germans are doing so well in the EU system, and its not simply the result of better work habits, investment , schools, policies etc. The US Constitution protects a number of "states rights" which the EU can run roughshod over. Many of these are atavistic, even objectionable, but with the one major exception of slavery, has allowed the USA to progress as a united nation that never countenanced dissolution. Germany is simply going to have to make compromises in its effective authority and influence in the EU to sustain it. Merkels handling of the immigration crisis was beyond obtuse, its was an arrogant blunder.
6
Germany is muddling through. If you are the third largest economy in the world, you have to take a leadership position and that means being proactive, not just sticking your head in the sand and letting the world around you crumble to pieces.
This has nothing to do with empire building and everything with responsible leadership. The major German political parties are decadent, the people have become self-righteous and complacent at the same time, which is basically another definition of decadent. The metamorphosis of the AfD, which used to be a party founded by intellectuals with a primary economic focus says it all. It has been hijacked by populists who needed a party structure, but were too incompetent to build one on their own. I has now become the counter reaction against the hapless bumbling of Angela Merkel's "leadership".
And the middle keeps bumbling along with her until the country will completely crumble to pieces.
2
it is not the fall of a German Empire or Liberalism that is at stake right now. It is the fall of the human race. And the false assumption that it is due to a rise in Populist leaders. These leaders, including Trump, are no Populist leaders. They are tyrants.
And Trump the Tyrant is ruining everything this country is supposed to stand for. Keeping our word to our allies. Keeping his word that he would help the lower and middle classes. Keeping his word that there would be better health care.
That tax Reform would not help people like him.
Trump and people like him around the world are what is contributing to civilizations downfall. Not Angela Merkel and The so called German Empire
131
Please realize that the Germans have universal health care, a first rate transportation infrastructure and a democracy that is more representative than the one we have here. Just sayin'.
344
"universal health care"
Yeah, after an income of EUR 65 k I pay taxes close to 50% just from my gross.
If im going to the doctor I will get an appointment with the specialists months later, as the waiting times are long, everybody who never paid a penny is taken.
Is this fair ? I would say its not.
Be careful what you wish for.
15
To Johann M. Wolff: My Mother (92 at time) saw her general physician who referred her to a specialist, who referred her to another specialist and that within 3 consecutive days. The procedure she needed was on an outpatient basis done at a local hospital - it was not an emergency.
That happened in Germany not Austria. There might still be a difference? Also, how much do you really pay for your health insurance? It is only a fraction of these 50%, is it not?
Anecdotes! The European health care systems deliver better average care at lower costs than the US. And people live longer in Europe.
44
The EU is yet another failed 20th century institution that is cracking under the pressures of the 21st century.
If it exists in five years, it will be unrecognizable.
If it exists in ten years, it will be a miracle.
It is simply not up to the challenges of the new era, and its very structure is antithetical to the decentralized model of the 21st century that is required to deal with the rapidly changing, VUCA world that we've created.
It has been remarkably under-reported, due to all the other turmoil in the world these days, but Europe will be one of the biggest threats to global stability in the coming decade, and that's saying something.
And Germany is entering treacherous waters.
These are extraordinary times.
6
"Europe will be one of the biggest threats to global stability in the coming decade"
The way Trump has been conducting his foreign policy it is the United States which is the greatest threat to global stability RIGHT NOW.
While the EU certainly isn't perfect, I am much more hopeful about the EU than the path the US is on right now.
1
The EU is failing? Nope. Not my reckoning.
From most or all of my personal encounters with random citizens who are living and being within EU domains, I think they rank ahead on a number of personal and interpersonal measures. Also in my thinking and experience, the EU citizens I have encountered are way ahead of my equally random personal encounters (and subjective evaluations) with citizens of the US of A.
I admit that there could be potential bias, skewing or whatever, and I am not ignoring it. Maybe I'm wrong. This ain't science right here. It's my personal experience. But I have traveled a lot. Again, I'm just saying what I have experienced.
To restate my reaction to your position: The EU is not failing - relative to how and as much as the US is failing. Blunderbussing is not effective anymore.
To further restate my position: My experience is not as you describe, as the EU citizens I have met are, well, more evolved. Methinks America is devolving.
1
Keep dreaming. The EU will be here long after Italy leaves it - and begs to join it again after their voters are jolted back to what it means for Italy to go it alone...and finally having to pay for all its wasteful habits. It reminds me of the Welsh, demanding money from Ireland to pay for Welsh roads and infrastructure. Why? Well, because people use those roads to get to Ireland via ferry. LOL It also reminds me of British counties which sent notices to Whitehall demanding money because they were going to lose millions in EU funds. Get real - Italy needs the EU more than the EU needs Italy.
Two factors at play: (1) the battle between some form of centralization, where economic and military strengths are advanced, and localism, where cultural factors predominate, will always sway back and forth, in the EU, in the US, in China, in India. This is a swing back to localism in many areas and will probably swing back, as countries begin once again confront each other and value some form of cooperation. (2) Much of the battle exists between internationalists is all countries, people who predominantly live in cities, travel and are boistered by international cultural and economic influences, and traditional, rural populations, poorer and more involved in their local culture. The growing internationalization of the world will increasingly cause rifts between the two, but the growth of internationalism will not stop. Eventually, the EU will need to form a political organization similar to the US, which, despite the large rifts between the urban and more rural populations, has developed the best balance so far between regional and local political entities.
9
There is no German empire. Another straw man creation by Douhat.
216
No, Selmayr was appointed as a result of a democratic vote. So are the ECB president and the EC president.
1
Starting with references to Bismark and Hitler: in a sense, Godwin's Law was achieved in the first paragraph.
2
The EU is not an empire. Countries all voted to join and are free to leave whenever they want like the UK did. Southern and Eastern European countries remain EU members because the liberal policies of the EU have delivered them significant tangible benefits and they know it.
The fact is, with the US and China both becoming more illiberal, small countries all around the world are going to be squeezed unless they can band together to reduce their dependence on the US and China. We are penalizing foreign countries and people for doing business with countries we don’t like, and China is penalizing them for saying things China doesn’t like. Without Brussels, smaller European countries are simply going to find themselves being dictated to by Washington and Beijing instead.
107
While on paper all countries are free to leave the EU the mess in Great Britain shows in reality it is very difficult. And they have their own currency. For a Euro based country to leave would be far more difficult. Also comparing US to China is absurd.
19
It's not by accident that the European Central bank is located in Frankfurt....and the bank drives all the economic policies for the Euro and more often than not to the advantage of Germany. "Free to leave" is a misnomer - free to leave with enormous penalties and numerous threats is more like it.
12
Beijing has made considerable inroads into Europe as a result of austerity policy - a fire sale of state assets has been very welcoming to the Chinese who have been busy buying up infrastructure.
4
This is one of the more insightful articles I've read about what's happening on the eastern frontier of the EU. As an American who's been living in Budapest off and on since 1992, I can say without reservation that the average Hungarian is much better off now than was the case ten years ago. That's largely because Orban and Fidesz have wisely spent the billions that the EU has sent to Hungary on projects that benefit the people. There's no question that corruption is rampant behind the scenes, but truthfully post-1989 Budapest has never looked more beautiful than it does today.
Douthat is exactly correct when he notes that nationalism is the driving force in Poland and Hungary - a notion that's anathema to most Germans today. The Hungarians feel, rightly or wrongly, that they're finally allowed to be themselves, after many centuries, and they don't want to surrender that to another Emperor in Vienna or Berlin.
When these bad years we're living through are finally behind us and Putin, Trump, and the rest are on the trash heap of history, we in the West need to be much more sensitive to the deep feelings that our friends in Central and Eastern Europe cherish about their nation states.
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What will Orban do when Hungary is sanctioned by the EU for anti-EU policies? That's a pretty big financial hit. Hungary is a net taker, not a net giver. And when all those Hungarian workers come home...
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That's an excellent question, but so far the EU seems to be unwilling to do that. In the meantime, Orban is more than happy to take their Euros to consolidate his position. The EU seems to be unable to make any tough decisions, about anything.
The emperors are not German politicians, but German banks. The semi-disguised project of the eurozone, and of globalization in general, is to replace democratic rule with market rule, or at least to redefine the relationship between the two to the latter's advantage. The eurozone has a bit more integrity than our various trade agreements, in that it recognizes that eliminating borders for capital requires you to eliminate them for citizens--otherwise borders become simply a another tool to force populations to compete with each other for corporate blessings. But both are a kind of official corruption in which economic interests are allowed to write rules limiting democracy. There was never any scenario in which this was not going to produce enormous ethnic/nationalist and economic tensions. Whether the problems & contradictions of the project are humanely solveable or not, they cannot even be addressed unless we are honest about what the goals are and what they require us to give up.
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It’s less the banks than it is large German corporations and strong industry associations. Many, many, many jobs to be defended.
When reading here how German banks puppet-master the Euro Empire, one would expect them to be high and mighty. Is the "Deutsche Bank" even in the world-wide Top-10? Not anymore, they burnt too much money with US mortgage-backed security junk certificates.
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Modern populism doesn't represent an overt rejection of the abstract liberal project. Douthat says himself the European Union has been hovering on the brink of dissolution since the Great Recession. Nationalism and identity certainly play a role. However, the entire crisis is inherently economic in nature. Racial and ethnic resentment blur the lines. The lack of refugee and immigrant assimilation is a touch point for tension. A unique nation state wants citizens to uphold a pride in their history and values.
More simply though, immigrants and refugees are seen as hitching a free ride to security and prosperity. Those in place resent their intrusion on what they see as a multi-generational work of labor. Those watching from the outside ask why someone else suddenly deserves a fast track to prosperity simply because their country of origin is a war torn mess. They are already struggling in place but are deemed unworthy of assistance. The Great Recession austerity measures only reinforce this narrative.
The would-be Putins are taking advantage of the situation. However, populism's core origins relate to liberalism's failure to provide economic relief in light of disaster. Much the same could be said about populism in the US. If our efforts at recovery weren't so anemic and unequal, most of the class and ethnic resentment coursing through our country today would never exist. Trump, as a would-be Putin, is taking full advantage of the situation and making it worse.
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I challenge the whole premise of the article, and see NO defense of Poland's and Hungary's abandonment of Western Democracy. The EU should, as a clear message and to re-assert its moral authority, expel both nations for violating that fundamental requirement of membership.
The message of the EU from the fall of the Iron Curtain was: You can be part of our economic prosperity and growth but you MUST guarantee your nation a Western Democracy and open your doors to your EU neighbors. The Czech Republic and Slovakia peacefully separated and both were admitted to the EU. But instead of such peaceful separation, the former Yugoslavia broke into component states and set off the worst slaughter in Europe since WWII.
Seems like an obvious choice: Be democratic (small D), peaceful and prosper in the EU, or kill each other and starve.
But Douthat blames Germany, the archetypal success story of that Marshall Plan, and I just don't get that. Yes, THE richest and most populous state in the EU will have the strongest voice.
What REALLY needs to happen is a new, federalist European Union convention because the current High Commission system isn't really working. 40 years ago, the polls of the 9 states then were willing to have a transnational executive even if that person wasn't from their own nation. Despite everything, the EU is still a confederation, and maybe it needs to be more of a federation. The border of the EU nations needs to be the "border" for ALL the member states.
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Where is it written that the political future of the EU must be prescribed by the tired bureaucracies of Germany and France, both of which are living mainly off US war and post-war beneficence?
Western Europe (and the US) allowed Eastern Europe to languish for decades behind an Iron Curtain, in the grips of a nonsensical totalitarian state built on evil, and now that the US under Reagan succeeded in wresting the vassal states from Russia, Western Europe suddenly complains that the Eastern states don't toe their dirigiste visions.
In Europe, there are more real democrats in the East than in the West.
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“Allowed?”. As if the Iron Curtain was a western construct?
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Western Europe "allowed" Eastern Europe to "languish" behind an Iron Curtain? What alternate reality are you living in. Hungary, 1956. Czechoslovakia 1968. Yeah, Western Europe should have gone to war with the Warsaw Pact to stop Eastern Europe from 'languishing" behind the Iron Curtain. Boy, some people...
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Bruce: I live in the alternate reality of having been born and having grown up in Eastern Europe.
"Allowed" is exactly the word I wanted to use.
We can start with the Allies' deliberate pause in occupying Berlin and parts of Central Europe, continue on with Eisenhower's and FDR's weak, timid and naive performances at the end of the war, including not heeding Patton, and keep going with the Western intellectual ignorant glorification and support of the Soviet Union.
Why did it take Reagan in 1983, almost 40 years after the war and 70 years after Lenin, to call the USSR an evil empire?
There is no German empire, so there need be no fall. Your "straw dog" empire argument wins over an illusion, but in reality, people organize into groups and that dynamic always changes.
But our American Empire, now that fall, if it continues, rivals that of Rome, or Greece, or Moscow. They all eventually aligned with the wealth rather than the national spirit, and the wealthy divided and conquered their own country, exactly as Trump and the American oligarchs are doing. Write about our fall, which is real, the encouragement of dangerous divisions that give rise to successful elections but destroy our national unity.
The EU is a noble try. May they get it right sooner or later.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
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Straw dog?
You mean strawMAN.
I've never in my life heard of this fallacy being called a straw dog. Or a straw dog existing anywhere in any context.
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Sorry, JB. "Straw dog" IS a thing, an argument that is put out to be discredited. Slightly different to straw man which usually involves misdirection. Fun to be so certain, isn't it?
JB, according to Wikipedia (which I appreciate to the tune of a $20 annual donation), straw dog is a variant of straw man.
As a born, bred and lapsed old school German, I'd like to dispense with the fancy wordisms and simply state that the third German empire will look very much like the other two.
Despite Douthat's thesis that the third empire 'has been built slowly and painstakingly across three generations', the beasts of 'racist mysticism' and 'militarism' have not been 'repudiated', but have slumbered in their cave until such time they can be awoken and celebrated again. That time is now.
The Zeitgeist of Populism plays perfectly into the ethos. One has only to witness the revival of old pagan rituals, like Krampus Nacht to understand how firmly and passionately the ideals of the old German Empires are still embraced - especially by the young.
What's missing in Douthat's piece is that kind of passion and it's that kind of passion that's missing from any analysis that fails to understand the attraction of populism. That it has taken such a dark turn here as well as there, is a sign of the times in which all of our real fears about very real challenges, have not been honestly addressed by the complacent ruling classes.
Instead of outrage at the dark passions that bring a man like Trump to the fore, liberalism needs to muster the other kind of passion - one that soars - addresses the great fears of our time and gives us something to work for instead of against. Unless it can do that, those here and those in Germany will go where the fire is even if its burning down the house.
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that last paragraph is a good prescription for the Democratic Party this Fall and 2020...would that they would follow through on it...
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What's wrong in celebrating one's heritage ?
Deutsch Land means land of the German, instead should we celebrate the Ramadam ? has nothing to do with us.
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Well, Mimi, you must be even more oldfashioned than me -I'm German and 79 years old, and I think you're talking through your hat.
Krampus is more like Hallowe'en than anything else. Not to worry.
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All the European countries that are part of the European project have been acting out of self-interest from the beginning. I'm not sure that "liberalism" has much to do with it. The initial motives were based on: preventing another World War from happening, protecting themselves from the expansionist Soviet Empire, enjoying the economic benefits of membership in the E.U., and having the general feeling that all boats would get lifted with the rising tide of prosperity. Many of the same countries that joined are now making another self-interested calculation about whether membership has as many or more downsides as non-membership.
I believe that all will eventually confront the fundamental question, "What will produce a better future for our nation?" - self-interest played out within an over-arching sets of rules and regulations or self-interest played out without membership in a larger framework of governance.
I think the possibility of some of the smaller European countries getting pushed around by their neighbors is much greater if they opt out of the E.U. It's difficult to imagine a fractured Europe without imagining growing regional conflicts and poisonous alliances taking hold on the continent fairly quickly.
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In an earlier column, Douthat offers a more detailed comparison between America and Europe, an analysis in which ethnic and cultural diversity also feature prominently. For him, as for the political theorists consulted by the Founding Fathers, geographic size and demographic complexity seriously undermine the prospects of a democratic republic.
Since the success of an open society requires a fairly high degree of mutual trust among its constituent elements, diversity can complicate the response of defeated coalitions in electoral contests. But in America that holds true primarily if political leaders rally their forces around a common ethnic or cultural heritage, rather than around a commitment to the political ideals that unite the community.
FDR built his coalition on an appeal to ethnic groups and social classes previously denied effective access to political influence, but he anchored that approach in a firm endorsement of America's democratic ideals. The GOP, with its thinly-veiled embrace of ethnic and religious bias, has adopted a strategy which Douthat's analysis cloaks in a false respectability, as if diversity dictated racial conflict.
Douthat treats the current challenges facing the US as if they stemmed from the permanent character of the country. But America remains a work in progress, a nation which has frequently confronted obstacles as it attempted to convert its founding ideals into a closer approximation of reality. Thus it will always be.
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So tell us again just what it was that the eastern countries who joined the EU most recently thought they would be getting. Could it have been protection from Putin's dream of re-establishing the USSR? Or free travel across the continent without even the need to show a passport? Or the right to emigrate to Ireland to work in bars and hotels for much more money than they had made in Poland--in effect becoming economic refugees themselves--ones that the other countries were required by the EU Charter to accept? Clearly it wasn't refugees of color coming to their lands.
Did they see any down-side to joining the EU or just the up- sides of trade, travel and freedom from Soviet-style "inclusion"? Somehow it's a stretch to feel particularly sorry for them if the deal they made isn't quite as one-sidedly beneficial as they had hoped.
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Just read up the treaty changes of the EU since 2004, particularly the Lisbon treaty.
Otherwise you comment is pointless. The EU was a different project, it wasn't meant to have Junker there with Selmayr appointed through backdoor deals, etc.
Nor were we told that we should surrender our sovereignty and take in all the migrants from the 3rd world (FYI birth ratio in Nigeria is 8:1).
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Germany and the central and richest EU nations need to recognize that now their borders are identical with the borders of their EU partners, i.e. Greece, Italy, etc, where the refugees cause the biggest duress for the locals.
There are on average 5 babies borne by any woman in Nigeria (see gapminder.org), so the rate is rather 5:2. This is still higher than in any European country, but from all we know from what has happened in any other country in the world it will decrease drastically once the conditions in Nigeria are improved such that the survival rate of childred increases.
I only have the number for Germany, not the EU as a whole, but in 2017 only 7,800 refugees from Nigeria came to Germany which is insignificant for a country of 80,000,000.
All said, I have appreciation for the perception in some countries described by Mr. Douthat that immigration policy has been imposed on them by Germany, though this perception probably would be felt less dramatic if people had available realistic data.
There has hardly been a year when the EU has not been on the brink of some crisis: banking, sovereign debt, Russia’s annexation of Crimea and now refugees. You can always point fingers at individual politicians and assign blame. But it is highly implausible that the EU’s serial failures can always be explained as the product of accident and malice.
I put it down to two catastrophic errors committed during the 1990s and at the beginning of this millennium. The first was the introduction of the euro; the second, the EU’s enlargement to 28 members from 15 a couple of decades ago.
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If the German empire is falling, there is none who will rise faster, and grow stronger in that region tomorrow.
Germans were embracing most of the costs of EU, the Mediterraneans were getting most of the benefits (economic and political). No union can sustain spendthrift, irresponsible, and corrupt Italy, Spain, Portugal, or Greece. Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria have kleptocratic authoritarianism in their sociocultural DNA. How can they be part of EU or any union of democracies?
But I have trouble with the thesis that the German empire is in decline, or that Merkel did something wrong. They are not, she did not.
The current predicament is temporary. All it calls for is a rethinking of EU, its boundaries, its scope. I can imagine a new EU, this time without the highly corrupt Eastern European appendages, with Germans fully in charge, and a bigger role for Turkey. If the Brits are assured that there will not be Polish language newspapers in Brighton and Dorset, they might think differently about Brexit.
I have full faith in the German (soft) empire, its economic strength, and yes, in Merkel. If the Germans don't rise, and manage this - who would? Because I do not want to provoke laughter, I wont say France or Italy.
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The Brits were not worried about Polish language newspapers.
5
Ask yourself why did Merkel's party received its worst result since 1948 ? Why is the AFD in the Bundestag as the 3rd biggest party and currently in some polls they are leading the socialists, being the 2nd biggest party ?
Perhaps because of Merkel's open door policy.
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Hahaha Germans would never allow Turkey a bigger role!
2
Not sure how much Germany really benefited from the bailouts of Greece and the others. Seemed that was more of a face-saving exercise for the southern European countries, to spare them the indignities of defaulting or leaving the Eurozone. The bailouts have had tremendous costs for German taxpayers that will continue for years.
Also don't think that 're-vitalizing' Germany's society had much do do with Merkel's decision to open up to refugees. It seemed like more of an impulsive decision, motivated by the desire for 'atonement' that Douthat mentions and a woefully naive reading of the political and practical consequences.
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I visited Powell's City of Books last week and should have dragged home a recent account of the mess that was Europe between the wars. Especially Germany and eastern Europe, with ineffectual states and the rising, horrific, Soviet Union. My grandparents were smart to swap Vienna for New York.
The European Union provides a lot of the advantages of the United States (common standards, ease of travel, considerable ease of moving about for education) without having a national government. I suppose Trump would see Europe as being trapped by bureaucracy with no way of making it go away.
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Mr. Douthat - more to the point, these days, is the fall of the American Empire under its 45th President. We've all studied or lived through the German Empire last century, and have no desire to relive it today -- notwithstanding Angela Merkel's just stewardship. The EU is struggling. Britain after BREXIT is struggling, the Middle-East is struggling, and our country is in the midst of one of the most horrifying breakdowns of empire in our history. Liberalism is not dead yet, not by a long shot, but Trump is doing his damndest to bring down Pax Americana round the world's ears.
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Precisely! Trump is the real wild card here, destroying our own country and its international partnerships in what appears to be an idiotic attempt to be a "big shot".
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I wish Americans would understand that the USA is not the centre of the Universe. That's the kind of thinking that got us here. That, and unfettered capitalism, which is the real culprit for instability in both the US and Europe.
23
I, for one, hope that Pax Americana is brought down, the sooner the better. My country has swaggered and bullied its way around the globe for generations, starting wars, interfering in elections via the CIA, assassinating other countries' elected leaders, taking the side of slaughtering governments (Nikki Haley's full-throated defense of the murder of scores of Palestinians was somewhat typical; usually the U.S. quietly supports, say, a Pinochet or a Sese Seko or a Duvalier or a Saddam Hussein).
Convince me of the earth's need for a continued Pax Americana...I am all ears.
3
I usually hang in there with your columns Ross, but this one was a real slog. I can appreciate you throw around a lot of ism's within your essay and try to build up to your usual zinger at the end about how Liberalism is dying on the vine, but you leave out one major aspect to your thesis, which leaves a gaping hole.
The Middle East has been on fire ( more so than historically ) and in constant war and upheaval ( caused essentially by the U.S. empire ) for the last two decades or so.
Immigration from the 3rd world to Europe and beyond has exploded ( as their resources get more and more exploited and because of their own wars ) coupled with mass displacement from the wars in the ME. They simply have nowhere to go.
The buffer nations at the brunt of that migration has suffered and those that have not had robust economies have fallen to radical right win populism. Those countries further away and with more solid economies have faltered a little bit, but are still hanging in there. ( such like Germany, France and so on. )
Germany has taken in massive amounts of refugees ( in comparison to other countries ) and their economy is still the driving force of Europe. Aye, their ''empire'' might not be as strong historically, but they are not going to go the way of Italy, Hungary or other countries.
As long as they keep churning out the cars, they will be fine, however maybe not the continuing stream of refugees.
Maybe we should stop making empire out of war ?
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@FunkyIrishman
"They simply have nowhere to go"
Obviously, just to Austria, Germany and Sweden.
4