The Nation on the Coming EU Juggernaut

And leaves out some important details....

1) The article implies throughout a strong degree of broad EU unity in political and economic affairs. Wrong. Apparently no one at the Nation has been keeping up on the EU constitution war dance or low-interest levels of most Europeans in broader EU governmental development. Germany and France continue to defy paying their share of broader EU subsidies despite being found in violation of EU statutes last year. What a wonderful precedent for economic and political cooperation / integration. These subsidies powered the Irish economic boom and all smaller EU nations and the new, smaller member states like Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania are counting on similar subsidies to do replicate Ireland as if by magic. However, success here depends on another factor that the Nation ignores:

2) Europe's declining birth rate and its subsequent impact on national welfare programs and taxes (which, of course, limit the amount of money nations can contribute to EU subsidies. Vicious circle.) Nor does the Nation mention the unemployment crisis gripping much of Europe that has dragged on for years. Seems to me that these factors will have a central role in the U.S.-EU relationship / rivalry over time.

What else was left out? The rising tide of Anti-Semitism and Muslim extremism; the stagnation of long-term solutions to problems in Northern Ireland and the Balkans; the problems on Europe's fringes--Ukraine, Turkish entry into the EU, Greek / Turkish rivalry, bankruptcy in Georgia; the ducking of Kyoto requirements by dozens of European companies; the need for Europe to increase its collective defense spending tenfold each year over the next generation or two while tax bases diminish; the emergence of radical left and right wing hate groups in almost every EU member nation; the rising but underappreciated threat of Al-Qaeda attacks without effective response capabilities; the internal war over votes in the EU between the Franco-German and the Polish-Spanish blocs; the lack of broad acceptance of the supremacy of the EU constitution over national or provincial ones; the rotting of welfare states and declining quality in education from England to the Oder River; the growing calls for permanent U.N Security Council seats for non-European nations; the undecided fate of NATO and the continuing concerns about Russian shenanigans; the increasingly futile diplomatic efforts with Iran....

You get the point. While I realize that EU economic strength and competition are forces to be reckoned with at present, there are no indications yet that these will be long term issues for the United States. Europe's contemporary problems and their historical antipathies are difficult for American commentators to grasp at times, but even the staunchest European advocates of the EU recognize the continuing fragility of the EU experiment. The Nation ought to recognize that too, though I understand that its hopes are high that the EU will someday humble the U.S. with its oh-so-much-wiser approach to, well, everything.

A temporarily strong Euro, the Kyoto Treaty, Airbus, the Eurofighter, cheap automatic weapons, verbal support for the EU political element without true commitment to it, a surging anti-confrontational foreign policy doctrine (at least toward the enemies of European civilization), and often knee-jerk antipathy for one's self-professed primary political / economic partner across the Atlantic may feel good now, but they ensure nothing for the future. EU member nations have much with which to occupy themselves within their own borders before they can try to play Muhammand Ali to the American Joe Frazier.

The Nation's crystal ball seems a bit cloudy.