KAGAN REVISITED: ARE EUROPEANS REALLY VENUSIANS?

Abstract

This paper revisits Robert Kagan’s “transatlantic discord†thesis advanced in his sensational essay “Power and Weakness†(2002) and later developed in his subsequent book, Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the World Order (2003). In a line of thought popular among neo-conservatives within the Bush administration after 9/11, Robert Kagan, the shrewdest of the neoconservatives, seized the world’s imagination with his provocative thesis that revealed the so-called ever growing divide between the Atlantic partners. In this paper, however, I do not tackle this question: the source of strain. Rather I argue that the apparent disparity between the US and European security strategies in post 9/11 environment does not necessarily mean that Europe moved away from the traditional security concerns into a post-Westphalian global order. It is quite the opposite. Europe display core traits inherent to the Westphalian state and adopts traditional symbols and expressions of the modern state (nation state) such as a common currency, passport, flag, national anthem, president, foreign minister and embassies. More importantly, however, the European Union (EU) is becoming a security state that combines and coordinates power both domestically and internationally (Polat 2012). What is problematic, however, is that the EU is not a state. Yet, it is almost always compared to the model of the nation-state (Diez, Manners and Whitman 2011).