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i n t e l l n e t : |
FLYING INTO TURBULENCE
By: Peter Martin
Western Europe is presently in danger due to an apparently highly contagious epidemic of anti-Americanism that has gripped the continent, and which threatens the health and very life of the Atlantic Alliance. It is based on virulent dogma generated by politicians, perpetrated subtly by the media; it is becoming a plague, an inflexible creed. Something has to be done before it is too late and Europe is quarantined from its Atlantic pillar. Seeking out dangerous new partners and following discredited, risky economic policies will only weaken Europe and leave it dependent, defenseless or worse. Unwarranted self-righteousness creates false perceptions of invulnerability. Did Western Europe learn nothing from its follies of the last century?
FLYING AGAINST CONFORMITY
Incredibly, even the most acknowledged scientific beliefs can be proven wrong by fresh, "out of the box", thinking. Take for example, how a plane flies. Bernoulli's theory enunciated the principle that air flows faster over the top of the curved surface of a wing than under the lower flat surface, therefore, air underneath the wing exerts a greater pressure than the air above the wing, which lifts the wing. His theory is based on the curved shape of the upper surface of the wing and the flat surface below. This was universally accepted for many years. All well and good. But wrong. Problems with "established facts" arise when one thinks beyond traditional concepts, as David Anderson did. He simply wondered that if Bernoulli's hypothesis is correct, then how is an aircraft able to fly upside down? And, if air travels faster over the top surface of a wing, then what force is involved? Anderson went from that simple analysis to prove the time-honored assumption was plainly wrong. He demonstrated that the shape of a plane's wing was irrelevant, it was the angle of attack with the oncoming air that was the decisive issue; lift increases with the augmentation of the angle of attack or flight speed, which equals more air being deflected downwards. All this demonstrates that all we are lead to believe as fact will be not always true in the future. Political, economic and environmental principals included, as the fall of Communism and the displacement of Marxist and Socialist principles to the dustbin of history has proven.
FLYING INTO CRITICISM
Criticism of the United States is coming from all quarters of Western Europe, driven by jealousy, this is hardly new. What is novel is the desperately harsh and personalized aspects of the criticism. A good illustration is the European hypocrisy in chastising Washington for refusing to sign the Kyoto accord on global warming, while, not a single European country ratified the Kyoto Protocol during the four years of its existence. What's more, even if Kyoto worked as planned, which is not very likely, the effect on greenhouse gases would be negligible at best. The pseudo-science of the "green" global warming hysteria has been largely propagated by social scientists and government bureaucrats employed by the United Nations and anxiously searching for the means to justify their continued sinecures. Much of what is being circulated about global warming is so much hot air. In fact our globe has been far warmer in the past 10,000 years (on either end of the ice ages) than it is now, and back then our ancestors were not heating with oil or driving around in sport utility vehicles. Our climate most recently began to warm rapidly after the "Little Ice Age" until about 1940. And despite the considerable expansion of fossil fuel use (not to mention the incalculable insertion of millions of tons of methane gas from wind-breaking cows) in industrialized and developing countries, our globe has shown no observable warming in the last 20 years.
Dr. S. Fred Singer, President of the Science & Environmental Policy Project, states that NASA data confirms no significant increase in temperature neither for Europe nor for the United States over the past 7 decades. And National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration weather satellites and weather balloons independently verify that the atmosphere has not significantly warmed up. In addition, tree rings, ocean sediments and ice cores further confirm it. During the Medieval Warm Period, Europe basked in warm weather; average summer temperatures varied between 0.7 and 1.0C above 20th century averages. That period proved to be a blessing for Europe producing bountiful harvests, even in the far northern reaches of the continent, and a sharp rise in population. In fact, English wine was so appreciated by the lords of Europe that at the height of this period France tried to negotiate trade agreements to exclude them from the mainland. France again leads Europe and failing underdeveloped nations in its criticism of the successful US economy - again reprising its earlier (and justified) fears of competition.
FLY PAPER
France's leftwing press brands President Bush an executioner because of the State of Texas's capital punishment record, conveniently forgetting that as governor, George W. Bush was duty-bound to follow laws passed by the legislature (controlled by Democrats) and evaluated by the judiciary. Also conveniently forgotten is the fact that the guillotine was only abolished in France by Mitterrand's undemocratic, personal decree, against the popular wishes of the vast majority of the French population, which was still in favor of capital punishment. The European press is also strangely silent about a monthly toll in the hundreds of Chinese executions. Could this be for fear of upsetting Beijing, a hopeful trading partner, thereby putting economic interests above human rights?
Europe also condemns the Bush administration for starting a new arms race in its endeavor to build an allied missile defense system (an initiative originally conceived by the Clinton administration to fit with in a modified ABM Treaty) and scrap the truly MAD (mutual assured destruction) Cold War ABM Treaty. A missile defense system, after all is simply that: defensive. The only reason anyone might oppose a strong defense is that it weakens a potential aggressor's offensive capabilities. One might wonder, with the presumed demise of the Cold War and the Russian threat, why Europe has bought wholesale, Moscow's argument that a defensive system is threatening to world peace. In fact, limited ballistic missile defense would not alter the strategic balance between Moscow and Washington; each retains sufficient capability to overwhelm any possible defense. Also, despite the ABM treaty barring the US and Russia from deploying strategic missile defenses, Russia has already long been in violation of the Treaty by deploying heavy anti-missile defense systems for years. Finally, the risk of a renewed arms race is non-existent. Neither Russia nor China, both requiring infusions of massive amounts of US (and Western) aid have any capacity to compete in an arms race with the United States.
It isn't only carping over Washington's policies that brings the Europeans to a frenzy, when they can't find anything more substantive to criticize they just get personal. During Bush's first visit to Europe this month, Germany's leading newsmagazine, "Der Speigel" described the Bush retinue as "snarling, ugly Americans". Britain's "Guardian" newspaper called the Bush administration "a presidency of dunces." Yet, on the other hand, in Eastern Europe, where the shadow of Iron Curtain still haunts it's people, Bush was warmly received and appreciated, what's more, he and his entourage were not treated like backcountry hicks. (From the department of superfluous precision: it might be worth noting here that 26% of the top administration officials, including Bush, were educated at Ivy League colleges, (Bush's scholarship record surpassed that of his erstwhile opponent, Al Gore); that more than half of the team was working in Washington when Bush arrived and that 43% had gained experience working for George Bush Senior during his term as president.)
Why has President George W. Bush been maligned and stigmatized by the European press? What is the basis for this sustained anti-Americanism? What might be behind this Euro-conditioned movement and who stands to gain? These are questions worth investigating.
FEARS OF FLYING UNITED
Western Europe is at a historical multi-crossroad and is dithering over which road to take. The enlargement of the EU, making for a genuinely diverse Europe, leads down one road; another one leads to the continuation of the status quo and the rejection of all things multilateral. Europe's socialist-led states clinging to the tattered premises of discredited Marxism and central planning are well aware of their poor economic performance in comparison to American's free-market capitalism. Driven by insecurity as much as jealousy, Europe is attempting to constrain U.S. power through economic and political alliances with rogue states from Libya and Iran to Cuba and North Korea. Aware of the allure of the American economic success, Europe would rather chose to restrain the U.S. economy through artificial and dubious restraints such as the Kyoto Accord, than make the fundamental changes in their own systems necessary to provide the basic goods, services and employment their restive populations are demanding. This cumbersome, Marxist-style, centrally-directed economy has even evolved at the supra-state level where the ultimate power of the EU is in the hands of an appointed permanent bureaucracy, un-elected judges and designated commissioners. Others prefer the road to more national sovereignty, and individual freedom, rejecting the paternalism of a welfare state. But they are a lonely minority, which can only look to the United States as a sensible example. The danger inherent in the globalization of bureaucracy is the probability of a narrow, inept elite gaining too much authority and eventually undermining or subverting the will of democratic states, trends of which have already been noticed in Brussels. Incidentally, and to their credit, many of the former Warsaw Pact nations have learn this lesson, to their great economic and social benefit, and jettisoned their highly centralized and jealously guarded State perquisites in favor of individual liberty and entrepreneurship.
The integration of European nation-states, in the way Brussels is going about it, is a prescription for eventual disaster and collapse. It runs against the grain of national historical identities and traditions. Globalization doesn't have to combine politics (bureaucracies) and economics into one game plan; on the contrary, economic cooperation should be separate from the political agenda of each nation-state. Political meddling in the free market system should be reduced to the absolute minimum to ensure maximum liberty and productivity. An open common market can work without the strict control Brussels insists upon, it already did so in the Middle Ages. In fact, that is the only way a successful open common market can exist.
SAID THE SPIDER TO THE FLY
President Chirac's and President Putin's new design for Europe, referred to as an economic expansion from the Atlantic to the Urals, is a cooperation zone incorporating a trade-off of Russian energy for western European economic know-how. The EU that some Eurocrats already seek is bad enough, including Russia into the formula is a recipe for disaster.
On paper Russia (like the Soviet Union) might appear to be democratic. Indeed, it has a parliament, a constitution, and an independent - albeit shrinking press and somewhat free elections (at least once). But in reality, all of this is under control of an ex-communist, ex-KGB president who can dissolve parliament at will, censor the media and heavily influence elections to his advantage, with little to no threat to his political standing. The direction Putin is leading his motherland has changed little from that of the former Soviet State, including its foreign policy. Paradoxically, giving unconditional support to Putin actually undermines any hope of democracy in Russia, in that it condones the authoritarian direction his transformation is taking the country, and provides the Russians, as Lenin predicted, with the "rope with which to hang them (the Western capitalists)."
For Europe to put its strategic energy supplies in the hands of Russia, a state that doesn't respect treaties, is known for its treachery in partnerships and has a history of making capricious decisions, is as full of risks for Europe as gains for Russia, and the height of naiveté from a continent priding itself on realpolitik savoir faire. One must not lose sight of the fact that Russia is concentrating its dynamism on becoming a superpower again. Once it consolidates, by one means or another, and upgrades its nuclear strength, it use its superpower status as an instrument of intimidation once again.
RUSSIAN FLIGHT PLAN
There happens to be a small group of mysterious, influential Russians in Moscow that have been networking over five decades towards a secret common goal called The Eurasia Movement. The concept appeals to Putin, as it fits his nationalistic tendency. There is good reason to believe that the group is funded and otherwise supported by the secret services via their numerous veterans associations. The founding members of the group are Gleb Pavlovsky, Alexander Dugin, Yuri Vitalievich, Yuri Mamleev, Evgenii Polovin, and all had connections with the government and/or with the intelligence services (in other words, the elite of the former Soviet Union). Today's senior members include: Colonel Petr Suslov, a former intelligence officer, who is second in command and chairs its executive committee; Dmitrii Riurikov, former foreign affairs adviser to Yeltsin, and present Russian ambassador to Uzbekistan and General Klokotov, former head of the Strategy Faculty of the General Staff Military Academy.
In simple terms, "Eurasianism" amounts to a Russian national revival and a rejection of the Westernization of Russia and its "sphere of influence", with Russia as the nucleus of the world's alternative to Atlantcism and globalization. Its followers believe Europe should join their movement in order to counter and oppose North America's domination. To achieve their goal, they plan to research and develop a new generation of weapons while re-enforcing their nuclear deterrent. To strengthen their posture even further and to counter globalization, they intend to form strategic alliances with nations that are antagonistic with the United States, from the Maghreb to the Far East, including the Orthodox populations of Southern and Eastern Europe. One of their principal ambitions is to uncouple the NATO Alliance in the Central European region. Another objective is to create a Eurasian intelligence community (Razvedsoobshchestvo) particular strong in intelligence gathering and counter-intelligence operations, an Eurasian lobby that would target foreign countries especially in the West, and finally to establish an Eurasian mass media that would generate and influence chaotic processes to create a "Virtual Eurasia" to counter the American "New World Order" and offset it with an "Oligarchic World Government". One can easily see "Eurasianism's" similarity to traditional Soviet and Russian imperialism.
Even though Putin has an amazing 80% popularity rating among his people, who still have no experience of the benefits of democracy and a free market capitalism, he has proven to be indecisive and irresolute in implementing his campaign promises, and the resolute action and the major government restructuring and economic prosperity he promised during his campaign and afterwards, just have not been forthcoming. The Kremlin has had to face the fact that despite attempts at political reform they still have not tamed the local governors, who continue to go their own way. Legal and economic reforms have faltered, economic growth has slowed perilously and inflation has risen. Not to mention the fact that the Chechnya cauldron continues to boil over. As things worsen for him, Putin will increasingly turn to xenophobic nationalism (known as patriotism in Russia) to consolidate and extend his own power base, which might mean more significant sacrifices of national freedoms and the energizing of a supranational sovereignty of Russia's sphere of influence in the form of a Eurasian Empire. Does Europe really want to do business with this man?
The Wright brothers didn't know Bernoulli's theory of lift, but that didn't stop them from making the first flight in a plane learning by mistakes and using common sense. Western Europe does not have to adhere to any one theory to construct a post Cold War Europe; it should just use common sense based on historic truths and not put its trust in flights of fancy, based on either outmoded models of 19th century Marxism or the Luddite mentality of anti-capitalist "Green" environmentalists.
Fifty years ago the Americans surged into France, for the second time in a half century, fighting under the most devastating conditions, emptying their young lives on beaches and fields to save ancient nations from their own follies. Young men's dreams were washed out on the tide or were buried under sand, mud, spent brass, lead and rubble. Today, in death's legacy of extreme solitude, the fathers, mothers, wives and children are left to wonder whether it was it all in vain? Why were the lives sacrificed for liberty already forgotten in Europe, save for apparently meaningless Memorial Day holiday, parades and speeches? Is Europe counting on yet a third rescue?
Peter B. Martin June 2001
c o p y r i g h t © 2 0 0 0 t h e i n t e l l i g e n c e n e t w o r k i n t e l l n e t . o r g a l l r i g h t s r e s e r v e d p r i v a c y p o l i c y
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