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In other posts, I have argued that the EU and the US are of the same political genus or level.  That is, both are modern empire-level Unions that contain polities on the scale of the early modern kingdom.  In other words, the American states are roughly equivalent to the European states.  I have also argued that once this basis of comparison is established, useful comparisons (and contrasts) can be made.  Contrarywise, likening apples with oranges is apt to lead to erroneous conclusions (which has been the norm).   In the March 2, 2010 issue of the NYT, Roger Cohen illustrates how useful EU-US comparisons can be.  He is careful to compare the EU now not to the current US, but to the US a few decades into its founding.  One would not compare new with old wine; new should be compared with old when it too was new.   The US under its Articles treaty (and before that as a military alliance) was far less integrated politically and economically than the EU is today (which is roughly at where the US was in 1790). 

Lamenting the concern of the EU states that have done a better job than others (Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain) on debt-management, Cohen sees a parallel in the early US.  He writes, “More than two centuries ago, the newborn United States faced a similar crisis of integration. With the Constitution approved, Alexander Hamilton, as treasury secretary to President George Washington, grappled with proving that the government of the 13 states that now existed on paper could function in practice. The economy was a shambles, beset by debt incurred in the fight for liberty. In 1790, Hamilton set about establishing the financial credibility of the federal government. Central to his proposals was that the government would assume the debts of the states. This precipitated the “assumption” crisis because different states had different levels of debts and had proved more or less conscientious in paying them off.”  Cohen maintains that a similar “assumption” crisis would befall the EU as states like Finland and Germany brissle at the EU assuming the outstanding debt of some of the Southern states (notably Greece).

Cohen goes on to note that the “assumption” crisis was resolved in the US by creating Washington, D.C. near Virginia to appease Madison and Jefferson (the US’s institutions had been in New York City).  Cohen doesn’t see any such deal in the works in Europe, so he concludes that the tensions between having a centralized currency and federal (i.e., EU and state-level) fiscal policy will continue.  Comparing oranges with oranges (which is rare…at least during the winter of 2010 given Florida’s cold weather then), he argues that “Greece is a far smaller economy than crisis-hit California, but thanks to Hamilton, California’s travails are absorbed within a huge economy where most taxing and spending is done by the federal government. Athens agonistes has no such cushion.” This is a very good point.  After the earthquake of 2010 in Chile, I was thinking along similar lines (i.e., the difference that a SAU would make for Chile’s recovery). 

However, Cohen falters from his otherwise excellent basis of comparison.  Ignoring the governmental sovereignty that the European Court of Justice has ruled belongs to the EU over its state governments (and constitutions), he  views the EU as simply “the halfway house of monetary union, fiscal divergence and à la carte national politics.”  In actuality, the EU is far more—just ask a European whether he or she has encountered any of the EU’s laws and regulations (which go beyond monetary union).  I suspect that Cohen is thinking of the EU only in terms of its monetary authority and generalizing that to “what Europe is.”  His ending line, “The differences between America and Europe go beyond the political to their very nature,” can be interpreted as a denial of the EU-US basis of comparison that is the basis of his comparisons (oranges with oranges).  If the EU is merely economic whereas the early US was political and economic, then the EU and US are not of the same political genus, which would render comparisons between them questionable at best.  But the EU does have political or governmental institutions, such as a court (the ECJ) and a parliament.  The ECJ functions as the Supreme Court (even ruling against state constitutions at odds with EU law in an EU enumerated power).  Furthermore, the EU Parliament has a role in the enactment of laws that cannot be reduced to state laws.

Undoubtedly from his truncated view of the EU,  Cohen generalizes too much in concluding that “ever closer union” will not occur in the EU because of the differences among the state governments’ respective debt-levels (relative to the state economies).  The EU is much more than a currency, I would argue, and other lines of integration will not necessarily be impeded by monetary divergences.  To be sure, political differences from the latter may spill over onto other policy domains, but I believe that Cohen is being to much of a monetary reductionist in casting doom on the EU as a whole.

Comparing the EU now to the US in 1790, there are more adequate structural safeguards against consolidation at the Union-level of government than there were in the US.  For example, the heads of the state governments sit on the European Council whereas the counterparts in the US sent delegates to the US Senate (which represents the state governments even today).  The US could learn a thing or two from the Europeans and replace the US Senate with the Governor’s Association.  More balance in power between the state governments and that of the Union would be more likely as a result.  Of course, that the EU began with regulations and is only now picking up powers that are more typical for the Union level could mean that the EU could consolidate power from its state governments (esp. as Europeans gain more of a sense of being Europeans…perhaps in 100 years or so…as was the case in the US).

My advise to the Europeans is: don’t be afraid to deny all that the EU has become, and redouble your efforts to safeguard the state governments from an encroaching EU government.  These to things sound contradictory, but they are not.   For only by realizing what the EU is politically (i.e., a federal government) will you realize how important it is to construct a federal structure that works against a consolidation of power far from the people of Europe.  Of course, this does not mean starving the EU, for then dissolution and possible future wars would be likely.  So it is a federal balance that should be strived for, and you can structure your Union (and its states) in such a way that balance is achieved (you are not yet there) and maintained.  US History provides a case study of what NOT to do if this is your goal.  We have really screwed up federalism here (and most of us don’t even realize it).  Hopefully, by comparing the EU with the US you can do better.  Maybe that will prompt folks like Cohen to look at Europe and say, “Hey, we can do that too. Afterall, the US is a Union of states too.”   It is of course possible to re-trace and correct for a wrong turn federally speaking.  Anyway, bonne chance, mes Amies!  Gut Gleuck! Viel, viel Gleuck!

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/02/opinion/02iht-edcohen.html?hp

George H.W. Bush had not sent the US military all of the way into Iraq; he decided to go along with the consensus in the coalition of the time that the invasion would go just far enough to remove Iraqi forces from Kwait.  Undoing an invasion is a lauditory military venture.

George W. Bush went all the way in, occupying Iraq ostensively because of WMD and a link between Saddam Hussein and 9-11.  Karl Rove states in his memoirs that the fact that no WMD was found under Bush’s watch critically damaged the Bush Presidency.  In addition, the presumed link between Hussein’s government and 9-11 turned out to be spurious.  Rove claims that the invasion was justified nonetheless as a response to 9-11.  ”Having seen how much carnage four airplanes could cause, Bush was determined to do all he could to prevent the most powerful weapons from falling into the hands of the world’s most dangerous dictators,” Rove notes.  From this criterion, however, at least two problems are evident.

First, presumably other dangerous dictators, like those of Iran and North Korea, would have been subject to American forces.  That is to say, the criterion does not justify singling out one dictator.  It does not, for example, say “…dictators who are thought to have a WMD.”  The criterion is broader, yet George W. Bush applied it dogmatically (i.e., too narrowly, meaning to just one of several cases that would apply).

Second, the criterion does not justify removing a government from power; the goal is to keep WMD from falling into a government’s hands.  It could be argued that because the Bush administration thought that Saddem had a WMD, the only way to reach the goal was to remove him from power, but then the justification of the invasion would be invalid because there is no evidence that he had WMD at the time of the US invasion.  He had had chemical weapons, but then I’m sure Iraq is not the only “dangerous” country that has them.  Again, the criterion would have to be applied to all such cases.  To apply it to one and ignore the rest is dogmatic, or arbitrary, and thus points to an ulterior motive other than acting on the basis of the criterion.

In short, whereas his father restrained himself in keeping with the coalition at the early 1990s, George W. Bush went all the way, and without sufficient justification even by the criterion that his advisor, Karl Rove, provides.  Absolute power corrupts absolutely.  When there is a rubber-stamp Congress and a President willing to declare war (a Congressional power on account of the structural conflict of interest in having the commander in chief declaring war—meaning declaring that he would be using his power), it is difficult for him to hold back, even when his own father provides an illustration of self-restraint.   Perhaps Congress is too close to the US President’s Office to be vested with declaring war; maybe 2/3 of the governors should be required in lieu of the Congress.  In any case, the imperial presidency is a dangerous thing to have in a republic built on republics (i.e., an empire).  Rome went from being a republic to having an emperor…and then on to ruin.  The US may be following a similar course.  The lessons from the invasion of Iraq can go well beyond foreign and military policy as we search for reforms that pertain to our system of government.

Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/35706823/ns/today-today_books/