The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (94 page)

The deepest worries of the Japanese, therefore, are probably those which are rarely if ever discussed publicly—partly out of diplomatic discretion, partly to avoid bringing such developments about—and concern the future balance of power in East Asia itself. “Omnidirectional peaceful diplomacy” is all very well for the present, but how
useful will it be if an overextended United States does withdraw from its Asian commitments, or finds it impossible to protect the flow of oil from Arabia to Yokohama? How useful if there is another Korean war? How useful if China begins to dominate the region? How useful if a declining and nervous USSR takes aggressive actions? There is, of course, no way of answering such hypothetical and alarming questions; yet even a mere “trading state” with small “self-defense forces” may one day find it unavoidable to provide some answers. As other nations have discovered in the past, commercial expertise and financial wealth sometimes no longer suffice in the anarchic world of international power politics.

Of the five main concentrations of economic and military power in the world today, the only one that is not a sovereign nation-state is Europe—which at once defines the chief problem facing this region as it moves toward the emerging Great Power system of the early twenty-first century. Even if our consideration of the continent’s future prospects excludes the Communist-controlled regimes in the east (as, for practical reasons, it must), we are still left with some states which are members of an economic-political organization (the EEC) but not of the chief military alliance (NATO), with others which adhere to the latter but not the former, and with important neutrals which are members of neither. Because of such anomalies, this section will focus upon the European Economic Community (and upon the policies of some of its leading members) rather than upon non-Communist Europe as a whole—for it is only in the EEC that an organization and structure exists, at least
potentially
, for a fifth world power.

But it is precisely because we are examining the EEC’s
potential
rather than its present reality that the problem of guessing what it may be like in the year 2000 or 2020 is compounded. In some ways the situation is similar to that which, on a smaller scale, faced the members of the German Federation in the mid-nineteenth century.
⁸⁵
A customs union existed which had proved to be so successful in stimulating trade and industry that it rapidly attracted new members, and it was clear that if that enlarged economic community was able to turn itself into a Power state it would be a major new actor in the international system—to which the established Great Powers would have to adjust accordingly. But so long as that transformation did not occur; so long as there were divisions among the members of the customs union about further economic integration and, still more, about political and military integration; so long as there were quarrels about which state should take the lead and disputes between the various
parties and pressure groups about the benefits (or losses) accruing to them, then just so long would it stay divided, unable to realize its potential, and incapable of dealing as an equal with the other Great Powers. For all the differences of time and circumstance, the “German question” of the last century was a microcosm of the “European problem” of the present.

In its
potential
the EEC clearly has the size, the wealth, and the productive capacity of a Great Power. With the adherence of Spain and Portugal, its twelve-member population now totals around 320 million—which is 50 million more than the USSR and almost half as big again as the U.S. population. Moreover, it is a highly trained population, with hundreds of universities and colleges across Europe and millions of scientists and engineers. While its average per capita income conceals great gulfs—say, between West German and Portuguese incomes—it is much richer on the whole than Russia, and some of its member states are richer per capita than the United States. As was pointed out earlier, it is by far the largest trading block in the world, although much of that is intra-European trade. Perhaps a better measure of its economic strength lies in its productive output, in automobiles, steel, cement, etc., which puts it ahead of the United States, Japan, and (except in steel) the USSR. Depending upon the annual statistics, and upon the wild swings in the value of the dollar relative to European currencies over the past six years, the total GNP of the EEC is about equal (1980, 1986) to that of the USA, or about two-thirds as big (1983–1984 figures). It is certainly far larger than Russia, Japan, or China in its share of world GNP or manufacturing output.

In military terms also, the European member states are far from negligible. Taking only the four largest countries (West Germany, France, Britain, Italy) into account, one finds their combined regular-army size to be over a million men, with a further 1.7 million in reserves
⁸⁶
—a total which is of course smaller than the Russian and Chinese armies, but considerably larger than the U.S. Army. In addition, these four states possess hundreds of major surface warships and submarines and thousands of tanks, artillery, and aircraft. Finally, both France and Britain possess nuclear weapons, and delivery systems—sea-based and land-based. The implications and effectiveness of these military forces will be discussed below; the point being made here is simply that,
once combined
, the totals are very substantial. What is more, the spending upon these forces represents around 4 percent of the GNP, as a rough average. Were those countries, or, more significant still, the entire EEC, spending around 7 percent of total GNP on defense, as the United States is today, the sums allocated would be equal to hundreds of billions of dollars—that is, roughly the same amount as the two military superpowers spend.

And yet Europe’s real power and effectiveness in the world is much
less than the crude total of its economic and military strength would suggest—simply because of disunity. The armed forces, for example, not only suffer from a multitude of languages (a problem which the German Federation’s members never had to face), but are equipped with many different weapons and have very marked differences in quality and training—between, say, the West German and the Greek armies, or the Royal Navy and the Spanish navy. Despite NATO’s many attempts at standardization, one is still talking about a dozen armies, navies, and air forces of varying worth. But even those problems pale beside the obstacles at the
political
level, relating to the foreign and defense policy priorities of Europe. Ireland’s traditional (and anachronistic) stance on neutrality prevents the EEC from discussing defense issues—although even if discussions occurred, they would probably soon founder upon Greek objections. Turkey, with its substantial army, is not a member of the EEC; and the Turkish and Greek armed forces often seem more worried about each other than about the Warsaw Pact. France’s independent stance has (as will be seen below) military advantages and disadvantages; but it adds to the complications of consultation on defense and foreign-policy matters. Both Britain and France indulge in “out of area” operations and, indeed, still maintain an array of bases and troops overseas. For West Germany, the overriding defense issue—toward which
all
its forces are geared—is the security of its eastern frontier. Evolving a unified European policy toward, say, the Palestinian issue, or even toward the United States itself, is inordinately complex (and often fails), because of the differing interests and traditions of each of the member states.

In terms of economic integration, and of the constitutional and institutional arrangements that exist to implement decisions in the economic field, the EEC is obviously much further ahead; even so, as an “economic community,” it is much more splintered than a sovereign state would ever be. Political ideology always affects economic policy and priorities. Coordination is difficult, if not impossible, when socialist regimes are in power in some of the member states and conservative parties are dominant in the others. Although the coordination of currencies is now more successful than it was, the occasional realignments which do take place (usually involving a revaluation of the German mark) are a reminder of the separate fiscal systems—and differentiated credit-worthiness—of the members. Despite proposals from the European Commission, there is as yet little progress toward a common European policy on a whole variety of issues, from full-scale airline deregulation to financial services. At too many of the common frontiers there are still customs posts, and lengthy checks, to the fury of the truck drivers. Even agriculture, the mainstay of the EEC’s spending functions and one of the few economic sectors where there is a “common market,” has proved to be a bone of contention.
And if it is indeed likely that world foodstuffs production will continue to expand, with India and other Asian countries increasingly entering the export markets, the pressure to reform the EEC’s price-support system will build up, until the issue explodes into heated controversy again.

Finally, there is the persistent worry that after its postwar decades of economic growth and success, Europe is beginning to stagnate, and perhaps even to decline. The problems caused by the oil crisis of 1979—the steep rise in fuel prices, the pressure upon balance of payments, the general world depression in demand, output, and trade—seemed to hit the Europeans harder than many of the other major economies of the earth, as is indicated by
Table 45
.

Table 45. Growth in Real GNP, 1979–1983
⁸⁷
(percent)

One of the chief concerns of the European states has been the effect of this slump upon employment levels—the number of people losing their jobs in western Europe in recent years has been much higher than at any time in the post-1945 era (for example, it leaped from 5.9 million to 10.2 million within the EEC between 1978 and 1982) and has shown little sign of coming down—which in turn swells the already extremely high level of social expenditures, leaving less for investment.
⁸⁸
Nor has there been anything like the creation of new jobs on the scale which has occurred in the United States (chiefly in low-paying service industries) and Japan (in high technology and services) as the 1980s have unfolded. Whether one ascribes this to the lack of business incentives, high costs and immobility of the labor market, and bureaucratic over-regulation (as right-wingers tend to do), or to the failure of the state to plan and invest sufficiently (as the Left usually sees it), or to a fatal combination of both, the result is the same. More alarming still, to many commentators, have been the signs that Europe is falling behind its American and (especially) its Japanese competitors in the high-technology stakes of the future. Thus, the 1984–85
Annual Economic Report
of the European Commission warned:

Quite possibly, this picture of “Eurosclerosis” and “Europessimism” has been painted too gloomily, for there are many other signs of European competitiveness—in quality automobiles, commercial and fighter aircraft, satellites, chemicals, telecommunications systems, financial services, etc. Nevertheless, the two most pressing issues remain in doubt. Is the EEC, because of the sociopolitical diversity of its members, as capable as its overseas competitors of responding to swift and large-scale shifts in employment patterns? Or is it designed more to
slow down
the impact of economic changes upon uncompetitive sectors (agriculture, textiles, shipbuilding, coal, and steel), and, in being so humane in the short term, disadvantaging itself in the longer term? And is the EEC capable of mobilizing the scientific and investment resources to remain a leading contender in the high-technology stakes, when its own companies are nowhere near as big as the American and Japanese giants, and when any “industrial strategy” has to be worked out, not by the likes of MITI, but by
twelve
governments (plus the EEC Commission), each exhibiting different concerns?

If one turned one’s attention from the EEC as a whole to a brief examination of the situation in which the leading
three
military/political countries of Europe find themselves, the sense of “potential” being threatened by “problems” is only reinforced. No state, arguably, manifests this ambivalence about the future more than the Federal Republic of Germany, in large part because of its inheritance from the past and the still “provisional” nature of the present structure of Europe.