The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2003

J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 3 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 69 The Problem of Nails Of Paradise and Power Robert Kagan, Alfred A. Knopf, 2003, $18.00, hardcover, 103 pages. R EVIEWED BY P AULO A LMEIDA “A vulgar extravagance...” When Europe’s top diplomat — E.U. Com- missioner for External Affairs Chris Patten— says that about an analysis of transatlantic relations, then the analyst (like a good clinician) must have been probing a sore spot. Published in February, Of Power and Paradise is an elaboration of an essay Robert Kagan wrote last sum- mer for Policy Review which sought to explain why the U.S. and the E.U. approach international problems dif- ferently. So what is it that Kagan said that provoked Patten’s decidedly undiplomatic comment to the Fin- ancial Times in March? Truth be told, it could have been any number of things, but I suspect the final straw was Kagan’s assertion that Europe’s common foreign policy is the most “anemic” of the European Union’s institutions. That sounds like fightin’ words, but that’s Kagan’s point: the Europeans won’t fight. Or, to put it more precisely, they have chosen instead to follow the path of incremental economic integration, which is the E.U.’s model for interna- tional conflict resolution. Ever since the end of the ColdWar, Kagan contends, the U.S. has been able to project power around the world unchallenged; the Europeans, for all their economic strength, can- not. Besides representing a compet- ing model, the American predilection to resort to military might to settle conflicts also implicitly reminds the Europeans that their present paradise was only made possible by the applica- tion of large doses of U.S. military power, first to destroy Nazi Germany, then to contain the Soviet Union. This disparity in power is at the root of the differences between the U.S. and Europe on the best way to deal with terrorism and other threats. One of Kagan’s many droll (and possibly even “vulgar”) analogies for the two sides’ respective perceptions of such threats is a Wild West town where the U.S. is the sheriff and Europe tends the bar. “Outlaws shoot sheriffs, not saloonkeepers,” Kagan observes. “In fact, from the saloonkeeper’s point of view, the sheriff trying to impose order by force can sometimes be more threat- ening than the outlaws, who, at least for the time being, may just want to buy a drink.” But while Kagan grants the European complaint that the U.S. sometimes acts like a cowboy in cer- tain situations, he maintains that in general, America is a benign cowboy — in other words, a sheriff, trying to keep the peace. Or, to use another of Kagan’s analo- gies, the U.S. is from Mars, respond- ing to threats with military force, and Europe is from Venus, responding “through engagement and seduction, through commercial and political ties, through forbearance and patience.” Indeed, throughout the book he seems to reduce threat perception to a simple function of response capability, or lack thereof. “When you have a hammer,” Kagan quotes a British crit- ic, “all problems start to look like nails.” Choosing which nails need hit- ting, as was the case in the first Persian Gulf War in 1991 and in Kosovo in 1999, is the unaddressed challenge in the transatlantic relationship. Disappointingly, Kagan’s slim vol- ume tells only half the story. He ded- icates himself largely to analyzing the preconditions and consequences of the lack of power in Europe, giving less attention to the analysis of how and why the U.S. wields its over- whelming military force … rather ironic for a book about “paradise and power.” For example, Kagan simplis- tically implies that there is a uniform American response to external threats, heedless of possible internal con- straints (e.g., political opposition, eco- nomic costs, body-bag syndrome, pub- lic indifference, isolationism) on the continuing projection of American power around the globe. Still, despite such shortcomings, Of Paradise and Power is a thoughtful, sometimes witty, description of why so “When you have a hammer,” Kagan quotes a British critic, “all problems start to look like nails.” B OOKS