Turkey and the Problem of History examines European and American views on diplomacy and military force — and why the Euros are worried about Turkey:
Robert Kagan’s groundbreaking book Of Paradise and Power brilliantly contrasts the different views of power held by Europeans and Americans. The United States and Europe, he says, have sharply diverging ideas about the role of diplomacy and the use of military force due to the stark differences in historical experience accumulated over the past century.Europe has never had it so good. After the meat-grinding horror of World War I and the defeat of the Axis Powers in World War II, the United States provided a protective security umbrella over Western Europe, under NATO auspices, permitting Europeans to build multilateralist institutions and lavish welfare states. And now, with the collapse of the Soviet Empire on the West’s eastern border, Europeans feel they have entered a settled post-historic era where nations can settle differences through diplomacy and the merger of formerly separate bureaucracies. War is seen as an anachronism from Europe’s monarchical, imperial, and machtpolitik past.
We Americans, on the other hand, have never felt more threatened. The attack on September 11, 2001, was the worst ever on our own soil. History is far from over for us. Neither Nazi Germany nor the Soviet Union ever struck such a blow against us at home. And because we are militarily powerful we are far more willing to use force than Europeans. Kagan quotes one European critic of America’s policy who says ‘When you have a hammer, all problems start to look like nails.’ This is certainly true. Kagan’s response: ‘When you don’t have a hammer, you don’t want anything to look like a nail.’
From Europe’s perspective, that’s the problem with Turkey. It’s a nail.