Archiv der Kategorie: German Politics

German Politics, intellectual property rights

The Other War

One of the real problems of the Iraq induced congestion of the media is that there is so much more important stuff going on that no body hears about – well, at least, that a lot less people hear about than should hear about it.

One of the big issues which currently receive a lot less attention than they deserve is the war concerning intellectual property rights. Yesterday, Berkeley’s Bradford DeLong posteda list of what he believes are the five most important questions facing the world economy today. Number three reads as follows –

“3. How will the current intellectual property wars be resolved? Will they be resolved in a way that greatly increases the profits of CD and movie companies and that slows the adoption of broadband and other advanced information technologies? Or will they be resolved in a way that implicitly or explicitly confiscates a bunch of the intellectual property of CD and movie companies, but that gives consumers and other users enormous incentives to adopt broadband and other advanced information technologies? It is clear to me that the second would be better for economic growth, but that the first is more likely.”

He’s right. Ttwo weeks ago, the US Supreme Court ruled in the case Eldred vs. Ashcroft that it was legal for the US Congress to extend the copyright protection, the “Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act”, which extended by 20 years both existing copyrights and future copyrights, for the law does not extend the protection forever. For Disney (and the like), it was a case about cash flow from exploiting the Mickey Mouse’s of this world. For everybody else (immediately only for those living in the US, of course), it was a case about the balance of private vs. public interests – in the economic realm but also far beyond. The plaintiff’s case had been supported by an amazing amount of intellectual capacity, including various Nobel Price laureates.

But private interests prevailed. It really looks as if owners of intellectual property are able to use their current economic clout and and a socialised narrow, conventional definition of property to put their short term interests above the social long term ones.

The next big battle in the IP war is probably the EU directive 2001/29/EG, which is an attempt to harmonize European copyright regimes with respect to the digital age. While theoretically maintaining the right to a limited amount of personal digital copies of copyrighted work one owns, the directive also contains a clause prohibiting the circumvention of any technical copyright device in order to exercise the right to a personal copy. Thus the private copy clause will in all likelihood be useless following the implementation of the EU directive into the member states’ national legal frameworks.

But resistance is not futile. So far, the directive has only become national law in Greece and Denmark. All other nations let the deadline pass. Debate and opposition are growing, and there are even legal doubts about the directive’s validity. It may be late, but not too late. Click here for a summary of the state of the national legislative processes of all EU member states.

The site also features the web addresses of online petitions in most European countries. It is not too late to sign.

To sign the German petition, just click here.

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compulsory reading, German Politics, media, US Politics, USA

What does it take to publish in the NY Times?

Firstly, let me admit that I chose this entry’s title to avoid Brad DeLong’s (in)famous “Why does the NY Times publish such Dreck”. Secondly, let me answer the question: Apparently, at least sometimes, not too much, it seems to me.

Yesterday, William Safire, a Pulitzer Price winner, published a tale about Germany’s self-evident imperial ambitions in Europe, the usually spineless French, and a Chancellor, who “does not share the free speech values of the West”. Since I do value free speech, I would like to assert that, of course, Mr. Safire is, just as everyone else, entitled to whichever opinion he chooses to hold, be it stupid or intelligent, informed or ignorant. Likewise, he is obviously entitled to have it published it in whichever form he – or a publisher – sees fit.

However, quality becomes an issue when innocent, unwitting others rely on published opinion because they think the person actually does know a little about the stuff he is writing about. In his latest book, Stupid White Men, the American author and director Michael Moore – who is, in my opinion, in many respects just as stupid as the (other) white men to whom he dedicated the book (“Bowling For Columbine” is so much better!) – presented an interesting example of the problem I am talking about. In the chapter titled “Idiot Nation” he speculates that America’s

“… problem is isn’t just that [the] kids don’t know nothin’ but that the adults who pay their tuition are no better … What if we were to give a pop quiz to the commentators who cram our TVs and radios with all their nonstop nonsense.”

He then describes how a magazine columnist called Fred Barnes (who I suppose might be somewhat famous in the US) whined in a talk-show

“… about the sorry state of American education, blaming the teachers and their evil union for [the fact that] … ‘These kids don’t even know what The Iliad and The Odyssey are!”. But when Moore called Barnes the next day to find out what exactly The Iliad and The Odyssey are the only thing Barnes could reply was “Well, they’re… uh… you know… uh… okay, fine, you got me – I don’t know what they’re about. Happy now?” (all quotes from the English Penguin edition, page 91)

The quality of arguments becomes even more important if it should be true that, as more and more people seem to assume, serious public policy debates in the USA are confined to the pages of the “liberally biased” NY Times and the Washington Post these days (note to European readers: I always find the American use of “liberal” extremely confusing, it means something once represented by the “Whig” faction in Parliament, but is clearly different from the European (political) usage of the word, either with a small or a capital “l”.)

Thus, if it weren’t for the fact that Mr Safire’s essay has been published (and is #7 of the 25 most emailed NY Times articles) on the day on which Donald Rumsfeld stated that France and Germany have become “problems”, I would have had a good laugh, shaken my head in disbelief and then turned the page. There are clearly more important things to worry about than the demons haunting a seemingly notorious Kraut-basher.

I stated often enough that I don’t mind Kraut bashing. But Mr Safire’s column amounts at least to blatant misrepresentation, and possibly to worse.
After repeating that Schroeder won last September’s elections on an anti-American ticket, which is true to some extent, but mostly overstated in relation to the boost his campaign got from managing the floods in East Germany, he goes on to describe how Schroeder went to Paris last week in order to “rule the world” – the most stunning feature of the column. Germany allegedly

“offered Chirac an offer he could not refuse: to permanently assert Franco-German dominance over the 23 other nations of Continental Europe … The German design is apparently to saw off the Atlantic part of the Atlantic Alliance, separating Britain and the U.S. from a federal Europe dominated by Germany and France (with France destined to become the junior partner).”

Am I hallucinating or did I just read this for real?

Mr Safire is evidently referring to last week’s Franco-German proposal to create a double-headed European Union leadership by creating an government-elected President of the Council (“a Franco-German Czar“, according to Mr Safire – should he be referring to Dennis MacShane’s FT interview he should note that Mr MacShane was talking about a single elected commission president, when he warned of a new European “Kaiser“) and a parliament-elected and Council-approved President of the European Commission.

Entirely disregarding the vocal German opposition to the proposal which more than anything else displayed a rift between the chancellor, who is said to have favoured the French institutional propositions, and his foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, who has always favoured a single, parliament-elected head for the EU, as well as the longstanding and well-known British position to oppose any institutional design but a single long-term elected President of the Council, Mr Safire continues – “In a stunning power play in Brussels, Germany and France moved to change the practice of having a rotating presidency of the European Council, which now gives smaller nations influence, to a system with a long-term president.” I won’t go into all the details or even seriously argue for reasons of time and space, but let me just tell you that his “argument” doesn’t end here.

This is probably the most ridiculous, blatant, and unashamed display of ignorance regarding the complex decision making process of the European Union I have ever read. Let me restate this: I hope it *is* simply a most ridiculous, blatant, and unashamed display of ignorance, because if it is not just that, the only possible alternative is malevolent propaganda.

But let me state one thing I read last year in a strategic US policy report on post cold war France by Steven Phillip Kramer. Clearly, the Franco-German post-WW2 alliance of “the bomb and the Bundesbank” had to readjust following the seismic shock which the German reunification signified. But even back in 1994, Mr Kramer warned US policy makers not to force Germany to decide between its two most prominent allies and friends, the US and France. Germany, he wrote, does not want to choose. But any American administration should know that, if once forced to decide between the two, Germany would opt for France, for an endless number of historical and geostrategic reasons. I am not sure yet, but maybe we are witnessing the making of this decision.

The last section of Mr. Safire’s essay is concerned with Schroeder’s judicial victoriey prohibiting the German press from reprinting last year’s allegation that he could dye his hair (hence the title of the column – Bad Herr Dye) or any story about marital problems without any proof. This injunction, he says, reminds him of “an unfortunate tradition of judicial deference to executive policies once demonstrated by German courts.” Now here, he must be kidding. How a serious journalist can actually allege that vain attempts to keep up a journalistic ethos are reminiscient of a fascist court system is beyond me. It must have something to do with the demons I invoked above.

The following paragraph is also startling – he restates the inadequacy of the current UN security council veto right system (since France has threatened to veto a second resolution on Iraq following next Monday’s presentation of the weapon inspectors’ current results) saying that

“… the idle French threat … reminds populous and powerful nations like India and Japan of the inequity of mid-sized France having the veto power, and of the need to prevent Germany from getting it.”

Sure, I guess there is hardly anyone in this world who would not agree that a system designed immediately after WW2 and designed to prevent the nuclear holocaust is not necessarily an institution representing today’s geostrategic reality. But as no veto power will ever voluntarily renounce to their veto if the UN structure is not entirely redesigned at the same time, I actually don’t wonder what Condi (Rice) would say to his proposal to let India and Japan (or Brasil, or Pakistan) in as well. I’m sure she would be thrilled by the idea…

In the end, Mr Safire offers at least some insight into his worldview –

The chancellor’s Pyrrhic victories are part of the backdrop to the existential crisis that the Security Council is bringing on itself. The Iraq issue is not war vs. peace. It is collective security vs. every nation for itself.” So if the Security Council is not willing to comply with the US proposal that is in itself proof enough the system is in an existencial crisis. Let me translate for you: only if the world does what America wants can a system of collective security work. Donny (Rumsfeld) will be proud of his words.

And why, exactly, is it that some – well meaning – Americans wonder why there are people in Europe who forget the risk the Iraq poses while oppposing the “Bush junta” (as John LeCarre formulated in the London Times last week). Clearly, Chirac and Schroeder are none of those. But there’s a real chance people might actually listen to what the US has today (and they do have something to say) if the likes of Donald Rumsfeld and William Safire actually learned how to talk.

I don’t know about Schroeder’s hair. But it seems to me, William Safire plays with a too hot straightening iron while writing his columns…

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compulsory reading, German Politics, US Politics, USA

Another Tale of Mars and Venus: The two Americas.

The Carnegie Endowment’s Robert Kagan’s quip that Americans are from Mars and Europeans from Venus – citing the famous “Practical Guide for Improving Communication and Getting What You Want in Your Relationships” to describe why American and Europe seem to be drifting apart in value terms has quickly become a household argument in published opinion. And for a reason: Last year’s US foreign policy as well as the European reaction has provided plenty of opportunity to interprete the US-European couple’s relationship as one in which one wants to make love and the other one war. Right or wrong, there seems to be a growing lack of understanding for the other one’s position on both sides of the pond.

In September last year, I already linked some documents providing some scientific context regarding the seemingly growing transatlantic rift. This week, the Economist provides us with the results of three recent studies – and tells Europe to think about American diversity. The article includes a very interesting diagram plotting some country’s relative positions in a multivariate value-space.

And in this diagram,

“America’s position is odd … On the quality-of-life axis, it is like Europe … But now look at America’s position on the traditional-secular axis. It is far more traditional than any west European country except Ireland. It is more traditional than any place at all in central or Eastern Europe”.

The reason for this strange position is, according to the economist, is,

“…to generalise wildly, that [the] average is made up of two Americas: one that is almost as secular as Europe (and tends to vote Democratic), and one that is more traditionalist than the average (and tends to vote Republican).”

I guess, a lot of people suspected this kind of division all along. But it’s always good to get some figures to back up the argument. And there’s one more thing that is strikingin this study – that all of Europe is indeed clustered in the same corner. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that there is something to the argument of common European values.

I will close with a brief note to my British friends: Have a loook at the British position on the value plot – you seem indeed to be a part of Europe – socially, you’re not even a bit of an “awkward partner”. Great news, no?

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compulsory reading, German Politics

The Real Problem Of The German Social Democracy: Brackets

In an interview with Gerhard Schroeder, printed in this week’s issue of “Der Spiegel” (in German), the journalists interviewing the chancellor rightly alleged that people like them – those who hold a lot of human capital, who represent the backbone of our knowledge based economy but are unable to pick a regulatory regime like those predominantly owning financial capital – would be the ones to have to pick up the tap for continued non-growth in this country. The chancellor answered sarcastically that the thought of their deprived economic situation really shook to him to his core, that he was close to tears. I was just a joke, but I fear there was a little bit more to it. It was also an unconscious expression of the fundamental conflict within the German Social Democracy – brackets, more precisely, income brackets.

A few weeks ago, I had a discussion with my friend American friend Sonya about the difference between perceived and actual relative income positions. Our conversation was based on a CNN poll, according to which 20% of US citizens believe they belong to the top one percent income bracket. Another 19% think they will be there at some point in their life. In Europe, things are bit different. Over here, many people tend to believe they belong to a lower relative income bracket than they actually do.

In both cases, the consequences for the economic policies implemented are severe. In the US, economists like Princeton professor Paul Krugman have begun to talk about the construction of a Plutocracy. In Europe, overregulation and suffocating marginal tax rates strangle more and more economic activity – or drive it into illegality. While some in the US deplore the lack a European style welfare system, welfare systems have evidently contributed significantly to the distortion of incentive structures on this side of the pond. It was this simple observation that prompted former LSE director Tony Giddens to write his now largely discredited book about “The Third Way”, which helped the other Tony to rebrand the British Labour party back in the mid 1990s.

While there may not be just one Third Way, it seems almost self evident to me that any economy/society must get both elements, individual motivation as well as redistribution of income, at least roughly right. “New Labour” seems to have understood this, but a large number of German Social Democrats still seems to have a hard time grasping the point. While the chancellor spent the rest of the interview explaining just how he wants to get the incentives right, and while his little sarcastic remark may not even tell us about his personal attitude, it certainly captures the mood of a significant part of his party. All reform rethoric aside, it appears many Social Democrats still do not really regard the professional middle class (the group they called “Neue Mitte” in their 1998 election campaign), working in human capital intensive jobs as those who add the most value to our economy. Many economists as well as political scientists have written extensively about the societal consequences of changing patterns of economic activity, and most of arguments are necessarily a lot more complex than the simple one I am making here [ the following link leads to a particularly good paper by Fritz Scharpf, concerned with sectoral changes and welfare regimes in competition ]. Nonetheless, I believe this is the core of the SPD’s internal conflict – those within the party who have not already done so need to realign their perceived structure of income brackets.

In the US, when political Robin Hoods demand to take from the rich and give to the poor, they probably do not plan to take it predominantly from working professionals earning, say, 60,000 Dollars. When some German Social Democrats talk about taxing the rich, those earning 60,000 Euros should beware. Don’t get me wrong – I am by no means saying that there should be no significant tax progression up to 60,000 Euros – of course there should be. Someone earning this amount is evidently able to bear a much larger part of common good than a struggling single mother earning a mere 15,000. No doubt about that.

But I seriously believe that people in this country need to realize that the most important problem of our economy is not lack of capital or demand (well, there is a cyclical lack of demand on top of the structural problems) but a lack of both powerful intrinsic (like the American Dream as a social institution) and extrinsic (monetary compensation) incentive structures. Isn’t it telling that the largest group among German university graduates wants to join the public service where they expect job security and predictable income increases for their entire working life? An economy that is devoting more than 50% of its time and money to administrating itself is probably not a particularly creative or productive one. And creativity is just what is needed to pull ourselves out of the self-designed slump we’re in.

Isn’t it time to realize that supporting those who actually deliver this creativity with some extrinsic motivation will be great for the common good? Isn’t it time for still traditionalist Social Democrats to finally leave the remains of cherished working-class-struggle rhetoric and policies where they belong – in history books?

I think it is. And I really hope Schroeder does, too.

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German Politics, Iraq

Dear Gerhard,

Why can’t you just cut the crap and just tell us what we already know. Now I know you might not have spoken to many ordinary (that is non party-affiliated) people lately to avoid a heavy beating by angry tax payers. So believe me if I’m telling you that, really, everybody in this country knows that,

  • no, German troops will not actively participate in conquering Bagdad. And let’s face it, Donny & Conny & Tommy (Rumsfeld, Rice, Franks…) are most likely rather grateful that the US armed forces will not have to babysit ze Tschermans while trying ot invade Iraq, but
  • yes, Germany (ahm, you) will do pretty much everything else the US ask for to facilitate their (and token British) strike on Saddam’s regime. Yes, we know that includes all the “eventualities” you still refuse to discuss, especially some sort of involvement of the ABC clearing tanks only deployed in Kuwait for operation Enduring Freedom and those German soldiers in NATO AWACS planes – only “protecting” NATO territory, of course.

Ple-heease. We know you’ve been “framing the truth” all along. And yes, even those who voted for you two months ago knew it. But they liked your irredentist behavior. Bashing the rich and powerful is a natural socialist instinct (which, by the way, all too often led to schizophrenia once socialists had become rich and powerful…) and we like some good political entertainment.

But now we know how the story ends and there’s not too much repeat viewing value to it. So can you please save yourself and all others a lot of time by just telling us what we all know?

P.S.: And while you’re about to make some useful decisions, please fire Olaf Scholz (your party’s general secretary who does not believe Germany needs a makeover). I guess you hired him to make yourself look better in comparison. That’s fair enough. And I guess he did not even understand why he got that job… but seriously, that guy is lowering the level of this comparison to levels rarely seen in postwar politics.

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compulsory reading, German Politics

Why ’68 was so important for Germany.

Not a lot of you will have read Tierry Jonquet’s novel “Rouge. C’est la vie”. It wasn’t a bestseller. It’s a generational novel about love and life of two teenagers in Paris during the infamous 1968 revolts on Boulevard St. Germain, which is exactly where I read it in the Summer of 1998. 30 years later, in a different world. No doubt, Paris saw the most violent expressions of social unrest in ’68. But I contend that in most respects, ’68 was far more important for Germany than for France or any other Western country.

These days, most people over here tend to concentrate on the incentive distorting economic policies implemented in this country during the last 30 years when they talk about the consequences of ’68. And it’s fair enough to say that ’68 was followed by a general shift to the (economic) left in the German party system that led, in combination with the experience of rapid economic growth during the 1950s and ’60s and macroeconomic mismanagement during the oil crises of the 1970s, to a pervasive, somewhat problematic incentive structure in this country. But that’s not the entire story about ’68. And it is plainly unfair not to mention the rest of it – because the rest is much more important than the economic mess which my generation will have to clean up now.

I was born in 1975, so I don’t have any personal memories of what this country was like before 1968. But it must have been a different county. Sometimes people say that 1945 made the difference. And yes, it clearly was 1945 that made the difference – but it did not make that difference in 1945. It happened in 1968. One generation later.

To those who only know contemporary Germany, the image painted by Martha Gellhorn’s brilliant article Is There A New Germany(from the February 1964 issue of the Atlantic), will probably seem slightly bizarre. Sometimes I find it hard to believe how much things have changed since then. There might not have been a new Germany in 1964. But it was clearly about to hatch out. And it did.

In 1968. Let’s not forget about that.

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German Politics

Hayek for Social Democrats.

While reading the following excerpt from a speech called “Flexibility for the Labour Market” given by Germany’s new economics & labour super-secretary Wolfgang Clement’s at a conference in Berlin yesterday, you might become a little confused about the current position of the German Social Democrats on the economic left-right scale. Has the SPD become a proponent of Hayekian laisser-faire econmics instead of state-regulated intervention? Hardly. But let’s see (quick-and-dirty translation by myself)

we tend to continuously pass new legislation to improve social welfare. But this well-meaning attempt can be perverted if those whose lifes are supposed to be improved by new legislation are getting lost and drown in the wave of regulations that are imposed on many different levels. In addition, there is the danger, that too strict rules are making the necessary development of processes more difficult or are preventing them entirely instead of speeding them up.”

But let me assure you: It’s just words. And words can be, at most, a promise for deeds. They are a lot more credible if backed by acredible record or credible committments. The problem with the former is, there is no credible SPD record regarding deregulation for the post 1998 period. Social security reforms, yes, to some extent. But labour market DE-regulation? No. If anything, things have become worse due to the still rampant union inducied insider-outsider problems.

Actually, Clement somewhat recognizes the lack of a record in the excerpt. So past experience does not quite work to help convince the public of the truthfulness of his (speechwriter’s) words.

And there’s the core of the government’s communication problem (which is huge, but evidently pales in comparison to the fiscal and regulatory ones.) It has no idea how to credibly commit itself to the reform rethoric it is once again employing.

That’s why so many people are wary believing the SPD today when it employs libertarian rethoric. They believe it just means further state regulation and more unemployment, however much disguised.

Shame on you if you fool me once, shame on me if you fool me twice…

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German Politics, Germany

Am I giving Schröder too much credit?

The reelected German SPD-led government is having a hard time these days. An opposition spokesperson yesterday stated that it was now offically allowed to call Hans Eichel, the finance minister, a liar (for he said he did not know about the looming deficit before the election) and it will be next to impossible to find a paper not bashing the government for its troubled first weeks. The Economist is no exception here.

While almost everybody (except for the powerful service union leader Bsirske, who publicly stated this weekend that he has yet to see the crisis) agrees that Germany is badly in need of some deregulation, especially concerning the labour market, things are a lot harder to do than to talk about. Especially given the troubled economy which will make it much more difficult for the government to produce visible results after much needed structural reforms.

To reform the labour markets is one important step. But it is a politically troublesome one if it only means to cut welfare without more people actually getting jobs because of lacking demand.

And it is a politically even more troublesome step if the powerful unions, as always pursuing their insider-ousider game, are cashing in their price for supporting the chancellor when his campaign looked the bleakest last summer.

So what is the government doing? It is proposing a problematic incoherent austerity package in combination with redistributive measures which the unions approve of but which are increasingly despised of by a growing majority of people.

However, I believe, the chancellor thinks he can play a game because most of those laws have to be approved by the upper chamber of the Bundestag, the Bundesrat, in which the conservative opposition (CDU) currently holds a majority. So he proposes legislation to service the unions knowing it does not pose a great risk supposing the opposition will block it anyway.

After that he will be able to tell the unions to keep quiet whilst actually going to reform things.

Am I giving Schröder too much credit? There’s one big problem with such a strategy: It depends on the key players to silently cooperate. If the CDU actually lets some the “union-reforms” get through the upper chamber in the hopes that the following implementation will anger a significant amount of previous Schröder voters it won’t work. And if Schröder can’t credibly blame the opposition for blocking the union-proposals, he will not be able to escape the unions’ embrace.

It’s a risky strategy and, of course, I don’t know if it’s actually what is happening. But it does make strategic sense to me. The SPD has probably already lost the two upcoming regional elections because of the revelation of the ever increasing deficit just after the general elections (which the government is only partly to blame for). Should that also be the perception of the government and the opposition leaders, the silent cooperation may have already begun.

We’ll see.

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German Politics, US Politics

See? Again stuck in the middle.

Dimplomacy is a difficult art of communication. History is full of examples of unskilled German diplomacy. Looking at Europe’s history I sometimes think Germany should join France and let the Quai d’Orsay handle things for us… As for examples, here’s one more:

While the US administration is still sulking following Gerhard Schroeder’s campaign promise that Germany would not participate in a military action against Iraq (note: apart from all the stuff the pacifist public won’t be able to see and possibly more after the Weapon inspectors will have been thrown out early next year and Germany will be the chair of the UN Security Council from Febuary 2003 on when the war resolution will likely be voted on.), Osama bin Laden (or what/whoever is threatening the Western World and Russia using this name) is threatening Germany for its cooperation with the US.

So after praising the terrorist attacks on civilians in Tunisia, Karachi, Bali and Moscow he asks – “What are your governments intentions in allying themselves against the Muslims with this bunch of criminals in the White House? Don’t your governments know that these criminals in the White House are the biggest slaughterers of these times? [..] I’m explicitly naming Great Britain, France, Italy, Canada, Germany and Australia.” (retranslated from German – source). Stuck in the middle.

OK, I know that the recent row with the US administration was not about cooperation in the war against terror but about different approaches in strategic foreign policy. I also know that being on Osama’s list is a consequence of Germany (now) being an integral part of the west and not a consequence of any specific kind of anti-terrorist cooperation. The list therefore is also a confirmation that the main German policy goal since WW2, integration in the west, has been successful.

So we’re possibly good at structure. But definitely bad at diplomacy ;-).

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German Politics, Germany, Iraq, Political Theory, US Politics, USA

A deeper rift? Some context…

Firstly, a noteworthy article by Robert Kagan concerning the fundamental policy-style differences between Europe and the US, published in May in the Washington Post.

Secondly, The Economist’s analysis of these differences. Thirdly, a paper called “Mutual Perceptions” by Peter Rudolf of the German Institute for Foreign and Strategic Policy (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), Berlin), presented at a conference of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies on Sept. 10, 2002.

Some key quotes from the latter :

“The American and the European publics, including the German public are also not so far apart in their view of the world. They do not live on different planets, the one on Mars, the other on Venus, as Robert Kagan`s now famous dictum says. Looking at the collective preferences on both sides of the Atlantic, we are no way drifting apart. In their majority, Americans and Europeans do share a positive view of international institutions, Americans are more multilateral than unilateral oriented; Europeans, even Germans, are by far less opposed to the use of military force, although they are inclined to support it for humanitarian purpose and for upholding international law. Although the use of military means for combating terrorism finds support among a majority of people across Europe, the preferred measures to combat terrorism lie – to a greater extent than among Americans – in the economic realm: in helping poor countries to develop their economies. Thus, Americans and Germans do not live on different planets but those neoconservatives do, those – to quote former President Carter – “belligerent and divisive voices” now seemingly dominant in Washington, those whose vision of America`s role in the world implies a basic strategic reorientation of American foreign policy. Using the dramatically increased perception of vulnerability to asymmetric threats and instrumentalizing the “war on terror” as the legitimizing principle, the hegemonic – or better: the imperial – wing of the conservative foreign policy elite effectively dominated the political discourse and left its imprint on a series of decisions..” (p. 2)

“Should the neoconservatives succeed in turning the United States into a crusader state waging so-called preventive wars, German-American relations will head to further estrangement. If the current debate on Iraq is indicative of things to come, the expectation of American neoconservatives that their European allies will in the end jump on the bandwagon might be disappointed, at least in the German case. In their despise of their irrelevant amoral European allies and in their overconfidence in American hard power resources, they simply ignore the value dimension of the current transatlantic conflicts. It is a conflict about different visions of world order.” (p. 6)

Lastly, for those who can read German, another SWP study – “Preventive war as solution? The USA and Iraq.” For those who don’t read German, the footnotes are a remarkable collection of mostly English language documents concerning the intra-US-administrative discussion as well as the international one. I’ll probably post some key references later.

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