Fernand Braudel Center, Binghamton University
http://fbc.binghamton.edu/commentr.htm
Comment No. 43, July 1, 2000
"The Upheavals of June, 2000"
The month of June 2000 may go down in history as a major turning-point
of post-1945 history, and few commentators seem to have seized on the
importance of the events. The events to which I refer are Putin's visit
to Germany and the summit of the two Koreas. It is not that they were
not noticed, but the commentators tended to analyze them in Cold War
terms, whereas their importance precisely is that they made Cold War
terminology irrelevant.
It all starts with the fact that the U.S. has badly overplayed its hand,
by reopening the question of a missile defense shield (see Comment No.
39, "The United States as Nuclear Champion"). The roots of this
militarily very unnecessary move by the U.S. derives in small part from
the usual desire of military leaders for the newest toys and in larger
part to the vagaries of U.S. internal politics. The Republicans are
desperate to win the presidency and decided that an old card that
usually worked for them, more money for the military, would win them
votes. And Clinton, true to his up to now very successful tactic of
combating the Republicans by proposing the same thing they do, in
somewhat watered-down terms, started the ball rolling. What the U.S. did
not count on was how strong and how immediate the reaction of other
countries would be.
The Republicans expected Russia opposition and didn't care. Clinton
thought he could assuage Putin. The U.S. (both factions) presented their
proposals as dealing with the threat of "rogue states". They had North
Korea particularly in mind. But they failed to think the proposal out.
If the U.S. builds a missile defense shield, then other nuclear powers
must either upgrade their own nuclear arsenal (which is costly) or find
that whatever strength they now derived from their nuclear arsenal would
become irrelevant. In short, the first losers would be not only Russia
and China, but Great Britain, France, and by extension Germany (as part
of a European defense force).
So the first thing that has come to pass was what the U.S. has had as a
nightmare for 50 years, a coming together of Russia and Germany. The
German Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, was deeply upset by Clinton's
proposal. He considered it costly and dangerous, and said so. When Putin
came to Berlin to agree and to offer cooperation on a European common
missile defense, Schröder was ready to listen. Even so pro-American a
German as Josef Joffe, editor of the influential Der Zeit, said that "a
clumsy U.S. Goliath invites an alliance of Davids." And the British
external affairs commissioner of the European Union said that Europe had
to grow into a "serious counterpart" of the U.S.
Europe was born in June 2000. Of course, we have been talking about
Europe for 50-odd years now. But heretofore Europe has meant western
Europe, not Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals, dear to both Charles
de Gaulle and Mikhail Gorbachev. Hitherto, the Germans would not really
hear of it because of their post-1945 fidelity to the United States. Now
it has been launched. A small step, but in the old Chinese adage, a
journey of a thousand years starts with such small steps.
What most commentators missed was a story in Le Monde on June 2, in
which the French reporter, with access to German sources, revealed a
quiet agreement between the French and the Germans. Up to now, the
extension and expansion of "Europe" has been held up by the unanimity
rule and by the equal vote for the big powers. The French had been the
most insistent on retaining both. Now they agreed to the German desire
to give Germany the extra votes its population size justifies and to
work out a "qualified majority" system. This crucial step makes it
possible to move forward not merely with east-central Europe but more
importantly with Russia.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the world, the dramatic summit between
the presidents of the two Koreas occurred. No one quite expected this to
occur even six months ago. Many thought it would never occur. Why did it
occur now? On the one hand, Kim Jong-Il, the President of North Korea,
which has been the ostensible primary target of the new U.S. plans, has
decided to counter them by an astute mixture of threats and diplomatic
overtures to China, to Japan, to Russia, and now to South Korea).
President Kim Dae-jung of South Korea has been pushing for such a summit
since he was inaugurated. Partly, he was serving the interests of South
Korean businessmen, partly he wanted to be sure South Korea was not cut
out of any U.S.-North Korean arrangement, and partly (maybe mostly) he
thought this was the road to peace and eventual reunification.
The U.S. was never happy about Kim Dae-jung's initiatives, but found
them difficult to oppose. They simply didn't expect them to work. It
seems likely that Clinton's announcement of a nuclear defense shield
hastened interest in both Koreas in holding this summit. The North
Koreans were anxious to vitiate the case for the U.S. missile defense
shield. And the South Koreans were thinking a bit like the west
Europeans, since they too are a "quasi-nuclear power."
But consider the consequences. The first steps towards reunification
have been taken. It will be a slow, difficult, winding process, but
somewhere down the line it will occur - on what terms, one cannot be
sure. One immediate consequence of the Korean summit has been to bring
Taiwan and China one little step closer, as though they didn't want
Korea to get a step ahead of them. Now if Korea unites and China unites,
will the U.S. be able to continue the role it has been playing in East
Asia? Very doubtful. Rather, we might see a China-Korea-Japan "alliance
of Davids."
This is not for tomorrow. But the U.S. has definitely overplayed its
hand, and brought world geopolitical realignment into much more
immediate prospect than it had been. It is in this sense that June 200
marks a turning-point.
by Immanuel Wallerstein
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______________________________________________
--
Mine Aysen Doyran
PhD Student
Department of Political Science
SUNY at Albany
Nelson A. Rockefeller College
135 Western Ave.; Milne 102
Albany, NY 12222
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