• I read an article online that shows a struggle ahead …

    http://www.nationalreview.com/jos/jos032403.asp

    After reading the article, I question why one leader/group must see the future based on an “EU v. the US” scenario.


  • Great citation of an article. Mind you, the author is a known to be right wing, that being said what he said is pretty accurate IMHO.

    I think France does think it should be the US versus ??? and France wants to lead the ???

    My Canadian point of view is that I think Canada should be part of a greater whole that includes the US and forces us all to adopt measures that are beneficial to mankind.

    Any time there is a big power and a small power (I use that term loosely in reference to Canada) the big power is going to tend to get its own way a bit more regardless of how magnanimous the larger entity is.

    When NAFTA replaced the US/Canada FTA (free trade agreement) Canada gained a potential ally in addressing US unfair trade practices. Hopefully if we get a few more countries from the Americas we’d all rise to the highest common denominator. That is the hard part, it’s too easy to drop to the lowest common denominator.

    It’s a pity France didn’t take this view. I know with agricultural subsidies it’s the French who seem to be the worst offenders, perhaps that’s why they don’t want to work under the same umbrella that the US uses?

    I wish more leaders understood that a rising tide floats all boats. The pie is always bigger when everybody co-operates.

    BB


  • I think the Frnace vs. US is a “bit” constructed.
    True, France suffers from its “little-man-syndrom”, but that they want to shape multilaterlism into a weapon against the US… ahem

    For the “EU vs. US” that Xi asked after (not the one from the text though):
    It is one possibility. It could become China vs. US as well. The point is the US are the military and economic hegemon of this time. Their new policy is to defend that position including use of force to do so (the my links to “rebuilding americas defenses”), before that they were more seeing/behaving as a “primus inter pares”. So, the new policy of course leads to conflicts with the “number 2”, both in military or economy. And economically, it’s the EU that is No.2…

    Of course, sharing a cake is better than fighting over it. But to defend (and increase) your (hegemonic) share, you need to take bites from the others shares. That’s something that doesn’t need to be the reason for the Iraq conflict, but it fits: the hegemon has more or less no share of the cake there and wants it.

    I hope that all of the world (that’s more than the US and EU, but they are extremely important in this) will sometime soon learn that “cooperation” is better and more productive than “defyiance”: One of the reasons why i am such a strong proponent of multilateralism.


  • You only have to take bites from others if it is a zero-sum game, it is not. Grow the pie.

    All the media in the US has been going on and on about how France is obstructing the US. Well, for the most part that has been replaced with images of dead US servicemen and POW’s.

    Perhaps there is not cause and effect we can take from this. Nonetheless, if you are shown images of Chirac saying NO and then dead US soldiers the mind plays tricks and you start to relate the two……

    BB


  • But how do you grow the pie?
    Is that the effort of a single player or of all of them?

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