A Word of Advice from Europe: Soft Power Works (V)

Kagan is right to criticize the Europeans for being obsessed with process at the expense of outputs. But he himself is looking at the wrong outputs. It doesn't matter the number of planes or precision-guided weapons you have. What matters is how good you are at solving problems. Framed like this, it is clear that both Europeans and Americans have reason to be satisfied, as well as ashamed, of their foreign policy performance. For its part the EU is slowly getting its act together, not just in the Balkans or the Mediterranean, but also in a deeper, more structural sense. The great value of Europe's approach to international affairs is that it seeks to create intensive webs of reciprocal obligations and exchange with other countries. It is telling the Iranians that if they want to trade with the EU, they have to make progress on political pluralism and proliferation issues. The EU also tries to boost the capacity of international regimes to tackle new issues: On global warming with Kyoto, war crimes with the ICC, landmines, bio-weapons and small arms with the relevant UN conventions, etc., the EU approach has produced real results - often in the face of US indifference and, sometimes, opposition.

obsessed - posedlý at the expense - na úkor čeho output - výstup, produkt to matter - záležet to frame - začlenit do širšího rámce, sestavit, zarámovat to be ashamed - stydět se Mediterranean - středozemí sense - smysl to seek - hledat, snažit se o co obligation - závazek to trade - obchodovat to boost - zesílit, zvýšit to tackle - pustit se do čeho in the face of - navzdory indifference - nezájem

Neo-conservatives love to slam the Europeans for their free-rider behavior and urge them to boost defense spending in the name of trans-Atlantic burden sharing. But they fail to examine how useful military assets really are in solving global problems. No surprise, therefore, that they sidestep Washington's abysmal performance in the non-military area. The guiding principle for a sensible trans-Atlantic debate on contributions to global security should be: first redefine, then rebalance.

to slam - přebít in the name of - ve jménu čeho burden - břemeno useful - užitečný asset - aktivum, majetek therefore - proto abysmal - propastný guiding - řídící to redefine - přehodnotit to rebalance - znovu vyvážit

Připravuje Markéta Frýbová