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If I had a Hammer: A Review of Kagan's “Power and Weakness”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Olaf Dilling

Extract

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In recent years it has become a truism that after the Cold War Europe no longer plays the important role it used to play. The focus of US foreign policy seemed to shift away from Europe towards other regions like the Middle East or Asia. This process is even accelerated by the recent disagreement of European politicians with respect to the U.S. led military action against Iraq. The climax of this development was Chancellor Schröder's strict and explicit rejection of a German role in any form of military action against Iraq, be it sanctioned by a UN Security Council resolution or not. German Federal Minister of Justice Herta Däubler-Gmelin was axed in the wake of the tensions and replaced by Brigitte Zypries after she compared Bush's war against terrorism with Hitler's strategy to concentrate on foreign policy in order to distract attention from domestic problems (thereby, as the Economist put it, giving a fine example of “the pot calling the kettle black.”).

Type
Special Issue
Information
German Law Journal , Volume 4 , Issue 9: Special Issue , 01 September 2003 , pp. 963 - 969
Copyright
Copyright © 2003 by German Law Journal GbR 

References

1 America and Germany - The Poisoned Relationship, Economist (26 September 2002), <http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=1359855>..>Google Scholar

2 Kagan, Robert, Power and Weakness, Policy Review No. 113 June/July (2002), <http://www.policyreview.org/JUN02/kagan.html>..>Google Scholar

3 See, the cartoon on http://de.news.yahoo.com/020912/294/2yjfj.html Google Scholar

4 Armin von Bogdandy, Supranationaler Föderalismus als Wirklichkeit und Idee einer neuen Herrschaftsform. Zur Gestalt der Europäischen Union nach Amsterdam 32-38 (1999).Google Scholar

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6 “Und sie folgen den alten amerikanischen Regeln, wenn jemand einen Hammer hat, dann sieht die Welt wie ein Nagel aus. Sie haben leider einen Hammer. Dieser Hammer heißt eine Armee, also haben sie die Neigung, Probleme als militärische Probleme zu sehen.” Johan Galtung, Wiener Friedensgespräche, 11 July 1999, http://religion.orf.at/tv/vis/vi90711.htm> (Translated into English by the author).+(Translated+into+English+by+the+author).>Google Scholar

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10 See, The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, The White House, Washington, September, 2002. The Strategy bluntly expresses a specific mixture of national interest and missionary fervor: “The U.S. national security strategy will be based on a distinctly American internationalism that reflects the union of our values and our national interests. The aim of this strategy is to help make the world not just safer but better.”Google Scholar

11 Kagan, Robert, Power and Weakness, Policy Review No. 113 June/July (2002), <http://www.policyreview.org/JUN02/kagan.html>..>Google Scholar

12 See, Weiler, Joseph, Transformation of Europe, 100 Yale L. Rev. 2402 (1991); http://www.law.nyu.edu/weilerj/unit5/UnitV02.htm CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Niklas Luhmann, Recht der Gesellschaft, ch. 6 (1992).Google Scholar

14 Satura Iuvenalis VI (“But who is guarding those guards…?”).Google Scholar