Americans are from Mars, Europeans are from… nursery school?
Peter Wehner, formerly the head of the White House office of strategery, blogs for Commentary on his recent trip to a conference in Europe: I came away from the gathering (portions of which I missed) with several broad impressions. One was that multilateralism has become virtually an end in itself. What matters to many Europeans ...
Peter Wehner, formerly the head of the White House office of strategery, blogs for Commentary on his recent trip to a conference in Europe:
Peter Wehner, formerly the head of the White House office of strategery, blogs for Commentary on his recent trip to a conference in Europe:
I came away from the gathering (portions of which I missed) with several broad impressions. One was that multilateralism has become virtually an end in itself. What matters to many Europeans and liberal-leaning Americans is the process rather than the results. What almost never gets discussed is what happens when one’s desire for multilateralism collides with achieving a worthy end (for example, trying to stop genocide in Darfur or prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb). The child-like faith in multilateralism as the solution to all that ails the world would be touchingly innocent if it weren’t so terribly dangerous.
Do Europeans really have a "child-like faith in multilateralism"? Discuss.
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