The Impact of Anti-Americanism on Democratic Consolidation in “New Europe”
Ivan Krastev, Center for Liberal Strategies, Bulgaria
April 21, 2003
National Endowment for Democracy
I should start with one of the first phrases I learned in English which is that “Nothing succeeds like success.” So, from this point to view, the fact that the war is over and that the “coalition of the willing” has become the “coalition of winning” basically has produced much more relief and joy in the European capitals than even in the Pentagon, because I believe that European leaders have been risking more, especially in intellectual terms. But I am going to make my presentation in two distinct parts. First I’ll try very briefly to give my interpretation why Eastern European countries decided to back United States over Iraq, because, as a result of my presentation in New York in front of the Council of Foreign Relations, my feeling is that there was not very much interest in information; it is taken for granted and basically not much thinking is put forth on what are the limits of solidarity, what kind of policies to expect from Eastern Europe. The second is going to be the problem of anti-Americanism, given my definition of anti-Americanism, and to talk about it both with regard to the soft power of U.S. but also with regard to some of the dangers of anti-Americanism for countries of Eastern Europe itself and not just for America.
So, let’s start with the famous division which Secretary Rumsfeld made between New Europe and Old Europe. The divide was there—the war on Iraq proved the divide—but I am not sure to what extent he is right about which is the New Europe and which is the Old Europe, because if you see the reactions of Eastern Europe leaders, it was much more in the logic of Helmut Schmidt and Helmut Kohl of the Cold War period than in the logic of Schroeder and Chirac. So, maybe the division is there, but maybe France and Germany are the New Europe and Eastern Europe is the Old Europe. I am saying this because, to a certain extent, this is going to be one of the most critical questions for transatlantic relations. I’ll start with the two most popular explanations of why Eastern Europe decided to back U.S.
One interpretation comes from the most conservative columnists in this country, and it is value-rooted. They said Eastern Europeans are like us: They like freedom. They remember what dictatorship is about. They are grateful to the U.S., not like the French, and this is why they backed us. I think this sounds nice—it sounds romantic, and it is nice for campaigning on the part of our own governments. But if you go to public-opinion polls, you are going to see that this exactly is not the case. There was a strong anti-war majority in most of the countries—anti-war majorities going 70 to 75 percent against the war. There were even majorities against our governments assisting U.S. in the war. Secondly, if you see also the compositions of some of the governments that backed U.S., you can see that they cannot be very much perceived as freedom lovers for the last 20 to 25 years. In fact, some of the governments who took this position were representative of ex-communist parties in the region. So, from this point of view, the value explanation has a power of its own, especially for people like Vaclav Havel and some others, or the position of Adam Michnik—this was about values and it was about dictatorship versus democracy. But I am afraid that if people go very much in this direction, then we basically are going to miss the fragility of the support.
The second interpretation comes from Paris; it is not so romantic. The French basically described East European behavior as the “March of Vassals,” because these countries used to be satellites and are always going to be satellites and this is why they decided to back U.S. This interpretation does not explain what happened because of a very simple reason: In regards to stick-and-carrot politics, France and Germany, with the power of the European Commission behind them, had the bigger sticks and the bigger carrots than Eastern Europe. From the point of view of power politics, the European Union, and in particular France and Germany, were in a much stronger position to twist the arms of Eastern Europeans, and France did a good job to show this is the case. If you listen to the famous Chirac statement at the February 17 meeting of the European Council, it was like this song from the Chicago musical: “If you’re good to Mama, Mama is good to you.” And this means a lot for countries like Bulgaria and Romania, where 2007 is not taken for granted. And till now we have not seen any chapter being closed during Bulgaria’s negotiations with European Union during Greek presidency. I am not going to say that is just the result of the Iraqi policy of Bulgaria, but I am saying that this type of instrument for pressure is there.
So, if it is not about values and not about vassals’ mentality, then it is important to ask who took decisions: political elites, who were very strategic and security-minded.
I am just going to give four arguments that were part of the debate, and I know well that in different countries it was different and for different politician it was different.
As you can imagine, Bulgaria is my paradigmatic country, so maybe I am distorting debates in other countries. But basically, first, if there is something very much in common between Rumsfeld’s New Europe and the United States, this is a common sensitivity about how insecure and fragile the world really is. This is the basic difference between Eastern Europeans and Western Europeans. West Europeans have been in a more secure world for at least the last 50 years, even more secure than the United States, especially after September 11. Eastern Europe does not have such comfort of security. Because of many reasons—of course the Balkan wars, but also transition—insecurity is part of the life and the world we’re living. From this point of view, I believe that this huge sensitivity gap between the U.S. and Germany and France on the level of public opinion, which we saw after September 11, was not so big between American and Eastern Europeans. We are living in different parts of the world, but not in two different worlds, using [Bob] Kagan’s type of metaphor. The second one has a lot to do with the fact that Eastern Europeans are less sensitive to the some of the key issues which have been dividing the West Europeans and U.S. for the last five years: Kyoto—neither Bulgaria nor the Eastern European elite is very keen on this; and the International Criminal Court—nobody knows anything about it. This is not part of the domestic political agenda. So, saying all this, these things which have been a very important resource for mobilizing anger with the U.S. were simply not present in Eastern European debate, especially in the mainstream.
Secondly, it is important to note that for the last decade there has been an asymmetrical nature to the negotiations between EU and the accession countries. There have been certain resentments building in East Europe against EU. Basically, the way some of Western Europe feels about the way the U.S. has been treating them is the way some of Eastern Europe feels that Western Europe has been treating them. And this type of resentment—especially the fact how certain decisions have been taken, how Eastern Europeans have not been hurt—was one of the reasons to believe that American presence in Europe benign. Even historically, we were right: It was the United States that was driving the enlargement process more than some of the European countries who have been opposed to the war; it was much more the Americans rather than the French and the Germans who were saying “Go east;” and, of course, the political elites know this. The strategic presence of the United States is seen as a guarantee that European unification will take place.
The next important issue, I do believe, is the Russian factor. Here, Schroeder and Chirac slightly miscalculated that some of the still-existing threat not so much of Russia but of the fact that French and Germans were much more ready negotiate with Russians. Let’s look at the message of the “Famous Three” meeting—first in Paris, and after that, in St. Petersburg—and it was presenting a new type of formula for European architecture. The classical NATO formula was that of America in, Russia out, Germany down. Here the formula was basically Russia in, America out, Poland around. So, the message here was quite clear that Eastern Europe is not important enough for Berlin and Paris when it comes to security issues, and they are very easily sidelined and marginalized. And I do believe that this was one of the important security arguments.
Also, and this is my last point, was that Eastern Europe understood that this is not about U.S. and European relations; this is about the division of Europe. What kind of Europe? A Europe based on anti-American sentiments and having anti-Americanism as the nation-building cement for a new Europe, or a pro-Atlantic Europe which is going to keep the unity of the West as a major priority? I am saying this because I do believe that people in the United States very much underestimate the role of Tony Blair and the United Kingdom for the decision of Eastern European countries to back the U.S. Maybe here—and this is very provocative—it’s never going to be tested, and this is more for Bulgaria than any other countries, but I believe that it would be very unlikely for Bulgaria to join the coalition of willing if the United Kingdom and other countries were not there, especially because of what all Eastern Europeans are afraid of is that this division is going to produce two parties: the European party, being the anti-American party, and the American party. So, Blair was extremely important. So, when the UN role will be discussed to Iraq, my prediction is the Eastern Europeans are going to be closer to Blair than to the position of the Americans.
Here I am coming to the problem of anti-Americanism, because what I believe is most important for the position of New Europe is the anti–anti-American stance. It was not this type of emotional pro-Americanism which most people wanted to see there, while it was there for certain circles of the population, but I believe that anti–anti-Americanism is what defines the strategic objective of Eastern Europeans in this case.
Let’s first of all ask: What is anti-Americanism? First, I don’t believe that anybody who disagrees with the American policies toward Iraq is anti-American. Secondly, I don’t believe that all people who have been on the streets of Paris or Berlin demonstrating against the war are anti-American, or anybody who is making jokes about President Bush is anti-American. I do believe that anti-Americanism does exist and that it can be easily defined as the belief that the U.S. represents the biggest threat toward security and the major objective should be to limit the political and cultural influence of the U.S. and to create anti-American ad-hoc coalitions. This is basically what I am saying and why the topic of anti-Americanism interests me.
I am saying this despite the fact that the American army was so successful and that the Iraqi crisis is going to the first stage, which is going to be the post-war stage. Nevertheless, for the last two or three months we have witnessed the decline of American soft power. People have been so fascinated by Bob Kagan that they have not taken the time to read Joseph Nye’s book on the paradox of American power. Though not as well written, some important arguments are still there. Basically, according to him, soft power is making the other want what you want: the power of the American model, the attractiveness of the American idea. This is something which was typical of the American presence of the last decade. America was stronger because everybody liked America and tried to be like America, not because America was pressing too much. For the last two or three months we saw this, and I do believe this is important; first we saw this in Germany.
In talking about this new anti-Americanism, now using Secretary Rumsfeld’s approach, I am going to say that we have old anti-Americanism and new anti-Americanism. The anti-Americanism which we are facing now is different from the anti-Americanism we faced in the ‘70s and ‘80s. I am going to give just one comparison: As you know, public opinion in Germany in 1981 and 1982 was strongly opposed to moving Pershing missiles into Germany. There have been demonstrations like now, there have been people on the streets, and they have been declining popularity of the United States. But Helmut Schmidt decided it was worse losing elections than losing America. This is not the decision that Schroeder did now, and this is not because of Schroeder; this is not a personal factor. Basically, the common security threat is not there: Germans and France are not afraid of Russia anymore.
Secondly, before, anti-Americanism was in the course of the Cold War, so anti-Americanism sentiments have been shared both on the left and the right. The real anti-Americanism, maybe with the exception of France, was always on the left. Those on the right who did not like America, they much more disliked the Soviet Union. So, to be anti-American was a luxury for the right. This is not the case now. I believe that one of the first new movements [aspects] is that anti-Americanism can easily cross the left-right divide and, secondly, anti-Americanism is coming into movement where both left and right are ideologically totally exhausted; ideologies do not work anymore. At the same time, you have political elites who desperately try to connect to their people, looking for words and sentiments to do this.
I’ll go basically to our part of the world, and here I’m going to make the argument from the perspective of a Bulgarian who should not be interested in the United States. Basically, what is most important is that the reform agenda—both the democratic and economic agenda—in Eastern Europe was wrapped in the American flag. When democracy came to the region, when liberal reforms came to region, it was basically first as an American product, so you have Coca-Cola and free markets being served on same table. What I am strongly afraid of now are some of these, the anti-market sentiments, some of the anti-democratic sentiments. We have this primitive accumulation of anti-market sentiments and anti-democratic sentiments in the past decade starting to find language in anti-Americanism, because anti-Americanism is such an empty box in which you put different slogans here and there in order to organize political interests. It all fits very well, the emptiness of the position in which you cannot have an alternative to democracy in the market, but at the same time you try to mobilize the discontent with democracy market and basically the transition itself.
Seventy percent of Bulgarians believe that the last decade is a lost decade; this is a huge majority. These people do believe that their wellbeing went down. They don’t see some of their expectations being fulfilled, and as a result, all of this ended in a protest against democracy, where basically you are going to punish present government, not being interested in what is going to be the next government. As a result of this, elites really started to search for ideas that will really please the people. What I am very much afraid of is that from this point of view, anti-Americanism can become this empty box in which some of the resentments, nostalgic communism, and ethnic hatreds can be very well put, very well managed, and served to the public. This is why, for us, anti-Americanism seen from Bulgaria can be a threat to democratic agenda itself.
I do believe that anti-Americanism can have a strong effect on democracy organizations like NED, because until now, democracy and the support for democracy were perceived on the fact that America was perceived as a benign power. If you see especially from the perspective of human rights—human rights even to governments, first of all, very much depended on the State Department being very active in human rights (human rights groups coming to the State Department, the State Department pushing the foreign governments to do this or that). But basically there was a consensus that human rights are universal values which are good for us. Now all anti-democratic and anti-market politicians are starting to frame both democratic and market reforms as just instruments of American hegemonic politics. So, it’s still not allowed to say that you are against democracy, but you can fight democracy by saying you are against the United States. And you can say this openly, and you can see in the case of Bulgaria, in Freudian terms, “the return of the repressed,” when the Socialist Party went on the streets and, of course, it was not about Iraq but how for the past 10 years they wanted to say how much they did not like America but felt they were not allowed. But seeing the anti-war demonstrations in Berlin and Paris, they felt safe—now it is legitimate, you can do it.
This has been my basic point, and in the last two minutes I will suggest a solution—no, I don’t believe really in the word solution. Maybe in the new global world the word solution should be deleted; there are no solutions anymore but at least certain approaches. What very much struck me when I have been reading American literature after September 11, that the American ideal is based on several types of experiences. One is the religious anti-Americanism which you can see in the Middle East, which is very value-based, rejecting American values, American culture, and American way of life. The other well-known anti-Americanism type is the very de Gaulle, anti-hegemonic type of anti-Americanism, which has been extensively studied and is known very well. And the anti-globalization, anti-Americanism combined with anti-market elements. I do believe there is a fourth type of anti-Americanism—and it the most important one—which is a functional type of anti-Americanism. Anti-Americanism could be a very empty box, and this is the reason for its strength as well as its danger. What kind of sentiments, what kind of sources of anti-Americanism are there? What kind of political groups are trying to use it? What is the sociology behind them? Are they young? Are they unemployed? So, this is my message. I really do believe that this first should be studied, that this is very much about local strategies, not simply hiring PR specialists telling people that America is good. It is not going to be enough, because anti-Americanism does not need America to function.
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