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January 24, 2008
This report Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World: Renewing Transatlantic Partnership makes for interesting reading. The authors propose:
abandonment of the two-pillar concept of America and Europe cooperating, and they suggest
aiming for the long-term vision of an alliance of democracies ranging from Finland to Alaska. To begin the process, they propose the establishment of a directorate consisting of the USA, the EU and NATO. Such a directorate should coordinate all cooperation in the common transatlantic sphere of interest. The authors believe that the proposed agenda could be a first step towards a renewal of the transatlantic partnership, eventually leading to an alliance of democratic nations and an increase in certainty.
As Paul Rogers comments at Open Democracy "the common transatlantic sphere of interest", and develops the view that only a "super-Nato" can guarantee security for its members and order in the wider world. The key assumption underlying this approach deserves to be brought out. This is that the north Atlantic is a fundamentally civilised community that is under threat from the forces of disorder - by implication, the barbarians at the gate. This notion of an essentially benign order is at the core of the western security paradigm: "we" embody liberal democracy rooted in the free market, which together represent the current apogee of world civilisation.
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