You've got to be an American college student, right? =)
Naaah, but I do spend a few months there per year.
The EU has far more in terms of investment opportunity and credibility of reach in global markets in the present day than does the USA. This trend will only increase. Your statement about France just tells me you don't really know what you're talking about - Europe is transitioning from a relatively closed rigid society to one which is gradually being forced to accept high rates of immigration and new cultures. Much of the religious extremism in Europe today stems directly from old racial classes spilling over from the imperial era. Europe needs immigrants (most European nations are well become replacement rate in terms of fertility) and will gradually liberalize their integration system to accept them. The period today is transitional in nature, but all signs point to eventual stabilization as the last of the old order of Europe disappears with the increasing powers of the EU. France is largely the main obstacle to this process.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_civil_unrest_in_Francehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_civil_unrest_in_France2 great riots. Both caused by the police doing their job which is not something spilling from the imperial era. It comes from the fact that immigrants feel
they own France, not the French. And when there is civil unrest (caused by a minority) because of police doing their job, it is not a good sign for the future, because the minority is growing and so is the problem.
As for military opposition, military solutions are terribly one dimensional, particularly in popular American culture today. Military solutions solve few things, if any (since apprximately 1972, anyway), and as I already pointed out, strategic defeat no longer correlates to tactical defeat.
But it was the Barbarians that conquered the far more civilized and advanced Roman Empire once Rome stopped fighting.
Who cares it was one dimmensional? The Barbarians that became the owners of Europe, or the former Romans that lost everything?
In short, the lines you just wrote are nothing more than typical conservative one-dimensional thinking regarding the state of the world, and countries thinking that way throughout the next century are going to get a real economic kick in the ass.
The ones that are going to get a kick in the @$$ are those that spend more and more cash on the unemployed instead of giving them the impulse to find a job. War doesn't have much to do about it.
IMHO, the dominance of military superpowers in the global community ended in 1979. Economics now paves the way to success or decline in the modern world, a fact that Bush is now learning much too late.
Judging by the fact he's using (actually- overusing) bin Ladens mistake of 9/11 to get the resource needed most for economical growth today, I hate to say that he's learned enough about economics.
And there is no dominance in military without a stronger economy, as proven by the failure of the USSR where tanks were cheap and cars were rare.
Oh, and BengalTiger, that is quite a spot on analysis on EU. The only thing to comment is that EU has a larger population than US and by current estimates it seems to have a larger GDP. This is not surprising, EU is economically strong area, but I'm not sure about the actual manufacturing. If manufacturing is outsourced, the economy tends to go down afterwards.
The US has a smaller unemployment rate (4,4% US vs 7% EU in 2006), smaller % of people working in agriculture (0.9% vs 2.1%), and a larger GDP per capita ($44 000 US vs $29 900 EU), and that's what I based my claim about US > EU on.
I'm not really a racist, and have met some nice Muslims around, but it is true that the Muslims have a large minority in France and Germany, enough to cause large scale problems. Even here they would prefer to have the Sharia law, instead of the law instituted by this country. My solution would be to kick those people out. No need to enjoy the asylum, freedom of speech, free schooling, financial support or medicine, etc. etc. all provided by that unpreferred law. For me it is either accept and obey or don't come.
Run for president, wherever you live. I fully support the idea of kicking out those guests that feel like they own the place.
I also fully support those who migrate and know how to adapt to wherever they move in.
Besides, even I can't speak much good about EU, what I know about it is that the system is far too byrocratized, too far away from common people to ever function properly. It will never have a quick response time, nor will there ever be a common consensus of anything. I see it mostly as a huge resource hog, that will take more than it can give. The only positive effects that I can see have been the common currency that is accepted around almost everywhere and the (almost) free mobility around. Which is actually not much different from the time before EU, if you don't count the money thing.
Well the big change in creating the EU is that people and goods can travel freely throughout the Union, and that is a big factor in speeding up the economy. Another thing is that the poorer countries get financial aid which also is a boost, even in terms of the whole EU.
You're also right about the problems.
Oh, and not all European countries are as pacifistic as mentioned, nor are the people in them. According to my understanding, the inactivity is caused by the vested financial interests. On the other hand, come to think of a campaign planned by French, executed by Italy and Spain... come to think of it, you might see why the EU doesn't do too much militarily...
Well the way I see it, the reason that the EU doesn't go to war that much is the fact that any war they'd fight would be an attack on some minority living in France, Germany or wherever, making a much better reason for riots than criminals dying while running from the cops.
