The war in Afghanistan and the coming war in Iraq are only the first of many military interventions. According to the the Washington Post, 04 September 2002:
"Marine Gen. Peter , the Joint Chiefs vice chairman, mentioned in a news conference last week that the scope for potential anti-terrorist action included - at a minimum - Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Lebanon, Syria, Libya, Georgia, Colombia, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and North Korea."
 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34847-2002Sep3.html

Note the words 'at a minimum'. There is also a strong lobby in the US for an invasion of Saudi Arabia, and the permanent colonisation of at least the oil fields. A permanent presence in Iraq is also planned. The United States continues to maintain troops in almost all EU countries, in effect occupation troops left over from World War II. There are now US forces in many candidate EU countries as well. Like all 'foreign garrisons', one of their tasks is to maintain a political and economic system acceptable to the occupying power. Although the US had different reasons for entering wars in the past, the outcome is the same. If the United States wins a war, it installs its political and economic system, and often backs this up with permanent garrisons. This creeping global conquest is historically more significant, than each individual war. That is the logic of this proposal, for a European declaration of war on the United States. It is also online at:

 http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/warusa.html

A European Declaration of war against the United States

The best European response to a new American war is not useless protest, but a declaration of war. A declaration of war would clarify the historical and future relationship between Europe and the United States. It should include a reference to the historical background, and a moral justification for the defeat of the United States - the logical purpose of any war. It should also indicate future policy toward the United States, after its defeat.

The historical relationship between the United States and Europe is essentially a civil war. The United States and Europe do share a common cultural background, but a common culture does not mean uniform common values. 'Western culture' has no common roots as a unit. It includes ethical traditions with diametrically opposed values, and that was already true in ancient Greece, which is often quoted as the first source of western culture. There was never a uniform set of values in Europe, or in the 'western world' after 1500. On the contrary, ideological and value conflicts were always present. They seem to have intensified over time, which is logical. New ideologies and values emerge - and the more propositions there are, the more there is to disagree about.

So it is logical that western culture also brought civil war, ideological warfare, total war, and wars of religion. It is not a monolithic system of uniform values, surrounded by other monolithic value systems such as 'Islamic values' or 'Asian values'. That vision of the world is a fiction, invented to justify imperial ambitions. Of course there are people who want a uniform western culture, and claim it exists - but that does not make it exist. Specifically, there are people who claim that the United States and Europe share a common culture and common values. This Atlanticist lobby in the United States and Europe is itself a political reality, but their claims are fantasy. Perhaps they have common values, but the rest of the joint population does not.

There is no geographical explanation for the 'Atlantic civil war'. It is a product of differential migration, a specific historic circumstance. A very crude model for the political culture of the United States is simply, that the European right emigrated to the United States and set up a base there to reconquer Europe. I emphasise that this is a crude model. European migration to the Americas was driven by all kinds of factors, not least rural poverty in Europe. It produced Canada, Argentina and Brazil, but only one United States. And of course most of 'the European right' did not emigrate anyway: unfortunately they are still here.

Nevertheless it is a historical reality that specific political and cultural factors shaped the United States, and that it is a unique state with a unique relationship to Europe. The US-American political tradition has its origin in one predecessor in Europe, and one only: English liberalism. As a result its internal political culture is monolithic: there is no equivalent of the left-right divide in Italy or France. A large proportion of the (white) population is descended from immigrants who deliberately choose to leave Europe, either through persecution or through poverty, and who thought they could escape both in America. The resulting mixture of anti-Europe resentment and belief in American superiority, is not found in, for instance, Brazil or Argentina. The national identity of the United States is, more than in other nation states, based on the shared belief in the superiority of the country's political institutions, such as the Constitution. Most people in other countries have never read any section of their own Constitution: it is irrelevant to their national identity. The economic system is also incorporated into the national identity, to an unusual extent. If you ask Poles to describe some things which are specifically Polish, it is unlikely that they would answer: "capitalism". To Americans that is an essential part of their culture - not simply an economic system favoured by the current government.

So although there is no single European state comparable to the United States of America, there are specific factors which separate the United States from 'Europe'. Anti-Europeanism in the USA, and anti-Americanism in Europe, are an indication that the relationship is not only unique, but is a relationship of enmity and hostility. That does not mean that war is inevitable. Europe could choose to simply surrender to the United States, if only by default - and to a certain extent western Europe has done that anyway in the last 50 years. An explicit choice for war, on the other hand, is clearly an ethical issue.

The moral justification for the war can not be separated from the geopolitical position. The United States is the only remaining superpower. It has sufficient military force at its disposal to eliminate resistance by any existing nation state to its hegemony. Only a European continental state can inflict a military defeat on the United States. No other non European coalition can do this. The United States is expansionist in nature. It has - again as a result of its specific origins - developed into a crusading state. The internal isolationist tradition in the United States is in long-term decline. It is very probable that the United States will attempt to create a world order which it finds minimally acceptable: a world order of liberal market-democratic nation states.

In other words - unless Europe stops the United States - no other economy than a free-market economy will exist on this planet, no form of state other than a nation state will exist on this planet, and no form of social life other than a liberal society. No political ideal or innovation, which can not secure majority support in a democracy, will ever again be realised. All humans will live in a liberal market democracy, no human will ever experience any other way of life, and no artefact or social form will exist, except those which are compatible with a a liberal market democracy. That does not necessarily mean, that there will be a McDonalds in every village. But the prospect of indefinite planetary stagnation is far worse anyway, and the possible preservation of cultural diversity can not justify it.

This is the primary moral justification for a war against the United States: to prevent it from fulfilling what probably is its historical destiny. Once a state such as the United States comes into existence - an expansionist ideological state with unipolar hegemony - it is inevitable in the long term, that it will remodel the world according to its ideology. Unless it is stopped, that is. There is no guarantee that its 'success' in this respect will ever be reversed.

This ethical issue is relatively new. Despite very large empires in the past (some larger that any existing state) no real 'world empire' was possible until the late 19th century. The technology was simply not available: the intercontinental telegraph and reliable ocean steamers and railway networks were the technological minimum. Their effect was visible in the 'scramble for Africa' after 1870. Unlimited conquest by small European forces proved possible: the boundary of the new colony was determined when the troops met the troops of a rival European power, the Africans had nothing to say on the matter. So if there had been only one unrivalled hegemonic European power in 1870, it would probably have created at least a tricontinental empire (Asia, Africa, Europe). After 1900, in other words, the issue on world empire is no longer "who can possibly do it?", but "who can possibly stop it?"

The existence of a crusading state on this planet is not in itself inevitable. It is also true, that without a crusading state, without any imperial power, the world could still develop a uniform order of societies and states. That has already happened in one respect: all existing states are modelled on the European nation states, a global victory for the nationalist ideology. Nevertheless a crusading expansionist hegemonic superpower exists, and it is the United States, and it is at war already. The ethical issue of whether to stop it is now unavoidable.

So the declaration of war could include this form of justification, which stand or falls on moral values:

- The United States as a nation, and the American people, believe in the superiority of their national values, their political system, and and their way of life. They hold their values to be universal in application (valid everywhere), and universal in their superiority (right and good everywhere they are applied).

- They regard their own beliefs on this issue as absolutely and self-evidently true, and define their system of values as 'freedom'. In consequence, they are unable to recognise the legitimacy of any resistance to the imposition of these values. Since freedom itself can not be an unfreedom, and since in their eyes their values constitute freedom, they tend to conclude that no person can suffer any coercion by the imposition of American values, and that no resistance to them can be rational.

- The United States does intend to impose its values by force, even if the force is initially used on some other pretext, or in self-defence. Officials of successive United States governments have repeatedly stated that they intend to bring freedom, to all or part of the planet. The United States has imposed its value system on certain other territories in the past, believing that action to be a 'liberation', and a benefit to the population affected.

- The United States will not cease or withdraw from this intention and strategy, and will not concede limits to its application.

- The United States will not de-recognise the universality of its values, or accept a territorial limit to their application.

- The historical consequence of this pattern is, that the United States has indeed imposed its values on successive territories, covering a cumulatively larger proportion of inhabited territory.

- The values of the United States, including liberal democracy, liberalism in general, the free market and the nation state, are wrong.

- Therefore, the prevention of their present and future imposition by the United States is morally legitimate and good.


Obviously, if you think the values of the United States are right, then there is no reason to support this declaration. Tony Blair once described the Kosovo air war as a "war for values" but he did not say which values. He was trying to suggest that the other side had no values, and that simply by having values, the NATO was in the right. That might be true if there was only one set of values - but there are many values, which are often diametrically opposed. A war between values - or between their supporters - is also a 'war for values'. The form of the declaration is designed to produce exactly that.

And what happens after the war? In the event of a US defeat, there are two relevant strategies. One is to preserve the United States, with its values, but ensure it can not impose them on others - a strategy of containment and demilitarisation. The second option is to break up the United States, in such a way that it can not easily be replicated, even if its territorial integrity is restored. It would however be futile to try to re-make the United States as a 'European' entity a possible third option. History has made the United States distinct from, and hostile to, Europe. It is no longer possible to go back to the beginning, and start again with a non-hostile version.