When German government officials became convinced that chemical weapons had been used against Syrian civilians, they presented Chancellor Angela Merkel with several options for how to respond.
Discussions also took place between Berlin and Washington about how to punish the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, widely believed to be behind the attacks. But with Germany’s federal election campaign drawing to a close, Merkel was in no position to support the use of military force. Germany’s voters would not accept it. It would be politically too damaging for her.
It’s true that Germans have a huge aversion to any kind of military intervention. But they are no longer the only ones, as the annual Transatlantic Trends survey, conducted by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, makes abundantly clear. In Europe, most people now oppose the use of force.
The poll’s findings have important strategic implications for Europe’s security and defense ambitions. If Europeans are not prepared to have the use of force at their disposal, then their diplomatic efforts—at both EU and national level—will be undermined. Moreover, if Europeans are not even prepared to act over the use of chemical weapons in Syria, what can they do to prevent other countries from using them?
Transatlantic Trends interviewed respondents in ten European countries and Turkey. Asked whether force was sometimes necessary to obtain justice, only 31 percent of those polled said yes. Most Americans, in contrast, still believe in the use of force: around 68 percent think it can become necessary, according to the survey.
When questioned about Syria in particular, the Europeans gave an even more clear-cut response. Nearly 75 percent of respondents rejected any military intervention there. Germans, Portuguese, Slovaks, and Spaniards were particularly adamant about not wanting to get involved.
In Turkey, 72 percent of those asked said their country should keep out of Syria. That contrasts sharply with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s more aggressive stance, which has been focused on regime change in Syria.
But Americans want to stay out of Syria too, as President Barack Obama discovered the hard way when he lobbied Congress to sanction strikes against Syria.
There are several possible explanations for this reluctance to use force. One is the sheer weight of war-weariness and casualties from the interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Another reason is the fact that in Europe in particular, publics are highly skeptical about the results of the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. They are unsure about the long-term goals and benefits of military intervention, and have become doubtful about imposing Western values on countries undergoing tremendous changes.
Furthermore, the debates in Britain and France about supporting a U.S.-led military intervention also exposed a growing anti-Americanism.
But Transatlantic Trends reveals something else about European publics: they are becoming very inward-looking. More and more Europeans seem to believe that they can live in a comfort zone insulated from the crisis engulfing their neighbors.
This comfort zone negates the need to take responsibility for defending the European liberal order. Indeed, the implicit message from Transatlantic Trends is that if this mood continues, Russia and China will be calling the shots. Yet when European respondents were asked if they believed Russian leadership in world affairs was desirable, 27 percent said no.
Most of Europe’s leaders are neither challenging these insular views nor explaining that crises in Europe’s neighborhoods breed their own regional instability.
Yet herein lies a contradiction. Despite their insularism, Europeans continue to take a positive view of Europe’s role in global affairs. According to the survey, 71 percent of European respondents said that strong European leadership in world affairs was desirable—down only 5 percentage points from 2006.
If that is indeed the case, then European leaders have a difficult act to follow: they will need to reconcile their publics’ global ambitions with a foreign policy that cannot rely on the threat of military force.
Is that what Europe really wants?
Comments(3)
I don´t know what Europe really wants. But wouldn´t it be time to question the assumption that one cannot have a successful foreign policy without using military force? That would of course mean that we have to become much more attentive and imaginative in the conduct of our foreign policy than to let nature (tyrans) take its course only to eventually intervene militarily with not very convincing outcomes.
71% wants strong European leadership, yet only 31% supports the use of (military) force? Isn't that shameful, that we've become a continent of cowardly, introspective and frightful people? That the death of 100.000 Syrians isn't enough to warrant our attention? Granted, we can finance the refugee camps like no-one else, just to soothe our bad consciousness... The good point is that whatever the outcome of this particular crisis, Europe's reputation as a global or regional leader won't (cannot) sink any lower.
"71% wants strong European leadership, yet only 31% supports the use of (military) force? Isn't that shameful, that we've become a continent of cowardly, introspective and frightful people?" In my book that's merely the result of a massive economic crisis directly on our doorstep mingled with more than a decade's worth of wasted effort, lives and money sunk into failed attempts at westerns-style nation building in muslim countries. The former affects ordinary people's lives directly whereas the Middle East and its unrest are hundreds or thousands of kilometers away (and can be ignored by switching off the TV). Are you seriously surprised that the interventionists are no longer en vogue after ten years of trying and failing spectacularly? "That the death of 100.000 Syrians isn't enough to warrant our attention?" And what exactly would you propose? Another ISAF mission to "protect" another pointless attempt at imposing western-style democracy on a society which ticks differently and which is fragmented along sectarian lines in itself? Another military-political quagmire to install a "friendly" central government (which turns out to be as corrupt and inept as every single "friendly" government installed by western interventions to this point) while merely providing islamists yet another playground in which to practice their jihadist dreams in fighting western forces? The window for a potentially positive intervention in Syria was slammed shut when the coalition of the willing went far beyond the mandate of the UN Security Council and Resolution 1973 and decided to faciliate a regime change in Libya. Especially France and Britain built that particular bed, now they have to sleep in it.
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