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Pastimes : Kosovo -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MNI who wrote (11543)	6/11/1999 10:12:00 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17770

Re: Gustave, that's very interesting indeed, but I missed an important point. The UK entered only at the last line: That's the economical/political background you should keep in mind when assessing the power game between the US, Germany, France, the UK, and their puppet satellites (ie Russia, Italy and Spain for France; Eastern and Nordic Europe for Germany). so it cannot be called a conclusive end to the posting. As a minor correction I will counter the assumption that Germany "cannot interfere in the Middle East". Not only France, also Germany took part in the scelerous race for the Iracqian weapons market that pumped up Saddam so strongly,... You should know that, politically speaking, Great Britain is widely perceived by the rest of Europe as a rehash of Voice of America. The UK doesn't have a proper foreign stance: if one wants to know the British policy toward any geopolitical topic, all he/she has to do is tuning in the TV on CNN! Besides, when it comes to economics, the UK industrial infrastructure was drastically transformed by the Iron Lady's medicine.... Today, the UK is perceived as a commercial ''aircraft carrier'' for Japanese and US transnationals who use their UK subsidiaries as economic Trojan Horses inside Europe. After all, the only economic assets that remain properly British are: the City (at least the British financial institutions), British Petroleum/Amoco, Royal Dutch/Shell, British Aerospace, ICI(?), and that's it! All the British auto industry has been gobbled up by the Germans and the Japanese and IT companies are all subsidiaries of Japanese or American powerhouses. A sociological explanation was offered by an American scholar, David Granick, in his book titled The European Executive (NY, DoubleDay, 1962): the British upper-bourgeoisie and aristocracy disdained the businessman and always had an amateurish bias when developing new or existing industries. The Engineer figure was never such an important character in the UK as it was in France and Germany. That's one of the reasons, according to Harvard Pr D. Landes (in his last book), why Germany and ultimately France surpassed Great Britain in the XXth century. France set up prestigious bourgeois schools such as Ecole Polytechnique or ENA and Germany further fostered an internship policy in order to have universities working closely with corporations... Well, in the end, British power elites have had no problem in writing off the bulk of their own industries and handing them over to foreigners: that's likely the biggest difference with Continental Europe. The French would never, ever abandon their precious car manufacturers to a Japanese or a German, much less a Yankee competitor! Similarly, the Germans are very pleased with globalization --so long as Germans are calling the shots! Up to now, for Germany globalization has meant ''German firms buying foreign firms'', not vice versa! So, while the British bourgeoisie feels at home in a globalized economy because English is its new lingua franca and, somehow, British folks share most of the multicultural values of the US (free trade, protestantism, liberal morale,...), the French and the other European bourgeoisies have entrenched themselves in a Continental resistance. I think the reason is that for Germany or France to successfully challenge the Anglo-saxon empire, they need first to take over Europe: as soon as France (or Germany) will have all the European levers in her hands then a more assertive attitude will be possible. The main geopolitical issue for the next 10/15 years is the following: A French/German iron hand in a European velvet glove (to challenge the US and... who knows? China!) My 2 cents, Gustave.