The Old World, as a Swing Vote, Balances the New World Order

The policies that President Bush and the Europeans are haggling over may be complicated, but the politics are relatively simple.

World politics. Today, world politics is a game of two-out-of-three--the three players being the U.S., the European Union and China. As such, Bush has no choice but to be solicitous of the Europeans because they, sitting in the middle, are the swing vote. They hold the balance of power. And while Bush may yet prevail on issues such as his missile defense shield and global warming, he had better get used to being lectured to by the folks across the Atlantic because that’s going to be the norm for the tripartite politics of the 21st century.

To be sure, the U.S. is the strongest single planetary player, but its influence is lessened because it sits on the right edge of the world political spectrum. The U.S. government, measured by taxing and spending as a percentage of gross domestic product, is comparatively small. And the U.S. is home to the biggest and highest-profile multinational corporations. At any given moment, student radicals around the world are likely to be protesting, say, McDonald’s or Nike or Starbucks.

In addition, some social issues, such as the death penalty and gun possession, loom large on the world stage. It may be inexplicable that Europeans would be protesting the execution of Timothy McVeigh, but there they were, in the streets of Madrid, Rome and other capitals.

Many Americans may think that foreigners have no business worrying about our internal affairs, but the reality of globalization is that every country is subject to scrutiny by every other country. Yet isn’t the U.S. unfairly singled out for criticism? Maybe, but the issue here is politics, which is never to be confused with absolutes of right and wrong.

At the other end of the ideological spectrum is China, which is theoretically a communist state. Moreover, as a nonwhite, non-Western country, China has no small claim to speak for all the nonwhite, non-Western states--the majority of the 189 members of the United Nations.

Consider, for example, the makeup of the U.N. Security Council; the five permanent members are the U.S., China and three European countries--Britain, France and Russia. But in addition, the Security Council has 10 nonpermanent members, countries elected to two-year terms. So that nonpermanent membership has an inevitably “third worldish” and often anti-Western cast. The roster currently consists of Bangladesh, Colombia, Ireland, Jamaica, Mali, Mauritius, Norway, Singapore, Tunisia and Ukraine.

However, while China has an ideological base of sorts among resentful post-colonial countries, its power is undercut by its relatively small economy and, more seriously, the perception that its political system is tyrannical and unstable.

And so in the middle, between the U.S. on the right and China on the left, sits Europe.

Europe, of course, is defined today as the 15-member European Union. It may be an improbable entity--an agglomeration of Brussels-based bureaucrats whom nobody quite elected--but it has a larger population and economic output than the U.S. And spearheaded by its most forceful member, France, the EU continues to expand its clout; Russia, for example, has been lured by trade and aid into the EU sphere of influence. And just last week, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, running on a pro-Europe platform, was thunderously reelected.

Indeed, the world balance of power can be compared to what has happened in the U.S. For the past six months, Bush has sat on the right end of the U.S. spectrum, while congressional Democrats have commandeered the left end. In between are various moderates, including Sen. John Breaux (D-La.), Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Jim Jeffords (I-Vt.). These centrists will determine the fate of the Bush agenda at home. And so it is with the EU: It sits astride the fulcrum of power abroad.

So what should Bush do, domestically and internationally? Should he stick to his original positions, or look for new compromises?

Pundits have the luxury of time in answering such questions; Bush is on the spot right now.