Reading Paper 1: “Power and Weakness”

Reading Paper 1: “Power and Weakness” Author: Who is he/she? Which institutions is he/she affiliated with? Is he/she famous for something? Date: When was this piece written? Is it dated? Is it before or after a significant event? In other words, what events going on at the time would have influenced the author or would help give context to the piece? Publication: What kind of publication is it? A magazine? An academic journal? If an academic journal, is it an important one? Is it known to be conservative or to the left? Thesis: What does the author want to prove? What is the hypothesis? This should be just one or two sentences. Gist: What is the gist of the article? Summarize its main points. Telling Examples: What are some telling examples of the argument? Be sure to indent. Critiques: Are you convinced? Why or why not? What is your reaction to the piece? Authors: Michael Alexander -- Studied at King’s College, London, and Yale and Berkeley. Specialized in East-West relations and defense issues. Also served in the Royal Navy. Some highlights of his career included being, foreign affairs advisor to Margaret Thatcher, and ambassador to NATO. Timothy Garden -- Studied at Oxford and International Relations at Cambridge. Worked at the Ministry of Defense, and was Director at Royal Institute of International Affairs until 1998. Member of various advisory boards, and honorary fellow of St. Catherine’s College and Oxford, among others. Published: In the academic journIn al ternational Affairs , published by Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs in the UK. Ranked #13 by TRIPS (Teaching, Research and International Policy survey). While Chatham House is sometimes seen as “pro-establishment”, it is also viewed as independent and is extremely well respected as one of the top think tanks in the world. Date: Written in 2001 before the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Europe had no direct threats at the time. The economy was good, and Europe was both at peace and prosperous. In Britain, people were still very supportive of Tony Blair and New Labour, but there are issues regarding aging populations and how to pay for social security programs. Thesis: Individual nations do not have the resources to support the kind of defence forces they require, so instead of remaining independent, they should pool their efforts and lend more power to the EU as a defense force. Gist: As inflation increases, it will become harder for nations to keep up sufficient military force at the level of current allotted budgets; European nations should pool and integrate their forces; nations should give more capability to the EU, which could more efficiently coordinate defense projects. Telling Examples: 1) UK as an example of inflationary problems—because of increased costs, but the same defense budget in recent years, officials have had to cut funding in some areas— i.e. “ In 1998, George Robertson cut tanks and aircraft to keep the capability for rapid deployment.” Eventually, if this continues, nations will fall to a point where it will be impossible for them to maintain any kind of military. 2) To be more efficient, European nations need to pool resources—everyone will have increased resources, and money will be saved. To do this, they could, for example, combine air-to air refueling capabilities, strategic airlift capabilities, integrate naval training, and integrate combat capabilities on land. Already, an example has been set by Belgium and the Netherlands, in moving to create common navy headquarters and support fleets. 3) The EU could take over jobs too expensive for individual nations to operate—like reconnaissance and combat search and rescue, ---and supplying common equipment, which is normally too expensive—like aircraft carriers and Unmanned Air Vehicles. Criticism: The argument in this article is convincing because it seems so glaringly obvious that Europe is not getting the job done as things are now. None of the countries has the capabilities it needs for proper security and defense, and none like the idea of spending more on it. So this seems to be the logical solution. Though problems could arise in this integration from standardization—common naval training sounds simple, but individual nations surely have their preferred methods—the authors make it sound easier than it is.