Somewhere in the massive collection I amassed a few years back, there is a Superman comic book where Supes was recruited to protect an alien culture from an aggressive neighber. The culture believed that violence was wrong, but was baffled as to what to do when confronted by a violent enemy. Since they were incapable of fighting back, they called on Superman because they had heard he was good at that sort of thing. Superman being Superman, he selflessly agreed to go out there and put the meanies in their place. After he had won, the aliens did not show him a bit of gratitude. He asked them if he had done something wrong, they answered that he had used violence. They abhored violence. It was time for him to leave. He would not be welcome back.

As Kagan articulately points out in his superb Policy Review essay how Europeans rely on the American militarism that they denounce, I couldn't help but think of the Superman comic. According to Kagan, the Europeans want to create a world where military might doesn't matter and every time we flex our muscles, we prove once again that the world has not arrived and that power still works. At the same time, someone still needs to keep the order and when diplomacy fails that someone is us. They don't worry about threats because they know we're there to take care of it when it does. We, on the other hand, are increasingly vigilant because when the dirt hits the fan, it will likely be us that (a) gets dirty first and (b) gets the dirtiest. They meanwhile can hide behind us. So what's to be afraid of?

I wrote on the subject a few days back, comparing Europe to a father well past his prime trying to order his much stronger sun around. Kagan uses the Mars-Venus analogy. In both cases through it's obvious that the Europeans fear our power because they don't have military power of their own and, in fact, no longer believe in its supremacy. The belief in multilateralism is as self-serving as it is magnanimous. I just hope they realize that their entire experiment rests on our ability to protect it.

Orrin Judd has a post on the subject as well. I'm not sure I agree with one point of his post, which is that Europeans won't be willing to work longer or harder in order to pay for a military. I don't think it's a matter of laziness or self-absorption, I think it's a matter of priorities. If they did work a 36th hour, they'd want it to go into some social program or another. Perhaps to the Palestinians. He's probably right that they won't raise funds to deal militarily with a problem in Bosnia, though. They've got us for that.