We’ve seen all the intra-European arguments about Lisbon (now in force for a full fortnight) – what we really need is some expert extra-European opinion. So ta very much to Philip H Gordon, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs at the US State Department, for his handy overview.

Key points?

- “the role of Member States in decision-making is undiminished”

- “The treaty… allows for some EU states which are at the forefront of defense cooperation to pursue greater harmonization of their defense apparatus without the limitations of those states who do not wish to participate”

- “the Lisbon Treaty represents a serious effort by our EU partners to streamline their policymaking process. We understand that, as with all efforts to reform complex institutions, this is a work in progress, and that it may take time for the new institutions to demonstrate their impact. Nevertheless, we hope that the changes brought by Lisbon will make the EU a stronger partner for the United States, and increase the role of Europe on the world’s stage. We want the EU to be that stronger partner and we certainly intend to do our part to engage closely with the new institutions, but in the end their ultimate effectiveness will be determined by the will of EU Member States to invest in them.”

Well would you look at that? The United States doesn’t seem to think that Lisbon has brought about a superstate (as some of our more hysterical anti-EU friends seem to believe), but rather that it continues to allow EU member states a great deal of individual power and flexibility. And the United States also seems to believe that – as its supporters have consistently maintained – the Lisbon Treaty is primarily aimed at streamlining the union’s working methods.

Oh, and just to add to what anyone with half a brain and the ability to read has been saying about the thing, Assistant Secretary Gordon also notes the increased powers that are going to the European Parliament – that’d be the increased democracy bit that we’ve been going on about for the last few years.

So, what’s the conspiracy that explains the US State Department echoing the EU’s own line on Lisbon – a line that’s supposedly dishonest propaganda designed to hide the true sinister intent of the treaty? Anyone?

(Sorry for the blogging silence here of late, by the way – very, very busy for the last few weeks…)

There’s a big row going on about President Obama’s proposed healthcare reforms in the US at the moment. It’s US politics, so holds little interest for me.

But then the Republicans – taking hyperbole and wilful disinformation to whole new levels – started bringing the British National Health Service into the debate (despite the NHS being nothing like what Obama’s proposing for the US). Sarah Palin (remember her?) has described the health service that my grandfather helped set up – turning down a very lucrative job in the private sector in the process – as “evil”. Various US right-wing rabble-rousers have repeated her hyperbolic description of the decision-making process of what drugs and treatments to offer on the NHS as being “death panels”, implying that the NHS is little more than a National Euthanasia Service – all in the name of smearing Obama’s planned reforms. It’s all sparked a major internet outcry from Brits disgusted at the sheer ignorance of some of these comments, slagging off a service that is, in more ways than one, a national institution.

I still didn’t really care, to be honest. It’s America. They do things differently there, and what they do has been up to them pretty much ever since that incident with the tea in Boston Harbour. (Well, bar us burning down the White House in 1814, but sssshhh…)

But then up stepped our old favourite Dan Hannan, blogging Tory MEP for South East England, and one of the most Eurosceptic (and, seemingly, out-of-touch) Conservative politicians going. He’s repeatedly been going on Fox News to slate the NHS in the most ridiculous terms – revealing either a complete ignorance of its services and functions or a desire to fellate the American right’s prejudices in a desperate attempt to revive his surprise YouTube success of earlier this year, which went down a storm in the States.

And so I got interested – because I’m increasingly coming to the opinion that Hannan (whom I previously regarded as intelligent and articulate, though with a disappointing tendency to play to the gallery) is a dangerous moron.

I’ve always slagged off the NHS as being wasteful, over-managed and unreliable – while still, please note, never for a moment thinking that it would be a good idea to get rid of it. But Hannan’s hyperbole, backed up with hugely out-of-date statistics, was just ridiculous – even more so than his bullshit claim that 84% of laws come from the EU.

So, over at Liberal Conspiracy, I’ve done a post in the only language right-wingers seem to understand: a US healthcare vs UK NHS cost/benefit analysis.

The results surprised me enough that I’m considering revising my previous preference for part-privatisation of the NHS…

I was up all night, drinking vast quantities of beer and vodka, finally getting to bed around 11am UK time. It was certainly worth it – even though it was all over by 4:30 (CNN called it for Obama at 4am, with McCain’s concession speech starting just 20 minutes later) and even though I now have the kind of hangover I haven’t experienced since my student days after grabbing about 4 hours sleep.

Obama’s victory speech was pretty much note perfect (while McCain’s concession speech was of the kind that reminded me why I always used to like the guy) – referencing past epoch-making speeches from everyone from Martin Luther King through Kennedy, Lincoln and Disraeli. It was so good I had to listen to it again, and again, and again to try and pick holes in it, without a great deal of success. He’s a hugely impressive public speaker of the kind I thought we might never see again. An almost 19th century feel to his seemingly effortless delivery.

But, though a little bit of excitement and hyperbole is more than permissible on such an undeniably historic day, us non-Americans – perhaps especially us Europeans – shouldn’t get too excited by President Obama.

He’s got a massive challenge ahead of him – and though I hate the exaggeration over the current credit crisis as much as the next man (exaggeration that Obama himself succumbed to in his speech, referencing the worst financial crisis in a century, when it’s simply not) it’s not over-the-top to say that Obama faces the most serious domestic challenge since FDR in 1932.

If Obama is to do his best for his country – and for the world – he must fix America’s domestic woes before he starts to look overseas. He needs to be sensible and not try to do too much, caught up in all this talk of history and destiny, when every African-American from Spike Lee to Condoleezza Rice has been cropping up on the telly with tears in their eyes. And us non-Americans need to be patient and always remember that he’s THEIR president, elected to serve HIS country first, not ours. Relations with the US will almost certainly improve – they would have done no matter who was elected this time around – but though the image of America has shifted dramatically overnight, we cannot expect a change in American foreign policy anywhere near as swift.

- As that all-important US election looms ever closer, EU foreign ministers are meeting today to discuss how to rebuild those battered ties between Europe and America that conventional wisdom sees as having been so badly damaged during the Bush years. Across Europe – hell, across the world – everyone is waiting for Wednesday’s result. But pretty much every prediction is just speculation.

- Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond, is Barack Obama (a half-Kenyan, half-American born in Hawaii and raised in Indonesia) just too European? Well, according to (some) Americans, perhaps.

- For Europeans there are a number of signs that Obama may not be quite as sympathetic to this continent as his famous trip here a few months ago might suggest. These are also hardly new concerns – and despite some promising signs that Obama realises the EU’s potential importance, there remains much we don’t know. So why is Barack Obama so popular in Europe?

- Shifting off to random bits and bobs, via Pubic Affairs 2.0, a long-overdue and most welcome addition to the European Parliament website: a handy range of RSS feeds. (Ignore the podcasts for now, though – they don’t seem to be overly regular…)

- The old straight bananas row seems to be back:

A leading supermarket has been forced to ditch a healthy eating campaign at the eleventh hour after discovering its staff could be individually prosecuted under EU regulations.

This, methinks, is worth looking into in more detail, especially as the Commission is set to rethink various fruit and veg regulations later this month.

- Will the credit crisis see the Eurozone expand, rather than contract? It may look attractive at the moment – but is the single currency a sensible option?

Two articles well worth a gander, both trying to work out the “new post-Cold War world order” that increasing numbers are identifying in the wake of the Georgia crisis, and slowly trying to define.

First up, from The Economist, this week’s Charlemagne:

Never has the European Union enjoyed such diplomatic prominence… Seen from Brussels, the Georgian crisis has exposed a tectonic shift in the global balance of power. It is not just that Russia is back. The crisis has also confirmed Europe’s sense of an America in relative decline…

A previous generation of EU leaders, such as Jacques Chirac or Gerhard Schröder, dreamt of a multipolar world, in which several powers would wield clout. Now something like it may have arrived. Yet today’s European leaders are not crowing. Talk to ministers and officials in private, and they admit that the new world order is making them anxious.

Next, a similar take from a more Russian perspective over at Eurozine:

The general mood in Moscow these days is that “Russia is up, America is down, and Europe is out. Russia, previously a Pluto in the Western solar system, has spun out of its orbit, powered by the determination to find its own system.”

…mutual suspicion, misperception, frustration, and paranoia are starting to determine the dynamics of the relationship between Russia and the European Union… In the eyes of the West, Russia has turned from a partner-in-the-making into an adversary-in-the-making. The mixture of mercantilism and messianism that is at the core of the Kremlin’s new foreign policy frightens Europe.

We’re in the midst of a new wave of historical revisionism, another period of reassessment of the shifts in world power following the collapse of the Soviet Union. This is nothing new – Fukuyama’s The End of History was published way back in 1992, and has been repeatedly attacked pretty much from the day it appeared for its claims that Western liberal democracy had triumphed. What does appear to be a new trend, however, is the emphasis on the role the EU may play in this new analysis – largely because its potential is seen as so great, yet its current impact on world events perceived as so minimal.

The one thing that does seem agreed upon is that the hesitancy of the EU is one of its defining characteristics. While Russia and America are reverting to Cold War rhetoric and tit for tat retaliation (“You invade Georgia? We’ll invest vast amounts of money there.” ; “You site missile defence systems in eastern Europe? We’ll point nukes at you.” etc.), the EU is sitting back and prevaricating. Cunning strategy, or just the inevitable consequence of the EU’s ongoing inability to work out its path following the failure of Nice, the constitution and Lisbon?

The US, Russia and the EU are all passing through identity crises – the US finding it’s neither as loved nor as powerful as it once thought, Russia shaking off the embarrassment of defeat through a resurgent sense of national pride, the EU going round and round in circles through indecision and a lack of clear purpose. How they will resolve these, we will have to wait and see. One thing that does seem clear, however, is that our current decade will be written about and analysed for decades to come – the new century bringing not just the US shift of The War Against Terror but also the emergence of Putin in Russia and EU stagnation following the failure of the Treaty of Nice back in 2001, all three developments whose long-term impact has yet to be resolved, yet which could well be immense. We are living in interesting times.

This will bear close analysis, even with the imminent change of regime in Washington. Running, as it does, to nearly 6,000 words, I don’t have the time just now, but will hopefully return to this on the morrow. For now, read for yourselves the statement made by the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs (apparently from the 9th, though it has only just gone online):

Russia’s intensified pressure and provocations against Georgia – combined with a serious Georgian miscalculation – have resulted not only in armed conflict, but in an ongoing Russian attempt to dismember that country.

The causes of this conflict – particularly the dispute between Georgia and its breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia – are complex, and all sides made mistakes and miscalculations. But key facts are clear: Russia sent its army across an internationally recognized boundary, to attempt to change by force the borders of a country with a democratically-elected government and, if possible, overthrow that government – not to relieve humanitarian pressures on Russian citizens, as it claimed.

This is the first time since the breakup of the Soviet Union that Moscow has sent its military across an international frontier in such circumstances, and this is Moscow’s first attempt to change the borders that emerged from the breakup of the Soviet Union. This is a troubling and dangerous act.

Today I will seek to explain how we got here, how we’re responding, and the implications for our relationship with Russia.

Needless to say, any shift in American attitudes towards Moscow will have some significant implications for Europe. What those will be we shall have to wait and see over the coming months – November’s election is getting increasingly crucial for Europe. I’d been intending to avoid commenting on US politics, but perhaps it’s time to look in more detail at what we might expect from McCain and Obama when it comes to Europe – as it seems that their attitudes towards Russia are going to be crucial.

From the press conference held by Condoleezza Rice this afternoon on the South Ossetia situation:

“the way that Russia has brutally pushed this military operation well beyond the bounds of anything that might have related to South Ossetia calls into question Russia’s suitability for all kinds of activities that it has said that it wants to be a part of…

I’m going to France because we support very strongly the European presidency, which is France, in its mediation efforts. I think it’s best that those mediation efforts now be in the hands of the French. We’ll continue to support those…

I am not going to sit here and judge each Russian military operation. I am going to say that when you start bombing ports and threatening to bomb airfields and bombing a city like Gori and bringing troops in a flanking maneuver on the western flank of Georgia and tying up the main roads between Georgia – between Tbilisi and Gori, that’s well beyond anything that is needed to protect Russian peacekeepers. And that is why Russia is starting to face international condemnation for what it is doing.

This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, where Russia can threaten its neighbors, occupy a capital, overthrow a government, and get away with it. Things have changed…

if you now look across Central and Eastern Europe, one thing that is also very different from just a few decades ago is that the countries that were liberated after the breakup of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, countries like the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, the Baltic states and the aspirants – Albania, Croatia, Macedonia and others are now – have made the transition and are making the transition into transatlantic institutions. That allows them both to resolve their differences and to have a reason, a spur, for internal reform and further democratization, the appropriate relationship between civilian and military leaders and so forth and so on. That is why Membership Action Plan has been so valuable, and it’s why the United States continues to stand for Membership Action Plan for Georgia and Ukraine….

Now, I’m not going to try to speculate on Russian motives, but let me just say the following. To the degree that there was intended to be some message beyond the frozen conflicts of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the message is not that Russia can use its military power in a brutal way against a small neighboring state. The message is that Russia has perhaps not accepted that it is time to move on from the Cold War and it is time to move to a new era in which relations between states are on the basis of equality and sovereignty and economic integration.

Now, Russia has said that that is the future that it wishes, that that is the future it wishes with the EU, that is the future it wishes with the United States and with any number of international organizations. So the message, unfortunately, that is being sent is that it is important to think again about whether, in fact, Russia will be committed to the kind of behavior that would make its involvement in those institutions appropriate.”

Now, what to make of that? The US administration has made its position very clear – complete and utter disapproval, couched in strong terms evoking Russia’s past unilateral belligerence during the Cold War (though not mentioning the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan, you’ll note – *ahem*).

But these are the words of an outgoing presidency, with only a few months left to go. Does the disapproval of Bush and co really matter to Moscow? And will Sarkozy – as EU president – take up the mantle and continue the tough talk? Can the EU risk being as bombastic in its rhetoric when cordial relations with Russia are so important for Europe’s ongoing prosperity – and when the EU itself is split between those who take the American line and those, like Germany and Italy, more inclined to the softly-softly approach?

The diplomatic fall-out of this one promises to be very interesting indeed. How the West responds could be vital – but tough words may not be enough. The US is in one of its constitutionally-prescribed periods of impotence; with a member of the Security Council one of the parties involved, the UN is not an option; NATO has no jurisdiction, and is seen by some as one of the catalysts; Europe is currently divided. And yet it is to the EU that the world seems to be looking for leadership and mediation – albeit without much expectation of success.

This really is interesting. For advocates of a single EU foreign policy, and of greater EU involvement on the world stage, this is an ideal opportunity to prove that Brussels has got what it takes. I’m pessimistic of the chances so far, but if the US is content to take a back seat on this one (which means less of the public Cold War rhetoric cranking up the tensions, more behind the scenes support) – and considering Sarkozy’s apparently passable relationship with Putin and the Kremlin – they may just be able to pull something off.

I’ve largely ignored Obama’s European vacation because – like that fairly shoddy Chevy Chase vehicle – I couldn’t see the point of it.

But one thing from his much-analysed Berlin speech did stick out – and I’ve not seen it commented upon elsewhere (though if you do want a good range of analysis, try Kosmopolit, Federal Union, EU Referendum, Jan’s EU Blog and Mark Mardell).

Anyway, here’s the line: “I come to Berlin as so many of my countrymen have come before.”

The press, of course, have been comparing this visit to JFK’s famous June 1963 visit. But Kennedy’s just one man.

Who are the “many” Obama’s speaking of?

At first I thought about making a joke about the invading armies of 1944/5 – America threatening Europe with a big stick if we don’t step back into line over The War Against Terror.

But then I pondered further – and yes, he probably did mean the Americans who beat back the Nazis. But not just them. The American occupying forces of 1945-89. The troops still on military bases throughout both Germany and Europe, relics of the Cold War. The technicians still working on early warning systems and plotting out new missile defence shields. The financiers, stockbrokers, accountants and analysts found in all major European financial centres and countless cities throughout the continent. The workers in American multinationals Europe-wide. The tourists who come in their droves to see what real history looks like. And on, and on.

Without post-war American investment, Europe would never have bounced back so quickly from the most devastating conflict the world has ever seen. But the Marshall Plan was not the end of the matter – once the Yanks arrived in ’44, they never went away again. Hell, the EU itself evolved in part out of the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC) and behind-the-scenes postwar planning by first Roosevelt, then Truman and (more subtly) Eisenhower.

Many have asked why a US presidential candidate has wasted time travelling to Europe during the campaign, not least his Republican opponent. Considering how intimately tied up America has been with Europe for the last 60 years, the real question should be why haven’t we seen more presidential candidates take the trip? Sod European self-importance, sod Bush’s poor people-management skills. If you invest your money somewhere, you do so because you expect a return on that investment. If you invest a lot of money, you sure as hell make sure that you manage that investment. How can so many American leaders have been so blase about a region in which their country has invested so much? Yes, the American people couldn’t care less about us foreigners – but it’s surely irresponsible to pay so little attention to any area in which the US has so much tied up?

Side by side each other in the Press Association’s “World News” headline feeds this morning:

Bush: World silent over Cuba ‘abuses’
and
Bush set to block waterboarding ban

Ha ha ha ha ha! I’m going to miss him when he’s gone. It’s like when Tony left – it’s just not going to be as easy any more…

Update: Sod it, have this as well. I love American politics, me:

Well I just have (sort of), and you can too (sort of).

A couple of weeks ago I had an email from a chap from the Post who’s currently chugging around the world investigating how the world sees America, and whether there really is any truth to that anti-Americanism nonsense we’re always told exists (my take on that little business here, albeit from a couple of years back).

I ended up meeting him for a few beers as he happened to be in London at the time, and ended up suggesting that – as he’s reporting in blog format – it might be an idea to get a few guest bloggers from around the world to chuck in their two cents.

So here’s his call for entries (which may or may not receive some cash, depending on what the powers that be at the Post / Newsweek decide), along with my inaugural guest post – a (relatively simplistic, for Brits) little introduction to Gordon Brown’s likely attitude towards the US.

Go on, give it a bash – any aspect of your own country’s relationship with the US, how you personally feel about the land of the free, whether it really is the home of the brave, whatever. Hate Bush? Love Hollywood? Blame America for everything that’s bad in the world? Praise America for preventing the USSR from conquering the world? Write about it, send it off, and you can brag about being in one of America’s best newspapers (sort of).