06/07/2011
Josef Joffe: “European countries have thought that lasting peace is guaranteed and they’ve had pretty good results up to now focusing their efforts on civil power. Terms like ‘reason of State’ and ‘national interests’ have lost the value they had centuries ago: this is what I understand as post-modernism”
“The European Union has not intervened in Libya, only a limited number of its member countries have”
“Europe will continue being divided in the near future because there is no common foreign, security and fiscal policy. These three areas are the hard core of European sovereignty. The European Union will be able to become the United States of Europe only when this is attained”
“In the aftermath of the Second World War, Europe went from an eternal war to the longest peace period of its history. Not just out of exhaustion but also because a greater power emerged: the United States. This country undertook a double task: a protecting one (against the Soviet Union) and a pacifying one (against other threats). The whole world profited from the security delivered by the United States”
“In Europe, armies have the same reputation as postmen. This proves the change in cultural mentalities that took place as a result of the end of the world wars, when security ceased to be a priority”
“The recent commercial-military agreement signed by France and Great Britain, two countries which have been historical enemies, is good news. But in spite of its great ambitions, now the agreement’s future faces its worst enemy: the lack of resources”
“The definition of war has changed: we no longer fight unlimited wars but chosen wars. Today we want to minimise face to face battles by replacing soldiers and ships with technology, but that entails more expenditure. Now we depend on quality, not quantity”
“Western democracies like quick and obvious wars with clear results. If they don’t have it this way, they quickly lose interest, as has happened with Afghanistan and Libya”
“Europe has been very lucky: it has gone from crisis to crisis without a strategic plan and in spite of the failure of the project of the single European army the outcome has not been that bad at all. It has been that lack of plans which has enabled it to become such a big continent”