I’m not sure precisely why American conservatives have so much contempt for Europe, but a lot of it has to do with a perceived lack of machismo. Nolan Finley writes a kind of archetypal “we don’t want to be like Europe” diatribe in today’s Detroit News. Essentially, Finley argues that America is too fat, too addicted to big cars and huge homes, and too in love with spending nearly as much on defense as the rest of the world combined to accept the recently passed health care bill. If you want to know how those premises support that conclusion I guess you’ll have to follow the link and put on a tin-foil hat. But, the remarkable thing about Finley’s column is that it approves of America’s gluttonous, militaristic ways and actually thinks changing those characteristics will destroy what’s valuable about our country.

I have trouble with the defense of big cars and spacious homes part of his argument, but I can at least see his point on defense spending. If we only had to spend as much money on defense as European countries, we could better afford our social safety net. We can’t go on forever piling on debt, so eventually we’ll have to make some tough choices. And those choices might include drastically reducing what we spend on weapons. And, if we radically reduce our defense spending we might also have to radically reduce our military commitments around the world. I don’t just mean fighting wars, which hopefully we would only fight when necessary, but more basic commitments like our bases in Germany, Korea, Qatar, and elsewhere.

I don’t see any one-to-one relationship between increasing our commitment to access to health care and a reduced role on the international stage, but there is at least the possibility of a trade-off. Naturally, it is a trade-off that I would probably welcome if it was done carefully. The problem isn’t wholly one of America spending too much on defense. It’s also a problem with Europe not paying enough. For example, during the invasion of Afghanistan the Europeans needed to use U.S. cargo planes because they didn’t have the capability to mobilize by air. So long as we are the only ones who can move divisions and heavy equipment about by air, we will remain indispensable whenever there is some emergency, whether it be a tsunami in south Asia or an earthquake in Haiti, or an unfolding genocide in the Balkans or Africa. What I’d like to see is America gradually find ways to share responsibility for the being the kind of enforcement arm of the international system.

This is basically the opposite of the Wolfowitz Doctrine, which was developed in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union:

“The U.S. must show the leadership necessary to establish and protect a new order that holds the promise of convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests. In non-defense areas, we must account sufficiently for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our leadership or seeking to overturn the established political and economic order. We must maintain the mechanism for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role.”

It’s tough to give up control, and it doesn’t come without risk. There’s no doubt that China is going to exert increasing coercive pressure as this century unwinds, and they don’t currently share the democratic instincts of the other major industrialized nations that make up the international system. Russia isn’t much better. But part of the reason we worked so hard to keep Europe, Japan, and South Korea democratic was so the industrialized world would not again resort to world war or put the state above the individual. The countries that represented The West during the Cold War (including countries in the Far East) have thoroughly embraced democratic values and the principles we set out in establishing the United Nations. If anything, they’ve embraced these things better than we have. Together, we should be capable of maintaining the system and responding to threats and emergencies. But we need to give up a lot of control in return for the benefits of lower costs, less resentment, and a more balanced budgetary relationship between defense and human services.

If done gradually and with care, we’ll all be better off. Will that mean we’re just another nation like any other in the United Nations? I’m not sure why that would be a bad thing, but the answer is no. We’ll still be the most important player on a more even playing field. I’m not sure why that prospect terrifies conservatives.