Geopolitics of the U.S V.S Europe
Introduction
Until the year 2014, the geopolitical situation globally had been a highly tumultuous in nature as a number of geopolitical rivalries resurfaced and became highly dominant and prevalent in various parts of the world. A few examples of such geopolitical rivalries having come to light are Crimea being seized by the Russian army, coastal waters of China being aggressively claimed by the Chinese government, Iran’s strategic alliance with Syria and Japan’s assertive and independent strategy among others.
Amidst all this, two nations that are much different from the above listed countries and those for whom the above trends are apparently alarming are the United States and the European Union, for these countries had moved far ahead in terms of the geopolitical aspects like territory and armed forces and are seemingly focused more upon various other issues related to the global order and governance. A few things of high importance for these two global nations are “trade liberalization, nuclear nonproliferation, human rights, and the rule of law, climate change,” among others.
Demographic trends can actually change and this change happens over years. The effects of demographics are much more long-stretched and have a much large impact than any other social or economic force. Specific attention should be paid to these trends by all those who impact international relations, politics, economy and sociology. The earlier part of this century saw an important change happening on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean and if this continues, it could open up a remarkable gap between the rich nations on both sides.
The western European nations have followed an established demographic path. As their prosperity increased after the 1950s, their fertility rates fell sharply. The average number of children born to each women fell below the replacement rate to about 1.4 from 2.1. The United States had a similar pattern until the 1980s, and after this, the fertility rate reversed dramatically and it reached almost the replacement rate. It was during the 80s and the 90s, both United States and Europe admitted immigrants. Europe followed the policy of admitting enough immigrants to keep the population stable. On the contrary, the Americans actually allowed their population to increase.
What are the impacts of such increase? It would have a myriad range of problems of urban sprawl and enhanced cost of education, at times even bringing newer forms of social tensions. Going by these standards, the quality of life advantage that Europe holds would be enhanced because of the demographic trends. If mere strength of population would lead to military or economic supremacy, China and India would have been the most powerful countries in the world. However, it is not true that population alone would make a nation a global power.
United States’ demographic exceptionalism is much more than reliance on raw numbers as it lays extreme emphasis on nature of the population growth and how it impacts demographic structures. It is just that there is a wider range of youth that are available in the United States. Europe’s population will age than the Americans. This will increase the load of education spending, but would have a negative effect on pensions and healthcare for the elderly towards the middle of the 21st century. It would even promote an entrepreneurial culture.
Economics
The average GDP of the United States is much higher than the average GDP of the EU15, measured in terms of the purchasing power parity (PPP). The main reason for this difference is that the more number of Americans are employed and they work 20% more in terms of number of hours per year when compared to the Europeans. If these factors are adjusted and viewed, surprisingly there is no difference between Germany, France and the United States. This is revealing to the Europeans preference for work and leisure. There has to be factoring of political history for explaining this. The main differences between the United States and the Europeans is the taxes. In the United States, people pay their taxes to the Federal government.
The Federal government has the authority and the power to expend that money on income security, healthcare and defense as it pleases. If there is a natural disaster in one of the States, the Federal government could use the funds from the taxes to help the state. In contrast to this, in the European Union, the taxes are collected by individual countries and there is no fiscal union.
Another important difference is in labor costs. The cause of the European crisis is the price of work between the core and periphery. Spanish wage bills have dramatically increased since the beginning of this century, eventually making their products highly uncompetitive in nature.
While on the other hand, the wage bills in Germany have not had an increase ever since the Euro was adopted as its currency. This has supercharged German exports. If these two were to converge to make the Eurozone workable, there would be a lot of pain in Spain. In contrast to this, in the United States, the Southwest and the Far-west – the two regions that have the maximum difference in the labor costs are actually much closer together.
On the other hand, the European economy due to internal problems shows anemic growth and a number of countries still cannot recover from the shocks of the crisis of 2008-2009, and to overcome the recession. To get out of the economic impasse and take full advantage of the fourth technological revolution, the European financial authorities (primarily European Central Bank President Mario Draghi) embarked on the saturation of the banking and real sectors of the economy of the EU countries liquidity of € 60 billion per month, taking over the-the most recent US experience in policy or monetary stimulus of quantitative easing (Quantitative easing).
Another important difference is in income variation. In the previous century, despite personal income growing across United States, it also has converged creating a dramatic impact, which is not so in case of Europe.
Geography
Geographic indication (GI) schemes had been bone of contention between the United States and the European Union for some time. GI products are essentially those which are categorized under PDO (protected designation of origin). This identifies a product as originating from a particular locality where quality and reputation are identifiable and attributed to that particular location. For instance, ‘gouda’ and ‘permesan’ are examples of the cheese names that are protected by the GI systems in Europe. Feta for example, is an American GI name.
The trans-Atlantic trade and investment partnership has been holding several rounds of discussions to arrive at a solution. 95% of the GIs do not pose any specific problem. However, names like Feta and parmesan are bones of contention.
Politics
There are several major political differences in how the Europeans and the Americans are governed. The European parliament or the Europarl (EP) is a body of the European Union. The council of the EU and the EP form the bicameral legislative branch of the EU.
This bicameral legislative authority is said to be one among the most powerful legislatures in the world. However, their powers are extremely restricted and limited to the competencies conferred upon it by the European community at large. This institution has hardly any control over the areas of policy making of the member states. The parliament consists of the 785 members of the European parliament (MEPs), which serves the second largest democratic electorate in the world (after India).
The United States of America, in contrast to the above, is governed by the Federal Government and carries out all those roles assigned by the federation of individual states. The Federal system has the executive, legislative and judiciary as its three branches. Each of these branches are separated and there are checks and balances that have been ingrained into the American political system and have authority to act on their own. Each of these three branches have the authority to regulate the others, while having some of its own authority. The total powers of the federal government are limited by the constitution leaving a large amount of authority to the individual states.
Environments
It is said that an average American produces thrice the CO2 emissions as in an individual in France. The northern Europe and almost the entire Europe is far more environmentally conscious than most of the United States. As per the World Bank data, “CO2 emissions (kg per 2005 US$ of GDP) for the European Union is 0.3.” This is despite the fact that the Americans are really sincere and very passionate to be ‘green.’ However, the per capita CO2 emissions in the United States is almost 20 tons when compared to less than half of it in the United Kingdom and roughly about 6 tons in France among other nations. As per the World Bank report, “CO2 emissions (kg per 2005 US$ of GDP) 0.5.” The Americans have made precious little headway despite the fact that they feel genuinely and seriously for the cause of the environment.
Europe, probably is endowed naturally to be greener when compared to the United States. However, in Europe, behaving environmentally responsible has become a way of life and has immense social pressure too. In Europe, it is far easier to behave responsibly and it would make one feel bad if there is no responsible behavior towards the environment. It is okay and permissible to carry a plastic bag in New York and everybody does too. However, carrying one in Dublin would make you standout like a sore thumb, and the individual carrying a plastic bag would feel highly irresponsible.
The United States is a large, expansive, and rich country with loads of space and cost-effective energy. The Americans have their national parks, but still live in large houses, drive their big cars and use large fridges and central air conditioning. They also use cloth dryers and disposable razors. Americans are almost callous about Mother Earth and it is more because of their lifestyle and thus the per capita emissions are thrice as much as in Europe.
Conclusion
The original Americans were definitely Europeans and they have European origins. However, over 200 years of development and living, has created vast differences in the way the Americans and the Europeans live. The way of thinking and solving problems has been dictated by the local environmental vastness and necessities.
This is true of both United States and the Europeans. For instance, in Europe, televisions come out of stores bereft of packing, thus producing lesser wastage. Garbage is collected once a week, essentially pushing citizens to produce as little waste as possible. The Swedes do not turn up the heat until they live a few chilly weeks of winter, covered in sweater. On the other hand, the Americans drive larger cars, have bigger freezers, live in large houses, and almost consume energy recklessly.
These kind of differences, along with expansive spaces that almost does not impose any kind of restriction on thought process while little thought and concern for environment has made the United States a fairly environmentally expensive nation. However, some of their political, demographic, and economic systems that the United States has developed over a period of time exude excellence all over. This is setting path and trends for the entire world and leading by example.
United States is definitely a natural global leader by virtue of excellence that it has created for itself in many aspects of human life and beyond. While this is true, Europe is more environmentally conscious but they need to do a catching up act on several other dimensions to be the global leader.
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