Clash of Civilizations
In the battle between America and Europe, we better hope that they prevail.

But both these kinds of interventions (Bosnia and Iraq), as well as more conventional conflicts, would require of Europe some things it does not have: a rapid reaction force and a will to use it. In the late 1990s, Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac called for establishing such a force, but Europe's attention has been directed inward, and no such force as yet exists. What's more telling is that the United States, for all its claims that it would like more allies, is dead set against such a force. Indeed, as the Cato Institute's Christopher Layne has noted, the United States is arguing that each European nation should develop some niche military capability rather than have Europe develop an autonomous force. By the same token, the United States encouraged the European Union to expand eastward in hopes that the new nations would bring perspectives widely variant from those of the western states. It has also voiced concerns that in the preliminary plans for a European Constitution, individual nations will not be able to veto a foreign policy agreed upon by a majority vote. The White House's ability to pick off a Blair here, a Berlusconi there, would be totally undermined.

In short, the United States has been conducting a preemptive war against a unified Europe for some time now.
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