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Article: Europe Adrift.
- Article from:
- The Washington Monthly
- Article date:
- September 1, 1997
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 Washington Monthly Company. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Europe today has broken with the past more completely than at any time since the end of the Thirty Years' War and the Peace of Westphalia in 1648," claims John Newhouse, one of this country's shrewdest observers of the old continent. But this break with the past has not produced a new set of policies for the future. Events, not governments, have taken charge.
In Newhouse's view, "Western Europe had a good Cold War.... The threat from the East obliged Western Europeans to huddle together and helped them to break bad habits." Now that threat is gone. The result is a unified Germany that has become the largest state but provides little leadership; a divided ...