The Lessons of Ancient History and the Future of Transatlantic Relations

Abstract

While a global recession of uncertain duration plagues the planet, the Atlantic countries are faced with an agenda of complicated, almost intractable international challenges. The surge of new protagonists on the world scene has been largely the result of a long period of relative stability and extraordinary economic growth thanks to the prevalence of Western paradigms. And yet they mark another step in the shrinking of the West's geostrategic relevance. Obama's America and half-integrated Europe should deal with this new multipolar world with a consistent and synergic approach, made up of a mix of traditional balance-of-power skills and systemic innovations. Over the past two decades, the US' solitary position at the apex of global power has made the analogy with imperial Rome common currency. While this is the wrong lesson to learn from classical history, the achievements and mistakes of ancient Greece and republican as well as imperial Rome may still help us, third millennium Europeans and Americans, sail through the stormy waters of today's planetary Mediterranean.

Notes

¹Merlini, “US Hegemony and the Roman Analogy”.

²Haass, The Reluctant Sheriff.

³See, for instance, Kupchan, The End of the American Era.

⁴Murphy, Are We Rome?; Huntington, Who Are We?

⁵R. Haass, “A troubling Middle East era dawns”, Financial Times, 17 Oct 2006.

⁶Toynbee, The World and the West.

⁷In her book, The Day of Empire, Amy Chua writes that while “Rome came closest to solving the problem of creating a common identity capable of generating loyalty among its far-flung subjects”… (330), “America cannot generally extend citizenship to foreign populations”, but “…there [are] other mechanisms through which the United States can, without losing its sovereignty, create a sense of shared purpose or even a kind of common identity” (336).

⁸See, for example, Lane Fox, The Classical World.

⁹See, for example, Veyne, L’empire gréco-romain.

¹⁰Kagan, ”End of Dreams, Return of History”, 17–44.

¹¹Brzezinsky, Second Chance, 205–6.

¹²R.Cohen, “Where stories are possible”, International Herald Tribune, 30 Oct 2008.

¹³M. Heller, “Making good on a pledge”, International Herald Tribune, 8–9 Nov 2008.