Why did the United States sound the alarm about the European crisis? The pressure has been going on since last autumn with a crescendo culminating in the rough face-off of the financial G7. And yesterday the US president returned to office. The most obvious explanation is that Barack Obama fears he won't be re-elected next November. The risk is high, Romney is consolidating, and without a robust recovery, voters are far more likely to want change anyway. After all, this is the climate that blows in every country, America is certainly not immune. On the contrary. Ordinary people are convinced that the United States is still in a recession, despite the fact that the gross product has risen without interruption since 2010. But asphyxiated growth by stars and stripes standards, unemployment that remains high, families struggling to reduce their debts, the housing market at a standstill, all this turns the official figures into a statistical illusion.
Therefore, the USA are no longer able to act as a locomotive for the economy. Hope that it could be China has vanished as the world factory slows down. To some extent it is good for reducing domestic inflation and deflating the housing bubble before it bursts. But the impact on international demand is negative. Therefore, it would be up to Europe to take the torch in hand, but in these conditions the EU is a ballast.
In the new post Cold War paradigm, economic security is a matter of national security for Americans. The Institute for Strategic Studies explains it very well in a research curated by Sheila R. Ronis who leads the national security reform project mandated by Congress. Bill Clinton he put it in black and white. With Robert Rubin, “the Cavour of globalization” as John Morton calls him, set i three guiding principles: the United States was to function as the facilitator, the relay of a single global market e maintain peace and stability so as to allow the proper functioning of the multilateral system of mercantile and financial exchanges. Rubin worked with Larry Summers and Tim Geithner. But the central banker, Alan Greenspan, also shared the same approach and to make the mechanism work better, he had advised the young president to restore public finances and bring the budget into balance. George W. Bush has also remained faithful to that doctrine and so is Barack Obama, all the more after the new alliance with Clinton.
In the aftermath of 11/XNUMX, the great fear was that a financial attack would start that would bring down Wall Street. Hence the order to print money at breakneck speed. He tells it Greenspan in his autobiography and here lies the root of the monetary policy "errors" committed in the following years: no one felt like deflating the big bubble at that point. In the economic-political equilibrium of this new decade, it is now clear that the areas of primary strategic importance surround two seas: the Mediterranean and the China Sea. To control the latter, the US relies on Japan and, increasingly, on South Korea and the Philippines (not to mention that Vietnam is becoming an essential country in the containment of Chinese expansionism). For the Mediterranean, we need Europe. Well, the Arab Spring and the Libyan war have shown that Europeans move in random order, tempted by the adventurous cult of direct action as in the case of Sarkozy or by the discreet charm of disengagement as in the case of Germany.
NATO itself, at this point, is at risk. While it appears alarming from every point of view that the three pillars of military stability in the Mediterranean are weakened and left to themselves: Italy, Greece and Spain. Coincidentally, the countries prostrated by the crisis and pilloried by Germany. For Italy, the upgrading of military bases is already underway and the decision to equip drones on Italian territory with missiles is a clear message (also in view of a possible conflict with Iran that nobody wants, but which everyone they talk). In Greece, the key structures are the ports targeted by the Chinese for economic reasons and by the Russians for strategic-military reasons. As for Spain, more secluded than the Middle Eastern arena, it is nonetheless essential to contain the North African social and political wave.
Security and stability, therefore, are absolute priorities that embrace, without interruption, economic, foreign and military policy. The Americans would like the ECB to print money, buy government bonds and banks in difficulty, while governments feed the ESM which should start in early July. That could reverse market expectations and give at least six months of time (probably much more) allowing the Greek tragedy to be consummated and to wait for Germany to go with less anguish and, hopefully, more vision, to the vote in September 2013. In the meantime, the American elections will have passed.
If Obama wins, the multipolar, will increase his pressure for Europe to become more and more an active and unified player. If Romney prevails, who is not an isolationist, is very pit is probable that the US will act in a more drastic way, recovering the full autonomy of the dollar (both towards the euro and towards the yuan) and by upping the military ante in support of Israel and against Iran. At that point, Italy becomes a giant aircraft carrier.
All of this is part of the diplomatic work ahead of the G20 (on the 17th and 18th in Guadalajara, Mexico). It should also enter the European summit at the end of the month. If the crisis is not finally faced with a political dimension that is not only Eurocentric, there is no way out. It is in Italy's interest that this happens, Mario Monti realizes this. And since last January's meeting he has rightly highlighted the bond between Italy and the United States, sometimes tarnished, never loosened and has once again become firm in this phase.
The prime minister should therefore appear in Brussels with two dossiers under his arm: the debt crisis on the right and the new Mediterranean strategy on the left. Pressing Germany on this and challenging Berlin to show the solidarity of an ally that has failed in the case of Libya and in the strategy on illegal immigration (although here the worst snub came from France). Everything holds, one of the analytical and political errors committed by the Germans is to have isolated the financial aspects of the crisis, cloaking them in ethical-ideological justifications, sometimes founded, sometimes victims of clichés and prejudices. What is needed today is an all-round approach. This places new and perhaps even more serious responsibilities on the frontline countries. But they need a solid rear and secure supplies: as any good commander knows, wars are lost when the vanguards are isolated. The Americans call it overstretching, but Napoleon has already paid for it. Not to mention Hitler.
