So we’re coming close to the end of the year and many media are starting to reflect on the past year. Was it the year of Iraq? Or was it the defining year for Bush? Or both? A quick look at my site statistics reveals that this article was the one that was the most visited and read of all the stuff that I have produced this year. It got a link from Steven Den Beste, it triggered an Instalanche and resulted in quite a number of e-mails. And all of that happened with good reason. Long before this year started it had become apparent that Europe was facing some serious and fundamental challenges: political and monetary integration, immigration from former Soviet bloc and Muslim countries, a graying and shrinking indigenous population and serious conflicts at the doorsteps of the old country fortress. Some up and coming politicians in various countries had warned about the impending dangers, yet they became the subject of vile ridicule by a complacent political elite and politically correct media that had lost the ability to think and act outside the box of pre-conceived ideas. As with so many things that are left unattended, something will happen that brings them back into focus in a very dramatic and unpleasant way.

The intent to enforce UN resolutions and disarm Saddam Hussein put the predicament of the old continent right into the spotlight. The EU was again, remember the former Yugoslavia, unable to bring itself to the point to play a meaningful role in enforcing freedom and democracy in the face of evil. Tony Blair (my vote for this year’s edition of Time’s Man of the Year), the one leader trying to build a bridge and salvage the for Europeans crucial transatlantic relationship with the US, was rebuffed by the two key European continental powers, France and Germany. They did that with both confidence and arrogance, knowing they were in the midst of shaping their new nation state and took the impending conflict in the Middle East as the key issue to differentiate the old country from the confident and assertive new country across the sea that had come under direct attack from Islamist radicals. They gambled that this move could lay the foundation on which to build a joint European foreign and defense policy separate from what Washington believed in. It would define Europe as a power in its own right. And now the opportunity was there to accentuate the difference between the statist European elites and the Anglo-Saxon free-marketeers: we are not the same, we have a different view of life and the last thing you are going to do is involve us in a war where your interests are materially different from ours, or so we think.

I say that because there were other reasons that forced the Europeans to play this card: a sizeable Muslim minority in Europe required them to be careful when engaging in a conflict in the Muslim heartland and close economic ties with Saddam were maybe worth preserving after all. And, other smaller European nations would no doubt follow the Franco-German charge it was assumed, and it was not just the littler ones that joined the pack, retired superpower Russia happily threw its weight behind the Berlin-Paris axis. Some argued that Vladimir Putin expected to reap a long-term economic windfall from building a trans-European partnership, others pointed that his economic interests were based on the short term given Russia’ close ties and involvement with Saddam. Whatever the case, Europe was drifting in an odd direction and only a few countries followed their healthy geopolitical instincts by siding with the US-UK coalition which resulted in the defining “Old Europe, New Europe” analysis from Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. The net result was the most serious rift in transatlantic relations since the Second World War, relations that up that point had defined the security structure of the world. With a Republican leadership that was markedly different from the previous generation of moderate atlanticist Republicans, the chances of America accepting the disconnect as a matter of geopolitical fact had grown phenomenally. Not only had the rift revealed different strategic approaches, it had re-emphasized in Washington the knowledge that it would have to go it alone in Iraq. Possible and likely future ventures could equally be of a go-it-alone nature.

The French and the Germans had embarked on a questionable strategy but to some extent they must have taken comfort from their strong and dominant position on the continent. Yet, the divisions over Iraq had set the tone for a hefty debate among some European nations, as not everyone within the old fort was comfortable with what had happened over Iraq. And there was more to come, again with France and Germany in a lead role. During the second half of this year both countries breached and effectively destroyed the Stability Pact governing the EU’s common currency, turning even a good old Euro-complier like The Netherlands into a fierce and angry Euro-skeptic. And that was not all. Towards the end of the year it had become impossible to reach an agreement on the draft European Constitution, the key summit having failed and the hope for a resolution postponed to next year. It seems that what was designed as a steady and seamless integration of European countries into one-nation state with one currency and one constitution had hit some serious and unforeseen obstacles.

So the leaders within the European house have not only severed the transatlantic umbilical chord, they have started a conflict within the family. Only time will tell if these fissures can be mended, but if they can’t or if they have initiated a fundamentally changed world map, then the year 2003 will go down in history as the year of a seismic geopolitical shift. That’s why 2003 was the year of Europe.