Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

France helped create the European communities with the understanding that they would be dominated by France (West Germany was broken, Italian was a junior romance-speaking partner, and Benelux was influenced by the Walloons of Belgium). The unification of Germany and expansion of the ECs into the EU drowns out France's powerful voice.

Britain's traditionally favored expansion to limit Paris's power. Now France goes along, because the machine it created functions so well without it.

That said, Ukraine seems like the best next logical member, after the West Balkans.

Dan--Not sure the boys in St. Petersburg would concur, but I do. Getting the Ukraine in would be some kind of fight. Miliband and Kouchner help out everybody.

Miliband does sound like a Barnett reader - defining the EU not as a "super state," but as a definer of rules. Interesting that the EU, not the US Constitution, is becoming the internationally-accepted model for the spread of globalization. This is why I think Barnett's ideas about adding states will not work, and we are more likely to see NAFTA evolve into something more like the EU. The EU model, as long as it is able to keep away from the over-bureaucratized constitutions put out by Belgians seeking to make themselves more important than they ought to be, offers a lot of flexibility. It can even tolerate periodic secession without incurring a civil war or other form of collapse. For example, high oil prices have driven Norway out for now (I predict that Scotland will follow in the near future), but it could well come back in in a few years after global warming, etc., drives the international economy away from oil. The key is that the EU is not based on any notion of "sovereignty", but only on the necessity of following certain basic rules.

I think all the previous commentors are right to a point. Seems to me the question (and the point of Miliband's speech) isn't so much "Who should join the Union?" so much as "How should the process take place?". If it happens like a college fraternity picking new pledges (he's in, he's out, they're European, they're not), the EU will have troubles with some pledges- err, new members- miss good picks elsewhere, and have troubles with Russia which still wants to be the boss of its own club. By concentrating on expanding their rule sets to their neighbors, they gradually create societies with whom integration will come naturally-- or whose independence from the Union's will matter as little as Norway's.

Speaking of which, Stuart, remember that oil isn't the only trump card Norway has. They also have the world's largest thorium supply (important when somebody perfects thorium-based nuclear power) and the lion's share of Europe's Arctic claim.