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American Foreign Policy and its Thinkers

72 Europe in every way (from cultural heritage to economics and politics), in the last two chapters, Simms suddenly and fervently advocates Brexit. We learned from the previous chapters how important it was for Britain to remain deeply politically involved in Europe to check megalomaniacs, to counterbalance authoritarianism and to hold up ‘liberty’. Ultimately, this was to the benefit of all Europe, albeit with massive bloodshed before European integration replaced balance-of-power wars with institutionalised cooperation. Now, we are suddenly told that the future can be rosy with Britain going its own way, resurrecting colonial ties and being friends with all and everybody, and leaving the EU members to their own devices. Admittedly, Simms’s criticism of the EU is valid: the process of moving towards an ‘ever-closer union’ is bound to stall and cannot inspire Europeans with fervour as it is excessively bureaucratic and anaemic. Simms argues that the EU can acquire an emotionally rooted identity only if it takes the final plunge to become a proper superstate following the US and British model (peculiarly, Simms does not consider the model of the Holy Roman Empire), with an EU-wide referendum, rather than with incremental steps – two forward, one back. The EU does indeed seem to be founded on philosopher Jürgen Habermas’s ideal of a rational support for the constitution, which fits the cerebral views of a post-nationalist intelligentsia. But they have shown themselves to be out of touch with the gut feelings of large parts of the population, who might vote emotionally for the likes of Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump or Recep Tayyip Erdogan – or indeed for Brexit. But how it will be good for anybody if Britain remains aloof from future internal developments, whether revolutionary or evolutionary, of the EU is in no way explained by the narrative of the preceding chapters. If Britain’s ‘destiny has been to help shape Europe’, as Simms states, how can Britain be a force of good for Europe or even for itself from outside the EU? Chapters one to eight should be compulsory reading, and the criticism of the overly rational, overly bureaucratic EU, with its ‘process’ of moving slowly towards an ever-closer union (rather than taking the leap to form the United States of Europe) is well expressed. But the other conclusions of the book stand in contrast with its excellent historical analysis. 