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«QUESTION [De um membro da plateia] To reformulate Kagan, perhaps America is Mars and Europe is Uranus. The real question for me is: Why is Europe relevant? Where can Europe be a help? If I go through your four articles, the last, your point about climate change, is still very much in question scientifically; but it's typical of the kind of thing that the European countries get themselves fascinated with. I've lived through the Club of Rome, when we had the "population bomb." Nowadays Europe is suffering a population bomb of depopulation; it is facing economic collapse over that depopulation; and yet it wants to tell America to get involved with the Kyoto Treaty and things like the International Criminal Court. Where can the Europeans do the heavy lifting on these four issues? America has assumed the lion's share of the burden. I'm not sure it's because we want it. I wonder if it's because Europe can't really do much about any of it. You know, the Far East became our largest trading partner back in 1978. It has only been accelerating since.»

TIMOTHY GARTON ASH: I think, if I may say so, you have just perfectly captured a dangerous American illusion. It is true that the United States, with its overwhelming military superiority, can win most wars on its own. That is true. But as we are seeing in Iraq, it cannot win the peace on its own. That's my first point.

Second point: if you were to address the causes of terrorism, why people become terrorists, then you have to address the conditions of the wider Middle East, of the Arab countries. Who is right next door? Where do they export to? Where do their people go to be educated? Where do their people emigrate to? Who can offer the prospect of economic improvement through making a trans-Mediterranean Free Trade Area? Europe, Europe, Europe. These are things you can only do with Europe.

You mentioned China and the shift of U.S. trade to the Far East. China is now Europe's largest trading partner. European trade with China grew 44 percent last year. Do not believe that you can simply structure an economic relationship with China, treating Europe as a marginal irrelevance. I mean I don't want to use the remaining time by going through the whole list of issues and demonstrating to you how vital Europe is for America to realize its own vital interests; but I do believe that what you have just said is a very, very dangerous illusion. And you know, it is our children who will be paying the price for that illusion.

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