ABSTRACT
In a much-debated article, entitled "Power and Weakness" appearing in the American journal Policy Review (June-July 2002), Robert Kagan presents a powerful contrast between American and European attitudes towards power and international relations. He makes two important points. First, Americans and Europeans (allowing for oversimplification of both categories) live in very different worlds and represent two increasingly divergent worldviews and strategic cultures. The Europeans are "Kantians" who have entered "a post-historical paradise of peace and relative prosperity". They favour peaceful solutions to international problems through diplomacy, persuasion and negotiation. The Americans live and believe in a "Hobbesian" world in which in ternational rules are deemed inefficient and unreliable and where security and order is seen to depend on the "possession and use of military might".
