Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Indeed, the map of Europe is about to move southward, and once again to encompass the
entire Mediterranean world, as it did not only under Rome, but under the Byzantines and
Ottoman Turks, too. For decades, because of autocratic regimes that stifled economic and
social development—while also being the facilitators of extremist politics—North Africa
was effectively cut off from the northern rim of the Mediterranean. North Africa gave
Europe economic migrants, and little more. But as North Africa states evolve into messy
democracies the degree of political and economic interactions with nearby Europe will, at
least over time, multiply (and some of those Arab migrants may return home as new op-
portunities in their homeland are created by reformist policies). The Mediterranean will be-
come a connector, rather than the divider it has been during most of the postcolonial era.
Just as Europe moved eastward to encompass the former satellite states of the Soviet
Union upon the democratic revolutions of 1989, Europe will now expand to the south to
encompass the Arab revolutions. Tunisia and Egypt are not about to join the EU, but they
are about to become shadow zones of deepening EU involvement. Thus, the EU itself will
become an even more ambitious and unwieldy project than ever before. This is in keeping
with Mackinder, who argued that the Sahara Desert denoted Europe's real southern bound-
ary because it cut off Equatorial Africa from the north.
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Nevertheless, the European Union, albeit beset by divisions, anxieties, and massive
growing pains, will remain one of the world's great postindustrial hubs. Thus, the ongoing
power shift within it, eastward from Brussels-Strasbourg to Berlin—from the European
Union to Germany—will be pivotal to global politics. For, as I will argue, it is Germany,
Russia, and, yes, Greece, with only eleven million people, that most perceptively reveal
Europe's destiny.
The very fact of a united Germany has to mean comparatively less influence for the
European Union than in the days of a divided Germany, given united Germany's geograph-
ical, demographic, and economic preponderance in the heart of Europe. Germany's popu-
lation is now 82 million, compared to 62 million in France, and almost 60 million in Italy.
Germany's gross domestic product is $3.65 trillion, compared with France's $2.85 trillion
and Italy's $2.29 trillion. More key is the fact that whereas France's economic influence is
mainly limited to the countries of Cold War Western Europe, German economic influence
encompasses both Western Europe and the former Warsaw Pact states, a tribute to its more
central geographical position and trade links with both east and west.
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Besides its geographical position astride both maritime Europe and
Mitteleuropa
, Ger-
mans have a built-in cultural attitude toward trade. As Norbert Walter, then the senior eco-
nomist for Deutsche Bank, told me long ago, “Germans would rather dominate real eco-
nomic activities than strict financial activities. We keep clients, we find out what they need,
developing niches and relationships over the decades.” This ability is aided by a particu-
