Robert Kagan’s Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order, was originally published in 2003, shortly after the US intervention in Iraq and the fall of Saddam Hussein. In it, the neo-conservative Kagan asserted that the United States should benefit from its overwhelming military might to play the leading role on the international stage. Conversely, he said, Europe had ceased to have the slightest influence in the world because it refused to make enough effort on arms spending. The book appeared in the United States at the euphoric peak of George W. Bush’s presidency, and at a time when Robert Kagan risked little in preaching to the Europeans. If the latter wanted to be able one day to claim ‘mission accomplished’ then they ought, he suggested, to follow the US example and invest heavily in armaments. The French translation of Kagan’s book appeared in 2007 and sold reasonably well. But by then his work seemed more a campaign sponsored by the American arms industry than an essay on foreign policy.

In 2010, the United States had still not achieved its objective of creating democratic regimes in a Greater Middle East (extending to the borders of Afghanistan) that would be favourable to US economic, financial and oil interests. US troops are gradually withdrawing from Iraq without having fulfilled their assigned mission, and are bogged down in Afghanistan, despite a nearly threefold increase in the US military budget since 2000. The same authoritarian and corrupt regimes are still in place in the Middle East, and a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict seems further off than ever. Furthermore, anti-American sentiment throughout the region has developed and deepened.

Nonetheless for that, Kagan’s essay has frequently been drawn upon in France, even by parliamentarians, especially those on the National Assembly and Senate defence committees, and has been supported by various commentators and journalists. The best example of the latter was probably an editorial in Le Monde of 3 July 2010. Here, we examine that editorial alone, since it represents most concisely the opinions of those who advocate increases in arms spending.