Old vs New. With us and not:

The coalition to invade Iraq is shaping up. According to the New York Times, we read that:

Over the past several months, as Mr. Bush has mounted his argument for forcing Iraq to disarm, the president himself has once again become the issue here. In interviews in three capitals over the past week, diplomats, politicians and analysts said they believed relations between the United States and two of its most crucial allies — Germany and France — were at their lowest point since the end of the cold war.   ...

From the French Foreign Ministry to the chancellor's office in Berlin, there is broad acknowledgement that the breach between the United States and its traditional allies in Western Europe has gone beyond the friction that has long been a staple of French-American relations or the misunderstandings that have grown since the cold-war ended. Senior officials insisted in interviews that in France and Germany Mr. Bush had not made the case that Iraq posed a more imminent threat than, say, Al Qaeda.   ...

Mr. Bush has made no secret of ranking his allies by their fidelity to his missions. Britain remains at the center of his universe, with Prime Minister Tony Blair a reliable ally. After that comes Poland, the most gung-ho new member of NATO, whose president, Aleksander Kwasniewski, said in an interview last week, "if it is President Bush's vision, it is mine."

Next in line is Spain, whose conservative prime minister, José María Aznar, "probably talks to Mr. Bush more frequently than any other European leader," a White House official reports. Then comes Australia, Italy — with a third conservative prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi — and Russia, led by a man with whom Mr. Bush seems to have bonded, President Vladimir V. Putin.

Currently the status of Russia is unclear, so we'll ignore it for now. But let's take a quick look at the other countries mentioned. How do they stack up? How substantial are Germany and France, Rumsfeld's "old Europe"? Here's a quick look at population and GDP in trillions of dollars. (Data and country links above from CIA factbook)



Did you know that France, Italy, and the United Kingdom have virtually the same population and GDP? It's almost too perfect.

In any event, it does appear that the U.S. has - for the moment - the support of most of Europe. ("most" being a simple measure of the countries strength)

posted by Quiddity at 1/24/2003 09:11:00 AM