The World Without Commitment of America and Europe

It is ironical. In the early 20th century, the West was overconfident to assume “white man’s burden”, which led to the zenith of imperial capitalism, and ultimately, the most devastating World Wars in history. But today, a reluctant and self denying West is responsible for global disorder. It is not just Obama’s superpower suicide. In Britain, the House of Commons rejected R2P action to Syria, which gave a blow to Cameron’s ideal of inheriting Blairite liberal interventionism. Also Germany turns less willing to endorse European integration in view of the burden of helping financial crisis of Greece and Cyprus,which gives rise to isolationist nationalism.
During the Cold War, a solid Transatlantic alliance was the anchor of the Free World. This helped American alliance spread across the Asia Pacific and the rest of the world. After the Cold War, NATO expanded their mission to Afghanistan, in order to manage globalized threats out of the Euro Atlantic sphere, typically Al Qaeda terrorism. But currently, both America and Europe are hesitant to use their hard power and soft power for global and regional public interest, and pursue heir own recluse happiness. What happened with the West?
Both in the United States and Britain, people are tired of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Partisan politics and weak economy hurt their global policemanship. Autocracies like Russia and China, and terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda make use of such annoyance for their favor (“The weakened West”; Economist; September 21, 2013). The heir of Greco-Roman civilization and the creator of universal liberal norms is disposing the burden for global public interest. TO BE CONTINUED