In its worst moments, Europe seeks peace at any price, even what Saint Thomas Aquinas called a bad peace — one that consecrates injustice, arbitrary power, and terror, a detestable peace heavy with vicious consequences. Europe postulates freedom for all but is content with just its own. It has a history, whereas America is still making history, animated by an eschatological tension toward the future. If the latter sometimes makes major mistakes, the former makes none because it attempts nothing. For Europe, prudence no longer consists in the art, defended by the ancients, of finding one's way within an uncertain story. We hate America because she makes a difference. We prefer Europe because she is not a threat. Our repulsion represents a kind of homage, and our sympathy a kind of contempt.

What is the point of our bad conscience? To purge our faults and to avoid falling back into old errors? Perhaps. But it serves mainly to justify renouncing political action. If the Old World invariably prefers guilt to responsibility, it is because the first is less burdensome; so one puts up with a guilty conscience. Our lazy despair leads us not to fight injustice but to coexist with it. We delight in tranquil impotence, and we take up residence in a peaceful hell. We allow ourselves to be overwhelmed with words of blame, a role we willingly adopt so as to be accountable to no one and to avoid taking any part in world affairs. Remorse is a mixture of good will and bad faith: a sincere desire to close old wounds and a secret wish to be left alone. Eventually, indebtedness to the dead prevails over duty to the living. Repentance makes of us a people who apologize for old crimes in order to ignore present ones.

Source

In some ways, I feel for Europe. She tends to fall into two errors: domination and pacifism. As Dennis Prager puts it, after World War II, the Germans only learned not to fight. But their errors weren't caused by armies, their errors were a product of their philosophies. National Socialism was rejected, but socialism was not. Hitler was rejected, but Hegel was retained. "Hard" eugenics were briefly rejected, but "soft" eugenics are on the rise yet again. After Nazi paganism led to some of the worst atrocities of the twentieth century, a softer, more dilute paganism is yet again popular. The idea of knowing your particular belief is right, and all the others are wrong, was rejected. They're absolutely sure this new view is right, and others are wrong.

But I disagree with the author a bit here:

Europe has developed a veritable fanaticism for modesty, but if it cannot preside over the destinies of the whole world, it must at least play a part, retain its special voice in favor of justice and law, and assume the political and military means to make itself heard...

Europe's modesty is a false modesty. She already constantly lectures everyone else. What are the UN NGO's except mouthpieces for the European worldview? What tiny country has arrogated itself "universal jurisdiction" — the ability to prosecute anyone, anywhere, for any crime it deems fit? Why, Belgium, seat of the European Union, moral giant among nations. And how is it possible to criticize the US at every turn unless Europe knows herself to be morally superior? Europe still wants to run the world, it just doesn't want to be held accountable for any of the consequences.

Until her philosophies are fixed, Europe will be of no use to anyone, armed or otherwise.

Sadly, the US is heading there as well.