Word: diplomat
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...basic problem is a growing mutual incomprehension, like a middle-aged married couple losing touch with why they used to love each other. One American diplomat calls it a "tectonic shift" of values and expectations. Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform in London, says that "the security threats applying to each side of the Atlantic are increasingly varied, and not of high salience to the other. The Americans worry about missiles raining down from rogue states. The European governing classes worry about the mess they made of the Balkans in the '90s and want to do better...
...partly to enlist popular backing for the increased defense spending Washington wants too. "It's not just an economic and financial zone, but an ensemble of countries that want to unite in order to manage their affairs better and play a role in international affairs," says a senior French diplomat. But few think tanks in Washington follow the E.U., few Americans have worked in Brussels, and when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld recently delivered a major speech on transatlantic ties, he never uttered the words "European Union." That captures Washington's view that Europeans fuss too much over the fine points...
...Bush's domestic politics also seem foreign in Europe-and in leading an alliance by persuasion and example, that hurts. Eleven out of 15 E.U. governments are leftist, "with very social preoccupations," says a senior French diplomat. There are conservatives in Europe too, but Bush's opposition to gun control, enthusiasm for genetic engineering and especially for the death penalty (it's banned in the E.U., but Bush as governor presided over more than 140 executions) are out of sync with the the thinking of many European governments. "Europeans were already worried about the cultural gap between them...
...only twins with differences in our family. My father, a writer and former diplomat, had an identical twin brother, Francis, who was a right-brained banker. Francis, who died in 1992, also had identical twin daughters. My cousin Rose is an intense adventurist while her sister Peg is softer and more traditional...
...only twins with differences in our family. My father, a writer and former diplomat, had an identical twin brother, Francis, who was a right-brained banker. Francis, who died in 1992, also had identical twin daughters. My cousin Rose is an intense adventurist while her sister Peg is softer and more traditional...