Where else is Europe to find the kind of political authority that gives a civilization a future? I make the case at Foreign Policy:
while both Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler possessed hegemonic ambitions and left ruin in their wake, the contrasts between the two are rich with significance for Europe’s future. Hitler, a plebian and civilian, sought to absorb Europe into a political party, not extend it with an empire. Bonaparte, a professional soldier born to Genovese nobles, spread his armies across the continent in a quest for political unity, not racial Lebensraum.
We’d do well to contemplate why the closest modern Europe has ever been to such unity is when it was Napoleonland. As the European Union’s paltry political authority heads for the funeral pyre, German economic strength is still no match for the unifying power of historically French ideals and the relative legitimacy of French political leadership.