"Old" vs. "New" Europe--and America: France's geopolitical intentions enjoy a history going...

The celebrated Letter of the Eight expressing support for the U.S. stance on Iraq has been seen as giving substance to U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's evocation of "New Europe" as a counterweight to the "Old Europe" of France, Germany, and their satellites. There is an obvious historical resonance in Rumsfeld's remarks: one of the Eight was Portugal, and it was in discussing Portugal's affairs in the Commons in December 1825 that British Foreign Secretary George Canning made his famous claim, "I have called the New World into existence, to redress the balance of the Old.