European Geostrategy

20:43, 6 January 2010

By James Rogers and Luis Simón

With the noughties done and dusted, we thought it would be interesting to forecast the most likely and significant events of the coming decade, from 2010 to 2020. This is a difficult endeavour by any account, but nevertheless possible—and necessary. So, here are our projections for the next ten years:

1. The European Union will enlarge to cover Iceland and the Western Balkans, but Turkey will not be admitted.
2. The Franco-German engine will weaken in the European Union, potentially endangering the future of European integration.
3. After initially being very reluctant under a new Tory government, the United Kingdom will work with France to lead the European Union’s Common Security and Defence Policy.
4. Russian power will grow in the European Neighbourhood and Central Asia, while European power in those regions will decline, but only due to a lack of European unity, determination and political leadership.
5. China will become more aggressive politically and economically and will break out of the American ‘grand barrier’ in East Asia, which will lead to the formation of a counter-coalition led by India and Japan, aided by Australia and South Korea (making the United States very nervous).
6. Brazil will emerge as the dominant power in South America, meaning the Western Hemisphere will be more and more in play as tensions between Washington and Brasilia mount.
7. Piracy around the Horn of Africa will get worse, until Europeans eventually muster the courage to intensify their military operation in the region, which will require the naval bombardment of pirate havens on the land.
8. Iran will get bombed, either by Israel or an American-led coalition.
9. The European Union will learn nothing from the Copenhagen fiasco in December 2009 and will continue to hanker after multilateralism, to no avail.
10. There will be another Islamist terror attack on a major European or American city.

Obviously, we hope many of these projections turn out to be very wrong. But grand strategy requires that we plan for the worst, while simultaneously hoping for the best. If the European Union is to keep its head above the water, it seems clear to us that the new foreign minister, Catherine Ashton, has much work to do—and that the Member States must do all they can to support her…