Last week, economists stated that China overtook Japan to become the world’s third largest economy (after the United States and European Union). By 2050, China is projected to have overtaken both to become the world’s largest economy; by 2100, China may be larger than both combined. On some accounts, it is already the leading industrial power, consuming the lion’s share of iron ore and manufacturing more steel than any other country – and by a large margin. The nine-day long traffic jam on the motorway between Beijing and Jining reported on Tuesday only symbolises the vast scale of China’s economic and industrial enterprise. Many of the vehicles involved were lorries carrying coal to power up the large factories in China’s rapidly growing coastal cities.

What does this all mean? At the very least, it seems that seven centuries of European (or Western) hegemony might be very near its end. China (and India) may be about to retake their positions as the nodal points of the global economy, a position they held for much of human history. This is still not pre-ordained: China may experience many social, environmental and political dislocations, which could derail its progress, either permanently or temporarily. This led me to wonder a bit more about the foundations of European power. How did such a small and seemingly irrelevant region of the world become so powerful? Why are the world’s leading languages today English, French and Spanish and not Chinese and Hindi? Why do modern Chinese and Indian cities resemble those of Europe and America and not the other way round?

The old argument is that Europeans raped both countries of their resources, setting them back by two centuries. Yet this ill-conceived and exceedingly tired argument – even if true – still begs the question of how they were able to do so in the first place, given that China and India seemed, initially, to be stronger and more advanced than Europeans? There are, as I see it, ten key foundations of European power, which have enabled this relatively small continent to rise up over the past six centuries and transform the world:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The key thing, of course, is that none of these components were by themselves sufficient. It was only as the foundations of power came together in synthesis that Europeans achieved an edge over other continents. The only question remaining, then, is what will happen to Europeans if they give up the means that provided them with this ‘edge’ – and if the rest of the world catches up?

• For anyone interested in these questions, I recommend the documentary series entitled The Day the World Took Off, which was made to commemorate the Millennium by a group of academics based at the University of Cambridge. Click here to download each programme.

• Images: World Map: RokerHRO; Fields: Mattias Süßen; Horses: Mikel Ortega; Bread: Chmee2; Star Fort: Gebruiker: Bourtange.

In recent weeks, various commentators, academics and analysts have been busily arguing for various things to be included in Britain’s upcoming strategic defence and security review. Some of these interventions have been interesting, focussed and well-reasoned. Both Chatham House and the Royal United Services Institute have been running a series of lectures and articles putting forward various options for the new coalition government to consider.

Other interventions have been decidedly less helpful. On Friday, Sir Max Hastings, author of several works on military history, called for the scrapping of both Britain’s aircraft carrier construction programme and its sea-based nuclear weapons system. Two new 65,000 tonne ‘pocket supercarriers’ are due to be brought into service in 2016 and 2018, respectively. Over three times the size of Britain’s current aircraft carriers, these vessels will be by far the most formidable warships ever put to sea by a European navy; their only competitors will be the American Nimitz supercarriers. Confirmed to be named HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, Britain’s two new behemoths will enable London to project overwhelming power into any region within range of their onboard air squadron, which will bring approximately seventy percent of the world’s population within reach. They will also improve Britain’s ability to engage in ‘coercive diplomacy’ (what was once known as ‘gunboat diplomacy’) and provide an integrated platform for overseas crisis and disaster response, if required.

But according to Sir Max, aircraft carriers and sea-based nuclear deterrents are unnecessary; Britain is unlikely to face any conventional – that is, State-based – enemy; and the armed forces should be radically re-calibrated to fight only Islamist terrorists and other non-State actors.

This view, not without its merits, has gained increasing traction in recent years, especially since the globalisation hysteria of the 1990s. The argument goes: war and conflict between the great powers is effectively over. Interdependence and democratisation have greatly increased the likely economic and political cost of war, which is further compounded by the fact that there is currently no country strong enough to directly challenge the military reach and wherewithal of North America and Western Europe (or, more precisely, the Americans, British and French). Anyone foolish enough to do so will be struck down fast. The evidence? Britain decisively crushed Argentina’s junta in 1982. Iraq’s Ba’athists were thoroughly quashed in 1991 and 2003 by two different Anglo-American led coalitions. Serbia was undone in 1999 when Slobodan Milosevic initiated genocidal policies in Kosovo. And the Ivory Coast lost its entire airforce in a few hours in November 2004 when its president challenged France.

Further, larger countries, such as China and Russia, while sometimes a nuisance, are still a long way from reaching parity, particularly with the United States. Insofar as they have harmed Europeans or Americans, they have done so using underhand methods, such as industrial espionage, cyber attacks and poisonings, which are better dealt with using effective intelligence agencies than expensive weapons programmes. Meanwhile, the threat from Islamist terrorism is still very real, and this too is increasingly more of an internal threat than an external challenge.

Yet there are several reasons to suggest that Britain still needs its behemoths:

1. The argument that interdependence and democratisation have reduced the likelihood of great power conflict looks very different if we enlarge the context. The world has been getting more interconnected over the past five-hundred years, yet each century has been bloodier than the last. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to assert that the peace between the great powers since 1945 has less to do with interdependence and democratisation, and more to do with the rise of American, British and French power – both spatial and temporal – on a planetary scale. More abstractly: order is not natural; it has to be imposed by a central authority and carefully backed up with an iron fist. The key question, then, is what will happen if European and American power wanes relative to countries like China, India and Brazil, as is currently projected? Given that aircraft carriers and nuclear weapons are a long term investment that cannot be rustled up overnight, and given that other countries are busily building them, surely it makes sense for a country like the United Kingdom, entirely dependent on the sea for its imports and exports, to have them?
2. Sir Max states that it is ‘incredible’ that Britain would use its nuclear weapons to threaten (or deter) countries like Russia and China. Is it? What the world will look like in 2040 or 2050 is impossible to know. In 1900, when the British and French empires seemed almost eternal, few would have foreseen their collapse in less than fifty years. Equally, few people foresaw the demise of Soviet Russia in 1980, and fewer still the full consequences of 11th September 2001, even a year after the event itself. In short: the future is full of surprises and we should be careful not to replace careful calculation with hope. For it is surely the case that countries with international duties to uphold and obligations to discharge must retain the tools of power? Nuclear weapons are proven to deter and aircraft carriers are unlikely to be replaced by anything better – even a new generation of advanced unmanned combat aircraft will need versatile maritime platforms off which to operate.
3. Economically, contrary to the claims of people like Sir Max, a country as wealthy as the United Kingdom can afford to build large aircraft carriers. First, there is little to be gained by cancelling the current vessels and building something smaller, except a whopping fine for breaking the contract with the coalition of shipbuilders constructing the vessels. After all, aircraft carriers become cheaper to operate the larger they get relative to the desired military and political impact they can be deployed to achieve. Second, the cost of these vessels, or the nuclear deterrent, is minimal, insofar as this should be the overriding factor. The cost of the two carriers, including their air squadrons, is around £15 billion (€17.8 billion), and they are projected to last for thirty or more years. Likewise, the nuclear deterrent is planned to cost approximately £20 billion (€23.8 billion) and will last for a similar period of time. Is £1.2 billion (€1.4 billion) per year so expensive for a country with an annual national income of £1.7 trillion (€2 trillion)? That is less than 0.05% per year of Britain’s gross domestic product! This debate therefore has little to do with cost, and everything to do with political priorities.

To scrap Britain’s behemoths – the aircraft carriers or its nuclear weapons system – would reduce both the country’s national power and its options during any potential future crises. As an island, the United Kingdom can be nothing other than a seapower: pruning it of its two greatest military assets would be tantamount to selling future generations down the river. What is more, these behemoths could form the centrepiece of a greatly enhanced Common Security and Defence Policy, which means that their cancellation could have far wider ramifications.

• Image: Royal Navy

For a long time, strategic studies and European studies appeared to mutually ignore if not disdain each other. In the context of the Cold War, strategic studies concentrated on the exercise of hard power as an instrument of foreign policy. Its natural focus was the military strategy of the United States and the Soviet Union. Ignoring the European Economic Community, which except for the informal consultation mechanism of European Political Cooperation did not venture into the realm of foreign policy, let alone security and defence policy, came equally naturally. European studies, for the most part, did not look at the European Community as an actor in the field of security and defence either, turning instead to conceptualisations of the Community as a ‘civilian power’ or, more recently, a ‘normative power’.

Even when the European Union came into existence alongside the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), to be followed by the European, now Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), many scholars focused their efforts on trying to explain how these developments did not detract from Europe’s status as a civilian or normative power. Others, who thought these developments did just that, offered recommendations to put things right, as if somehow it would be wrong for the European Union to venture onto another path and become a fully-fledged actor in the field of security and defence. Strategic studies scholars meanwhile, if they could be convinced at all to allow themselves to be distracted for a moment and take a look at the European Union, did not take the tentative steps of the CFSP and CSDP very seriously.

The cause of this dichotomy is that both strategic studies and European studies scholars for the most part have a very narrow interpretation of the notion of strategy. Too often, strategy is understood as pertaining only to the use of military force to achieve political ends. If analysed through this lens, the European Union obviously is less well developed than other, unitary actors. Many scholars of European Union politics rightfully reject such an exclusively military-oriented approach for ideological reasons or because, less obviously, strategic studies is associated with an exclusively realist approach to foreign policy. Many strategic studies scholars on the other hand feel that the European Union is too insignificant an actor in the field of security and defence to merit their attention – although every classic author about strategy actually warns again underestimating the enemy.

However, military force, even coercive instruments in the broader sense, are but one of a much broader range of instruments at the disposal of a foreign policy actor. Admittedly the most dramatic tool, force, is also the instrument of last resort – an actor that had no other available instruments, would not last very long. As on the international scene, the European Union, a state-like actor, is much more than a military actor – like any other actor for that matter – no useful analysis of it can be limited to military strategy.

Even during the Cold War, the ‘traditional’ strategic studies perspective was too reductionist. A broader understanding of strategy is needed if the strategic lens is to be valuable in analysing and interpreting today’s world. If the notion of strategy has its origin in the study of the use of force as a tool of policy, today its application is much broader. Even without including the private sector, a logical application is found throughout all policy areas addressed by public authorities. Inspired by the tradition of public management or policy science, strategy can therefore be defined as a policy-making tool which, on the basis of the values and interests of the actor in question, outlines the long-term overall policy objectives to be achieved and the basic categories of instruments to be applied to that end.

Applying this definition to the European Union as an international actor, strategy refers to a comprehensive foreign policy strategy, covering all dimensions of external action, from aid and trade to diplomacy and the military. In other words: a grand strategy. A military strategy thus is no more – and no less – than a sub-strategy to the overall foreign policy strategy. The latter serves as a referential framework for day-to-day policy-making in a rapidly evolving and increasingly complex international environment, and guides the definition of the means – in case the civilian and military capabilities – that need to be developed.

Clearly, this updated definition of strategy can no longer be exclusively tied to the Realist school. Not that that ever made sense: a strategy inspired by a realist world view is just one option out of many that any international actor can follow. The 2003 European Security Strategy, with its focus on a preventive, holistic and multilateral approach, proves as much. As strategy concerns foreign policy in its entirety, civilian or normative power should not be seen as being in contradiction with the development of military power by the European Union, but as complementary dimensions of a single grand strategy. Furthermore, every theoretical school captures only part of the European Union. The strategic perspective by contrast offers a methodology rather than a theory, which can be applied regardless of the different International Relations schools and their proselytes, and which immediately yields policy-relevant results.

Thus, this modernised, broader definition of strategy allows for the useful application of the strategic perspective to the European Union, which has become an actor in its own right in all fields of foreign and security policy. It can no longer be ignored by strategists.

• Image: Salvatore Vuono and FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Is the European Union – or even its Member States – still a key ally for the United States? Is the Atlantic Alliance in decline? To be sure the alleged crisis over the planned European Union-United States Summit in Madrid in the Spring of 2010, in which President Obama declined to participate, was largely exaggerated. Yet there undoubtedly is a growing feeling of marginalisation in Europe – marginalisation in international affairs, as experienced in Copenhagen, and of marginalisation in transatlantic relations, as illustrated by the fall-out over the Madrid Summit. Whether this perception is founded is not really the point: Europeans sense a growing gap with their American ally, and Washington should be aware of it.

The recent publication by the White House, in May 2010, of the National Security Strategy (NSS) is likely to emphasise that perception. Indeed, the document only mentions the European Union twice. In comparison, the European Union was mentioned eleven times in the 1998 NSS of Bill Clinton, three times in the 2002 NSS and five times in the 2006 NSS of George W. Bush. And do not even look for the word ‘transatlantic’, for you will not find it.

The context in which the European Union is mentioned is evolving as well. In 1998, the European Union was referred to essentially as a major economic pole and as a security-political actor with limited potential in its neighborhood. George W. Bush depicted the European Union as a full global security and political actor active in counterterrorism, nuclear counter proliferation, and post-conflict reconstruction. It is true that in the meantime, the European Union had further integrated and had created the European Security and Defence Policy, triggering large (and perhaps exaggerated) expectations of European Union global power.

In contrast, President Obama shows more moderation in his assessment of the European Union. The 2010 NSS does say that ‘Building on European aspirations for greater integration, we are committed to partnering with a stronger European Union to advance our shared goals, especially in […] responding to pressing issues of mutual concern.’ But the European Union is mentioned as just one actor among many now exerting power and influence.

The declining centrality of the European Union (and Europe) in American strategic thought can be explained by the rise of emerging powers on the global stage, notably Russia, India and China, which increasingly attract Washington’s attention, and by a more realist reassessment of the European Union’s limited power potential, in spite of the expectations generated by the Treaty of Lisbon. To some extent, it is a luxury problem: if Europe is not high on Washington’s list of priorities, it is because the Old Continent no longer presents any major problems for American security. The real problem is that the European Union is not really seen as a significant partner in addressing the problems that do exist in other parts of the world.

In a changing global environment, with a new global order in the making and new global challenges, the strategic attention of Washington is increasingly diverted away from the Atlantic Alliance. Yet precisely in these challenging times collective action is required to deal with global threats, under the impulse of global leaders. And who else can be up to the task than the United States and the European Union? Surely, nobody expects Russia, India or China to share the Western project to the same extent. In such an environment, therefore, the transatlantic relationship should be renewed, not marginalised.

In order to shape a new global order based on universally shared norms, rules and values, we need a renewed transatlantic leadership for a new grand bargain in which the emergence of new powers demanding power and recognition, and the emergence of new challenges requiring global responses, can be reconciled through an effective multilateral approach. As the European Union’s own Security Strategy says: ‘Acting together, the European Union and the United States can be a formidable force for good in the world.’ A joint effort will be required if they are to retain global influence in this new world order.

The United States should therefore not forget about its ‘old’ allies. European are not simply on call for when the United States needs them, but ought to be treated as an equal partner that can bring creative strategies and a comprehensive toolbox to address global problems. Obviously, Europeans should do what it takes to be an equal partner: make full use of its new institutions under the Treaty of Lisbon, set clear strategic priorities, and proactively pursue them. Then next time Barrack Obama meets Herman Van Rompuy they should have a true strategic conversation.

• A slightly amended version of this article was first published by the New Atlanticist.

The European Union was supposed to abolish internal geopolitics through the establishment of pan-European institutions predicated on ‘civilian power’. However, this has delivered Europeans into a nasty trap: we still rely on the United States to provide the ultimate guarantee for our security, through its nuclear weapons, aircraft carriers and air squadrons. Yet as America’s geostrategic focus shifts further away from Europe in response to events since 2001, what will Europeans do? In short, the continent’s main powers have been positioning themselves to fill the vacuum left by the United States. Unless the United Kingdom – of all powers – steps in to moderate this process in the interests of security, the European Union will be undermined, leading to general geopolitical disorder across our continent.

In some ways, this is a radical argument. For both America’s global decline and its complete departure from the European continent are not yet inevitable. But the fulcrum of world power does seem to be shifting from the Atlantic basin to the Indo-Pacific rim at an accelerating pace, and Washington’s geostrategic focus has continued to move in response. Europeans have not yet realised just how much this is going to affect the security of their own continental homeland and their worldview – least of all the British.

Four inter-related developments are starting to undermine the existing European security order:

1.) Russia is moving back into Europe. As American power is moved away from Europe and towards the Middle East and Central Asia today, and the Indo-Pacific rim tomorrow, a vacuum in Eastern and Central Europe has emerged. Moscow has been quick to re-establish its position in an area of historical geopolitical significance to its own well-being. It has used its position as an energy supplier and its military power to undo the Western backed post-Cold War reforms in countries like Georgia and Ukraine since the early 2000s. Russia is also attempting to ‘divide and rule’ Europeans through the pursuit of new partnerships with countries like Germany, France and Italy.

2.) Germany has sought to create for itself through diplomacy what it has failed to do again and again militarily: a pan-European penumbra where it forms the political, economic and cultural heart. With the enlargements of 2004 and 2007, Germany is finally surrounded by friendly, wealthy and increasingly dependent states, to which it can export its manufactured goods. Key to Berlin’s design is the co-opting of its vast eastern neighbour – Russia – into the German continental enterprise. Germany has sought to appease Russia by agreeing to block, albeit tacitly, the expansion of the European Union, and particularly the Atlantic Alliance, into regions where Russia once ruled, while simultaneously building up closer and closer economic and commercial relations.

3.) France – eager to keep up with Germany and freer of the constraints imposed in the past by American power – has sought to deepen its own relations with Russia. Paris has proclaimed 2010 the ‘Year of Russia’ in France and has sought deeper economic relationships with Russian energy corporations in a bid to keep up with its German counterparts. Equally, and critically, France has agreed to sell Russia advanced helicopter carriers (the Mistral class), which will greatly enhance Russian power in the maritime regions of the European Neighbourhood. This will inevitably undermine European influence in this zone, as well as those domestic forces fighting for democracy.

4.) The United Kingdom, once Europe’s leading power, has grown geostrategically lazy and complacent. This is born out of two misunderstandings: firstly, that a permanent European geopolitical settlement has been established; and secondly, that Britain’s most important relationship will always be with the United States. British leaders have placed all their eggs in a single basket, but this basket is close to breaking point. Indeed, their attachment to the Atlantic Alliance has led to the very things they have sought for so long to prevent: a nearly-helpless and de-militarised Europe that can add little of value to overseas NATO operations in places like Afghanistan.

In response to these developments, only one power has the means to keep the European train on the rails: the United Kingdom. Britain’s island geography means that it is Europe’s natural offshore balancer, the final arbiter of European affairs. In the aftermath of World War II, London had two objectives in order to maintain this role: keep Germany down and keep Russia out. This required an unbreakable alliance with the United States and France so that a formidable amalgamation of American, British and French power could be fused together to empower other democratically-minded states to uphold a favourable balance of power in the heart of Europe.

However, with the decline of American power, Britain will have to overcome its Atlanticist ‘default setting’. London must become more aggressive again: it must find a new means to maintain a balance of power within Europe that is favourable to Britain’s geopolitical position and national interests. There is only one way to do this: refashion the European Union under a common military policy and a reformed political architecture. The new British government must re-establish Britain’s power in mainland Europe: London needs to provide the vision and political will necessary to keep Europe orderly and united.

A reformed, British-led, European Union, with its own foreign and military policies, would bring Germany firmly back into the Atlantic system and coax France away from Russia. And in the face of new, large and unpredictable powers, it would empower the European Union to help maintain the wider liberal maritime trade system on which Europeans and Americans both depend for their prosperity and well-being.

• This commentary is a shortened version of our article, entitled ‘The return of European geopolitics: All roads lead through London’, which was published in the July edition of RUSI Journal. The above shortened version was published yesterday by Global Europe.

• Credit to Paul K for use of the comical map of European geopolitics.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In 2009, (South) Korea and the European Union signed an Free Trade Agreement (the European Union is Korea’s second biggest export market). Brussels and Seoul have great interest in future co-operation, although deeper engagement is unlikely. Most importantly, neither side is relevant to the basic security issues of the other. Specifically, the European Union cannot assist Korea in its acute security dilemma, and the ‘sovereigntist’ Koreans do not share European preferences for ‘soft power’, regionalisation, and multilateral collective security. However, Korea is likely to pursue the relationship for cost-free prestige-taking. And the European Union will understand this ‘Asian bridge’ as a success for the promotion of liberal-democratic values in a non-European context. Europhile, pro-regionalist elites may pursue ‘inter-regional’ ties to bolster the European Union within Europe, but deep Korean attachment to the Westphalian state model will stymie pan-regionalism.

Neither the European Union nor Korea can meaningfully contribute to the other’s primary security challenges – a central pillar for deeper bilateral relations among states. As James Rogers and Luis Simón have noted frequently, the European Union lacks serious power projection far from the European continent. Its ‘loss of strength gradient’ toward East Asia has been severe, particularly since the British retrenchment from east of Suez. The European Union does not have the means to deter North Korea or China. European land forces do not bolster American forces on the Korean peninsula. Although a participant in the Proliferation Security Initiative and the (now defunct) Agreed Framework, the European Union plays no role in the new Six Party framework. Similarly, Korea is irrelevant to the European Union’s big security issues, such as the course of Russia, terrorism and the Middle East, or Eastern Europe’s stabilisation. Their shared liberal democratic values place them broadly in the liberal security community of the democratic peace, but a more positive military contribution to either’s security is unlikely.

Both sides derive prestige from the relationship. Korea, until recently small and peripheral to the global economy, captures most of these benefits. A bilateral relationship with Europeans flatters the Korean imagination of its stature in world politics. Instead of a half-country whose international image is clouded by a clownish rogue despot in the North, Korea lusts for the European Union’s status and rank. Its famous antiquities, high-profile tourism locations, rich history of art and culture – all nested in a wealthy, healthy, international society broadly at peace with itself – strongly attracts the Korean imagination.

A well-known, highly recognised ‘global actor’, the European Union captures little direct prestige from Korea. However, the Korean partnership does benefit pro-European elites within the European Union, most notably in Brussels. The ‘Euro-bureaucracy’, trapped in a decades-long turf-battle with the bureaucracies in the Member States, is likely to seize on the prestige of a direct European Union-level relationship with a G20 economy. This is ammunition against critics that the European Union is simply a trade deal or that other states do not take it seriously. If the 2010 host of the G20 summit takes the European Union seriously enough to label it a ‘strategic partner’, then Brussels gains in the intra-European conflict to establish the European Union more soundly and eventually build a real Common Foreign and Security Policy.

Finally, the European Union does reap psychological gains of domestic values validation. Korea is a great successes in the transplantation of liberal, democratic, Enlightenment values outside of the West; Korea is routinely touted a central case that these values are not ‘Western’, but in fact universal. This excises the cultural-racial bite of the ‘Asian values’ and ‘human-rights imperialism’ arguments of Asian actors such as the Chinese Communist Party or Matathir Mohamad. Conversely, Korea will find little back-traffic, despite heroic efforts to export the ‘Korean Wave’.

The European Union and Korea have an unremarkable relationship. Given the mutual irrelevance of one’s security to the other, it is easy to predict that no alliance is likely. The Free Trade Agreement is step forward, but ultimately one based solely on material utility. The European Union also trades with Iran, and Korea has a ‘strategic partnership’ with Kazakhstan. This provides perspective on the mutual, post-Free Trade Agreement rhetoric of ‘strategic partners’. A ‘friendly partner’ is a more credible assessment. The European-Korea relationship will not mature into a meaningful bond to rival the more critical relations of either with the United States, China, Japan, or Russia.

The European Union’s preference for Asian regionalism will generate friction, although Korea will tolerate it in order to retain the huge prestige boost the relationship with the European Union will bring. Hence the greatest frustration will fall on the European side. Korea’s prestige gains are already achieved by the completion of the Free Trade Agreement and the ‘strategic partnership’, and the European Union cannot leverage a security contribution to the peninsula to push Korea into the East Asian Community or Asia-Europe Meeting. So long as Korea, and East Asia generally, remains committed to the ‘ASEAN Way’ of talk-shop intergovernmentalism, European elites – pro-European Union, pro-East Asian Community, and pro-Asia-Europe Meeting – are likely to find nationalist Korea, and Asia, a frustrating ‘inter-regional’ partner.

This article is a summary of Dr. Kelly’s recent project on the future of the European Union’s relations with Korea for the Pusan National University’s European Union Centre.

Additional resources

• Pusan National University Political Science Department
• Asian Security Blog

Last year I co-authored a Briefing Paper for the European Parliament’s Sub-Committee on Security and Defence on the existence and location of the European Union’s Member States’ overseas military installations. I have just put this into graphical format – please see the short video below:

Click here to view the embedded video.

As the video shows very clearly, these military stations cover the world. They could surely form the cornerstone of any future European Union ‘forward presence’ or ‘global posture’ as part of a yet-to-be maritime geostrategy. And so long as Britain and France hold onto them, these overseas military facilities could become even more of an asset than they already are for Europeans, especially if the world becomes increasingly multipolar and more competitive – not least because they straddle the European Union’s primary sea lines of communication.

From a European perspective, the Copenhagen conference on climate change last December was not only disappointing – it was really a wake-up call. Or at least it should be. While all the United Nations were gathered around the table, an agreement was secretly negotiated between the United States, China, Brazil, India and South Africa. While the European Union was for once showing some signs of leadership, it was not even invited to negotiate the final agreement.

What happened? The answer is simple: Copenhagen was a preview of the new world order. The more Europeans were speaking, the less they were listened to. And for good reason. The language spoken in Copenhagen was one of realpolitik and geopolitics – to be pronounced with an American, Chinese or Indian accent.

The fundamental interest of the Copenhagen circus was precisely what it revealed from the new emerging world order: rising importance of new global actors such as Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC); balanced by the corresponding decline of the West, according to the laws of power relativity; and marked by a growing interdependence between global actors at the economic and political levels as well as at the security level, even existential level when it comes to climate change.

Yet despite the well-documented threat posed by climate change, heads of state could not reach an agreement in Copenhagen. To explain this apparent anomaly, one needs to examine the world as a doctor would examine a patient. Is it serious doctor?

The world is suffering from what could be called the ‘Copenhagen Syndrome’, characterised by six distinct symptoms:

First symptom: While problems and challenges have globalised, responses (economic, social and political) often remain too national, or even nationalised, i.e. exploited by states.

Second symptom: The world is dominated by the United States and China. The final agreement in Copenhagen was written by the United States and the BASIC countries (Brazil, South Africa, India and China), but even within this select club it seems that the game was really played between Barack Obama and Wen Jiabao.

If China and America (some say Chimerica) dominate the world, they certainly do not rule it together. In fact, a formal alliance between the American superpower and China is unlikely, due to profound tensions between the two as illustrated again recently with Google, Taiwan or the Dalaï-Lama. However, it is also clear that few problems can be solved today without the assent of those two giants that form a G2 de facto, without wanting or desiring it.

Third symptom: Emerging powers are increasingly looking to have their say on the international stage and – or because – they are increasingly able to. At the last day in Copenhagen, projectors and microphones were turned towards the representatives of BASIC countries, not towards those of the European Union.

Fourth symptom: Our urgency is not always their urgency. The world after Copenhagen does not revolve around European or even Western priorities anymore. The setting of the international agenda is the result of power games between different poles of the multipolar order. Europeans still need to learn the rules of the game.

Fifth symptom: The developing world is fragmented. Copenhagen highlighted as rarely before the tensions that rip developing countries apart, when for instance the representative of Tuvalu fiercely opposed those of China and India, or when South Africa dissociated itself from the common African position in the last day.

It is more and more difficult to classify emerging powers given that they seem to fall somewhere between the developed world and the third world. And they find this position increasingly uncomfortable. It is ever more complicated for them to pretend being leaders of the developing world whereas they are every day less members of that developing world and that consequently their interests diverge more and more.

Sixth symptom: The European Union is marginalised on the international stage. The climate file was a rare case where Brussels could offer some elements of global leadership and could reach a common position, despite some detrimental interferences resulting from gesticulations of Member State leaders in search of media and political recognition. And yet, in Copenhagen, the European voice was hardly heard.

So if these are the symptoms, what is the diagnosis? In short, the Copenhagen conference illustrated some of the principal characteristics of the emerging global order. The structuring elements of the international system, i.e. multipolarity and interdependence, are not entirely new but are rather the result of a longer process.

The reshaping of the global order started essentially with the fall of the Berlin Wall. However, this new emerging order had been in incubation for years. Today, it has reached maturity: this is the Copenhagen Syndrome. And Europeans better get used to it – and redefine their policies accordingly, in recognition of the European interest.

• Credit to Elgaar on Wikipedia for the main image.

• GEOSTRATEGY LEADS TO IMPERIALISM

It doesn’t have to. It is true that geostrategy is about the exercise of power over particularly critical spaces on the Earth’s surface; about crafting a political presence over the international system. It is aimed at enhancing one’s security and prosperity; about making the international system more prosperous; about shaping rather than being shaped. A geostrategy is about securing access to certain trade routes, strategic bottlenecks, rivers, islands and seas. It requires an extensive military presence, normally coterminous with the opening of overseas military stations and the building of warships capable of deep oceanic power projection. It also requires a network of alliances with other great powers who share one’s aims or with smaller ‘lynchpin states’ that are located in the regions one deems important.

It is correct that many geostrategies have in the past been built on imperial conquest: countries have annexed land to provide themselves with the means to protect or extend what they have already got. Britain, France and Spain conquered countries near their trade routes to protect and extend them; and Germany and the United States annexed land to acquire more living space. But these all turned out to be costly enterprises which were often ruinous. Imperialism is a particular kind of geostrategy, but not all geostrategies are imperialist. In fact, a good geostrategy should counsel against imperialism, which is extremely costly in terms of both moral courage and matériel.

• THE EUROPEAN UNION IS A ‘PEACE PROJECT’; IT DOES NOT NEED A GEOSTRATEGY

Mumbo jumbo. The European Union was a ‘peace project’. But peace is not a neutral, politically free, concept. A balance of power always lies behind peace. For most of the nineteenth century, world peace was underpinned by British hegemony – it was the age of the Pax Britannica. From the second half of the twentieth century Western Europe was part of a broader geographical area, encompassing the Western hemisphere and much of the Eurasian rimland, which was governed by the Pax Americana. Even if the European Union did not have a traditional geostrategy, its very existence was underpinned by one – that of the United States.

But since the end of the Cold War the European Union has come to play an increasingly active geopolitical role, particularly in the European continent. Enlargement to Central and Eastern Europe became a most effective form of geostrategy, facilitating the expansion of the European Union to cover most of our continent, increasing our security, prosperity and entrenching our values. Enlargement consolidated order where there could have been chaos; it brought prosperity where there could have been poverty and stagnation. It worked; it was a success.

Today, however, the European Union’s geostrategy needs to go beyond the European continent. It needs to develop a worldwide focus. A global geostrategy implies that Brussels must develop an understanding of which parts of the world are central to the European interest and which are less so; of where Europeans must focus their resources to uphold their interests and where they should not.

• EUROPEAN GEOSTRATEGY HAS BEEN MADE REDUNDANT BY GLOBALISATION

No. Globalisation has not made geostrategy redundant; in fact, globalisation has amplified the need for a European geostrategy. Why? The reason is simple: the European economy has become more globalised than at any other period in history; goods and services come to us via numerous maritime routes, air routes, energy pipelines and fibre optic cables. If any of these get severed, our economy will suffer, meaning that we as Europeans will suffer.

Globalisation also brings the domestic problems of foreign countries to our shores, which causes trouble for us in the form of extremism and terrorism; globalisation also elevates the importance of the planetary ecosystem, on whose stability we all depend. Globalisation has thrown back at us as many issues as it solves.

• GEOSTRATEGY IS ABOUT THE EXERCISE OF (HARD) POWER

So what? As Robert Gates, the United States’ Secretary of State for Defence, recently asserted, many Europeans have grown very timid about the exercise of power; some treat it almost like an aberration, something so repulsive that it should not even be mentioned in polite conversation. But European power provides the means to amplify European security, prosperity and, ultimately, provide us with the ability to undergird European values like freedom, democracy and social justice – both at home and abroad. These are the aims of geostrategy.

Insofar as they ever existed, gone are the days where Europeans could simply sit back and lead by example; when we were so overwhelmingly powerful normatively that others would accept our vision and fall into line. The European vision of society and international relations is no longer universal and is challenged more and more by the visions of our competitors. This is the main lesson Europeans must learn from the Copenhagen Summit in 2009.

• EUROPEANS HAVE ALTERNATIVE WAYS TO INFLUENCE GLOBAL POLITICS

Do they? Seriously? Many still seem to believe that there remain alternatives to the European Union’s emergence as a global power. Some hope that the United States will remain forever committed to our security and defend our interests and values globally. Others pray that the world is destined to become a better place, where nation will come to speak peace unto nation, through strengthened international structures. Others continue to think nationally when even the biggest of the European Union’s Member States have become too small for today’s world – let alone tomorrow’s.

But hope, prayers and clinging to the past do not a good strategy make. Less so at a time when the United States’ commitment to European stability will be put to the test by the challenges it faces elsewhere. The truth of the matter is that we Europeans have nowhere else to run: in a world that will be dominated by great economic and military superpowers, the European Union is the only way forward. Only by pulling our weight together through a European framework can we effectively gain the thrust and velocity needed to exert our power in the twenty-first century – and guarantee our geographic security, prosperity and values at that.