One Vienna-based Spanish diplomat likes to describe European Union’s security and defence policy in action as a ‘jazz band, not a classical orchestra: musicians with different abilities and instruments participating in a permanent jam session, with a basic tune and a general idea of the kind of music they want to produce [. . .] a band which finds it hard to agree on a specific arrangement, but which can eventually sound harmonious – though not necessarily completely homogeneous.’ The band is well known among music connoisseurs, while the general public either ignores it or is bemused by the strange sound. Other – more successful – bands, on the other hand, praise some of their individual qualities, as well as the fact that they do play (some kind of) music, despite all the problems, whilst grinning at its lack of success. That is a fairly good description of the European Union’s overall performance as an actor on the global stage during the rather unstable decade we are about to leave behind: some tactical achievements, the valuable experience of learning on the job as a European Union twenty-seven, but with a pervading sense of a lack of direction.

The Treaty of Lisbon should put an end to the European cacophony or to put it another way: make the very richness of European pluralism in foreign policy an effective added-value element for the European Union as an actor – and not a permanent hindrance. The new High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton, should conduct the idiosyncratic music group. A chorus of the best diplomats throughout Europe should support her in the demanding task to produce some music: the European External Action Service. But the post-Lisbon reality is different: the Commission, the General Secretariat of the Council as well as the Member States haggle over personnel and finances, trying to get hold of that future backbone of European foreign policy. The only ray of hope is the role of the European Parliament. It has used the current power vacuum in Brussels and seized its way into the realm of foreign and security policy, not formally and through legal novelties, but by adeptly using its budget powers as well as the expertise of the parliamentarians. In fact, this revamped Parliament carries with it the potential to energise the strategic culture among Europeans, and, not less, building a strong democratic legitimacy to the European Union’s developing security policy.

Accordingly, the European Union is (again) dealing with inner-European issues – the self-centred approach, we all complained about over the last years. The problem is only, that the world moves on, even if the European Union is not yet ready to face that. Transatlantic relations serve as a vivid example: Barack Obama skipped the European-American summit to be held by the Spanish presidency in Madrid in May 2010. It became known that the president regarded this meeting with twenty-seven heads of states and governments (plus the representatives of the European Union) as boring and non-productive. From a certain point of view, this could be taken as a snub. However, it may be just seen as a wake-up call. The Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, reaffirmed the message just a few days ago , and emphasising the great expectations the United States pins on the new so-called Common Security and Defence Policy. She offered the European Union direct partnership with the United States in security-related issues – something that until now has been the exclusive realm of the Atlantic Alliance. Probably even this call will trail off unheard and unanswered, because the European Union still does not know exactly, who could be speaking for the Union: the President of the Commission, José Manuel Barroso? The President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy? Or the High Representative? Apart from that, there is also no guidance at the European level, in terms of overall priorities and means to achieve them, apart from the brilliantly formulated but rather fuzzy European Security Strategy from 2003 (plus the Implementation Report of 2008).

This is not enough for a European Union, which is widely regarded as a global actor. Nor it is up to the responsibilities Europe as a whole has towards the international system; as the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, put it in Munich, both the European Union and the Atlantic Alliance are seen by the international community as providers of security. How can the European Union contribute through its civilian and military capabilities to maintain peace and security in an increasingly unstable environment – and thus make Europeans safer?

Yet there still is a huge strategic vacuum in the Common Security and Defence Policy: there is no ‘Grand Strategy’ and there is not even any operationalisation of the Security Strategy. Nonetheless the European Union has already conducted more than twenty missions worldwide. We therefore lack an ambitious but realistic policy orientation for the European Union as a global actor; we have not yet undertaken a Strategic Defence Review or – to use the continental term – a White Paper on Security and Defence. Such a White Paper should lay down our ambitions as a relevant power in security policy as well as a road map on how to achieve these ambitions:

1. A European White Paper should first contain clearer messages on why and how to intervene abroad – a sort of common European lines on interventions, combining tactics with strategy – as well as on the possible and necessary balance of civil and military means.
2. The White Paper should clarify the Post-Lisbon institutions and their interactions, to enhance coherence of the different policies of external action (from enlargement, to the neighbourhood policy, to security and defence policy); it should also pave the way for global visibility of the new High Representative, as the face and telephone number of global Europe.
3. There should be strategic guidelines for European partnerships with main global powers, like the United States, Russia, China, India, as well as NATO, and so on. These partnerships need to serve European norms and interests.
4. The White Paper should clearly spell out the necessary means a global Europe will need. Until now, there are many different frameworks and headline goals, without explaining the purpose of the capability building process.
5. The European defence and technology industrial base is a precondition for an efficient use of means especially in the military field. Therefore the White Paper needs to lay down the consequences of a Common Security and Defence Policy for the national defence industries.

Catherine Ashton, the new ‘conductor’ of European foreign and security policy, has quite a hard task. The European Union’s difficult worldwide challenges, the constant disunity of the Member States, as well as the huge footsteps of Javier Solana she is following, are demanding beyond description. By initiating a European process towards a Security and Defence White Paper, she could provide a consistent policy orientation and thus build on the rather successful achievements on the nearly eleven years of European Security and Defence Policy. This policy orientation could be used as a ‘sheet of music’ for her Jazz band. She will probably never transform it into a chamber orchestra, but maybe they would produce eventually one or two smash hits per year. And this will be in the interest of Europe as a whole, although some governments are slow to grasp the realities of the modern world, and try to get with their own music into the chart list.

Other than as a naval station during the first half of the twentieth century, the Falkland Islands were largely unknown before the War of 1982. Wet and windswept, and without any native population, the Islands were discovered by Europeans in the sixteenth century. They were then claimed and ruled by France, Spain, Argentina and the United Kingdom. But that is all history; what matters now is that they have been British since 1833, bar for a few sad weeks in 1982 when the Argentine junta decided to invade them.

London sent a naval squadron to eject the occupying force, which resulted in a swift and decisive British victory. Since then, the Islands’ prosperity has increased substantially – standards of living are now akin to those in Southern England. Whereas before their mainstay was sheep farming, the Falklands have today become a large centre for pastoral farming, fishing and tourism. Port Stanley, the Islands’ capital, has doubled in size since 1982 to include almost every modern urban facility bar a university, and receives tens of thousands of tourists each year from passing cruise liners. London has also bolstered the Islands’ defences considerably: they now sustain a vast military station, including an aerodrome (RAF Mount Pleasant) and a naval facility (Mare Harbour). Royal Air Force Eurofighter Typhoons and Royal Navy gunboats are on constant patrol to protect the Islands’ sovereignty.

Buenos Aires has made sporadic claims on the Islands, normally coterminous with periods of economic or political difficulty in Argentina. London has normally just rebuffed or ignored the Argentine behaviour. Recently, however, a British oil company was granted permission to begin surveying a basin to the north of the Islands, to much Argentine bluster. Twelve years ago, in 1998, Shell also conducted a number of geological surveys in the area to see whether there was oil under the seabed. The findings were inconclusive, however, but oil was thought to exist. With the price of oil at an all-time-low in 1998, it was not deemed commercially viable to begin further attempts at extraction.

Yet British eyes are looking south again, especially now that oil costs over €50 per barrel; that reserves in the North Sea are declining; and that advances in undersea mining have occurred. It has been estimated, albeit roughly, that there could be as much as sixty billion barrels of oil under and around the Falkland Islands, meaning they could become the second largest known oil field on the planet. Substantial gas fields could exist too. Argentina, currently under the unpopular President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, is obviously anxious to claim the prize, and has been stepping up pressure on the British to surrender their sovereignty over the Falklands once and for all.

The Argentines have rallied the South American nations to their side, including Chile and Brazil. Even Venezuela’s crazy Hugo Chavez tried to get in on the act. Never missing an opportunity to spout some anti-imperialist claptrap, he denounced the British in one of his amusing and long-winded television broadcasts. But such capers aside, the Argentines have sought to undermine Washington’s support for Britain by threatening to work with other South American countries to form a new regional organisation that deliberately excludes the United States and Canada. This would not suit American interests and Washington has tried to keep its distance, describing the issue as a bilateral problem between Buenos Aires and London exclusively. Perhaps in an attempt to douse Argentine anger, Hillary Clinton, the American foreign secretary, even implied that British sovereignty was not necessarily absolute – a move the British did not appreciate.

A MAP SHOWING THE GEOSTRATEGIC SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS

Here comes the crunch: how and why does this all matter to the European Union? Well, apart from the fact that the Falkland Islands are populated by British – and therefore European – citizens, whose right to self-determination must be resolutely upheld, British sovereignty is important for three reasons:

1. Any energy reserves or other natural resources found in the South Atlantic could almost certainly be shipped back to the European Union, reducing our collective dependence on unruly or unstable foreign suppliers (e.g. Russia and the Middle East). Given that North Sea reserves, which were around fifty billion barrels, have powered-up much of the European economy for nearly four decades, the possible sixty billion barrels under the Falklands could keep Europeans going for just as long – and this fact becomes even more important should conflicts break out over key minerals in the future.
2. The Falklands are geostrategically significant due to their particular location. Just five hundred kilometres from the Strait of Magellan and Drake’s Passage, they give their owner total command over the lower part of the South Atlantic (see map, above). Other than the Panama Canal, these two ‘strategic chokepoints’ are the only direct links between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
3. And crucially, given that parts of the Antarctic continent could eventually be uncovered or made more habitable with the onset and acceleration of climate change – revealing potentially enormous mineral wealth – British possession of the Falkland Islands makes any future European territorial claim over parts of the southern hemisphere more likely and legitimate. Equally, the Islands are actually quite large (roughly half the size of Belgium), so could support the infrastructure necessary to support a connexion with any potential European resource extraction facilities in the Antarctic.

So those who dismiss the Falkland Islands as an anachronism are mistaken. The Islands’ geopolitical significance to our economy – the European Union’s economy – could only just be about to begin. No European Union Member State should do anything to harm the British claim; and Argentina should be told politely but firmly by Europeans to mind its own business.

In the British media and political discourse, the recently appointed President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, is often poked as a figure of fun. He frequently gets called ‘Rompuy-pumpy’; the British Broadcasting Corporation produced a humorous video about him; and Nigel Farage, the anti-European UKIP MEP created a storm when he called him a ‘damp rag’ and a ‘low-grade bank clerk’ in the European Parliament. While many of these attitudes smack of British arrogance, it is fair to say that President Van Rompuy lacks the aura of power or charisma of someone like Bill Clinton, Barack Obama or Tony Blair.

However, these slights aside, Mr. Van Rompuy has battled on. Yesterday, he gave his first major speech – called ‘The Challenges for Europe in a Changing World’ – on foreign and security policy since he assumed his presidency, choosing the College of Europe as his venue. And actually, it was quite impressive. The President began his speech by looking into the changing global balance of power, which has begun to have a profound impact on the place of Europeans in the world: on their own, the Member States are no longer strong enough to have much influence on the key issues. This, he says, should not turn Europeans into ‘declinists’; rather, he points out, the only way forward is for the Member States to work together to project their power – yes, power – across the globe through the European Union.

As such, he outlined two key objectives for his presidency:

1. Reforming the European economy, because this will provide the means to remain relevant and provide an incentive for Europeans to remain heavily involved in world politics;
2. Transforming the European Union into a global power, because it is only through having influence and the means to enforce it, that Europeans will get their way and protect their social and economic well-being in the twenty-first century.

As he put it:

As you have learned here at the Collège, Europe started as a market, with a unique working method. We can be proud of what it achieved. However, building a market is different from being a power. “L’Europe-puissance”, as the French like to call it. [. . .] At the Copenhagen Summit we experienced that Europe can no longer shine by the “force of its example” only. You need more than the conviction that your proposal is the best, to win them over. To get in the deal-making game, the Union needs to assert itself politically.

President Van Rompuy’s approach seems to be informed by the approach taken in The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, which was a seminal book by Paul Kennedy published in the late 1980s. Professor Kennedy argued that a country’s geopolitical power can be correlated to its financial dynamism, economic productivity and industrial might; successful powers are those most able to project themselves economically and geopolitically, without over-extending themselves. In this respect, Mr. Van Rompuy’s approach suggests a good dose of critical strategic thinking on his part, which is a breath of fresh air for those of us who often deplore the wishy-washy mumbo jumbo so frequently pumped-out by Europeans on foreign affairs.

So is Herman Van Rompuy a ‘Rompuy-pumpy’, or is he a closet Machiavelli? Is he a ‘damp rag’, or is he a quiet but clever strategist, working tirelessly behind the scenes to flesh out and project the European interest? Only time will tell. But his first speech on foreign and security policy certainly shows promise, and demands that Europeans should have more respect for their new president, and pay him more attention.

• Credit to Luc Van Braekel on Wikipedia for image.

In a recent paper published with the European Union Institute for Security Studies, I looked into the relationship between politics and the evolution of the European Union’s military planning and conduct capability. The questions surrounding the Union’s capability for the planning and conduct of European military operations have been some of the most controversial issues throughout the development of European Union’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP).

In the context of this debate the Union’s most influential Member States have projected their views over the heart and soul of CSDP, namely how autonomous the European Union should be in relation to NATO (a debate which has pitched ‘Europeanists’ against ‘Atlanticists’) or what is the desired balance between ‘civilian power Europe’ and ‘defence Europe’ (what has pitched ‘introverts’ against ‘extroverts’). The so-called Atlanticist versus Europeanist cleavage and the Extrovert versus introvert one often intermesh with each other. In the words of a former representative to the European Union Military Committee:

Some countries favour the concept of civilian ESDP, including the proliferation of civilian missions and the notion of “Civ/Mil” planning, to cripple through the back door the Union’s military instrument.

In spite of France’s perseverance, the ‘awkward alignment’ between the United Kingdom and Germany (two countries who are found on the opposite ends of the so-called ‘extrovert versus introvert continuum’) is particularly responsible for the lack of a permanent operational planning capability in Brussels. Although using different means (opposition by the former, ambiguity and inaction by the latter) and driven by different motives (‘Atlanticism’ in the case of the former, ‘civilian power Europe’ in the case of the latter), the behaviour of these two countries has been key in confounding the creation of the permanent military strategic level of command that Paris has pursued so eagerly.

Both London and Berlin champion the notion of Civ/Mil integration at the military strategic level (the so-called Civ-Mil Operational Headquarters (OHQ)). Whereas London perceives the idea of a Civ/Mil OHQ as a means of drowning the Union’s strategic potential in ‘civilian waters’, Berlin supports the notion of Civ/Mil integration at the military-strategic level out of strategic cultural conviction.

The lack of a permanent capability for the operational planning and conduct of CSDP military operations poses three important problems:

1. It hampers flexibility in the Union’s planning process, as politico-strategic deliberations over potential CSDP missions lack the crucial operational expertise necessary to address crucial political questions, such as how many troops are needed and for how long or how much the mission will cost.
2. The lack of an operational planning capability denies the Union the capacity to develop (advance) contingency planning products, that are so crucial in situations where rapid reaction is required.
3. The lack of a permanent command and control infrastructure has a negative impact upon the quality and security of the European Union’s military communication and information systems and hampers the kind of overall situational awareness offered by a central command, so vital for a Union that aims to think more strategically (as argued in the 2008 report on the implementation of the European Security Strategy).

An official from the Council of the European Union’s General Secretariat put the argument succinctly:

When you plan something from Brussels at the strategic level, there are three fundamental things that Member States would really like to know: how many troops, how much money and how long? We are in no position to answer any of those three questions satisfactorily. In order to do that you need an OHQ that is theatre-acquainted. Since we don’t have it, we try and plan things from a strategic level, but it is very unprofessional and unreliable. Everybody will tell you that politico-strategic planning cannot be done without an OHQ. It is a matter of politics; as simple as that.

Throughout much of January and February, the BBC has been running a documentary series about the Royal Navy called Empire of the Seas (for a snippet of the first episode, see below). The programmes show how the navy led to the development of the British fiscal-military system, leading to the formation of the Bank of England and the agricultural and industrial revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The documentary also charts how these national institutions were then harnessed by the British government to project power across the world, allowing London to acquire the lion’s share of global trade and amass the largest empire in world history.

It’s fair to say that Britain’s emergence as a maritime power radically transformed the country’s geostrategic orientation and had profound implications for both its neighbours and distant lands alike. This chimes well with a remark by the Dutch-American geostrategist, Nicholas Spykman, during the 1930s. He said:

Their differing conceptions [. . .] of the conquest of space indicate one of the outstanding differences between land and sea powers. A sea power conquers a large space by leaping lightly from point to point, adjusting itself to existing political relationships wherever possible, and often not establishing its legal control until its factual domination has long been tacitly recognised. An expanding land power moves slowly and methodically forward, forced by the nature of its terrain to establish its control step by step and so preserve the mobility of its forces. Thus a land power thinks in terms of continuous surfaces surrounding a central point of control, whereas a sea power thinks in terms of points and connecting lines dominating an immense territory.

In short, maritime powers tend towards commerce and industry, and adopt a very light and versatile – but aggressive and expansionist – military footprint. They can draw off their financial resources during times of conflict and harness them for their geopolitical purposes, enabling them to overwhelm any opponent (who is often stronger) and bring his designs to nought. And this maritime predilection also tends towards constitutional government and democracy, in turn fostering a high degree of technological innovation and dynamism. Land powers, on the other hand, tend towards centralised government and authoritarian control. To defend their territorial holdings, they must maintain a large army rather than a navy, and use it defensively to hold on to what they have got. The sheer cost of this endeavour means that it has been – historically – an enormous burden on the economy and on the State. It also tends to hold back innovation and economic productivity.

In this respect, the elephant in the room is of course geography. Geography, to a large degree, determines whether or not a country can adopt a maritime or a continental footprint. The Netherlands was connected to the coast by an extensive network of rivers, which doubled up as a defensive system against the continental rear. Britain became a maritime power because it was a large and fertile island surrounded by the sea, and was threatened by continental incursions, which needed to be repulsed. And today’s United States has a similar posture: it is flanked either side by the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and with weaker neighbours to its north and south, it forms a natural citadel and an innate projector of power.

Russia and Germany, on the other hand, have traditionally been land powers. With relatively shorter coastlines than land borders, they have been forced to hold their own against consecutive alliances of sea and land powers bent on annexing their land. Russia, in particular, has only been able to maintain internal order by centralised authoritarian control and has long been in a geopolitical tug-of-war with both its continental and maritime neighbours. These struggles have often exerted massive pressure on the State and have caused immeasurable hardships for the Russian people, not only as the State became more autocratic to contain external and internal opposition, but also to mount a credible defence against hostile neighbours or distant sea powers with designs on Russian land. To cut a long story short: it’s not good being a land power.

A SNIPPET OF EMPIRE OF THE SEAS

This brings us to the European Union, which, with the Treaty of Lisbon, is becoming an increasingly important world power. What approach should it adopt? Well, for many years it has concentrated on strategies of land power, expanding further and further to integrate more and more surrounding countries. This has reached such an extent that most of the European continent is now part of the same geopolitical order. But enlargement has probably run its course and there are few places left for Europeans to go.

Europeans must now invoke their maritime geography once again and look beyond Europe to concentrate on the wider world. The European Union needs to form an immensely powerful navy, which can be used to circulate maritime power around the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, the Black Sea, Africa’s Atlantic seaboard, and particularly the Indian Ocean. It is in these regions where future European Union military operations will take place, and it is these regions from where the greatest threats to European security are already beginning to come. This naval force would need a chain of naval stations to link together a durable maritime order, enabling European power to be projected rapidly into potential trouble spots, and to exert a calming influence over potential belligerents. This maritime posture should accelerate European commercial activity, enabling the continent to retain democratic government, while stimulating an outward-looking approach to world affairs, an outlook Europeans must sustain if they are to remain a major economic power.

Sea power has always been the foundation of European strength; it is the European Union’s manifest destiny to maintain this tradition.

• This article was first published by Global Europe on 17th February 2010.

Entering a new decade with a new Treaty, the European Union now possesses more tools to adapt and cope with an increasingly complex, multipolar and interdependent world. Of course, the Lisbon Treaty in itself will not transform the EU into a global superpower, nor even save it from eventually becoming irrelevant in light of the emergence of new global powers and of a geopolitical shift towards the Pacific. But the EU can now look forward.

One of the key challenges of this decade will be to see how the West, and more specifically how the EU will deal with this rising multipolarity. Indeed, it is in the interest of the EU – not to say a matter of survival – to promote an international order based on systemic and rule-based multilateralism because the EU is simply unable to play realpolitik with other global players.

However, not all forms of multilateralism are favourable to the EU. For instance, the formation of ad hoc bilateral or multilateral alliances could potentially be damaging to Europe. A G2 between China and America, for example, would slowly but inevitably make the US lean towards Asia, and render Europe increasingly irrelevant.

So, here is the obvious question: how do we get to an effective multilateral order? There is no clear-cut answer, but our intuition tells us that we should start with what we already have, with special attention to the latest developments, including the recent upgrading of the Group of 20 industrialised countries (G20) from ministerial to head of state level. This was largely seen as a positive signal by emerging countries, indicating that they are now considered as key players in dealing with global challenges. This recognition was most welcome in New Delhi, Beijing and Brasilia.

Somehow, the displacement of the G8 by the G20 was also positive for the EU, at least for two reasons. First, Brussels is officially the twentieth member of the G20, while it was only the ninth member of the G8. To many, this might only be a symbolic nuance, as in both cases the EU has the same ‘rights’ and ‘obligations’ as the other members minus the right to chair and host summits and therefore no capacity to fully shape the agenda.

But in international politics, rhetoric and the choice of words are never innocent. This means that the G20 is arguably a recognition of the ‘emerging’ or ‘global power’ status of the EU in international affairs as much as that of China, India or Brazil.

Second, the EU might show a more united front within the G20 than within the G8 because past experience has shown that pre-summit cooperation and coordination was greater ahead of G20 than G8 summits. Since the level of meetings was upgraded to heads of state and the agenda enlarged, there is even a visible trend towards more internal cooperation, on the basis that a stronger European voice is needed in a forum where Europe represents only one fifth of the participants (as opposed to half in the G8).

Indeed, ahead of the Pittsburgh summit, the EU gave a positive signal by releasing a communiqué stating the common ‘agreed language’ for the Summit, containing declarations on development, climate change and energy security. A stronger and more united European front will send a positive signal to our strategic partners.

Nonetheless, regarding the role of the EU in the G20, two important questions remain open:

(1) Who will represent the EU at the next G20 Summit in Toronto next June? The Treaty of Lisbon is not clear on who will replace the President of the Commission and the rotating Presidency. Whether it is Herman Van Rompuy or Catherine Ashton who accompanies José Manuel Barroso to Toronto might send a symbolic signal. But whoever is designated needs to strengthen European coordination within the G20 and to ensure coordination with the External Action Service which should receive more authority in terms of foreign policy planning, including regarding global challenges and strategic partnerships.

(2) How do we link the new G20 up with ‘effective multilateralism’? If the empowerment of the G20 was a good option available to make sure emerging powers feel involved in the resolution of today’s global challenges, it can only be a transitory phase pending a broader reform of the global multilateral architecture. If we want Russia, China, India or Brazil to abide by the rules of the World Trade Organisation, the International Monetary Fund or the United Nations, we have to strengthen (and eventually reshape) these institutions.

However, such reform will take time and a lot of difficult political decisions. In the meantime, the G20 can be used as a proxy to formal organisations provided it is globally accepted that it is only a temporary fix and that it does not replace but complements the UN Security Council.

The development of the G20 as a temporary proxy for global institutions is a necessary exception to ‘effective multilateralism’ because in today’s multipolar world most issues are globally interrelated, requiring enhanced cooperation and coordination among countries worldwide. Due to its composition (all countries of significant importance are represented) the G20 constitutes at this time the best available forum to effectively discuss global challenges and ways to solve them.

However, the EU must make sure that the decisions taken during the G20 comply with the international rules and are linked with and implemented through the permanent international organisations, such as UN agencies.

• This article was originally published by EUObserver.

• It is based on a policy paper by Egmont Institute entitled: A Need for Strategy in a Multipolar World: Recommendations to the EU after Lisbon.

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…

Earlier this year, reports surfaced about Russia’s intention to procure a new helicopter landing platform. Such vessels form – alongside the aircraft carrier and the nuclear attack submarine – the core of any expeditionary naval fleet with global reach. The purpose of these ships is to overwhelm coastal defences in any littoral combat theatre and rapidly establish a permanent bridgehead on the ground.

But why would Russia want such a capability? After all, Russia’s continental geography has meant that it has long deployed landpower strategies to control its hinterlands. Granted, the Soviet Navy had a range of warships, but these never reached the level of size and sophistication of those operated by the British, French or Americans. And Russia’s maritime history has never been particularly noteworthy: the last time a Russian fleet set sail against a distant enemy, it ended in utter ignominy and ruin.

In short, the answer is: Georgia. In August 2008, the Russian military faced a series of logistical problems in deploying forces to their next door neighbour. What might have taken a maritime power only a couple of hours took the Russian Army a couple of days. And had the militarily inept Georgian Army blown up the Roki Tunnel (linking Russia to Georgia through the Caucasus Mountains), the Russians might have faced an even harder time. The Russian Navy’s Commander-in-Chief, Vladimir Vysotskiy, admitted as such when he justified the ships’ acquisition with the statement: ‘In the conflict in August last year [against Georgia], a ship like that would have allowed the [Russian] Black Sea Fleet to accomplish its mission in forty minutes, not twenty-six hours which is how long it took us [to land the troops ashore].’

This fits squarely in with Russia’s new geostrategy: the re-establishment of a sphere of influence, known in Russia as the ‘near abroad’. But this has proven tougher than the Kremlin thought, especially when countries in this so-called ‘near abroad’ have other options, including the pursuit of better relations with the Americans, Europeans, Turks, Chinese and Indians. The Rose, Tulip and Orange Revolutions, in Georgia, Kyrgystan and Ukraine respectively, backed by the Europeans and/or Americans, were in this sense a wake-up call for the Kremlin.

What is significant, however, is that Moscow’s eyes are set squarely on France’s Mistral class of helicopter landing platform, a technologically-sophisticated 23,000 tonne behemoth armed to the hilt with helicopters, missiles, guns and landing craft. Alongside their American and British equivalents, the Mistral is among the most powerful assault vessels afloat.

Yet due to fierce resistance from Russia’s shipbuilders and the country’s military-industrial complex, it was initially thought that such a move was unlikely. Surely the Russians would design and build their own helicopter carriers, just as smaller countries like Japan and South Korea have recently done? Not so: the Russian Admiralty revealed that the reports were correct and that Russia was indeed looking to procure a foreign vessel.

In itself, this move is revealing: the Russians lack the means and wherewithal to cost-effectively build their own helicopter carriers. What is even more surprising, however, is that France seems so willing to sell such a powerful and sophisticated vessel to a less-than-friendly country, which only last year threw its weight around in the Caucasus to much European disdain. After all, it was President Sarkozy who intervened on behalf of the European Union to gain a peace treaty, which the Russians later by-and-large ignored.

Late last month, the Mistral cruised to St. Petersburg for a Russian inspection. Unsurprisingly, this immediately alarmed the European Union’s Member States bordering the Baltic Sea, including Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Estonia’s top military officer and other analysts stated that Russia’s possession of such a vessel would dramatically alter the military balance of power in Eastern Europe and tip it decidedly in the Kremlin’s favour. Likewise, Latvia’s defence ministry asked Paris to reconsider the move, which it saw as antithetical to the stability of the Baltic region.

Should the sale go ahead, France would profit considerably. It would make approximately €500 million from the deal, with a further €500 million for the sale of the license required by Russia for the construction of four more vessels. This would be a lucrative contract at a time of economic difficulty. But France needs to balance this against more long-term geostrategic considerations. Does France really want Russia to gain access to weapons platforms equal to its own and as many in number? If Russia acquires five assault vessels, only the United States and Britain would be left with a larger amphibious capability. How would this upset the balance of power in the Baltic and Black Sea regions, let alone further afield?

Providing Russia with such powerful naval weaponry is hardly going to enhance the European Union’s authority vis-à-vis Moscow in the Eastern Neighbourhood. Russia’s landpower advantages would be complimented with a formidable maritime capacity, the like of which the country has never had access to before. And given Russia’s unpredictable nature, there would be no guarantees against whom the warships would be used. The Russian Prime Minister has already said: ‘Whoever we buy it from, we will reserve the right to use it where and when we consider necessary.’

Equally, the European Union’s eastern Member States, already irked by recent Russian military exercises in Belarus – including simulated nuclear attacks on Polish cities – might become even more alienated from their western brethren. In turn, this could make them less conducive towards an enhanced European Union Common Security and Defence Policy, which France has long underwritten and tried to promote.

So rather than splintering the European Union with the pursuit of misguided cooperation with outside competitors, Paris should be aiming to harden the outer shell of the European Union with its fellow Member States. Selling Russia Mistrals is a mistake. In this sense, French philosopher, Andre Glucksmann, has put it aptly: ‘It is never too late to block a silly half-baked idea.’

• Credit to Wikipedia for picture.

In a recent interview with the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, former American ambassador to NATO, Robert E. Hunter, argues that Europe’s support for the United States’ efforts in Afghanistan is part of some quid pro quo arrangement whose flip side is America’s commitment to upholding the existing balance of power in Europe (read acting as an insurer against a growingly assertive Russia). In a similar vein, Richard Gowan has argued in Pragati that Europeans worry about what Afghanistan might bring to the Atlantic Alliance, not about what the transatlantic relationship might bring to Afghanistan or ‘the wider strategic regional context’.

We often hear that the challenges posed by Afghanistan are of a transnational nature (i.e. international terrorism, drug trafficking, human rights, etc.) and must be dealt with by the international community. However, we realise today, Af-Pak (Afghanistan and Pakistan) is shaping up as one of the first real twenty-first-century geopolitical arm wrestles; an eloquent illustration of the fact that all things transnational bear a national dimension too; from climate change, through terrorism, piracy or regional stability, all the way down to drug trafficking. To be sure, as the highly destructive power of modern weaponry rises the costs of war, national squabbles will more and more come wrapped in transnational packages.

Af-Pak is very much about the direction of Pakistan; India’s perennial challenge, America’s impossible ally, China’s promised land. During the Cold War, America saw its partnership with Pakistan as a means to hinder a potential Indo-Soviet expansion into the Indian Ocean that would have challenged its hegemony over the seas. Today, Washington’s commitment to a stable Pakistan is not only a means to counter the spread of radical Islam across the greater Middle East; it is also serious test of the strength of the US-India relationship and of Washington’s bid to manage the rise of China. For Russia, Af-Pak evokes some fundamental contradictions: between its will to contain the spread of radical Islam in Central Asia and its reluctance to accept that the price of that containment is the expansion of American influence in the region; between its will to preserve its partnership with India while upholding an improved relationship with China. For China, Pakistan offers not just a trampoline into the Arabian Sea and the vast energy reserves of the Middle East: it is a golden card in a rapidly heating proxy contest between Delhi and Beijing that comprises Nepal, Butan, Tibet, Myanmar or Sri Lanka.

Af-Pak is about influence in Central Asia, a region that, connecting Russia, China, India and the Middle East to each other, constitutes Eurasia’s geopolitical hub; an area that will test America’s will to remain a Eurasian power in the twenty-first century. The contradictions that confront it make a neat caricature of the explosive ambiguities that surround the web of relationships among the various Eurasian great powers.

But where does an ageing, retirement-minded Europe fit into all this? Europeans’ reluctance to embrace the very notion of Af-Pak does tell us a great deal about the old continent’s half-heartedness towards power politics, which for many, is considered as a thing of the past. Af-Pak does not seem to have a place in post-modern, post–Westphalian, European mindsets. For most Europeans, Afghanistan remains a transnational challenge and, as such, its stabilisation is associated with multilateral, comprehensive, solutions.

I have argued elsewhere that Europe’s bid to market itself as the bastion of international legitimacy is not necessarily strategically naïve. For Europeans, to avoid taking sides in the Eastern half of Eurasia (the region stretching from Central Asia to East Asia on land, from the Eastern Arabian Sea, through Malacca, onto the North Western Pacific at sea) might just be sound strategy. As the management of the balance of power in the Eastern half of Eurasia will require more and more resources from the United States, China, India and Russia, Europeans will be able to concentrate their efforts closer to home and use their offshore position to increase their leverage over the other Eurasian powers in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Northern Africa or the Suez to Hormuz maritime routes.

If the European offshore power strategy is to work effectively, though, Europeans must ensure they possess an appropriate offshore balance capability. Such capability can only be reached if two (interlinked) pre-conditions are met: Europeans’ acknowledgement of the importance of a strong, diverse and flexible military instrument in a growingly volatile international environment, and their determination to speak with one voice in foreign and security affairs. As long as America remains committed to the current balance of power in Europe, Europeans will tend to think they’ll be able to get away with their aversion to military force and their resistance to unite. But at a time when America’s commitment to Europeans will be severely tested by the challenges it faces elsewhere, Europe’s softness and disunity might soon turn against it. Only a more military aware and more politically cohesive European Union offers Europeans the possibility to be a constructive force in the international system, and to uphold their social-liberal values at that. For in the rough environment of international politics, one either shapes or is shaped.

Now that Catherine Ashton has been appointed the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and that Herman van Rompuy has become the first permanent President of the European Council, a more fundamental question is: which foreign policy strategy will they actually pursue?

In its 2003 European Security Strategy (ESS), the EU has developed a grand strategy, embracing all foreign policy instruments and resources at the disposal of the EU and the Member States, but a partial one. The ESS tells us how to do things – in a preventive, holistic and multilateral way – but it is much vaguer on what to do: what are the foreign policy priorities of the EU?

The recent debate about the ESS, resulting in the 2008 Report on the Implementation of the European Security Strategy, failed to answer this question. Offering little in terms of recommendations for the future, the Report creates an impression of unfinished business, which the EU can ill afford now that the Treaty of Lisbon will change the institutional set-up, NATO has launched a strategic debate to which an EU contribution is essential, and the EU risks being overshadowed by the much more purposive emerging powers or BRICs. A fully-fledged strategic review is in order to complete the ESS.

The first rule of strategy-making is to know thyself. Which values and interests should our grand strategy safeguard? Europe has a very distinctive social model, combining democracy, the market economy and strong government intervention. Preserving and strengthening this internal social contract between the EU and its citizens, guaranteeing them security, economic prosperity, political freedom and social well-being, is the fundamental objective of the EU, both internally and as a global actor. The conditions that have to be fulfilled to allow that constitute our vital interests: defence against any military threat; open lines of communication and trade (in physical as well as in cyber space); a secure supply of energy and other vital natural resources; a sustainable environment; manageable migration flows; the maintenance of international law and universally agreed rights; and autonomy of EU decision-making.

To safeguard these interests, the EU must be a power, i.e. a strategic actor that consciously and purposely defines long-term objectives, actively pursues these, and acquires the necessary means to that end. Which kind of power the EU chooses to be, is also conditioned by the international environment. Marked by interpolarity (i.e. existential interdependence between an increased number of global powers), that environment is very challenging, but at the same time presents the EU with an opportunity to pursue a distinctive grand strategy.

In the absence of enemies and in view of the need for cooperation to tackle global challenges, the best way of defending our interests, in order to defend our model and values, is precisely to spread those values, because increasing the access of citizens worldwide to security, prosperity, freedom and well-being directly addresses the underlying causes of threats and challenges. The EU does not seek to coerce others into adopting it, not even merely to entice them through conditionality, but to convince them of the benefits of our model and values through practical cooperation on concrete issues, on the basis of shared interests and common challenges. Thus the recognition of the universality of our values can be gradually and consensually increased.

The approach which the EU has pursued so far is in line with this grand strategy, but practice has revealed a number of unanswered questions. How to avoid the clash between immediate interests and the emphasis on values? How to act vis-à-vis the emerging global powers and integrate them in the multilateral architecture? What to do when prevention fails and the threat or use of force is required?

The answers to these questions will determine the objectives which a complete grand strategy should define in more detail. The following priority areas require the identification of specific EU interests and the definition of concrete objectives, in order to direct policies and actions:

• The Neigbourhood: What is the desired end-state of the Neighbourhood Policy? Can only democracy create a consensual value-based community and thus safeguard our interests, or will democratization create such upheaval that our interests would be damaged? Only when our interests and red lines are clear can a true strategic partnership with Russia be pursued.
• Enlargement: A successful instrument so far, further enlargement is determining for relations with Russia and for the geopolitical position of the EU – and cannot proceed therefore without strategic debate.
• Regional objectives: A reluctance to discuss interests and join up the different European presences, from aid and trade to diplomacy, has undermined policies towards Central Asia, the Gulf and Africa. Other regions too, such as Asia, Latin America and the Arctic need a thorough assessment of EU interests to determine whether or not our presence should be stepped up.
• Global and institutional objectives: The EU must sharpen its view about the multilateral architecture, reconciling reform with increased effectiveness of EU representation. That should inform a really strategic use of its strategic partnerships with the BRICs, the existence of which too often seems more important than their content.
• Conflict resolution and crisis management: A white book should define Europe’s ambition as a security actor. Regardless of whether in a specific case Europeans deploy under the flag of the European Security and Defence Policy, NATO or the UN: which types of operations must European forces be capable of, which priority regions and scenarios require intervention, and which is the scale of the effort to be devoted to these priorities?

It is not sufficient to have a more complete grand strategy – the EU must then also apply it. That requires an institutional follow-up structure. Now that the Treaty of Lisbon has entered force, the new High Representative / Vice-President of the Commission, supported by the External Action Service, should be formally entrusted with the implementation and development of EU strategy.

A grand strategy that translates the values on which the European social model is based into a pro-active and constructive foreign policy, aimed at concrete objectives: on that basis, with the right political leadership, the EU can be a global power.

• This article is based on an extensive report on European Union grand strategy, recently issued by the Egmont Institute in Brussels.

• Credit to Wikipedia for picture.