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.

• 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.

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.

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.

• BRITISH HISTORY IS GLOBAL, NOT EUROPEAN

Is it? So a popular story goes: since expeditions to North America in 1498, the world has been opened up to British power. British soldiers, sailors and traders spread out to conquer the planet; and with them, British influence started to penetrate just about every continent and nation, from Africa and the Americas, to Asia and the Middle East. By the late eighteenth century, Britain had become not only the strongest country in history, but also the first global power. As ‘an empire on which the sun never set’, the British imperium was worldwide, not European.

Yet this familiar story, often venerated across the United Kingdom, rests on a dangerous illusion: that Britain’s global outlook could be separated from its European vocation. As the historian, Brendan Simms, has shown in Three Victories and a Defeat: The Rise and Fall of the First British Empire, 1714-1783, a careful balancing of the European and global fronts was tantamount to a successful British foreign policy and, ultimately, the security of the United Kingdom. It was clever engagement on the European mainland that enabled Britain to walk freely across the globe.

Whenever this globalist illusion led Britain to neglect its European position, its worldwide standing fell into disrepute. That was the case in 1776 when Britain failed to build a friendly European coalition during the American War of Independence. Other Europeans seized their chance to hobble Britain’s pride and sided with the American colonialists. Similarly, when late Victorian strategists pursued their haughty policy of ‘Splendid Isolation’, Britain looked on as the European balance of power went awry. More recently, Neville Chamberlain’s declaration in 1938 that the Czechs were a ‘faraway country’ of ‘whom we know nothing’ led to the growth of an evil empire at Europe’s heart. When war eventually came, Britain was forced to pawn off its imperial silver to raise enough funds for the fight.

Even after World War Two, the globalist illusion continued to haunt Britain. The country initially remained aloof from the project to integrate the European continent. It was only after a period of decline and economic stagnation that London bit the bullet and decided the time had come to begin the re-establishment of the European vocation to its rightful place in British foreign policy.

• THE BRITISH ECONOMY IS ‘GLOBALISED’, NOT ‘EUROPEANISED’

Wrong. In 1950, Britain’s economy was the third largest and most heavily globalised in the world. Much of Britain’s exports went to its dominions and imperial territories overseas. Equally, imports came from America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Australasia.

Today, the British economy is more ‘Europeanised’ than it has ever been. Almost sixty percent of Britain’s external trade is with other Member States in the European Union, a percentage that has grown every year since British accession in 1973. Britain is also among those that have benefited the most from free movement of people, having further consolidated itself as Europe’s financial capital and its cultural and social centre.

Last year, London became the home to more Poles than any other city bar Warsaw. It hosts thousands of young Irish, Greeks, Swedish, Spanish, Germans, Italians, French and other Europeans. London’s dynamism and plurality make it a magnet for everything European: as a hub for European fashion and culture, London contributes vastly to the consolidation of a European identity. Like with British foreign policy, the European and global dimensions are mutually constitutive parts of London’s identity. It is this balance that allows London to retain its place as the world’s pre-eminent city.

• BRITAIN IS STRONG ENOUGH TO STAND ON ITS OWN

Hardly. The days of Britain standing tall in the world have long gone. Ever since Britain’s accession to the European Community in 1973, anti-European voices, underpinned by pro-Americanism and the globalist illusion, have called over and over again for full disengagement from the European enterprise. But these forces are mistaken: British secession from the European Union would result in the paradox of denying Britain a say over the government of the single European market, to which the destiny of the British economy is irrevocably entwined. How can that possibly be in the British national interest?

It is not. Rather, in today’s increasingly multipolar environment, where British power is shrinking relative to allies and foreign powers alike, the United Kingdom needs to work in partnership with other Europeans – who, incidentally, face a similar set of problems.

• BRITAIN’S KEY ALLIES ARE OVERSEAS

No longer. It is true that since the end of World War Two, many of Britain’s key alliances have been with countries overseas. After 1945, Britain was broke; the Soviet Union held sway over much of Central and Eastern Europe; and Moscow threatened British interests in Western Europe and southern Asia.

The Anglo-American relationship was cemented by the two countries’ interest in keeping Soviet power in check. Neither Washington nor London could afford to see a further expansion of Soviet influence over the Eurasian landmass. The ‘special relationship’ with the United States soon became a bedrock of British diplomacy and military policy. Britain’s relationships with other English-speaking countries, like Australia, New Zealand and Canada also became important, particularly with the sharing of intelligence.

Yet relations with other European countries have also proven crucial to advancing Britain’s national interest. Long one of Britain’s key alliances, the Anglo-French Entente Cordiale – now known as the Entente Formidable – provided London with enormous help during the Falklands War. Equally, during the post-Cold War era, the Anglo-German ‘enlargement engine’ was critical in pushing for the European Union’s expansion towards the East. Indeed, Britain’s mainland European allies can only become increasingly important as China rises and America’s attention shifts towards the Far East.

In this new world, Britain needs to look more closely at the future of its alliances. This is even more compelling in the light of a resurgent Russia and a possible divergence between British/European and American interests with regard to Moscow. Old dreams of an Anglosphere or a resurrected Commonwealth will simply not fly; the European Union is Britain’s only credible option.

• STAYING CLOSE TO WASHINGTON BOOSTS BRITAIN’S WEIGHT

Does it? For decades, British academics and diplomats have wondered just what Britain gains from supporting Washington. Many Britons were despondent about the way their country was treated by the Americans after the Second World War, especially over pressures to wind up their empire. However, Cold War realities forced them to accept the alliance. Subsequent intelligence and military co-operation has empowered London, giving Britain closer access to the White House than otherwise might have been.

Since 2001, however, many Britons have been increasingly worried about their country’s standing in the world after having been associated so closely with the previous administration’s excesses. Tony Blair’s concept of Britain as a bridge between Europe and America has fallen apart: bridges, after all, get walked over. And with France’s full return to the Atlantic Alliance, the election of President Obama in 2008, and the snubbing of Gordon Brown in March and September, Britain’s place in American policy has once again come under scrutiny. As Michael Heseltine has recently argued, perhaps Britons should finally accept that the ‘special relationship’ is only special on the British side of the Atlantic, and not the American side.

• BRITAIN’S FUTURE IS EUROPEAN

Absolutely! With the coming multipolar world order, Britain has to make a choice. It can stubbornly cling to the relics of the past, or it can ensure a better future by learning to accept the present. The European Union offers future British governments the potential to craft a new position for the British people, not as the global power they once were, but rather as a leading European power. The latest economic and demographic projections suggest that by the middle of the century, the United Kingdom will overtake Germany to become the largest Member State in the European Union. Further, its military strength and diplomatic experience leave Britain in an advantageous position to play a leadership role in the European Union.

Britain has to decide whether it wants to become a small fish in a big sea, or a big fish in a small sea. If it does not re-assess its geopolitical situation and role as the twenty-first century rolls on, it will find itself in a position similar to the former. If, however, it delves deeply into the European enterprise and forms ever-closer relationships with Brussels, Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Berlin and Warsaw, it could find itself in a position of untrammelled influence, actively and confidently shaping the European Union into a global power.

The British are part of European civilisation; they have shared in the European experience; and are indelibly entwined in European history. Britain is European: always has been, always will be. As such, Britain’s future prosperity means that it must fully reconnect with its European roots and lead from the front.

History tells us that multipolar orders tend to be less stable than unipolar or bipolar ones. Having spent the last sixty years under the blanket of bipolarity and then unipolarity, it is time for Europeans to think about how the coming multipolar international system will affect their geopolitical standing. This post aims to contribute to that.

Geostrategic contingency planning is the art of anticipating a geostrategy in a given geopolitical environment. It therefore projects how the geopolitical environment is likely to evolve; it is contingent in that it must deal with important unknowns. It is, by definition, a speculative exercise, yet a crucial one. Among the most important unknowns we face when trying to predict the geopolitical evolution of the world in the coming decades are, arguably, the pace and nature of China and India’s rise; America’s long term commitment to remain actively engaged globally; the evolution of Russia; and the political take-off of the European integration project – or, for that matter, the demographic sustainability of any potential European global power.

Geostrategic contingency planning contains an important dimension of uncertainty. This said, it is safe to assume that the emerging multipolar system will be roughly quadripolar: the United States, China, India and the European Union. The values and internal workings of each of those power centres will surely present considerable differences. Yet, their behaviour will by and large determine the evolution of the international system.

Three of these powers – China, India and the European Union – are situated in the Eurasian landmass. The other one – the United States – is not. It should therefore follow that the role of ‘offshore balancer’ in the twenty-first century is likely to correspond to the United States, by virtue of geography. This certainly is a causal correlation very much present in the minds of a great deal of American realists. To them, their secure position in the Western Hemisphere, guarded by the two great oceans of the world, makes the United States the natural offshore balancer for Eurasian geopolitics.

But if geography is the most permanent of all factors in international politics, we cannot neglect history or geostrategic and geoideological path dependencies – at play for over six decades. These offer Europeans a fantastic opportunity to occupy the offshore balancer seat themselves. In contrast to the rather inward-looking Europeans, the United States remains presently engaged around the Pacific-Rim –heavily committed to the defence of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, among others. After all, Eastern Eurasia, including China and India, is part of America’s geostrategic neighbourhood.

Yet, out of the four emerging centres of global power, it is the European Union that actually sits furthest away from the Far East, a region likely to experience the highest degree of geopolitical tension in the twenty-first century. This distant proximity does not mean that Europeans should be indifferent to this dynamic region – far from it. The European Union must remain wary of geopolitical events around the Asian rim, and maintain a sufficient degree of forward presence to guarantee the flow of European trade and energy supplies. But it must do this while it simultaneously attempts to avoid taking sides in the emerging struggle involving the United States (and its allies, Japan and South Korea), China and India.

Europeans must remain passively vigilant towards the geopolitical destinies of the East Asia-Pacific zone and make sure they stay clear of the ‘containing China’ bandgwagon. Preventing China or, for that matter, any other power from dominating the resources of Eastern Eurasia is surely in the European interest. Yet, unfolding geopolitical alignments (notably the growing closeness between the United States and India) may suffice in guaranteeing an acceptable balance of power in the region. This geopolitical struggle will sap a great deal of resources from the Americans, Chinese and Indians, which may give the European Union a free ride closer to home, allowing Europeans to consolidate their position in their extended proximal zone.

To be sure, neutrality in East Asia would offer Europeans important advantages, trading and otherwise. For one thing, it would facilitate an understanding with China in those regions where Beijing is propping up its presence and where Europeans have vested interests – namely Africa and the Middle East. For Beijing, securing Europe’s neutrality in East Asia would be an important geopolitical objective in itself. Hence, this offshore status would offer Europeans an advantageous position vis-à-vis China in the regions surrounding the European Union. Further, this balancer status and brokering quality would allow Europeans to help alleviate and downplay potential tensions among the other great powers.

Indeed, the Union could aspire to become the ultimate power broker, the geopolitical arbiter of the twenty-first century. Europeans would be in a fantastic position to co-ordinate efforts aimed at engineering collective solutions to common security concerns (i.e. WMD proliferation, organised crime in any of its forms, climate change, etc.). It would be at the vanguard of most collective enterprises – among them, most notably, the United Nations system. In this sense, the bet on notions such as Effective Multilateralism or peacekeeping is not a necessarily naïve one, provided it is accompanied by a broader sense of geostrategic awareness.

As such, it is of the utmost importance that Europeans do not become entangled into the power games of the three main East Asian powers. For this, the European Union must buffer away Eurasia and consolidate its position in its neighbourhood and near abroad while limiting the influence of the other great powers there.

In this regard, Russia represents a particularly challenging element in the Union’s geopolitical calculations. Some in Europe continue to argue that Russia may eventually be integrated into some sort of European sphere. This is certainly a possibility, even if a long way off in the future. Much ink has also been devoted in the past to the question of the European vocation of Russia. But, leaving aside Moscow’s reticent attitude to joining a political union with Europeans on the basis of equal footing, it is not at all very clear how any sort of political entity stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok would be in the European interest either. For that would effectively make Brussels a direct player in the Far East, throwing the lucrative prospect of offshore balancer down the toilet.

Ironically, it might be in the European interest for Russia to retain an autonomous space of its own in the Eurasian Heartland. This way, Russia can serve as a buffer against any future overspill of insecurity or conflict in Eastern Asia or the Pacific-Rim into the European continent.

In contrast to the passive vigilance that the geopolitical situation in the Asia-Pacific region recommends, the Union should pursue a more robust strategy in its neighbourhood and near abroad just beyond. The expansion of Brussels political influence in its neighbourhood – places such as Ukraine, the Caucasus and North Africa – should be accelerated through a combination of integration and quasi-integration schemes. A maritime ‘forward presence’ will also be required in the Arctic region, an area which will most likely serve as an alternative trading route between Europeans and Asia only a few decades down the line. Also, Europeans must considerably bump-up their influence over their ‘near abroad’ – namely the Sahel belt and Sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and, most crucially, the Middle East.

In this regard, bringing Turkey into the Union is a geopolitical must and Europeans should not underestimate the geopolitical importance of this issue. Not only would it become a valuable asset in the Union’s struggle for energy diversification; it would also provide for a stronger European presence in the Caucasus. Perhaps even more importantly, Turkey would make the ideal vehicle for bolstering the Union’s involvement in the Middle East. With Turkey on board, Europeans would more easily downplay the old phantoms of European-Islamic antagonism, to which revisionist power seekers in the region so commonly resort. These phantoms too often stand in the way of better governance, prosperity and stability in the Middle East – three preconditions for European security.

Finally, being as they are in the fine line that separates the European near and further abroad regions, the Indian Ocean and Central Asia will most severely test the Union’s ability to navigate active engagement and passive vigilance within its nascent geostrategic framework. At sea the former, on land the latter, these two areas are of direct geopolitical relevance to Europeans – as well as important scenes for American, Chinese and Indian posturing.

So can Europeans play the role of offshore balancer in the twenty-first century? Only if they begin buffering Eurasia to balance East Asia. This approach should place the European Union in an advantageous position as the geopolitical arbiter of the world, an initiating force for any collective endeavour aimed at addressing common problems and downplaying geopolitical tensions among the other emergent great powers.

• Credit to The Lesson Plan for picture.

Over a month ago, the United States and Russia agreed in Moscow to further reductions in strategic nuclear weaponry amidst speculation of a new dawn in Russian-American relations. It might still be too soon to tell if the unfolding Strategic Arms Limitation Talks are an isolated event, a mere by-product of the 2008 financial crunch, or whether they carry a deeper strategic meaning. To be sure, President Obama’s ‘reset-button’ overtures towards Russia have already raised many eyebrows. Others have interpreted Mr. Obama reaching out to the Russians merely as  standard protocol, something mandatory to every new administration and unlikely to go much beyond the cosmetic realm.

Yet in reality, the chitter-chatter over American-Russian relations is beside the point. What matters is that any sign of rapprochement between the two sends real chills down many a spine in Central and Eastern Europe. And understandably so: it was America’s standing up to a weakening Russia in the 1980s and 1990s that gave Central and Eastern Europeans a new leash of life. While ongoing distrust between Moscow and Washington may hinder a new partnership, the likelihood of an eventual improvement should not be so easily ruled out. It might actually make good strategic sense for both parties. Europeans in particular would do well to keep an eye on such a possibility and accordingly, do so some contingency thinking themselves.

In the short term, the prospects for improved Russian-American relations look bleak. While many hope that the Kremlin’s supposed hand could reign in Iran – and help the Allies in Afghanistan – serious issues prevent a meeting of minds in either Washington or Moscow. As of today, Russia not only remains the main great power contester to American hegemony in the Middle East, it is also a major player in Central Asia.

Moscow gives Tehran’s nuclear adventure appropriate UN Security Council cover and assists it with key military technology – like air defence systems. In turn, Iran and its wide range of proxies (e.g. in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine) remain a major obstacle to American primacy in the Middle East. Russia’s role in Iran isn’t just about leverage but, more importantly, is also about maintaining what’s left of a balance of power in the Middle East. It goes without saying that Moscow is not going to trade this away so easily.

Similar dynamics operate in the case of Afghanistan. Here, it is said that Moscow’s blessing would result in important logistical advantages for the Allied effort in this Central Asian country, insofar as Russia controls – either directly or indirectly – much of the territory surrounding Afghanistan. The Russians have a natural interest in keeping Islamist terrorism at bay. But only to a point: should Americans and Europeans consolidate and expand their influence in Afghanistan, Russian power in Central Asia would potentially suffer. And there should be no mistake about that: the Kremlin is in the business of impeding American and European penetration into its Central Asian backyard, not facilitating it.

In Russia’s eyes, giving up influence in Central Asia and the Middle East is something that can only be justified if exchanged for gains in its so-called ‘near-abroad’, namely the area encircling Russia’s core – Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. And the Russians know this won’t fly in Washington. It is one thing for Washington to express curiosity over a potential grand bargain in the region, but quite another to act on it – particularly after the Russian invasion of Georgia. After all, and although increasingly important, Russia’s cooperation is not that critical for the United States; and Eastern Europe remains too valuable a strategic asset. Not only does it allow Washington to strengthen its grip over the European Union, but it also provides a forward site for American power projection into Eurasia’s heartland and rimland areas, as well as serving as an insurance policy against the (highly unlikely) eventuality that Russia eventually finds the strength to re-emerge as a peer competitor.

In any case, over the longer term, Russian-American relations certainly look brighter. For one thing, Russia’s relative power is projected to decline further, while other powers will go on rising – especially China. In the decades to come, Moscow will strive for an autonomous strategic space within the Eurasian heartland as the world system becomes progressively multipolar. And notwithstanding Shanghai Cooperation Organisation-type illusions, any future in which China and Russia cooperate harmoniously is hard to envision. Only American unilateralism has masked the inherent tension between Moscow and Beijing; as this wanes such tension will re-emerge, and Russia may look to its old rival in the Western Hemisphere for support.

This does not necessarily mean that Russia will forge a rock-solid alliance with Washington; only that, in the unfolding American-Chinese struggle, Moscow’s allegiances are more likely to rest with Washington than with Beijing. The alternative – a strategic partnership with China – would be a far more oppressive scheme, and this is something Moscow is well aware of. A giant and powerful China, with its eyes set squarely on Russia’s vast Siberian wastes, would become a major concern for the Kremlin. If it comes down to a choice between Washington and Beijing (and some day it most likely will), Moscow would choose the lesser of two evils and eventually accept greater American involvement in Central Asia.

Washington’s geostrategic focus in the Eastern half of Eurasia will only continue to grow. Many Americans will come to see greater Russian cooperation in both the Middle East and Central Asia as ever more desirable to offset a rising China. And any upgrade in Russian-American relations would require Washington to cut Moscow some slack in those areas that lie closest to the latter’s heart.

But this will all have a big impact on Europeans. They will have less to worry about if China slows down or is geopolitically frustrated. This would also be the dream scenario from an American perspective: maintaining a balance of power in both Europe and East Asia would not depend on the goodwill of a third party (even if a friendly one, like the European Union) but only on the United States. In such a scenario, Europeans could sit back and leave the United States to do the heavy lifting in Central Asia and the Middle East, while benefiting economically from the reduced need to build-up their strategic resources and reach. But the chances are that China will continue to rise and, as America’s relative power declines, Washington will be forced to make choices.

As a new strategic conundrum unfolds, the United States will probably realise that Eastern Europe, first, and the Middle East, later, will be relatively more and more expendable if compared to Central Asia, the Indian Ocean region or East Asia – where the future great game will inevitably take place. Europeans must begin to work under this assumption, with an eye on acquiring greater geostrategic influence over Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and the Middle East. Hesitation today will only jeopardise the European interest tomorrow, when the realities of a changing geopolitical landscape knock on the door of the demographically ageing continent. And only the European Union provides a viable framework for any European geostrategic reawakening.

So far as Washington has played tough cop on Russia (and the Middle East) Europeans have been able to follow the free-rider’s textbook: let the Americans do the heavy lifting from which Europeans ultimately benefit while sitting back and talking about complexity, while praising the benefits of engagement, dialogue, and so forth. Yet as the global geopolitical tide changes, Europeans are likely likely to have no choice but to dust off their old strategic software. Or else their current vulnerability in Eastern Europe, and over the supply of gas and oil, will come to look like peanuts compared to how it would be without Washington’s umbrella. Undoubtedly, this is fast becoming the real test of whether Europeans are able to break away from the strategic prison in which they have locked themselves during the past sixty years. And time is running out.

• Credit to the White House for picture.