WHY EUROPE NEEDS a NEW GLOBAL STRATEGY Susi Dennison, Richard Gowan, Hans Kundnani, Mark Leonard and Nick Witney
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BRIEF POLICY WHY EUROPE NEEDS A NEW GLOBAL STRATEGY Susi Dennison, Richard Gowan, Hans Kundnani, Mark Leonard and Nick Witney Today’s Europe is in crisis. But of all the world’s leading powers, SUMMARY It is now a decade since European leaders none has had so much success in shaping the world around approved the first-ever European Security it over the last 20 years as the European Union. The United Strategy (ESS), which began with the States provided the military underpinning for a Europe whole memorable statement that “Europe has and free, but its record in other parts of the world has been never been so prosperous, so secure nor mixed at best. Russia is still lagging behind where it was when so free”. But Europe and the world have the Cold War ended. Japan has stagnated. Meanwhile rising changed so dramatically in the last decade that it is increasingly hard to argue that powers such as China have not yet sought to reshape global the EU can simply stick to the “strategy” it politics in their image. But since the end of the Cold War, the agreed in 2003. Many of the approaches that EU has peacefully expanded to include 16 new member states worked so well for Europe in the immediate and has transformed much of its neighborhood by reducing aftermath of the Cold War seem to be ethnic conflicts, exporting the rule of law, and developing ineffectual at best and counter-productive economies from the Baltic to the Balkans. at worst in an age of power transition and global political awakening. Furthermore, it is Europeans rather than Americans and In particular, six of the ideas that were Chinese who have pushed for institutionalised responses to central to the ESS are now holding Europe global problems from climate change to chemical weapons. back: European soft power struggles in an It is the EU that has inspired the institutions most likely to era of global awakening; European aid and foster stability and co-operation in other neighbourhoods economic assistance are losing impact in an – the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the era of big spenders; “effective multilateralism” African Union and the Arab League. The transformation is harder in an era of neo-Westphalian rising powers; liberal interventionism is more of Europe’s neighbourhood is a striking contrast with Asia, difficult because of fatigue and defence which, although it has been economically dynamic, has cuts; US disengagement is changing the remained politically static. An article about Asian security transatlantic relationship; and economic by former US Secretary of State James Baker from 1992 power alone is not enough in Asia. Given sounds almost contemporaneous in its description of these changes, European leaders should tensions between China, Japan, and Korea, the maritime use the European Council in December to disputes and the lack of institutional responses to them.1 commission a major strategic rethink. 1 James A. Baker, III, “America in Asia: Emerging Architecture for a Pacific Community”, Foreign Affairs, Winter 1991/92, available at http://www.foreignaffairs.com/ articles/47433/james-a-baker-iii/america-in-asia-emerging-architecture-for-a-pacific- community#. Europe’s post-Cold War success story was captured by the Europe also felt confident: its new single currency was a first attempt to design a European Security Strategy (ESS) success; it was developing a constitution and new foreign in 2003, which began with the memorable statement that policy institutions; and it had begun its first Common “Europe has never been so prosperous, so secure nor so Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) operations. free”.2 But while Europe today is still relatively prosperous, secure and free, it now looks out on the world with less Since then, however, the world has changed almost beyond optimism. Europeans seem to be losing power and influence recognition and European optimism has been diminished. in the world at a startling speed. The 2008 report on the implementation of the ESS said Europe was still “an anchor of stability”.4 But the euro This is in part because of the euro crisis, but it is also crisis has discredited the euro and the EU’s institutions because of the trap of historic success. This brief argues that and replaced confidence with insecurity for millions of Europe and the world have changed so dramatically in the Europeans. Iraq and Afghanistan have discredited liberal last decade that the conceptual underpinnings of the 2003 interventionism for most Europeans and “non-intervention” ESS obscure rather than illuminate the challenges Europe is being re-established as the global norm. The “emerging now faces. In particular, six of the ideas that were central economies” have emerged: the Chinese economy has to the ESS are now holding Europe back. For that reason, doubled in size; authoritarian capitalism is the new brand WHY EUROPE NEEDS A NEW GLOBAL STRATEGY Europe may be “wrecked by success” like those who, as leader; and from the Doha Round to climate change to Syria, Sigmund Freud explained in a 1916 essay, “fall ill precisely European agendas have been blocked. In many capitals, when a deeply-rooted and long-cherished wish has come hubristic talk of “balancing” the US has given way to anxiety to fulfilment”.3 In December, the European Council will about the “pivot” and American decline. discuss defence issues for the first time since the euro crisis began. European leaders should use it to commission a Meanwhile, within Europe, citizens rejected the constitution major strategic rethink. and with it the assumption of “ever closer union”. Solidarity has crumbled as the EU has doubled in size; the crisis has set debtors against creditors; economic insecurity has bred What a difference a decade makes intolerance; and strategic differences between those who look east and those who look south, and between those who It is now a decade since European leaders approved the look in and those who look out, have sharpened. Defence ESS, which was prepared by the then High Representative budgets have plunged, capabilities have shrunk, research for the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), Javier and development spending has been halved, and for all Solana. The document did a good job of listing certain core the talk of “pooling and sharing”, defence co-operation concerns common to the EU’s (then) 15 member states, such levels have declined. In 2003, France led the first EU as the security of their neighbourhood and the importance military intervention, Operation Artemis in the Democratic of the multilateral system. It provided a doctrine around Republic of the Congo (DRC), which inspired the creation of which Old and New Europe could unite in the aftermath the EU’s so-called Battlegroups. Ten years later, the EU and of the Iraq War and crafted a policy framework within its Battlegroups were ignored as France conducted a similar which EU defence efforts could be pursued. As a result, intervention in Mali. many policymakers joke that it has attained “Holy Writ” status. But it has now outlasted its usefulness: many of the Europe has made some progress in the last decade in approaches that worked so well for Europe in the immediate developing a coherent, effective foreign policy. Many of the aftermath of the Cold War seem to be ineffectual at best and divisions among Europeans have narrowed. Countries such counter-productive at worst in an age of power transition as France that were most sceptical about the transatlantic and global political awakening. relationship are now some of the most Atlanticist nations and most active members of NATO. Germany and Poland In 2003, the West (that is, the US, with Europe following or no longer represent different paradigms on policy towards supporting) could still plausibly claim to run the world. As Russia and Europe has taken steps to reduce its energy the winner of the Cold War, the West was still economically dependence. The Lisbon Treaty created a European foreign and militarily unassailable, and the big disagreements that minister and diplomatic service that has the power to bridge www.ecfr.eu mattered were across the Atlantic rather than the Pacific. the gap between the resources of the European Commission There was also a widespread sense that Western values and the political authority of the European Council. But had triumphed: liberal democracy and the Washington it is hard to imagine a multinational enterprise that had Consensus were unchallengeable (though they could be sustained such a dramatic loss of market share, stock price, and were resisted) and the UN was about to endorse liberal and reputation attempting to assure its shareholders that interventionism in the form of a Responsibility to Protect. its decade-old strategy remained valid. It may be time to October 2013 unlearn some of the lessons of the 1990s. 2 “A Secure Europe in a Better World”, European Security Strategy, Brussels, 10 December 2003, p. 1, available at http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cmsUpload/78367.pdf. 4 “Report on the Implementation of the European Security Strategy – Providing Security ECFR/90 3 Sigmund Freud, “Those Wrecked by Success” (1916), in The Standard Edition of the in a Changing World”, Brussels, 11 December 2008, p. 1, available at http://www. Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume 14, (London: Vintage, 1999), consilium.europa.eu/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/EN/reports/104630.pdf 2 pp. 315–331. (hereafter, “Report on the Implementation of the European Security Strategy”). Six new dilemmas In this new context, the very idea of European soft power – the assumption that people want to become like The decision by European Council President Herman Van us – is problematic.