C M Y CM MY CY CMY K Big Powers Are Back. What about Europe? Global Scenarios and Italy ISPI Annual Report 2018 Edited by Alessandro Colombo and Paolo Magri Conclusion by Giampiero Massolo © 2018 Ledizioni LediPublishing Via Alamanni, 11 – 20141 Milan – Italy www.ledizioni.it [email protected] Big Powers are Back. What about Europe? ISPI Annual Report 2018 Edited by A. Colombo and P. Magri First edition: March 2018 The opinions expressed herein are strictly personal and do not necessarily reflect the position of ISPI Translated from the Italian edition Sempre più un gioco per grandi. E l’Europa?, Milan, Ledizioni-Ispi, 2018, by Chiara Reali. Print ISBN 9788867057399 ePub ISBN 9788867057382 Pdf ISBN 9788867057405 DOI 10.14672/67057399 ISPI. Via Clerici, 5 20121, Milan www.ispionline.it Catalogue and reprints information: www.ledizioni.it Table of Contents Foreword...........................................................................9 Alessandro Colombo, Paolo Magri PART I - GLOBAL SCENARIOS 1. Trump’s America and the Rest........................................... 29 Alessandro Colombo 2. Russian Foreign Policy between Westphalia and Greater Eurasia............................................................ 47 Aldo Ferrari 3. China, a New Model of Great Power................................. 61 Shaun Breslin 4. Big Powers to the Test........................................................75 The Syrian and Iraqi Crisis: Regional and Global Factors Armando Sanguini....................................................................75 The Korean Crisis: Regional and Global Dynamics Antonio Fiori............................................................................81 Paris Climate Agreement: Historic Turning Point or Nothing but Empty Words?, Alberto Clȏ.............................86 5. Emerging Powers. New Room for Regional Powers?.......................................93 The Limits of the Iranian Regional Power................................ 93 Annalisa Perteghella The Interventionist Foreign Policy of Saudi Arabia Eleonora Ardemagni..................................................................98 Turkey: Rise and Fall of a Medium Regional Power Valeria Talbot.............................................................................102 Japan: A Regional and Global Actor? Not Now and Not Like This, Axel Berkofsky...............................105 6. Armed Groups, Governance and the Future of the Middle East.....................................109 Ranj Alaaldin 7. The World Recovery Marches On..................................... 127 Francesco Daveri PART II - EUROPE 8. The European Union and the World: Power beyond Figures....................................................... 143 Sonia Lucarelli 9. Sub-national Nationalism and the Catalan Puzzle............. 157 Alberto Martinelli 10. Germany and the EU: In Search for a New Direction.......171 Michele Valensise 11. The European Economy: A Year of Recovery, Uncertainty and New Projects............183 Franco Bruni PART III – ITALY 12. Italy’s Top Foreign Policy Priorities and the Mediterranean......................................................205 Ugo Tramballi 13. Italian Economic Policy: Broadening the Narrow Path......215 Franco Bruni Conclusion. Italy among the “Big Powers”........................ 225 Giampiero Massolo The Authors...................................................................... 235 Foreword Under the pressure of the new US administration’s aggressive rhetoric, 2017 seems to have unveiled, once for all, one of the most significant transformations of the past few years. The end of the Cold War and the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States led commentators, scholars and policymakers to believe that international relations were destined to shift toward mul- tilateralism and transnationalism, with a corresponding loss of relevance for traditional states, their selfish views and narrow national interests. Realpolitik rhetoric was condemned as “old”, or even more controversially, as “nineteen-century” politics, i.e. only a few years ago Barack Obama denounced the Russian occupation of Crimea. In recent years, however, the old dynamic of big powers’ competition has gradually regained weight. This is mainly due to three intertwined processes: the growth and renewed asser- tiveness of potential United State’s global competitors such as Russia and China; the enduring crisis of multilateralism and global coexistence; and even more the breakdown of the region- al order into increasingly autonomous arenas, where regional powers are on the rise. Over the past year, the United States joined this wave of re- nationalisation of security. This is not to imply that, in the past, the US was willing to subordinate the pursuit of its national interest to the hypothetical interest of the international com- munity. But, compared to previous administrations, the new Trump administration introduced major discontinuities, as as- sessed in the first chapter of this volume. The new and previous administrations, i.e. Trump’s and Obama’s, share a common view: the international commitments of the United States are 10 Big Powers Are Back. What about Europe? excessive, and in the long run, unsustainable. Against this back- ground, the Trump administration seems to be determined in keeping at the centre of American foreign policy the re-bal- ancing of commitments and resources. This is mainly to avoid the plague that hit all hegemonic powers in history: imperial overstretch and fiscal crisis. The real breaking point between this administration’s ap- proach and the one adopted in US foreign policy over the last twenty years is instead the systematic de-legitimisation of the New International Liberal Order launched or, to the least, re- launched after the end of the Cold War. The tipping point of this process of dissolution is the out- right vilification of the multilateral system, built since the end of World War II and defended, despite all systemic crises, by the previous Obama administration too. At the practical lev- el, this approach has already been implemented through: the side-lining of two major free trade treaties in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans; the condemnation of the Paris climate agree- ments; and, at the end of the year, the harsh clash with the United Nations following the isolation of the US on Jerusalem. At the same time, at a more general level, this shift reveals an overall dissatisfaction with the functioning of the multilateral system, perceived as increasingly detrimental to American na- tional interests. Unsurprisingly, the renewed assertiveness of Russian foreign policy, focused in Aldo Ferrari’s chapter, continued in 2017. The effectiveness of the Russian military intervention in Syria, especially when compared with the weak action of the West, has considerably increased Russia’s international prestige. In the field of legitimacy, then, the overall success in supporting the Assad government served to reaffirm Moscow’s opposition to attempts at regime change and, more generally, to the policies of interference promoted by Western countries. From a broader perspective, Russia has become increasingly aware of the eastward shift of the international balance of power, working in two main directions. The first is the consolidation of Foreword 11 relations with other post-Soviet countries, Central Asian coun- tries in particular. From this perspective, Greater Eurasia is an immense area of growing economic and security integration for Moscow, but Russian scholars also underline the substan- tial sharing of ideological orientations that are different from Western ones. The second direction is of cultural or ideological nature. This is not just the outcome of a common multipo- lar preference in international relations, but also a conservative Weltanschauung focused on national rather than “universal” values. Apart from the important question of the instrumen- tal nature of this turning point, this link between conservatism and foreign policy is perhaps the most significant aspect that is emerging within Russian political thought. Behind the open challenges of Russia, the Chinese desire to play a more active role in the international scene seems to have grown over the past year. The new Chinese activism, addressed in Shaun Breslin’s chapter, has clear and important implications for other global actors and perhaps even for the very nature of the international order. Although it will not result in the short-term creation of a Sinocentric world order, it will cer- tainly make it more difficult for other nations to pursue and impose preferences and goals that Beijing does not regard with favour. Not surprisingly, the Chinese influence is even stronger at the regional level, and if the Belt and Road Initiative were to prove a success, the very extent of China’s backyard could change significantly. It will be, however, at the regional level that China’s ambitions to become a new type of great power will be tested, with potentially problematic consequences both if China should raise its voice or even rely on the use of force (for example in the resolution of territorial disputes) or not (e.g. in relation to North Korea and possibly also with Myanmar). Like Russia, then, China also links its own growth to the claim to be a big power, an ideological alternative to Western ones. In particular, Chinese development assistance is the polar opposite of the sort of conditional aid designed to foster polit- ical and/or economic liberalisation that has