*** Futuribles. L'anticipation au service de l'action. Futuribles Sarl (47 rue de Babylone, F-75007 Paris. Te: (33-1) 53633770 - Fax: 42226554 - Email: revue@futuribles.com - Internet: http://www.futuribles.com ). Mach-April 2016, No. 411, 130 pp, €22. Annual subscription: €115. ISBN 978-2-84387-424-6.
This issue of the authoritative future prospects review in the French language is mostly devoted to the state of the world and the geopolitical trends that are playing out, at least to the eyes of specialists capable of leaving the framework of tangible realities and letting themselves move along lines of escape and separation from the traditional representations of the world - meaning those that have long prevailed in the West and that the West, particularly Europe, has for a long time ensured that they prevail everywhere else in the world. While researcher Laurence Nardon (Institut français des relations internationales), analysing the White House's current positionings, argues that '2016 will not be the year of renewal of the foundations of US foreign policy,' there are some views, however, which lead one to hop that major changes might take place very fast from an international scene that is 'in torment' today.
Hence if one follows Prof. Badie (Sciences Po), our world now illustrates an 'outdated Westphalian international system' since it was shaped by a Europe en vase clos » in function solely of the interplay of nation states. But this former power vector has led the West to commit the error of 'totally ignoring altérité » and failing three major rendez-vous. Firstly, decolonisation, the West having both considered the time solely in terms of the Christian era and 'naively believed it was enough to export the Western State model' to spread its ideas and value sin the world. Next, globalisation, which means that 'the major characteristic of international relations is no longer power but inequality, in first place social and economic inequalities.' Hence 'strategic issues have gone backwards to the advantage of social interests,' the current refugee crisis emerging from this pathology. The second symptom of triumphant globalisation is, according to the analysis of Bertrand Badie reported by Catherine Saumet, interdependence that is the 'opposite of sovereignty' which Europeans had turned into the cornerstone of the Westphalian system, Greece also showing that the 'weak link' could make power (Germany in this case) 'powerless.' Finally, the third missed rendez-vous was the end of bipolarism, the international game plan now unfurling in a 'globalised world without poles.' Therefore restoring order and wisdom on the international scene implies, for the West (and Europeans in first place) doing ever tying now to avoid humiliation, restoring dialogue between the big players and think of inclusion and developing solidarity.
This reflection fits in with the ideas that Robert Toulemon then develops. This former director general at the European Commission says that the universal anarchy that prevails today to the extent of threatening the very future of the human race, demands that the West now contribute to building a 'democratic world order.' He reasons that 'the West won the Cold War but, like Hannibal, has not been able to take advantage of its victory,' European States[' allergy to federalism preventing the European Union from 'responding to the aspiration for democracy,' the rule of law and freedom, an aspiration that he says is manifesting in all continents. By giving itself a foreign and security policy worthy of the name, the Union could kick off a 'cultural revolution of reason' notably by obtaining to this end, the transformation of the Atlantic Alliance into a 'an alliance that is more political than geographical.' In service of the universal expansion of the rule of law and democracy. Clearly, this will require 'fundamental changes in the behaviour' of the West in order 'that the order they claim to promote does not appear like an oppressive system in disguise in the service of the rich and powerful.' Are Europeans prepared to take this path? The future will tell us that, but it is reasonable to doubt it today. At least, as Jean-François Drevet points out in this habitual 'Tribune européenne' column, it can no longer be ruled out that the United Stales may one day decide to disconnect from an ever less effective and credible Atlantic Alliance the way they see it, notably because of Erdogan's Turkey, that 'faithful Cold War soldier … who had become a doubtful ally, if not objectively an adversary to the West in the Syrian conflict.'
This goes to confirm at any rate that things are changing in the world, that is it no longer the way it used to be, and that like it or not, Europeans have to consider the role they would like to occupy on the global stage in the near and more distance future. Other articles published in this issue of Futuribles add useful reflections to this subject, such as the articles on the education rivalries that can be observed on the international scene and the drawing up within the European Union of development indicators that go beyond gross national product alone.
Michel Theys
*** SOTIRIS DALLIS: Des relations internationales à la politique internationale. Une introduction avec pour guides les penseurs Stanley Hoffmann, Joseph Nye and Mario Telo. Éditions Papazisi (2 rue Nikitara, GR-10678 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3822496 - Fax: 3809020 - Email: papazisi@otenet.gr - Internet: http://www.papazisi.gr ). 2016, 200 pp, €14. ISBN 978-960-02-3041-3.
When Shakespeare in Julius Caesar showed how to change the world stage, he was clearly not referring to the evolution in geopolitical relations and international policies that we are experiencing today, but to something far more profound, points out Sotiris Dalis, who lectures in international relations and Mediterranean studies at the University of Aegean, and analysts now address international relations as a group of connections, of relations and contacts drawn up by States within the framework of their foreign policy. This dominant approach takes account of thee various forms and dimensions that these relations can take (conflicts and/or cooperation at the political, economic, strategic, social and cultural level, etc). At the university level, international relations aim to provide a scientific study of the structures and functions of all players in the international system, be it States, international organisations, multinationals, NGOs, etc. this is how power phenomena are analysed in the international system, lecturers also making use of disciplines such as international law, history, economics and sociology. These studies therefore, in the author's view, are sensitive receptors of a number of different approaches. For a long time, they were also focused on the relations between States, but have since have had to adapt to a changing world. In these pages, Prof. Dalis offer an introduction to international relations and international policy, based on the work of specialists in this domain - Joseph Nye, Stanley Hoffmann and Mario Telo.
(AKa)
*** EDWARD HALLETT CARR: La crise de vingt ans 1919-1939. Une introduction à l'étude des relations internationales. Éditions de l'Université de Bruxelles (26 av. Paul Héger, B-1000 Brussels. Tel: (32-2) 6503799 - Fax: 6503794 - Email: editions@admin.ulb.ac.be - Internet: http://www.editions-universite-bruxelles.be ). 'UBlire' series, No. 39. 2015, 346 pp, €11.50. ISBN 978-2-8004-1592-5.
Is there any point republishing in French a book that whose final proof was being examined when the Second World War broke out? Yes, it clearly is, because this vintage item, as its author himself described it when the second edition was published at the end of WWII, because it has become a classic in what was then the burgeoning theory of international relations. When he wrote it, Edward Hallett Carr had just left the Foreign Office and had taken up the Woodrow Wilson Chair at University College of Wales à Aberystwyth. This historian and diplomat, points out Prof. Dario Battistella (Political Sciences, Bordeaux) in the preface to the French edition, 'had become infatuated with the Soviet Union after the crisis of 1929 which he said demonstrated the need for reforms that the liberal West seemed incapable of.' The possible rapprochement between 1929 and the crisis that began in 2008 is itself alone an encouragement to delve into this study, whose author criticises the domination of British liberal power even when the international policy philosophers whom he describes as utopian, 'between the wars idealists,' were content to judge it as intangible, although it was reeling. In this book that the Bordeaux political scientist describes as being indissociably of realist and Marxist inspiration, Carr denounces a 'situation in which a body is a position to impose, thinks to its both material and ideological power, an order complying with its interests, that this domination should that of he ruling classes at home or satisfactory powers internationally.' Difficult to deny that this indictment can still find resonance in our world today. In reality, reading this book is all the more appropriate in that other ideas originally raised by the author seem to retain their full pertinence, for example, when he argues that power is determining in international policy, based on military power, of course, but also on economic power - used by powers which (like the European Union in some cases?) is used as Prof. Battistella summarises it, 'by those who, their security assured, can afford to not make use of brute force to achieve their objectives' - and power over public opinion, the art of convincing' which, as the Bordeaux political scientist observes 'enables the powerful to reproduce the existing order by making their own policy accepted as being to do with morality.' As we see, many of the themes addressed here are perfectly of the moment. It is even more the case that Carr, convinced that 'not much survives in history,' felt that the concept of sovereignty would inevitably become 'more and more clouded and ill=defined' than it already was in the inter-war years. He judged that it was 'unlikely that the future units of power will brother much about formal sovereignty.' On this point, he was only wrong about the obstinacy of some to cling to a formal sovereignty in tatters…
(MT)
*** VASSILIOS BALAFAS: Les pipelines de Burgas-Alexandroúpolis dans la politique internationale. Une analyse systémique à plusieurs niveaux de la politique grecque pour la période 2006-2009. Éditions Infognomon (14 rue Filellinon, GR-10557Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3316036 - Fax: 3250421 - Email: info@infognomon.gr - Internet: http://www.infognomon.gr ). 2015, 327 pp, €16. ISBN 978-960-8362-85-7.
In recent years, the energy sector has increasingly seen itself being analysed from the angle of the geopolitical environment and international relations, and notably decisions taken by States and the consequences they have on interior policies and relations with external players. In this book, a network specialist takes a detailed look at these dimensions in terms of the case of the pipeline Burgas-Alexandroúpolis pipeline. The author focuses on the period 2006-2009 when Greece was particularly active in the energy domain, the Karamanlis government of the time sought to promote Greek interests in this domain in the framework of relations with Russia and in the context of the South Stream project. For the first time, Greece would then forcefully demand a role as a player on the global energy map, seeking to activate a gas pipeline and an oil pipeline that would bypass Turkey. It is the history of this great energy saga and its consequences at the national, regional and international levels that are meticulously analysed in the book.
(AKa)
*** MANOS KARAGIANNIS: La politique étrangère turque dans le Caucase. Les aspects nationaux et internationaux - Défis et perspectives. Éditions Papazisi (see above). 2015, 250 pp, €15. ISBN 978-960-02-3060-4.
The unexpected dissolution in 1991 of the Turkish section of the Soviet Union sent shockwaves through the geopolitical environment of Turkey which, for the first time in three centuries, no longer shared a border with Russia. Turkey now borders on the Caucasus, which is comprised of three small, unstable States (Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan), and Northern Caucasus, which is under Russian sovereignty. Since then, Turkey has not been unsuccessful as deploying itself to contribute to regional balance, but it ahs also systematically sought alliances that can grant it the status of a regional power and huge prestige in the Caucasus. With this book, Prof. Manos Karagiannis, who lectures in international relations at the Balkan, Slav and Oriental Studies Department of the University of Macedonia in Thessalonica, wished to fill the gap in the Greek and Balkan bibliography on the history of the peoples of the Caucasus and the problems in the region. His main objective, however, is to contribute to understanding of Turkish foreign policy for the Caucasus. Analysing Turkey's regional policy is in fact able to explain the ultimate objectives of the Turkish military bureaucracy concerning neighbouring countries and the ideological princes that direct Turkish diplomacy. The author also makes an in-depth analysis of the transnational competition that has broken out since the start of the 1990s over control of oil from the Caspian Sea, looking at both the question of the pipeline, the Caspian Sea's legal status, environmental issues in the Bosphorus, Iran's attitude, policies developed in the reign by the United States, Russia, European nations and Israel. Athens' foreign policy for counties in the Caucasus is also weighed up, and the author ends by making tangible proposals for Greek foreign policy to boost connections with the peoples of the Caucasus and contribute to regional stability. The book is punctuated by a huge bibliography.
(AKa)
*** Politica Exterior. Editions Estudios de Politica Exterior (49 Nuñez de Balboa, E-28001 Madrid. Tel: (34-91) 4312628 - Fax: 5777252 - Email: revista@politicaexterior.com - Internet: http://www.politicaexterior.com ). January/February 2016, No. 169 pp, €13.
This issue looks at the problem of terrorism following the events of 13 November in Paris and at some of its consequences internationally: the question of the nature of IS and its potential to spread; the more geopolitical than anti-terrorist role played by Moscow in Syria; the way Erdogan's Turkey is positioning itself in the region and the refugee issue… other studies examine the way the European Union is changing, notably under the impulse of Germany and in the light of the balance sheet that can be drawn of three years of the Juncker presidency, this all being punctuated by an interview with Gideon Rachman, leading editorialist on the Financial Times on international policy issues, which expresses his fear of seeing the European club break up. Also of note is a contribution on the need to 'decarbonise' the planet and another presenting a biography of Henry Kissinger.
(MT)