The Grand Strategy in 10 Words
Put an academic like Sven Biscop into lockdown and you will get a book, in this case a guide, which has the merit of being accessible to anyone who has the curiosity to find out about “great power politics in the 21st-century”, as the cover of the English-language version of this book states. By digging deep into current affairs, history and literature, the author analyses the major tendencies that have emerged over recent decades and sketches out the competition between the four major powers – the United States, China, Russia, the European Union – which will influence the course of world history in the medium and long terms. For the last of these, which is often quite justifiably depicted as a strategic minnow, the author points out that it is still at the stage of trying to create a common strategic culture and, to a certain extent, this guidebook is aimed first and foremost at the senior European figures trying to put together a global strategy. It may even feed into the current reflection on the EU’s “strategic compass”.
The guide is based around 10 keywords deemed by the author to constitute the very essence of a ‘grand strategy’: (1) simplicity, because only that which can be set out clearly can expect to be implemented efficiently; (2) competition, because the others also have a strategy of their own; (3) rationality, because ideologies, religions and emotions make bad advisers; (4) selectivity, because of the need for allies that one is not always in a position to be able to pick and choose; (5) power, because any action requires political, economic and military might; (6) creativity, because “strategy is both a science and an art”; (7) vigilance, because a strategy requires constant updating; (8) courage, to “dare to act or not act on the basis of one’s own interests”; (9) immorality, because it is about intervening in the world in its current state; (10) normalisation, to the extent that it is possible to establish a global governance along with others.
Biscop considers that there is a “real risk of entering into permanent and systematic rivalry” between the United States, China, Russia and the European Union and that this “permanent rivalry will bring with it a permanent risk of war”. “No major power is looking for direct confrontation, due to nuclear deterrence. But for many years, there has been a constant risk of military incidents and therefore of escalation, in view of the demonstrations of force of the major powers in the South China Sea and their interventions in North Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. If the rivalry between some or all of the major powers should spread and become systematic, the risk of war would increase exponentially”, the author argues, adding that the four major powers could avoid an escalation of tensions by setting out four basic rules for their global strategy: (1) recognise each other as “equal players” and developing a strategy of engagement in their mutual relations; (2) investing in a global order based on “effective multilateralism” and observing the rules adopted by common accord; (3) respecting the sovereignty of all other States; (4) reinforcing their own sovereignty (which the European Union will find the hardest) so as to be in a position to make their voices heard on the international stage and enter negotiations on an equal footing.
The work ends with a quotation by Charles de Gaulle from 1959, describing the role he would like to see Europe take: “collaborating with the West and the East, if necessary entering into the necessary alliances on one or the other side, without ever accepting any kind of dependence (…), bringing the neighbour states of the Rhine, the Alps and Pyrenees together from a political, economic and strategic point of view; making this organisation into one of the three planetary powers and, if it is called upon to do so one day, the referee between the Soviet and Anglo-Saxon camps” (our translation). The General’s dream Europe has grown without ever attaining that level of independence, but the author considers it to represent “exactly the role it should be able to play today between the United States, Russia and China”. This is by no means the case, but we may live in hope. (Olivier Jehin)
Sven Biscop. Hoe de grootmachten de koers van de wereldpolitiek bepalen – Grand strategy in 10 kernwoorden. Kritak. Lannoo nv. ISBN: 978-9-401- 47606-5. 304 pages. €27,99
English-language version: Grand Strategy in 10 Words – A Guide to Great Power Politics in the 21st Century. Bristol University Press. ISBN: 978-1-529-21751-3. 262 pages. 21,99 GBP or €29,84
Vers un nouveau paradigme autour de l'autonomie stratégique ouverte ?
“Open strategic autonomy” is an expression that has gained a great deal of traction since the pandemic and the many problems the European Union has had to face: a new European “buzzword”, stresses Eric Van den Abeele, an associate researcher at the European Trade Union Confederation ETUC, the author of this study, which is exhaustive and enlightening in equal measure.
The very etymology of the concept is complex. Coming partly from the vocabulary of common foreign and security policy and from common security and defence policy, open strategic autonomy brings together the contradictory concepts of autonomy and openness. This unlikely semantic alliance aims to find common ground between those in favour of greater European interventionism, most notably France, supported with varying degrees of enthusiasm by Germany, and the proponents of free trade, such as Ireland, the Nordic states, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic. It is a definition that inevitably leads to the lowest common denominator and prompts the author to question the prospects of the concept.
Is open strategic autonomy really the beginning of a new European paradigm, given that the concept can be found in neither the “Green Deal’ nor among the European recovery tools? And if yes, will it be possible to chart a new course for the institutional mega-ship of Europe? More importantly, does the political will to do so even exist?
Before getting down to analysing the concept, which he describes as “moving and imprecise”, Van den Abeele takes us on a journey through the EU’s meandering dependence on third countries, particularly the three giants that are China, Russia and the United States. The author, who stresses that this new concept tends to structure itself around “ecosystems”, a notion that is close to the heart of the Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton, looks at the various courses of action that could bring about greater European autonomy, whilst not compromising commercial openness.
He refers to the Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEI), the “European champions” to offset international competition – which is not always strictly fair – in areas that are strategic for the European Union (microprocessors, batteries, hydrogen, intelligent healthcare, etc.). And yet there are considerable misgivings about the tool, particularly among the “group of Twelve” (led by Denmark and including Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Ireland, the Baltic states, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Malta and, most surprisingly, Spain). For this reason, Van den Abeele argues that a reform of this instrument is necessary to restore confidence among all member states. To do this, the European Commission needs to take on a genuine role of coordinator so as to facilitate the participation of all member states in a mechanism that has so far been used primarily by France and Germany. This, furthermore, is the course of action to which the Commission committed itself with the consultation launched on 23 February of this year.
Autonomy necessarily implies action in the commercial sphere. Here, the author laments the shortcomings of the European Commission communication on 18 February 2021 aiming to rebalance commercial relations. He reads it as “a lot of announcements, but very few decisions that are likely to produce immediate practical results”. However, the “ideological vagueness” surrounding the Commission’s communication helps to create convergence around the negotiating table. Van den Abeele also has harsh criticism for the bilateral agreement on investments between the EU and China of January 2021. It is an agreement that stirred up a lot of initial excitement and political support, but which contains “few guarantees or actual progress”. The EU’s sanctions regime against third countries sparks very little enthusiasm in the author. Their sheer number (more than 40) makes them very difficult to navigate and are reduced to violations of human rights. To get out of this deadlock, the EU should seek to create a multilateral investment tribunal under the aegis of the UN Commission on international commercial law, he suggests. But as things stand, “there is nothing to suggest that negotiations are moving in this direction”.
There are a few rays of hope on an otherwise dark horizon: the creation of a carbon border adjustment mechanism (the infamous CBAM), to be unveiled on the 14th of this month and aiming in particular to tackle the phenomenon of “carbon drain”, and the European Commission’s presentation of an improvement in the level playing field in the form of a proposed regulation targeting foreign subsidies distorting the single market. On the latter point, however, Van den Abeele anticipates a long and painful negotiations.
In the field of standardisation once again, competition is a threat. Europe’s primacy over certain standards is increasingly being called into question by China and the United States. However, standardisation is a strategic issue for the EU, to ensure the safety of products entering the single market, to reinforce the strategic autonomy of the EU and its technological potential and to impose its ethical standards by use of harmonised standards.
The author deplores the lack of common European vision. For want of clarity, the concept of open strategic autonomy does very little to attract support and the window of opportunity is both very narrow and of extremely short duration, he argues. Even so, Van den Abeele retains some faith in a European turnaround, for instance in the framework of the Conference on the Future of Europe, that would make true harmonisation possible in the framework of fair and sustainable multilateral partnerships. Wishful thinking? (Pascal Hansens)
Eric Van den Abeele, Vers un nouveau paradigme autour de l’autonomie stratégique ouverte? (available in French only). ETUI. ISSN 1995-4446. 64 pages. €15,00. The text can also be downloaded free of charge from the institute’s website (http://www.etui.org )
Où sont les philosophes ?
Although the latest edition of the Revue générale is primarily given over to the place of philosophers in the modern world, it also contains several professions of European faith, including the text of the speech made by Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels on 25 January of this year, to mark the 90th anniversary of the Grandes Conférences catholiques.
When asked about the European Union’s added value in the wake of Brexit and a pandemic that has led to the partial restoration of the borders and a new form of competition between member states, Philippe Van Parijs bluntly replied that “none of any of that affects the European commitment of the philosopher I am. For the European Union or indeed any other institution, evaluating always means comparing what there is with what there should be, but also with what there would be if the institution did not exist. This requires a counter-factual exercise that is made extra-speculative by the fact that the institution in question is getting on in years. But nothing has so far inclined me to doubt the validity of the hypothesis that in the absence of the European Union or something very like it, relations between the European nations would be less peaceful, less confident, less compassionate and less fertile than they are at the moment. For me, the European Union is the slow construction of a shared ‘us’, of a community of justification, which requires every component of the Union to take the interests of all the others into account, more or less equitably. This is a slow, laborious process, in which deliberation is slowly overtaking negotiation”. He adds: “it should, of course, not be concluded from this that the EU is today that which it should be. We need to keep up the pressure, cultivate the imagination and take every opportunity to overcome obstacles, to tackle the problems that European integration itself has thrown up, to create, possibly indirectly, the conditions for new progress, steered not by an obsession with integration for the sake of integration, but by a coherent conception of what justice needs between Europeans and beyond”. Van Parijs promises a book on the subject, which will go under the evocative title of “Europe’s Destiny”.
Giving a book in French an English title will have been anathema to Béatrice Libert, who contributes a scathing attack on the “people who are murdering the French language” and against the abuse of anglicisms, frequently monosyllables, which pollute the very air into which the French language is spoken, most notably in Belgium, including Wallonia, where English, particularly a kind of Anglo-Saxon jargon, is used to circumnavigate the three official languages of the country.
The same edition also features an article by the Jesuit Charles Delhez, reiterating that the Bible “is firstly the word of man in which Jews and Christians recognise the Word of God”. “The evangelists are true authors. All is of God and all is of man, one might say, but from different points of view. It is not the Bible, therefore, which is the source of the people of Israel, any more than the New Testament is the starting point of the Church. Neither Israel nor the Church were born of a revelation set out in a book. But it is the story of Israel, of Jesus and of the Church which is the source of the Holy Scriptures: a community of faith creates the holy texts and the study, meditation and interpretation of these maintain the tradition”, stresses the author, who quite rightly highlights a fundamental difference with Islam, which believe that the Qu’ran is the word of God. (OJ)
Frédéric Saenen (edited by). Où sont les philosophes? (available in French only). Revue générale. 2021/1. Mark 2021. ISBN: 978-2-390-61113-4. 251 pages. €22,00