L’Union européenne, puissance globale
With the war in Ukraine rumbling on and the rest of its neighbourhood seeing a resurgence of other conflicts, the European Union is still trying to get its diplomacy up and running and find a way to a relative degree of strategic autonomy. This multi-disciplinary book, bringing together some 40 academic contributions, paints a picture of this up-and-coming global power struggling to establish itself on the international stage, even though it regularly succeeds in managing certain crises.
Many of the European Union’s shortcomings stem from its structure and lack of consolidation of a properly federal system. This costs it dearly in terms of identity of voices, influence and effectiveness on the international scene. Furthermore, its diplomatic arm, the European External Action Service (EEAS), is itself the result of a fairly quirky construct, being theoretically autonomous but under the responsibility of a High Representative who is a member of both the European Commission and the Council. As Damien Bouvier (University of Savoie) points out, “the financial management of the delegations of the European Union partly escapes the EEAS, which must work this out with the European Commission” (our translation throughout). Furthermore, “all credits tied in with the concrete achievement of the objectives of the EU delegations are shown in the section [of the general budget] dedicated to the European Commission”, the author stresses, going on to observe that the “special representatives of the European Union have not been organically integrated into the service, but see themselves more than anything as a tool of the Council of the European Union (…). Nor is the EEAS authorised to represent the European Union before international jurisdictions”. Finally, although it has had “involvement in the negotiation of international agreements”, this has been merely “marginal” and the EEAS ultimately plays only a “secondary role in programming the instruments to finance external action”.
Yves Tiberghien (University of British Columbia) argues that the “Russian invasion of Ukraine beginning on 24 February 2022 has caused the greatest movement of transatlantic strategic convergence between Europe (including the United Kingdom and non-member states of the European Union) and the United States and Canada”. However, he considers this convergence to be “partial, conditional and doubtless temporary”. “It is conditioned by Joe Biden’s leadership. Behind this convergence of reactions to a common shock lie profoundly divergent structural factors, above all stemming from the situation of American democracy, the global economic situation in transition and to the different reactions to the tipping of the balance of geopolitical power from the countries of the North to the countries of the South, particularly China”, the author explains.
In an article entitled “Le Royaume-Uni dans le brouillard: relations avec les États-Unis et l’Union européenne depuis le Brexit », Adam Steinhouse (University of Oxford) takes the view that “the shaping of foreign policy is not as good in the United Kingdom in 2022 compared to the period before the referendum on Brexit”. The FCDO (Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office) “is less powerful than it was before”, the author argues, adding that “British strategy on foreign policy is not highly developed (…). The diplomats are continuing to work closely with the Americans in the fields of security, defence and intelligence services, but, in my opinion, relations are not as close as they once were in other areas, particularly economic ones. For instance, it is unlikely that there will be a free-trade agreement between the United Kingdom and the United States, due to the misgivings of the American Congress. In the view of the Americans, the United Kingdom is no longer the right way to understand the European Union. The British have less influence in the European Union since Brexit and our position is now that (…) of being seen as an ‘interested party’, but not a principal player in European affairs, on a similar footing to Norway or Canada”.
Former Belgian Ambassador Raoul Delcorde reminds us that although it did not make its official appearance in writing until the course of the last decade, the concept of strategic autonomy can trace its roots back to the Balkan wars of the 1990s, which sparked the first discussions on reinforcing Europe’s capacity to act autonomously. Now, “strategic autonomy is clearly more than a defensive or reactive concept”, the author writes, going on to explain that “it is not just about defending the way the EU does things, but also about including a ‘proactive shaping’ dimension – a capacity to establish, modify and apply international rules, as opposed to the obligation to follow rules established by others, such as the United States or China. It is about being a maker of rules rather than a follower of rules, a subject rather than an object of international relations. If the Europeans want to be involved in shaping the international environment on the basis of their values and interests, both in their immediate environment and in their future environment, they must be in a position to decide on how they would like to approach this”.
Christian Leuprecht and and Joel J. Sokolsky (Royal Military College of Canada and Queen’s University) stress that “unilateralism is the fundamental principle underpinning the tradition of American foreign policy”. Even so, “there should no longer be any doubt as to the United States under a Biden administration keeping their commitments (sic), after the worries and concerns of the Trump years”, they argue. They go on to say that “America seems determined to lead again. For the American foreign policy elite, be it Republican or Democratic, liberal or conservative, realist or internationalist, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has reinforced long-standing American doubts as to the capacity of the European leaders, individually or collectively, to manage their own security. Of course, the same is true for the allies of the Americans elsewhere in the world, but NATO throws Europe’s shortcomings into sharper relief with a greater influence of the United States to steer the results”. “The EU aspires to a greater and more coherent leadership role, but largely through using soft power. 25 years ago, the EU actively shaped the European neighbourhood. Today, conversely, the neighbourhood is shaped by Russia, China, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia… In an increasingly competitive neighbourhood, soft power does not hold its own against the kinetic, expeditionary and offensive effects that America may bring to bear, or against its ability to act decisively as a single player”, the two Canadian authors argue, not without merit. Recalling the words of Ursula von der Leyen on 16 February 2018, at the Munich Security Conference when she was still German Defence Minister – “we wish to remain transatlantic whilst becoming more European” – they observe that this is what is happening through the multinational forces whose direction Germany is taking, as well – and this is my observation – as the air defence initiative, the European Sky Shield. These initiatives also belong to a basic tendency that leads, with the support of the United States, to a multiplication of ad hoc internal coalitions within the Atlantic Alliance.
The book does not just offer a broad panorama of the external relations of the European Union in all directions, but it also devotes several sections to crises and the management of these, trade and other global challenges, including the digital era and sustainable development. (Olivier Jehin)
Olivier Delas, Mulry Mondélice and Olivier Bichsel (edited by). L’Union européenne, puissance globale dans les relations internationales et transatlantiques (available in French only). Bruylant. ISBN: 978-2-8027-7169-2. 767 pages. €93,00
Les réseaux sociaux: une révolution?
In this article published in the review Futuribles the founder of Opinion Act, a ground-breaking enterprise in the analysis of opinions and behaviours on the social networks, and lecturer in digital strategy at HEC and the École Militaire of France, Caroline Faillet takes stock of both the positive and negative consequences of the proliferation of social networks. “In 2023, around 4.8 billion people throughout the world are using social networks and 83% of them are active users, spending on average two hours and 24 minutes a day on their apps”, the author notes, stressing that the “need to find an economic model to pay for the development of these platforms has led to the adoption of strategies that have distorted an idealised model”.
“The collection and exploitation of users’ data and the stimulation of social interactions and emotions using algorithms have a considerable number of negative external consequences”, the author states, going on to point out that “mass manipulation, disinformation, the rise of online hate, cyber-bullying and trolling (consisting of getting into arguments and setting Internet users against each other) and teenage addiction are regularly lamented, but this has no effect on their usage rates. But perceptions are changing, according to the latest political confidence barometer of the French Centre de recherches politiques de Sciences Po (CEVIPOF): social networks are the thing the French trust the least (16%)”.
The “super-communities” generated by the platforms offer “rapid access to an enormous quantity of information, reinforce connectivity and give everybody a platform to speak, including minorities and the excluded”, the author quite rightly points out. However, Faillet also takes the view – which would benefit from some clarification – that “French political figures and governments are now using social networks to communicate directly with the citizens” and that “this makes political information more accessible and reinforces transparency and the accountability of governments”. Everything obviously depends, in France and elsewhere, on the quality of this “information”, which may in fact be merely communication, a contemporary term covering a variety of activities from simplification to propaganda via promoting an action or a policy.
Referring to the foibles of social networks, the author points out that although they allow “the world and his wife” to take part in the public debate, “the voice of the random person” holds “all the more power within it as it has an audience and plurality [while] the voice of wisdom, not necessarily belonging to an expert in the codes of the social media, holds far less”. “We have entered an era of post-truth, an era in which the truth is the opinion that holds sway in conversations. With their overwhelming numbers of photos and videos, the social networks give the advantage to opinions with a strong emotional dimension. Rumours and disinformation abound”, the author stresses. She goes on to state that “in order to be attention-grabbing, the algorithms of the social platforms feeds and traps the user in a bubble of information that becomes a dangerous platform for harmful ideologies. To retain the user and arouse emotions that generate data, the platform offers increasingly radical content. From being a troll, one becomes a hater; sceptics evolve into conspiracy theorists; one day you watch your figure, the next you’re anorexic”.
Touching upon the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act set in place at European level, Faillet argues that “to improve the social networks, regulating their players is necessary, but not enough as long as their economic model prompts them to benefit from our cognitive and behavioural shortcomings”. She explains that with Web 3.0, a solution could come from decentralised social networks, giving users control of their data. “One desirable future for the social networks is [also] based on the creation of a self-sovereign digital identity, one that is managed by the user himself or herself. According to this principle, contacts, photos and comments shared on the networks would belong to the user and be protected by a consent and portability mechanism. In this way, they could migrate from Instagram to TikTok and take all their data with them. This is a new era in the history of the Internet, a third wave of usage and maturity”, the author writes, albeit acknowledging that the “application of a Web3 that will destabilise the current social platforms does not yet exist”. However, Faillet adds, “history has taught us that communities are able to migrate to solutions that support their empowerment. She concludes by saying that “current social platforms, those giants with feet of clay that have liberated the power of communities, could therefore see this same power being turned against them”. (OJ)
Caroline Faillet. Les réseaux sociaux: une révolution? (Available in French only) Futuribles edition 456, September-October 2023. ISBN: 978-2-8438-7471-0. 132 pages. €22,00