L’accélération de l’histoire
“What is playing out at the moment is [the] desire [of the Europeans] to act and to remain in history at a time when the global configuration is becoming fundamentally unfavourable to them”, writes the historian and director of the Institut Français Des Relations Internationales (Ifri), Thomas Gomart, at the start of this essay, setting the tone for a highly engaged and proactive work, which shines a light on the geostrategic movements at play in what he quite accurately describes as an acceleration of history (our translation throughout). Very dangerous if this is true and an urgent wake-up call for Europe.
What we are facing is the confluence of deeply complex phenomena, generating a situation of permanent crisis. The author speaks of “chain accelerations” in the context of climate crisis, the “conversion of the economic emergency (of the countries of the so-called Global South) into political demands with the ‘new power-sharing’ up for grabs” and the “attitude of open confrontation towards the countries of the West” adopted by North Korea, Iran and Russia, the last of these engaged in a “major transgression in its imposition of an ‘aggressive sanctuarisation’, in other words territorial blackmail under nuclear protection, upon Ukraine”. There is also the matter of the acceleration of military spending: “between 2001 and 2022, in the space of a generation, this has risen from 1139 billion dollars to 2240 billion. During this period, military spending per head of population has increased fivefold in China and threefold in Russia. Having been relatively stable between 2009 and 2017, it has exploded since then at an average annual in excess of 3%. United States (877 billion dollars in 2022), China and Russia represent 56% of the total”, the author shares.
Gomart also points out that in late 2022, the BRICS format represented 31.5% of global GDP (compared to 17% in 1990), overtaking the countries of the G7, which accounted for just 31% of global GDP (down from 47% in 1990). Within this competition, however, the United States is standing firm, with a 25% share of global GDP that has not changed between 1980 and 2023, while Europe’s economic weight was just 16% of global GDP in 2022.
In view of these changes, “is now of critical importance to grasp the fact that the shockwaves spreading from Europe to East Asia by the middle east, with Ukraine, Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Israel, Palestine, Iran, Taiwan and North Korea are the principal epicentres. They appear to be linked into place, so to speak, between North America and the African continent as if within a system of actions and reactions that is as volatile as it is violent. It is not possible to understand the reactivation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict without the war in Ukraine any more than it is to read Chinese policy towards Europe and Africa without Taiwan”, Gomart writes, in this publication which offers a “geostrategic interpretation of the current configuration, at the crossroads of military strategy and geography, but also geopolitical and geo-economic environments”. He sets out to “articulate the great spaces, anticipate the interconnection of the conflicts and to perceive them as one of the principal matrices for the changes currently taking place”.
His analysis focuses on three strategic hubs commanding a region: the Straits of Taiwan, Hormuz and the Bosporus. “Direct or indirect control of these shapes a proportion of international power balance in that they have an influence over each other. These pivotal zones are located at the heart of highly contested territories through which travel flows that are equally vital to the countries of the North and those of the South. Connecting them brings about logics of sovereignty and dependence, which point the course of international politics in an eminently paradoxical direction, which is both more conflictual and more interconnected”, he stresses.
On the subject of Taiwan, the author highlights the fact that “Chinese territorial ambitions are reflected in growing military pressure, coinciding with North Korea’s acceleration of its own nuclear ambitions”. “As well as Seoul and Tokyo, it is also currently a direct threat to the United States”, he observes, adding that “among the trade flows permanently transiting through the Straits, microchips are of strategic importance, as most of them are produced in Taiwan and South Korea and are used for all digital applications”. “China’s seawards leap has been accompanied by a spectacular rise in naval power. Between 2008 and 2030, China’s naval rearmament will be in the order of 138%. The Chinese navy has already overtaken the US Navy in vessel numbers and is expected to stand at 450 units in 2030, compared to 360 for the US. In addition to this fleet comes a coastguard of 1000 vessels and the marine militia made up of merchant navy vessels used for intelligence or hybrid action purposes”, he explains. And China appears to have a limitless appetite: “at the end of 2023, the Chinese Ministry of Natural Resources [published a] ‘national map of China’, which encroaches upon the borders of India, Malaysia, Vietnam, Taiwan and even Russia, sparking angry protests. On this document, Taiwan is shown as an integral part of the PRC”. All of this is being played out against the backdrop of a “battle of the microchips”: “with a little over 70% of global production, Taiwan and South Korea massively dominate world production of semiconductors. The United States produces 12% of the world’s semiconductors. Europe weighs in at around 10% and hopes to reach 20% within 10 years. A company based in the Netherlands – ASML – has ended up in the epicentre of the technical rivalry, as it is an expert in ultraviolet lithography, which is required for the production of complex and small-sized microchips. In 2021, China imported semiconductors worth a total of 430 billion dollars, 36% of which came from Taiwan (just 15.7% of demand is covered by Chinese production)”.
“Every year, more than 2500 oil tankers pass through the Strait of Hormuz, which is 185 km long (…). Despite the energy transition, this ‘oil route’ remains vital for the normally functioning of European economies, but also those of India, China and Japan. It is vital for the development of the countries of the Middle East, where the global warming rate is currently twice the global average. Hormuz reveals the influence of external powers and the quest of the countries of the region for strategic autonomy, which is reflected in an accelerated militarisation of their respective external actions”, Gomart stresses. At a rate of 7.4% of its GDP in 2022, “Saudi Arabia devoted more resources to defence than any other country except Ukraine”. It is, furthermore, starting to show an interest in nuclear. “In March 2018, Mohammed ben Salmane announced that the Kingdom ‘does not want to acquire nuclear weapons, but without question, if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we would do the same as soon as possible’. We cannot but conclude that Saudi Arabia is looking to build a civil nuclear industry brick by brick, pitting the American, French, Russian, Korean and, now, Chinese bids against each other. It is worth noting that the Chinese bid does not rule out prospecting and exploiting uranium in the peninsula. In any event, Riyadh’s choice will obviously be of ‘great geopolitical significance’”.
In the same region, not only has Iran taken a step closer to Russia, supporting the Ukrainian war, but in March 2021 signed a “strategic global partnership” with China, following in the footsteps of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In March 2023, moreover, Beijing re-established links between Riyadh and Teheran. Then, in July 2023, Iran became a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, before joining the BRICS group in January 2024, the author recalls. “The Gulf states are playing a key role in the Ukraine war in more than just energy matters: Iran is providing Russia with military support, the UAE is receiving financial flows from Russia, Saudi Arabia held a conference on Ukraine (August 2023) without a Russian representative”, Gomart observes, adding that the “reappearance of Bashar al-Assad abroad marks the end of the cycle begun by the ‘Arab Spring’ of 2011, with a manifest tightening of control over civil society by militarised regimes determined to prioritise their security interests above all else (…). Over the last decade, American disengagement has in reality masked the European effacement”. But now, Europeans find themselves once again in a position of weakness. “The war in Ukraine has brought about a steep increase of their imports from the United States, Latin America and the Persian Gulf. Between July 2021 and July 2022, the EU imported +43% of oil and +185% of LNG from the Gulf (…). The European countries need to import more energy by sea using reduced naval resources, as a result of the ongoing scaling-down of their navies over the last few decades. In other words, they are doubly dependent on the United States: for direct imports and for the protection of these on their way from the Middle East. Energy security has once again become a subject of serious concern to NATO in a context of economic crisis that is obviously being exacerbated by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”.
In 2020, 37,000 civilian vessels transited through the Bosporus strait, which is 30 km long and 700 meters wide at its narrowest point. Its strategic nature has been hugely reiterated since the outbreak of the war being waged by Russia in Ukraine, including for the countries of the South in terms of cereal imports. “Between the Straits of Hormuz and Bosporus there are several concurrent ‘existential wars’, which directly involve Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Israel and Hamas, as well as many others indirectly”, the author also notes.
“If we look simultaneously at the Straits of Taiwan, Hormuz and Bosporus, we can see serious risks of a collective loss of control of these key areas (obviously being made even worse in the Gulf region by the current Houthi attacks: Ed), which are essential for international stability. A concentration of protagonists and compression of time are bringing about a global reconfiguration which is as rapid as it is brutal, against a nuclear backdrop to which too little importance is being attached. As an Indian diplomat told me after referring to the mass attacks by Pakistani terrorists on his country in 2008, we have to defend ourselves against ‘the false security of being a nuclear power’ and take note of the new nuclear and ballistics arms race being run”, Gomart writes.
The author concludes that “if they are to conceive the world by themselves, the European leaders need to make a collective effort for which they are unprepared, despite their repeated calls for a more geopolitical Europe, in other words one within a mindset of power and able to adapt to the brutality of international power play, currently being played out on its doorstep. This effort will unquestionably start by paying close attention to the knock-on effects between the three theatres mentioned above, without turning their backs on the regions in which the security situation has already worsened greatly, such as the Sahel, and those which could very quickly follow suit, such as the ‘Asian Mediterranean’. These efforts must be continued with the effects within their respective societies”. (Olivier Jehin)
Thomas Gomart. L’accélération de l’histoire – Les nœuds géostratégiques d’un monde hors de contrôle (available in French only). Tallandier. ISBN: 979-1-0210-6069-2. 169 pages. €18,50
Le marché intérieur européen
In his speech made in Barcelona on 9 November on the occasion of his joining the Spanish Royal Academy of Economic and Financial Societies, the director of the Fondation Jean Monnet, Gilles Grin, takes stock of and weighs up the future prospects of the European single market, stressing that “the existence of the single market should not be taken for granted, but requires considerable political goodwill and to be constantly reinvigorated to maintain the proper functioning of the institutions and of the legal order” (our translation throughout).
“The European Union and its single market face four challenges: green, digital, solidarity and security. The Union must contribute to the decarbonisation of the economy by boosting innovation, seizing the opportunities of the new digital technologies while offsetting their risks, maintaining its internal cohesion and increasing its resilience to global geopolitical and geoeconomic shocks. The EU’s green and digital transformation will take great determination and colossal investments running to the hundreds of billions of euros a year, and the necessary training (or re-training) of the labour force”, the author stresses, going on to point out the difficulties encountered by the EU in the ongoing integration in the services sector (70% of EU GDP), but also taxation and social rights. “Small- and medium-sized enterprises and the liberal professions are the most penalised by the residual barriers existing in the single market. There are many factors in the causes of these barriers: overly restrictive national rules, complex European legislation, problems in the transposition of the directives, the inadequate implementation of single market laws, insufficient national administrative capacity, not enough coordination between the Commission and the national administrations and among themselves”, Grin points out.
He goes on to conclude that “the single market, which is central to European integration, needs to be supported. It is still incomplete and the risk of backsliding is always possible. Its proper functioning comes from fair and fruitful cooperation between the European and national institutions. Nationalism is a deadly poison to it and the rest of European integration. The desire of States to show normative zeal and the weakness that can prompt them to want to take protectionist measures that will create insidious problems for the internal market”. (OJ)
Gilles Grin. Le marché intérieur européen : concepts, substance, développements et enjeux actuels (available in French only). Real Academia de Ciencias Economicas y Financieras. ISBN: 978-8-4095-5604-5. 60 pages. The speech can be downloaded free of charge from the website of Real Academia : https://aeur.eu/f/bdw