Catherine Ashton And European Foreign Ministers To Meet At Gymnich
This week, European foreign ministers are meeting in their informal enclave, the Gymnich, as they have done since 1974 when Hans-Dietrich Genscher invited his colleagues to the German castle for relaxed conversation.
In keeping with the tradition, the meeting will be held in the XIV century Palacio de Viana. But for the first time, High Representative Catherine Ashton will attend, fresh from her travels in Eastern Europe.
Being an informal meeting, no notes will be taken or communiqués issued. The agenda is nonetheless quite full. Efforts to set up the EU’s diplomatic service may dominate the deliberations, even though the Spanish EU Presidency is hoping to discuss what it calls “topics of great political significance”. Two issues in particular – peacemaking in the Middle East and the Balkans – are on the agenda.
Yet rather than focus on day-to-day operations or reach visionary but empty conclusions, Europe’s foreign ministers could do with taking some advice from the Chinese warrior-philosopher Sun Tzu. In the first stanza of his classic book “The Art of War”, Sun Tzu listed both the issues that military leaders should address to win war; and the order in which to address them:
Discuss philosophy
Discuss climate
Discuss ground
Discuss leadership
Discuss military methods
European leaders have a habit of turning this admonition on its head: they prefer to discuss methods and leadership – top jobs and EU institutions. But at this week’s Gymnich, EU foreign ministers ought to take the military strategist’s advice and discuss both their overall philosophy – their actual aims – and the climate around them, i.e. the larger trends that are shaping Europe and the world. The ground where the actual battles are fought, as well as the methods and tactics, can be left for their regular meetings.
The first is a question of philosophy – what should be the EU’s aim in the 21st century. The EU has always been a mix-matched amalgamation of the views of its main stakeholders: the member-states and the EU institutions. The result is a muddled philosophy, which tries to take on big issues like security, economic stability and respect of human rights with little thematic coherence or deference to reality.
“Climate” – according to Su Tzu – is the reality within which the EU has to operate. What are the main “climate trends” that the 2,500-year-old warrior would have advised EU foreign ministers to focus on? Here is a bid:
i) A smaller US. The most important change in the last couple of years has been the “minimisation” of the US and its credibility across the world. It will force the US to look inwards, and has in some ways already done so; it will mean a more realist conception of its interests (see links with China and Russia) and it will undermine its role as a proponent for free-market capitalism (and perhaps even laissez-faire economics).
ii) The rise of the lynchpin states. These are the middling powers, the sub-BRIC strata of states, that are becoming increasingly important in the international systems, vital even to solve many problems, and certainly able to block progress. They include Chile, Indonesia, Mexico, and South Korea.
iii) The return of “hard” security. The world was meant to be focused on risks, and trans-global issues, not state-based threats. But with the collapse of the Copenhagen negotiations and, as Richard Gowan says, rising nationalist and populist forces at home, hard security issues are coming back, while the odds for preventing inter-state competition (whether in Central Asia, Latin America or the Gulf) are diminishing.
iv) The creation of the “Turkosphere”. A virtual empire, mapping on to the Ottoman Empire, that stretches from the Balkans, Central Asia and the Middle East – and into the EU – where the Ankara government is exercising increasing influence, promoting businesses and championing its brand of Islam.
v) The death of Gaullism. The most resonant piece of evidence for the death of Gaullism was the feebleness of the resistance against France’s full return into NATO’s military integration. As Thomas Klau notes: Sarkozy is the final nail in Gaullism’s coffin, Dominique de Villepin its last hurrah.
vi) Germany’s introspection. For decades, Berlin’s steadfast Europeanism was a given, while the country slowly but surely normalised its international role. This has now stopped. Germany is turning inwards, reverting to its erstwhile pacifism, and no longer seems interested in promoting EU solutions.
vii) Japan’s retirement. Some states are in decline, others are rising, but Japan is simply retiring. Tokyo is simply withdrawing from world affairs (see for example the withdrawal of forces from the Afghan theatre) and is accepting the future shape of a post-American Asia as dominated by China.
vii) The explosion of the Sahel. The ungoverned/misgoverned territory stretching from the Horn of Africa to the Western Sahara’s Atlantic coast is emerging as tomorrow’s trouble spot. Drug-smuggling, underdevelopment and misrule in Mali, Niger, Chad and Mauritania makes the region ripe for al Qaeda.
ix) Mosaic multilateralism. The formal, institutionalised nation-state multilateralism, which had characterised much of the Cold War period is disappearing to give way to a new form of multilateral cooperation, which accords more power to the BRICs, includes non-state actors like the IPCC, and will see the return of “coalitions of the willing” inside formal organisations like NATO.
x) The re-birth of exportism and foreign economic policy. Not quite neo-mercantilism, the economic crisis is making states focus their foreign policies on encouraging exports and national industries and reaping the benefits that accrue. France’s arms deal with Russia is a good example; it was a commercial decision dressed up in strategic rhetoric.
xi) The end of value-promotion. The realism brought about by the economic crisis in the West, the vicissitudes of the “War on Terror”, the undermining of democracy in several EU member-states, the global attractiveness of Russia’s “Sovereign Democracy” and China’s authoritarian capitalism means that it will be harder to promote liberal values, including democracy and human rights.
xii) No “rogues”. Finally, as Nader Mousavizadeh noted, the world that created “rogue states” is gone. The idea of “the rogue state” assumed the existence of a world community, unified to support certain values and interests and different than the renegades who broke the rules. But this community has disappeared. The “international community”, as defined by Western values, is a fiction. The term “rogue” could now apply to the US and Britain as much as it does to Venezuela.
It is hard to know which of the changes in what Sun Tzu called “climate” will be the most important for the EU. There could in fact be more. But European foreign ministers would do well to heed the Chinese warrior’s advice by holding an analytical discussion rather than focus – as they so often do – on methods and leadership.
“Tactics without strategy”, Sun Tzu warned, “is the noise before defeat.” But without a coherent philosophy and an understanding of the climate, even the right strategy will fail the EU.
Topics: 2010, 21st century, al Qaeda, Balkans, Britain, Catherine Ashton, Chad, climate, climate change, coalitions of the willing, commission, death of Gaullism, democracy, diplomatic service, Dominique de Villepin, Eastern Europe, EC, economic development, economic growth, economic stability, Economy, EU, Europe, European Commission, European Government, European Union, exportism, foreign economic policy, foreign policy, German, Germany, Governance, government, Great Britain, ground, Horn of Africa, human rights, IPCC, Japan, leadership, lynchpin states, Mali, Mauritania, member states, Middle East, military, moniter, monitor, NATO, news, Niger, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, pacifism, Parliament, philosophy, politics, rogue states, Sahel, Sarkozy, security, Spain, spanish, Spanish EU Presidency, Spanish Presidency, stakeholders, Sun Tzu, The Art of War, Turkosphere, U.K., UK, United Kingdom, value-promotion, war on terror
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