WORLDVIEW:The notion that the EU could become a 'pole' in the 21st century balance of power should be tested rather than asserted, writes PAUL GILLESPIE
THERE’S A good story doing the rounds in Brussels. The new EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton tells Hillary Clinton there is now a single telephone number on which to call Europe, in answer to Henry Kissinger’s famous complaint that he could not find one. But when the secretary of state rings it she hears a recording: “For French foreign policy, press 1. For British foreign policy, press 2 . . .”
Despite the foreign policy leadership role provided by the Lisbon Treaty, it is proving very difficult for the EU to organise more coherently because of institutional competition about who does what; similar political tension between Brussels and the member states; and general confusion about the EU’s proper role in a changing global environment. Last week’s summit on how it should engage existing and emerging world powers like the US, China, Brazil and India was overshadowed by a row over France’s expulsion of Roma. It was in any case ill-prepared, and had underwhelming conclusions. And the EU failed to muster enough votes to give Ashton speaking rights at the UN.
Political and policy disagreements and confusions are more important than the institutional difficulties, which necessarily take time to iron out. According to the current EU orthodoxy, we are living through a transition from the bipolar order of world politics between the US and the USSR during the cold war, and the US unipolar moment in the 1990s, to the new equilibrium of a multipolar world. It is assumed the EU should and will be one of the main poles of this new order, that multilateralism will be its principal working method and that it will be driven mainly by a renewed trans-Atlantic partnership between the EU and the US. The idea of “poles” and polarity in world politics comes from the realist/geopolitical tradition of international relations analysis and practice (exemplified by Kissinger). They are centres of political leadership, economic resources and military power, normally concentrated in a hegemonic state dominating a world region. Bipolarity and unipolarity are comparatively rare historically; multipolarity is more common – as in Europe during the 19th century and between the two world wars.
In that case, this transition is going back to the future on a global scale. Orthodox analyses insist that unless the EU participates actively in shaping the coming order and becomes one of its poles, it will be marginalised into the role of spectator.
That is all well and good. But we should be careful not to confuse wishful thinking with realistic analysis. Multipolarity may be a desirable outcome of this transition, along with an associated co-operative political interpolarity between different world regions organised rather like the EU itself. Such a concert of powers would maximise the EU’s influence on world politics.
Whether this is the current trend is more doubtful. For example, in a speech to the International Institute of Strategic Studies last week Kissinger said: “Some observers have forecast a multipolar world, with regional heavyweights, like China, Russia, India, Brazil, or even Turkey, grouping their smaller neighbours and building power blocs that can potentially create a global equilibrium somewhat on the model of the European systems of the 18th and 19th century. I do not believe that it is possible to compartmentalise the international order into a system of regional hegemons. The United States is a Pacific country; it cannot be excluded from East Asia . . . Issues like energy and environment cannot be regionalised at all.”
Other US neo-realist analysts remind us that multipolarity can be competitive or conflictual. John Mearsheimer argues that war is more likely in multipolarity because there are more potential adversaries. Potential great powers see opportunities to maximise their position militarily if inequalities unbalance systemic equilibrium. In recent European history, there were 2.2 per cent of years with wars under bipolarity (1945-1990), 18.3 per cent under balanced multipolarity (1792-1793, 1815-1902, 1919-1938) and 79.5 per cent under unbalanced multipolarity (1793-1815, 1903-1918, 1939-1945).
Mearsheimer fears that “if China continues its impressive economic growth over the next few decades, the US and China are likely to engage in an intense security competition with considerable potential for war”. Miscalculations and recklessness are more possible in these unbalanced circumstances. He says Europe has remained at peace since 1989 mainly because the US is still an offshore balancer through Nato and transatlantic co-operation. But its attention is shifting to other regions.
Richard Haass says non-polarity may be a more accurate description of the emerging condition, reflecting the proliferation of power centres in today’s world, many of which are not states but international organisations or media outlets.
A European analyst of polarity, Richard Higgott, cautions against easy acceptance of current EU orthodoxies. Multipolarity is too statist for this century, he argues, in agreement with Haass about the dispersal of power. Transnational networking needs much more attention. The idea that the EU will become a pole should be tested rather than asserted. It will be a trans-Pacific rather than a trans-Atlantic century, making that a much greater priority for EU policy.
These are useful critical thoughts about a potentially dangerous world.
pegillespie@gmail.com