Europe’s Grand Strategy: Navigating a New World Order (Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics) 3030605221, 9783030605223

Citation preview

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN EUROPEAN UNION POLITICS SERIES EDITORS: MICHELLE EGAN · NEILL NUGENT · WILLIAM E. PATERSON

Europe’s Grand Strategy Navigating a New World Order

Bart M. J. Szewczyk

Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics Series Editors Michelle Egan American University Washington, USA Neill Nugent Manchester Metropolitan University Manchester, UK William E. Paterson Aston University Birmingham, UK

Following on the sustained success of the acclaimed European Union Series, which essentially publishes research-based textbooks, Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics publishes cutting edge research-driven monographs. The remit of the series is broadly defined, both in terms of subject and academic discipline. All topics of significance concerning the nature and operation of the European Union potentially fall within the scope of the series. The series is multidisciplinary to reflect the growing importance of the EU as a political, economic and social phenomenon. To submit a proposal, please contact Senior Editor Ambra Finotello ambra. [email protected]. This series is indexed by Scopus. Editorial Board: Laurie Buonanno (SUNY Buffalo State, USA) Kenneth Dyson (Cardiff University, UK) Brigid Laffan (European University Institute, Italy) Claudio Radaelli (University College London, UK) Mark Rhinard (Stockholm University, Sweden) Ariadna Ripoll Servent (University of Bamberg, Germany) Frank Schimmelfennig (ETH Zurich, Switzerland) Claudia Sternberg (University College London, UK) Nathalie Tocci (Istituto Affari Internazionali, Italy) * * *

More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14629

Bart M. J. Szewczyk

Europe’s Grand Strategy Navigating a New World Order

Bart M. J. Szewczyk Sciences Po Paris, France

ISSN 2662-5873     ISSN 2662-5881 (electronic) Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics ISBN 978-3-030-60522-3    ISBN 978-3-030-60523-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60523-0 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

For Carole and Chloé, my grand strategists

Acknowledgments

This book is part of a wider trilogy—on European strategy, European sovereignty, and transatlantic relations—which has consumed my time, attention, and effort during the highly unusual period of a months-long lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Any book project inevitably takes a toll on those closest to you. Three books can stretch the limit. Completing a trilogy while sheltering in place may make you rethink your initial strategy altogether. And yet, thinking and acting strategically can help keep sight of core interests, national or individual, and allow for tactical adjustments while pursuing the original objectives. My wife, Carole, and baby daughter, Chloé, were boundless sources of support, joy, and inspiration during this process, for which I am eternally grateful. Home day care is not necessarily as conducive to research and writing as a library or office. But it is infinitely more enjoyable as any writer’s block is quickly diffused by laughter or new games. Time constraints also help focus the mind, making the two or three hours during naps remarkably productive. It is commonplace to say, but no less true, that periods of crisis clarify what is truly important, such as love and health. I could not be luckier than to have Carole and Chloé by my side. It is to them that the book is dedicated. Even during these difficult times, I continue to have hope and optimism for the future, partly due to my family’s history, which has had its fair share of luck and misfortune. My grandmother, Genowefa Rzentała, was born in a small village outside of Warsaw in 1926 and lived a full and good life before passing away last summer. She was able to survive the destruction of World War II and raise three children in the capital, one of vii

viii 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

whom (my mom, Maria Rzentała-Szewczyk) later became a judge before passing away tragically due to cancer at the age of 41. My dad, Eugeniusz, was born in a small town in Silesia, pursued university studies in Cracow and Warsaw, and worked as a banker before moving to New York in 1990 and eventually retiring from Citibank. My brother Robert had to learn English at the age of 15 (I had a five-year head start due to our age difference) and completed a PhD at Berkeley before starting up his own firm and eventually landing at Google in San Francisco. It would be ungrateful and unrealistic for me not to believe in progress, although the path may entail significant trials and tribulations. My editor at Palgrave Macmillan, Anne-Kathrin Birchley-Brun, was delightful to work with and instrumental in speedily shepherding this project, notwithstanding my own deadline delays. An anonymous reviewer provided helpful comments on the overall structure and argument. And the series editors—Michelle Egan, Neill Nugent, and William Paterson— showed great generosity in approving the initial proposal and the final product. I am also grateful to the numerous former and current European officials, who spared their time for interviews. Their insights helped clarify several points, confirm some contested issues, and disprove misperceptions. Special thanks also go to Jackson Webster, one of my star students at Sciences Po, who provided valuable research. Finally, I would like to thank my countless colleagues, friends, professors, and students in the United States and Europe, who helped me hone my understanding of strategy and I am sure will continue to push me to refine it further in the many years to come.

Praise for Europe’s Grand Strategy “The trajectory of Europe’s role in the world is of growing importance as the globe enters an era of uncertainty and change. Szewczyk lays out a strategic game plan for the European Union that is at once visionary and pragmatic. His call for Europe to live up to its liberal values and geopolitical ambitions could not be more timely.” —Charles A. Kupchan, Professor of International Affairs, Georgetown University, Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations “Bart Szewczyk draws on his experience on the European Commission’s thinktank and as a scholar to offer a thoughtful strategic vision and hard-headed policy proposals for the future as seen from Brussels.” —Andrew Moravcsik, Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University

Contents

1 Introduction  1 2 Grand Strategy and Policy Planning 13 3 Europe’s Liberal Foundations 63 4 Managing Russia’s Decline 97 5 Countering China’s Assertiveness125 6 Stabilizing the Middle East and Africa145 7 Crafting Grand Strategy for Europe167 8 Conclusion197

xi

About the Author

Bart M. J. Szewczyk  (SHEF-chick) is an adjunct professor at Sciences Po in Paris and nonresident senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund in Brussels. Previously, he served as Member of the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S.  Department of State and Senior Policy Advisor to the U.S. Ambassador to the UN, and worked as Adviser on Global Affairs at the European Commission’s think-tank, the European Political Strategy Centre. He is author of two books: European Sovereignty and Legitimacy (Routledge 2021) and, with David McKean, Partners of First Resort: America, Europe, and the Future of the West (Brookings Institution Press 2021). He holds a PhD in international relations from the University of Cambridge, where he was a Gates Scholar, a JD from Yale Law School, an MPA from Princeton University, and a BS in Economics, summa cum laude, from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Born in Warsaw, he grew up near New York.

xiii

List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Fig. 3.1

Fig. 3.2 Fig. 3.3 Fig. 3.4

Fig. 3.5 Fig. 3.6 Fig. 3.7 Fig. 4.1 Fig. 5.1

Allied defense spending during the Cold War 23 Income inequality in Europe and the United States. Source: Gini coefficients adapted from Bruegel, 2016. Data from US Standardized World Income Inequality Database (SWIID), while EU28 data is from Darvas, 2016, based on individual country data from Solt (2016) 78 Income distribution in Europe. Source: Eurostat; 2005 data not available for Bulgaria, Croatia, and Romania 79 Is life better or worse than 50 years ago? Source: Pew Research Center79 Military spending in the world. Source: SIPRI; data in USD billions; Europe consists of Western European countries before 1990 and includes Central European countries after 1990; Russia includes USSR data for 1989–1990 for the sake of comparison86 Military spending in Europe. Source: SIPRI; data in USD billions; Europe consists of Western European countries before 1990 and includes Central European countries after 199087 Allied defense spending after the Cold War. Source: SIPRI; data as % of GDP88 Official development assistance. Source: OECD; data in USD billions; Europe consists of Development Assistance Committee EU Members + European Commission89 Russia’s military spending under pressure. (Sources: SIPRI for military spending; World Bank for GDP) 103 Russia’s stagnation and China’s surge. (Source: World Bank (2016); GDP per capita in $ (left axis) and GDP is in $ billions (right axis)) 126 xv

xvi 

List of Figures

Fig. 6.1

Fig. 6.2

War casualties. (Source: World Bank data on battle-related deaths (2018). This data illustrates the global trend, but does not necessarily reflect precise pinpoint estimates; accurate data on casualties in war zones is often difficult to obtain and consists of wide ranges) Refugees and asylum-seekers. (Source: UNHCR)

146 148

List of Tables

Table 6.1 Table 6.2

Internal Displacement Military coalition contributions to countering the Islamic State

150 153

xvii

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

My first direct involvement with crafting Europe’s grand strategy occurred in November 2015 in Washington, DC. I had been serving at the time on the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State, providing strategic advice on European and Eurasian affairs to Secretary John Kerry and other senior U.S. officials. Having joined the government a year earlier, I had observed the deliberation and drafting process within President Barack Obama’s and Vice-President Joe Biden’s administration leading to the 2015 U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS), released in February of that year. And I was aware of a similar review process occurring within the European Union (EU), given my interactions with counterparts at the Strategic Planning Division of the European External Action Service (EEAS) and the main penholder for the EU Global Strategy (EUGS), Nathalie Tocci. A trusted and long-time counselor to the HRVP Federica Mogherini, Tocci served as her special adviser for the EUGS. Given that it had been over a decade since the 2003 European Security Strategy, I suggested to Nathalie that it would be worthwhile for her to participate in a one-day workshop on lessons learned from the U.S. experience with the main drafter of the 2015 NSS, Salman Ahmed. (As the Senior Director for Strategic Planning at the National Security Council (NSC) and previously visiting professor at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs, Salman had the right professional and academic background to genuinely reflect on his own work effort and © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 B. M. J. Szewczyk, Europe’s Grand Strategy, Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60523-0_1

1

2 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

identify the various options and decisions along the way. Notably, Salman kept the appointment even though he had just returned from back surgery, reflecting both his own personal dedication as well as the importance that the Obama-Biden administration placed on the EU.) The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace kindly provided the venue for this track 1.5 dialogue, which involved several EU and U.S. officials as well as foreign policy experts. What struck me perhaps the most from this event was the openness of the EU’s decision-making process. As Nathalie later recounted in her contribution to the Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics, “all those who contributed to the strategic reflection, both from within and outside the official institutions, in reading carefully the EUGS will find themselves reflected somewhere in the text.”1 And thus, I found myself reflected in the document, published in June 2016, having suggested two edits in an earlier draft to capture more effectively the intended meaning: changing “pragmatic idealism” to “principled pragmatism”2 and “structural partners” to “core partners.”3 Rather than merely semantic, both changes sought to clarify two key concepts within the strategy: its general approach and the EU’s main allies. “Principled pragmatism,” a phrase used by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2009,4 meant a mix of realism and idealism, recognizing the role of both power and values in international affairs.5 It was also a concession to the reality of political processes, which can be shaped toward principles but rarely have idealism as the absolutist default (and thus the chosen phrase was more accurate than pragmatic idealism). Having written my PhD dissertation at Cambridge University on the contemporary sources of legitimacy in the EU, I had viewed principled pragmatism as encapsulating crisply the EU’s political philosophy of pursuing big visions with practical steps.6 The phrase had also reflected my legal training at the Yale Law School, and in particular, the New Haven School of International Law, whose orienting ethos is realistic idealism.7 And it generally echoed the instincts of many of my colleagues in the Obama-­ Biden administration:8 (often legally trained) idealists who sought realistic ways to serve the common interest.9 “Core partners” had a simpler intellectual pedigree. The initial term “structural” seemed too abstract to me and, in any event, grouped together distinct global actors, such as the United States, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the United Nations, which had different positions and roles within the structure of international affairs. “Core” was

1 INTRODUCTION 

3

more concrete and referred to the key allies the EU would work with to serve its core interests. And it echoed the phrase widely used in the Obama-­ Biden administration to refer to Europe as America’s “partner of first resort.”10 Beyond my engagement with the EU Global Strategy, I worked closely with colleagues in the U.S. government as well as counterparts in the EU institutions and European governments to strategize jointly in light of challenges and crises that Europe and America shared in common. As Member of Secretary Kerry’s Policy Planning Staff (S/P) with a top-secret security clearance, I covered strategic issues related to the European Union, NATO, Ukraine, Russia, Eurasia, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and other relevant bilateral and international institutions, as well as global economic affairs. In 2016, I authored or coauthored over 20% of S/P policy notes (on a staff of 24 members), including on Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, European security and counterterrorism efforts, NATO enlargement, geostrategic and geoeconomic considerations of Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP), the future of Europe and the transatlantic community in the wake of Brexit, energy security, Russian interference in U.S. and European elections, strategy toward Turkey, the refugee and migrant crisis in Europe, long-term migration trends, and other topics. With S/P Directors David McKean and Jon Finer, I participated in policy planning talks throughout European capitals to fine-tune strategic thinking and responses over time. These efforts yielded seamless transatlantic coordination on many issues, not least of which was Russia toward which the two sides adopted similar strategies.11 Between July 2016 and January 2017, I also concurrently served as Senior Policy Advisor to the U.S.  Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, on a range of functional and regional issues, and in particular, on responding to the global refugee crisis with European and other like-minded partners. Shuttling in-between Washington and New York on a weekly basis in what I understand was an unprecedented arrangement, I served as the Executive Office lead on implementation of country commitments at the President’s Leaders’ Summit on Refugees, private sector engagement on the global refugee crisis, and university engagement for displaced students, as well as the Ambassador’s domestic outreach on these issues. I also designed and orchestrated the Ambassador’s domestic trip to highlight the role of local communities in responding to the global refugee crisis. At the U.S.  Mission to the United Nations (USUN), we

4 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

worked closely with European counterparts to mobilize increased resettlement of refugees, additional funds for humanitarian relief, and greater access for refugees to education and work, particularly given the protracted nature of the underlying conflicts (especially in Syria) that gave rise to the refugee crisis. Between November 2017 and February 2020, I worked as Adviser on Global Affairs at the European Commission’s think-tank, the European Political Strategy Centre (EPSC), where I covered a wide array of foreign policy issues, including international order, defense, geoeconomics, transatlantic relations, Russia and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, and China and Asia. (The EPSC functioned primarily as an outward-­ facing research institute with public events, conferences, and online publications.) These  experiences provided unparalleled insights into the field of grand strategy as conceived and practiced on both sides of the Atlantic. Perhaps what is most surprising is the distinct approaches to thinking about strategy and policy in the United States and Europe, as well as varying benchmarks for successful and effective implementation of policy decisions. Among other things, I coined what turned out to be the emerging strategic concept for the current European Commission. In a March 2019 EPSC brainstorming exercise on mottos for the incoming Commission, I argued that President Jean-Claude Juncker’s notion of a political Commission needed to go global. I noted that Europe’s ability to uphold the liberal order would be increasingly stressed, at least until the end of the Trump administration, without a significant increase in resources allocated to defense and diplomacy. I recommended that the Commission should serve as Europe’s conscience and consigliere in this effort in identifying major gaps and monitoring progress. Thus, I concluded, it would need to move from a political to a geopolitical Commission. The paradigmatic example for thinking and acting as a geopolitical Commission was President Juncker’s direct brokering of a trade cease-fire with U.S. President Donald Trump in 2018—the first time in recent memory that the European Commission President met and negotiated on his own with his American counterpart. It was also perhaps the only positive note in transatlantic relations over the past four years, during the joint press conference at the White House Rose Garden, with Trump reading glowingly about Europe and the Western alliance from the negotiated U.S.-EU statement.12 Nearly four months before Ursula von der Leyen was nominated by the European Council as President of the Commission, and herself adopted

1 INTRODUCTION 

5

the phrase “the geopolitical Commission,” my argument rested on my prior engagements such as testimony to the European Parliament on EU-Russia political relations (November 2018) publications such as Europe and the Liberal Order (April 2019),13 and a High-Level Speaker Series on Geopolitics. Some of my earlier arguments also found their way, in part verbatim, into the June 2019 Implementation Report on the EU Global Strategy issued by the EEAS.  In particular, the Implementation Report echoed one of my articles in characterizing the rules-based global order as an “existential interest” for the EU that the EU would need to defend “together with its partners wherever possible, but alone when necessary”14—the leitmotif for this book. Over the past three years, I have also served as an adjunct professor on post-Cold War transatlantic grand strategies and on conflict prevention at Sciences Po in Paris. The former course was partly inspired by my own graduate studies in grand strategy at Yale, where John Gaddis, Paul Kennedy, and Charles Hill launched a whole program dedicated to it— spawning an entire generation of practitioners and academics who in turn established similar programs at other universities.15 This book reflects in part discussions with my students, engages with the wider literature and practice of grand strategy, and hopes to contribute a perspective on contemporary European thinking. My primary motivation in writing the book was to help think through some of Europe’s strategic choices and offer several concrete recommendations. Unfortunately, there is a glaring dearth of serious policy analysis in Europe, where soundbites often replace strategy. For instance, one former official at the European Commission—apparently in good faith and with genuine intentions—told me one of my papers did not have enough “buzzwords” and proceeded to list various terms and phrases to sprinkle throughout my text. (I politely declined the edits.) The comment was emblematic of a general trend toward formulating a catchy headline, alongside perhaps some flashy visuals, as a way of drawing attention but not stimulating constructive debate. Improving Europe’s “strategic culture” has ironically itself become more of a slogan than a shift in practice. A secondary motivation was to help bridge the vast chasm between policy-making and academia in Europe. Without much exchange between the two worlds, academic scholarship sometimes can appear devoid of policy relevance. Even within the think-tank community, one well-­ regarded researcher, after presenting a comprehensive overview of a particular problem but without any policy recommendations, told me that

6 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

their role was not to make such decisions. Conversely, not many current or former officials publish books to inform the public debate.16 Indeed, many of my interlocutors at the EU showed either disinterest, or at worst contempt, for the idea of writing a book on European strategy—perhaps because they concluded that it would be similarly detached from current concerns and thereby irrelevant. There has been an expanding cottage industry on the future of Europe that provides deep insight into internal European dynamics, but largely ignores Europe’s role in developing grand strategy or shaping the world order.17 Many books that purport to address European strategy focus exclusively on the process of decision-making, primarily if not exclusively in Brussels, rather than any actual substance regarding Europe’s strategic choices toward Russia, China, the Middle East, Africa, or other issues.18 Several books on the topic of Europe’s grand strategy have been overtaken by events.19 Wider debates on world order largely elide the role of Europe, treating it as either as a bystander, battleground, or basis of problems.20 To the extent Europe is treated as a global player, some have advocated retrenchment and narrowly defined interests;21 others, neutrality and accommodation.22 Indeed, the only notable recent book-length treatment sets forth an unrealistic and unappealing vision, whereby Europe would balance against other great powers, including against its core partner the United States, and forego its traditional support for liberal values that are essential to its continued survival and success.23 To its credit, however, at least it developed a clear argument with concrete policy implications that can be analyzed, debated, and adopted or discarded. This book argues that Europe has an existential interest in the liberal order around which it should organize its grand strategy. The liberal order—a set of ideas, norms, rules, and institutions established after World War II that helped create the European Union and establish peace, prosperity, and political inclusiveness on the continent—is widely under attack. In particular, for the first time since 1989, illiberal authoritarianism (primarily in Russia and China, but also in parts of the West) is proffered as an attractive alternative for global success in juxtaposition to democracy, human rights, and market economy. The instability of the Trump administration’s foreign policy has further shaken the foundations of the free world. Strikingly, the 2017 U.S. national security strategy excluded the liberal order as a core U.S. interest, in breach with decades-long tradition dating back to the Truman administration’s strategy for defense of the free world. And thus resurgent Europe—through the EU and its member

1 INTRODUCTION 

7

states—needs to preserve liberal values against illiberal forces if it is to survive, let alone succeed.24 With relatively  new leadership at the European Council, EEAS, Commission, and Parliament amidst a rapidly shifting geopolitical landscape—particularly in light of the public health, political, and economic crisis due to Covid-19—Europe faces an opportune moment to craft a new grand strategy to navigate the new world order based on a four-­pronged approach. First and above all, European decision-makers (both in Brussels and across EU capitals) need to take a broader view of their core, if not existential, interests at stake and devote greater time and resources to serving them within the wider cause of the liberal order. Second, Europe needs to help reinvigorate the West—the essential backbone of liberal order—by restoring a sense of solidarity through fairer distribution of benefits as well as more equitable burden-sharing on diplomacy, defense, and development. Third, Europe needs to develop separate strategies for parts of the world, such as Russia and China, where liberal values are not likely to be attainable in the foreseeable future yet basic elements of public order (such as minimization of violence, stability, and predictability) are still necessary. Fourth, beyond defending the liberal order, Europe needs to clarify its core interests elsewhere and help stabilize the Middle East and Africa. Constructing a grand strategy for Europe is a complex process involving multiple decision-makers and institutions. This book seeks to lay the essential building blocks toward that effort. Chapter 2 develops the theoretical foundations for grand strategy, establishes its purpose and value, and shows how it has been utilized in the United States and in Europe. The institutional machinery and actual practice of strategy and policy planning have been established to the greatest extent in the United States, with a wide range of successes and failures, which provide useful lessons for the development of strategy in Europe. The chapter also traces the evolution of the liberal order as a strategic concept in U.S. policy since World War II and demonstrates the concept’s role in current European strategies at the EU as well as within member states. Chapter 3 shows the importance of the liberal order to Europe’s core interests of peace, prosperity, and political inclusion and draws several policy implications for the increased allocation of resources for defense and diplomacy to build up strength within the free world. Chapters 4 and 5 address the primary external challenges to the liberal order, Russia and China, albeit in different ways given the respective scale of the two countries. Whereas Russia’s decline needs to be effectively managed, China’s increased assertiveness

8 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

needs to be countered over time. Chapter 6, perhaps the most difficult to construct, argues for a strategy of stability in the Middle East and Africa with a focus on conflict prevention and counterterrorism. To be sure, this regional strategy is much easier said than done and perhaps the central guiding principles in this endeavor are clarifying core interests and balancing means and ends. To the extent possible, Chapter 7 seeks to tie all these lines of effort together in a coherent intellectual architecture that can crisply explain Europe’s grand strategy, through various current and future institutional mechanisms. With the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and what could be potentially the most transatlanticist U.S. administration in decades, Europe has a unique opportunity to make this strategy effective and sustainable. For Europe, the road to success in foreign policy—whether confronting Beijing, Moscow,  COVID-19, or terrorist groups—leads through synergy with the United States, and vice versa. Ultimately, strategy is about identifying choices and making decisions. Yet, there are conflicting trends in Europe: greater ambition but fewer resources, visions of autonomy combined with the reality of interdependence, in search of strategy but with disjointed tactics, with good but discordant outcomes. The main challenge for Europe will be to translate high-­level consensus into concrete policies that can deliver tangible results in the short term and over time. A book on strategy, however, can only clarify various lines of argument and recommend specific policies, thereby stimulating debate, opposition, counterarguments, and hopefully feeding into decisions. The audience is twofold: European leaders and ministers (and their advisers), as well as the academic and think-tank communities and the wider public. The book’s ambition is to persuade the reader of Europe’s strategic necessity to defend the liberal order, and at the very least, to structure and inform a broader strategic debate in Europe within a specific analytical framework, which it turns to next.

Notes 1. See Nathalie Tocci, Framing the EU Global Strategy: A Stronger Europe in a Fragile World (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 45 (emphasis added) (“When I could, I tried to stick to the actual wording used in the non-papers sent to us. This was a good piece of advice I received from one of the drafters of the 2015 US National Security Strategy during a visit to Washington in the fall of 2015. When I asked him for some tips on how to

1 INTRODUCTION 

9

manage the process, he suggested that when possible I should use the exact bits of wording I received from the various contributions.”). 2. See, for example, Sven Biscop, European Strategy in the 21st Century (London: Routledge, 2018), 32 (“The new strategy precisely tries to find the middle way between dreamy idealism and unprincipled power politics. It calls this middle way principled pragmatism. … Thought was given to it …, for in an earlier version of the text it was ‘pragmatic idealism,’ but apparently someone objected to that. Nonetheless, ‘principled pragmatism’ truly is the European realpolitik that the EU needs.”). 3. Compare Summary of Findings, Expert Consultation in the Framework of the EU Strategic Review Process (16 December 2015) (discussing “structural partners”) with EU Global Strategy (2016) (identifying the U.S., NATO, and the UN as the EU’s “core partners”). 4. See Bart M.J. Szewczyk, European Citizenship and National Democracy, 17 Colum. J.  Eur. L. 151 (2011) (citing Hillary Rodham Clinton, U.S.  Secretary of State, Remarks on the Human Rights Agenda for the 21st Century (Dec. 14, 2009)). 5. See also Henry Kissinger, Interview by Stephen Colbert (14 June 2011) (“You have to understand that there is an element of power in the world, but … without values, power becomes arbitrary and unmanageable, so you need both.”) quoted in Bart M.J.  Szewczyk, Variable Multipolarity and UN Security Council Reform, 53 Harv. Int’l L. J. 450 (2012). 6. See Bart M.J.  Szewczyk, European Sovereignty, Legitimacy, and Power (London: Routledge, 2020). 7. See Essays in Honor of W.  Michael Reisman, “Realistic Idealism in International Law,” 34 Yale J. Int’l L. 499, 499–614 (2009). 8. See, for example, Paul Richard Huard, Principled Pragmatism: Fredrik Logevall on Obama’s Legacy, National Interest (23 May 2016). 9. See, for example, Ben Rhodes, The World as It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House (New York: Random House, 2018); Samantha Power, The Education of an Idealist: A Memoir (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2019). 10. See, for example, John Kerry, U.S. Secretary of State, Cabinet Exit Memo to President Obama (5 January 2017). See also David McKean and Bart M.J. Szewczyk, Partners of First Resort: America, Europe, and the Future of the West (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2020). 11. Compare Remarks by Celeste Wallander, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russia and Central Asia, U.S. Policy on Russia (26 June 2015) with EU Foreign Affairs Council, Conclusions on Russia (14 March 2016).

10 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

12. Compare Remarks by President Trump and President Juncker of the European Commission in Joint Press Statements, 25 June 2018 with Joint EU-U.S.  Statement following President Juncker’s visit to the White House, 25 June 2018. 13. Bart M.J.  Szewczyk, Europe and the Liberal Order, 61(2) Survival 33 (April/May 2019). 14. European External Action Service, The European Union’s Global Strategy: Three Years On, Looking Forward (June 2019) (Implementation Report). Compare Implementation Report (“All this is equally harming the rulesbased global order—an existential interest of our Union—precisely when multilateralism is most acutely needed. … The rules-based international order, centered on International Law, including Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law, is an existential interest of the Union. ”) with Europe and the Liberal Order (The EU “was a product of the liberal order and thus has an existential stake in preserving it. The EU’s continued strength and vitality rely in part on a wider network of institutions and norms committed to the corresponding values of democracy, human rights, the rule of law and market capitalism.”); compare Implementation Report (“A more autonomous EU is one which is more able to act, together with its partners wherever possible, but alone when necessary.”) with Europe and the Liberal Order (“Yet, as the liberal order is fraying, Europe has a vital interest in defending it, and can muster the political will and resources to do so—with like-minded allies if possible and alone if necessary.”). 15. For an overview, see Linda Kulman, Teaching Common Sense: The Grand Strategy Program at Yale University (New Haven, CT: Prospecta Press, 2016). 16. Notable exceptions include Radosław Sikorski, Polska moěe być lepsza: Kulisy polskiej dyplomacji [Poland can be better: behind the scenes of Polish diplomacy] (Warsaw: Społeczny Instytut Wydawniczy Znak, 2018); Bruno Le Maire, Le nouvel empire: L’Europe du vingt et unième siècle [The new empire: Europe in the 21st century] (Paris: Gallimard, 2019); Herman van Rompuy, L’Europe dans la tempête: Leçons et defies [Europe in the storm: Lessons and challenges] (Brussels: Racine, 2019); Joschka Fischer, Willkommen im 21. Jahrhundert: Europas Aufbruch und die deutsche Verantwortung [Welcome to the 21st century: Europe’s departure and German responsibility] (Berlin: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2020). 17. See, for example, Luuk van Middelaar, The Passage to Europe: How a Continent Became a Union (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014); Guy Verhofstadt, Europe’s Last Chance: Why the European States Must Form a More Perfect Union (New York: Basic Books, 2017); Ivan Krastev, After Europe (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017); James

1 INTRODUCTION 

11

Kirchick, The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues, and the Coming Dark Age (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2017). 18. See, for example, Pol Morillas, Strategy-Making in the EU: From Foreign and Security Policy to External Action (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). 19. See, for example, Nathalie Tocci, Framing the EU Global Strategy: A Stronger Europe in a Fragile World (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017); Stephen Keukeleire and Tom Delreaux, Foreign Policy of the European Union (London: Red Globe Press, 2014); Andrew Cottey, Security in 21st Century Europe (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013); Federiga Bindi and Irina Angelescu, Foreign Policy of the European Union: Assessing Europe’s Role in the World (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2012). 20. See generally Gideon Rose, “The Fourth Founding: The United States and the Liberal Order,” Foreign Affairs, 98: 1 January/February 2019, pp.  10–21; Thomas Wright, “The Return to Great-Power Rivalry Was Inevitable,” The Atlantic (12 September 2018). Notable exceptions include Ivo H. Daalder and James M. Lindsay, The Committee to Save the World Order: America’s Allies Must Step Up as America Steps Down, Foreign Affairs, 97: 6 November/December 2018, pp. 72–83. 21. Anthony Dworkin & Mark Leonard, “Can Europe save the world order?”, ECFR Policy Brief (May 2018). 22. Sven Biscop, European Strategy in the 21st Century (London: Routledge, 2018). 23. Ibid. 24. Part of the manuscript has been published as an article in Foreign Policy under the title “What Is Europe’s ‘Once-in-a-Generation’ Offer to America?” in December 2020, in Survival, under the title “Europe and the Liberal Order” in volume 61(2) (April/May 2019), by GMF under the title “Europe’s Strategies in Asia” in March 2019, by the EU Institute for Security Studies and the NATO Defense College under the title “Operational cooperation” in The EU and NATO: The essential partners (Gustav Lindstrom and Thierry Tardy, eds. 2019), and by Palgrave Macmillan under the title “Transatlantic Strategy for the Liberal Order,” in Key Controversies in European Integration (Hubert Zimmermann & Andreas Dür, eds. 2020). Each respective publisher is the original source and copyright holder, and the text has been reproduced with its permission.

CHAPTER 2

Grand Strategy and Policy Planning

What is grand strategy, who designs it, what is its purpose, and how is it practiced? As a preliminary matter, several observations should serve as cautionary signs for any definitive claims regarding grand strategy. One senior EU official noted that few if any European heads of state and government actually read the EU Global Strategy.1 Similarly, a former senior U.S. official involved in drafting one of the U.S. national security strategies once quipped that high-level policy-makers rarely read such documents. This reticence sometimes goes beyond specific documents to the planning process itself. Two senior EU officials quoted Mike Tyson’s pejorative view of strategizing: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”2 Donald Trump is also apparently a fan of Tyson’s approach, viewing strategic plans as “pointless” because the future is “unpredictable.”3 Yet, Dwight Eisenhower—whose success record easily outstrips Trump’s—stressed that, even if specific plans were nothing, planning is everything. Similarly, Barack Obama eschewed absolutist organizing principles to foreign policy, but routinely mapped out various future scenarios and potential courses of action to make decisions.4 Modern experience teaches that detailed plans can have rapidly diminishing returns if extended too far across time, but strategy remains invaluable to any decision-maker.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 B. M. J. Szewczyk, Europe’s Grand Strategy, Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60523-0_2

13

14 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

Theory Historically, the concept of strategy originated in military affairs and had a more limited scope concerned with winning war. Ancient Greeks used the notion of stratēgike episteme (general’s knowledge) or stratēgō n sophia (general’s wisdom), with strategos or strategus referring to a military general.5 For Carl von Clausewitz, a Prussian general and military theorist, strategy was the “use of engagements for the object of war” in contrast to tactics, which was the “use of armed forces in the engagement.”6 Antoine-­ Henri Jomini, who served as general in both Napoleon’s army and later the Russian army, viewed strategy also from a similar military perspective: “[s]trategy decides where to act; logistics brings the troops to this point; grand tactics decides the manner of execution and the employment of the troops.”7 In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the success of any grand strategy was tested in so-called decisive battles, which would resolve for the participants political conflicts and determine the prevailing balance of power—until the next decisive battle and the next equilibrium. With the advent of total war in World Wars I and II and the diminishing utility of the concept of decisive battles—as both sides could exhaust or destroy each other into oblivion—grand strategy was broadened to include objectives in peacetime as well as in war.8 Edward Mead Earle, an American military historian at Princeton University, defined it as using all elements of national power to achieve particular objectives.9 Basil Liddell Hart, a British army captain and military theorist during the interwar years, warned against focusing strategy exclusively on defeating an enemy in war, as the process could become all-consuming for the society leaving it weaker and worse off even if technically victorious over an enemy.10 In contemporary times and for purposes of this book, grand strategy relates to issues in peace and war, encompassing diplomatic, regulatory, economic, intelligence, and military instruments. In essence, grand strategy is the alignment of potentially infinite ends with finite means: political actors can theoretically pursue a wide array of objectives, but realistically are constrained by their material and intangible resources.11 Strategy is a dynamic process of analysis, decision, and review that requires understanding the international and domestic context, identifying core interests among potential priorities, defining desired objectives to serve those interests, and developing policy options to meet such objectives with limited resources.12 It is a way of thinking and acting over time across this vast array of issues not to resolve all potential questions

2  GRAND STRATEGY AND POLICY PLANNING 

15

under all plausible scenarios, but to at least be prepared for them as they arise.13 The term “grand” indicates the broad range of ends and means involved, at the highest level of decision-making, with interests that are potentially existential for whole societies.14 One way to describe the practice of grand strategy is as “the intellectual architecture that gives form and structure to foreign policy.”15 It is a set of arguments and organizing principles, embodied in documents and decisions, that explains the myriad of foreign policy choices and helps guide future paths. Any strategy needs to be articulable, but does not necessarily need to be codified in a single document or even several documents. It can be deduced from a range of actions, omissions, and statements, but ultimately has to express certain ideas about the state of play, interests, objectives, and policies. In that sense, strategy is the logic of policies. Grand strategy can be pursued in two types of ways: those of a fox and those of a hedgehog.16 As attributed to the Ancient Greek poet Archilochus, “a fox knows many things, but a hedgehog one important thing.” Fox-like strategy approaches policy issues pragmatically on a case-by-case basis without necessarily seeking to tie all of the lines-of-effort into a single logical, intellectual structure. History is thus viewed as one thing after another. In contrast, hedgehog-like strategy focuses like a laser on a single set of organizing principles. To be sure, a first-rate strategy needs to do both: have an overarching lodestar and account for the surrounding terrain. For instance, the EU Global Strategy adopts an approach of principled pragmatism, with the “rules-based global order” as one of its core interests and a realistic sense of the underlying context, key global trends, and ongoing crises, threats, and challenges. Too much focus, however, can be myopic; for instance, George W. Bush’s strategy mistakenly elevated the war against terrorism above all other considerations. Balance is thus necessary not only between ends and means, but also across core interests and objectives. Who designs grand strategy depends on the political entity. In a presidential system such as the United States or France, the president can theoretically decide himself to a large extent the course of foreign policy; the same logic applies to centralized parliamentary systems such as the United Kingdom. In practice, however, even the most powerful presidents or prime ministers have needed to rely on a wider team of officials, as well as broader support from the legislature and the public, to devise and implement a given strategy over time. In more decentralized systems, involving coalition governments or supranational institutions such as Italy or the European Union, strategy is determined by a range of decision-makers.17

16 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

In some countries such as Germany, centralized strategic decision-making is eschewed altogether for historical reasons. Ultimately, however, strategy in any institution will be most effective when all relevant officials internalize it in their hearts and minds. Just as Judge Learned Hand said about liberty, strategy lies within decision-makers: when it dies there, no document can do much to help it; while it lies there, it needs no document to save it.18 Thus, strategists are preferable to strategies, and good decisions to good documents. The purpose of strategy is to maximize the chance for success given existing resources by improving the quality of decisions. Even the best strategies can be overcome by forces of fortune; for this reason, Napoleon was reported to prefer lucky generals over good ones (because they won battles). But one useful benchmark for effective strategy is “creating power,” or “getting more out of a situation than the starting balance of power would suggest.”19 Some scholars mistakenly extend this observation to claim that strategy is about maximizing power,20 rather than maximizing across a range of potentially infinite ends. Each country or institution will define its own set of priorities and objectives it wants to pursue to reflect its values and interests. Yet, it is a useful measure of the effectiveness of any grand strategy to ask whether a country’s global position has improved over time, whether it has more policy options than before, and whether it was able to utilize its material and intangible resources in an advantageous (i.e., better-than-expected) way. Grand strategy operates over two time-horizons: medium to long term and the near term, the future and the present. Since strategies at large institutions take time to design and implement, they need to be viable for at least several years. They tend to focus on the long-term horizon of several years and are embodied in documents such as the EU Global Strategy, national strategic reviews, or the U.S. national security strategies. This process is distinct from the recent fashion around strategic foresight, which purports to project decades-long trends and identify potential future scenarios, but in practice rarely has much to say on actionable priorities or operational policy options.21 Equally if not more important than the long-term strategy document is policy planning, which fills the gap between current decisions and issues over the horizon. As the former U.S.  Secretary of State Dean Acheson described this function, it is “[t]o anticipate the emerging form of things to come, to reappraise policies which had acquired their own momentum and went on after the reasons for them had ceased, and to stimulate and,

2  GRAND STRATEGY AND POLICY PLANNING 

17

when necessary, to devise basic policies crucial to the conduct of our foreign affairs.”22 There is inevitable tension between focusing on the short term versus the medium term, and a fine balance needs to be found between the two. If policy planning becomes too operational, it needlessly replicates existing line bureaus; but if it is too removed from the day-to-­ day, it becomes irrelevant. Thus, the contemporary practice of grand strategy is inherently more short term, iterative, and dynamic than suggested by classical texts or even recent accounts. Similarly, strategic planning functions—whether within national governments or international institutions—can serve an important role for their organizations, but only if appropriately designed. Zbigniew Brzezinski once noted that the “purpose of planning policy is to fuse thought with action.”23 Although the theory of grand strategy is relatively straightforward—and legions of observers and commentators abound—its practice is much more difficult with true strategists a rare commodity, as illustrated for instance with U.S. experience since World War II.

American Strategies In the twentieth century, a paradigmatic example of successful grand strategy was U.S. policy between 1940 and 1945. President Franklin D.  Roosevelt (FDR) managed to prepare the country to intervene in World War II, rallied public opinion and the Congress from an isolationist posture toward active engagement, and prosecuted a two-front global war toward victory culminating in a position of international preeminence and leadership of the free world. As the historian John Lewis Gaddis observed, the United States emerged from the war with “half of the world’s manufacturing capability, two-thirds of its gold reserves, three-fourths of its invested capital, its largest navy and air force, and its first atomic bombs,” at a loss in casualties of less than 2% of the global total.24 Not only did the FDR administration help win the war, but it also laid the ground to secure the peace through institutions such as the United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank. While no single document or set of speeches encapsulated the entirety of U.S. grand strategy during World War II, FDR was himself a preeminent strategist aided by a deep bench of strategists such as the Secretary of War Henry Stimson, General George Marshall, General Dwight Eisenhower, Assistant Secretary of State Dean Acheson, Assistant

18 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

Secretary of War Robert Lovett, Assistant Secretary of War John McCloy, and Ambassador Averell Harriman, to name a few.25 Eisenhower would later serve as President, Marshall as Secretary of State and Defense, and Acheson as Secretary of State. During the Cold War, the United States developed strategies of containment to confront the Soviet Union and lead it to its ultimate demise.26 Conceived by George Kennan, a foreign service officer in the State Department, the strategy was initially articulated in his anonymous 1947 Foreign Affairs article titled “Sources of Soviet Conduct.” It argued for “long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies” through “adroit and vigilant application of counter-force at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points, corresponding to the shifts and maneuvers of Soviet policy.”27 Its underlying theory was that the Soviet Union bore within it “the seeds of its own decay, and that the sprouting of these seeds is well advanced.”28 In the meantime—and Kennan’s envisioned time horizon was 10–15 years—the United States needed to develop internal unity to show to the rest of the world confidence that it “knows what it wants” and “is coping successfully with the problems of its internal life.”29 Kennan’s 18-page article was hardly a full-fledged grand strategy setting out specific policies to be pursued, and was partly reactive rather than pro-active in recommending confronting “the Russians with unalterable counter-force at every point where they show signs of encroaching upon the interests of a peace and stable world.”30 Yet, it crystalized the hedgehog-­ like organizing principle for U.S. foreign policy—containment—that quickly became the guiding reference point for American diplomacy, especially given that two months before the article was published Kennan was appointed by Secretary of State George Marshall as his policy planning director—affirming the old adage that personnel is policy.31 Kennan’s Policy Planning Staff (S/P), established 5 May 1947, became legendary as a source of strategic thinking and policies for the U.S. government. Only 18 days later, the Staff produced its first memo, on U.S. aid to Western Europe, in what later developed as the Marshall Plan. In less than 3000 words (or about seven pages), the memo addressed both the long-term and short-term challenges in post-World War II Europe and aimed to “serve as general orientation, both for operations and for planning in the immediate future.”32 Interestingly, given the subsequent development of the containment doctrine, Kennan argued that the “American effort in aid to Europe should be directed not to the combatting of

2  GRAND STRATEGY AND POLICY PLANNING 

19

communism as such but to the restoration of the economic health and vigor of European society.”33 It discussed the political, economic, and “psychological” state of play in Europe, as well as emphasized the need to explain the proposed policy objectives to the American public. Finally, it linked the memo’s specific topic to the larger emerging strategy of the Truman Doctrine, in which the president declared that “it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.”34 Kennan also argued that the administration should clarify for U.S. taxpayers that foreign aid was not merely a “defensive reaction to communist pressure” or a “blank check.”35 Kennan’s memo served as the intellectual bedrock for a speech one month later by Secretary Marshall at Harvard University’s Commencement. The United States must provide significant aid, Marshall argued, to “break[] the vicious circle and restor[e] the confidence of the European people in the economic future of their own countries and of Europe as a whole.”36 Echoing Kennan’s analysis and language, the speech served as a strategic communications effort to develop support in the U.S. Congress and the wider American public for the proposed policy. Six months later, Congress approved the European Recovery Program, totaling around $150 billion in current terms over a four-year period between 1948 and 1952. As German Chancellor Angela Merkel would later describe it, the Marshall Plan was “aimed to bring about lasting peace and prosperity” and constituted “a stroke of great good fortune in [European] history.”37 It is hard to overestimate the influence of Kennan’s first memo on U.S. strategy and global affairs, nor the overall impact of his office. His staff produced comprehensive analyses and recommendations on a wide range of topics, such as potential communist seizures of power in Greece and Italy, potential rifts between the Soviet Union and Communist China, establishment of a “Western Union” military alliance, deploying U.S. armed forces by the UN Security Council, supporting a “European Union” that would integrate Germany, as well as methods of political warfare (including covert operations).38 To be sure, Kennan was not able to implement every single recommendation as U.S. policy. For instance, his advice to restrict membership of the burgeoning North Atlantic Treaty Organization solely to “Atlantic” countries—notably to exclude states such as Italy, Greece, Turkey, and others who may have sought protection against the Soviet Union39—was rejected outright. Similarly, in fighting the Korean War to defend South Korea, the

20 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

U.S. government chose a completely different course from his advice that “[s]ince the territory is not of decisive strategic importance to us, our main task is to extricate ourselves without too great a loss of prestige.”40 Nonetheless, the main value of the Policy Planning Staff was creative vision, not complete persuasion. As Dean Acheson (then Under Secretary of State and later Secretary of State) instructed Kennan, the office’s “most important function would be to try to trace the lines of development of our foreign policy as they emerged from our actions in the past, and to project them into the future, so that we could see where we were going.”41 For instance, Kennan conceived of the Marshall Plan as a “flexible political instrument” that should encourage Great Britain “to proceed vigorously with her plans for participation in a European union” and to bring the entire union “into a closer economic association” with the United States and Canada, including through a “currency and customs union, plus relative freedom of migration of individuals” across the transatlantic community.42 Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, Kennan’s Policy Planning Staff archives do not include a memo or strategy paper on his most famous policy concept: containment of the Soviet Union. In fact, he actively eschewed attempts to formulate such a document, because “the problem of resistance to Soviet policies is [not] a static problem, the answer to which is susceptible of determination all at one time and all in one piece.”43 In Kennan’s view, “Russian question will never be entirely solved” and instead would be “subject to constant alteration and revision in the light of our major objectives and of world developments.”44 He was also concerned that a report on U.S. objectives toward the Soviet Union “would be expanded into an attempt to define in a single document the total policy of the U.S.  Government,” which in his view was “an impossible project.”45 Kennan’s reluctance notwithstanding, President Truman requested precisely such a “general reexamination of [U.S.] strategic plans and its objectives in peace and war”46 in light of the Soviet Union’s development of nuclear weapons in 1949. This analysis was coordinated out of the White House by the National Security Council staff, created four months after S/P.47 But it was conceived and drafted primarily by Kennan’s successor at S/P, Paul Nitze. The resulting document, NSC-68, was a sweeping 25,000-word overview of the fundamental dynamics underlying the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union and a comprehensive analysis of policy

2  GRAND STRATEGY AND POLICY PLANNING 

21

options and recommendations.48 It was the culmination of a four-month consultation among officials at the State and Defense Departments along with outside scholars, such as Princeton’s Robert Oppenheimer (who had directed the U.S. nuclear weapons program during World War II). NSC-68 argued that “the Soviet Union, unlike previous aspirants to hegemony, is animated by a new fanatic faith, antithetical to our own, and seeks to impose its absolute authority over the rest of the world.” Facing the prospect that the Soviet Union could accumulate such power that “no coalition adequate to confront the Kremlin with greater strength could be assembled,” the report concluded that the crisis involved “the fulfillment or destruction not only of this Republic but of civilization itself.” The fundamental design of the Kremlin, to retain “absolute power” domestically and abroad, clashed with the fundamental purpose of the United States to “assure the integrity and vitality of [its] free society” based on the “dignity and worth of the individual.” To prevail in this underlying conflict, NSC-68 identified two objectives: 1. building up political, economic, military, and moral strength domestically; and 2. building “a successfully functioning political and economic system in the free world.” Strikingly, even at the height of power, the United States considered it imperative to establish a wider constellation of international institutions, as exemplified most prominently with NATO, to accomplish its national objectives. The international objective entailed two subsidiary policies: (a) “attempting to develop a healthy international community”; and (b) “‘containing’ the Soviet system.” The development policy included support for the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and European integration. The containment policy required: “all means short of war to (1) block further expansion of Soviet power, (2) expose the falsities of Soviet pretensions, (3) induce a retraction of the Kremlin’s control and influence and (4) in general, so foster the seeds of destruction within the Soviet system that the Kremlin is brought at least to the point of modifying its behavior to conform to generally accepted international standards.” Importantly, NSC-68 observed there was “a wide gap of unactualized power” within the United States, between its potential capabilities and actual spending on defense and diplomacy. Given that the balance of material resources or capabilities was vastly in favor of the free world compared to the Soviet bloc, the report sought to make an intellectual case for the

22 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

“superior aggregate military strength” because otherwise containment would be “no more than a policy of bluff.” Ultimately, NSC-68 recommended a “rapid build-up of political, economic, and military strength and thereby of confidence in the free world.” Increased spending by the United States would help regain the initiative as well as stimulate similar spending in “other free countries,” which “must carry their part of the burden.” Alongside these defensive and preparatory measures, the report also advocated taking “dynamic steps to reduce the power and influence of the Kremlin inside the Soviet Union and other areas under its control” through establishment of “friendly regimes” in order “to engage the Kremlin’s attention, keep it off balance and force an increased expenditure of Soviet resources in counteraction.” In effect, NSC-68 sought to use the “current Soviet cold war technique used against the Soviet Union.” It concluded, presciently predicting the ultimate outcome of the Cold War four decades later, that the “only sure victory lies in the frustration of the Kremlin design by the steady development of the moral and material strength of the free world and its projection into the Soviet world in such a way as to bring about an internal change in the Soviet system.” In democracies, such as the United States and in Europe, such a significant shift in allocation of government spending could not occur without wider public support. Thus, the report called for public debate on the U.S. strategic context, objectives, and necessary resources: The full power which resides within the American people will be evoked only through the traditional democratic process: This process requires, firstly, that sufficient information regarding the basic political, economic and military elements of the present situation be made publicly available so that an intelligent popular opinion may be formed. Having achieved a comprehension of the issues now confronting this Republic, it will then be possible for the American people and the American Government to arrive at a consensus. Out of this common view will develop a determination of the national will and a solid resolute expression of that will.

Both America and Europe “could afford to assign a substantially larger proportion of its resources to defense,” the report argued, “if the necessary foundation in public understanding and will could be laid.” The report concluded by reemphasizing the need for public debate and consensus: “The whole success of the proposed program hangs ultimately on

2  GRAND STRATEGY AND POLICY PLANNING 

23

recognition by this Government, the American people, and all free peoples, that the cold war is in fact a real war in which the survival of the free world is at stake.” Ironically, the report remained top secret for over a generation until it was finally declassified in 1975. And debate within the U.S. government over its recommendations was overtaken by events merely two months later, as North Korea invaded South Korea—launching the three-year war in the peninsula and resolving decisively questions about the need for military buildup within the free world. U.S. defense spending tripled between 1950 and 1952, rising to over 13% of GDP. Similar efforts were launched in Europe, still in the midst of the Marshall Plan and recovering economically; both France and the United Kingdom nearly doubled their defense spending during the same period (Fig. 2.1). Although both Kennan and Nitze advocated containment of the Soviet Union, they envisioned quite different strategic concepts. Kennan preferred to focus on “political warfare” and covert operations to counter the Soviets, rather than through military buildup.49 He viewed political warfare as “the employment of all the means at a nation’s command, short of war, to achieve its national objectives,” including overt programs such as “political alliances, economic measures (as ERP [the European Recovery Program]), and ‘white’ propaganda” and covert operations such as “clandestine support of ‘friendly’ foreign elements, ‘black’ psychological warfare and even encouragement of underground resistance in hostile states.”50 13.0% 11.0% 9.0% 7.0% 5.0% 3.0% 1.0% 1950 1952 1954 1956 1958 1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 United States

France

United Kingdom

Italy

Spain

Poland

Fig. 2.1  Allied defense spending during the Cold War

Germany

24 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

Each also made some strategic arguments that were inaccurate or rejected. Kennan’s time frame for the success of containment of the Soviet Union was 10–15 years, not the four decades that were ultimately necessary for its effectiveness in achieving its objective. Likewise, Nitze’s emphasis on public debate and consultation, both in the United States and Europe, was replaced with top-secret classification of the strategy for over two decades. The Eisenhower administration assessed these different approaches to containment, as well as a more assertive and risky strategy of “roll-back,” in a top-secret strategic review exercise called Project Solarium (named after the sun-drenched top floor of the White House).51 It established three task forces (Teams A, B, and C) to discuss, debate, and advocate a strategic alternative: (a) defensive containment; (b) offensive containment to prevent certain areas of the world from becoming communist; and (c) rolling back Soviet control “to restore the prestige of the West by winning in one or more areas a success or successes” and creating a “climate of victory.”52 In the end, the administration largely reaffirmed NSC-68  in adopting containment rather than roll-back, with a tactical innovation of developing capability to “inflict massive retaliatory damage by offensive strategic striking power,” including nuclear weapons, in response to an act of aggression.53 Subsequent U.S. administrations continued to develop variations on the theme of containment, largely through strategic analysis by the National Security Council staff at the White House and the Policy Planning Staff at the State Department. The Kennedy administration replaced the doctrine of massive retaliation with “flexible response” to enable greater degree of freedom short of war in responding to Soviet expansion or aggression.54 It also emphasized strengthening the institutions of the free world as another element of the containment strategy. It prioritized “an effective partnership between Europe and the US, through institutions of the Atlantic Community” and advocated “vigorously support[ing] the movement toward European integration.”55 However, it eschewed encapsulating all of its strategic choices in a single document—as proposed by Policy Planning Director Walt Rostow in a nearly 300-page draft—because it “tended to regard policy as the sum of its constantly evolving practice.”56 In light of opposition from the Pentagon, which considered the draft as “dead,” Rostow provided several reasons for the need of a strategic document:

2  GRAND STRATEGY AND POLICY PLANNING 

25

the BNSP [Basic National Security Policy] was first developed in the Truman Administration and was carried forward in several editions in the Eisenhower Administration. Whatever the limitations inherent in any such document, I doubt that it will redound to the credit of our Administration that we failed to thrash out any successor document. A BNSP obviously cannot substitute for specific policy judgments; and it should not tie the President’s hands. But it can provide an occasion for debating and defining the bone structure of policy and communicating it to the troops who never see the four star generals.57

National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy disagreed. He was “concerned essentially with operational matters” and thus did not “believe the [strategy] papers will be of much value in determining policies because they may be out of date before they are finished.”58 Likewise, the Pentagon’s Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff viewed such documents as not only unnecessary but potentially harmful: With respect to the requirement for a Basic National Security Policy, its compilation into a single document is desirable in principle, but, at the present time, the Joint Chiefs of Staff do not lack policy guidance for the preparation of military plans. Necessary guidance is obtained through both face-to-face meetings and a continuing exchange of written memoranda with the Secretary of Defense. Guidance also results from meetings with the President, National Security Council meetings, National Security Action Memoranda, National Country Policy papers, and National Planning Task papers. Any effort to condense this guidance into a single document could result in a paper so broad that it would be difficult to keep it meaningful and yet up-to-date. To the degree that such a document contained specific guidance, it could place inflexible restrictions on military planning and limit the scope of military advice on subsequent national security problems.59

Although the overall strategy document was never adopted by the Kennedy administration, Rostow was undeterred in seeking to provide his principals some coherence over the myriad events around the globe, in the role of a type of “psychiatrist” in “dealing with the world.”60 Whatever the virtues of flexibility and speed  the Kennedy team preserved in eschewing strategy documents, the downsides of the lack of such intellectual architecture became particularly evident as the Johnson administration escalated the war effort in Vietnam between 1964 and 1968. As one scholar noted, Johnson simply “did not have a grand strategy.”61 Instead, “[w]ithout direction from the top, each service or agency did its

26 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

own thing” and “despite widespread and growing dissatisfaction with the way the war was being fought and the results that were being obtained, there was no change of strategy or even systematic discussion of such a change.”62 At a certain point, the Vietnam War acquired an internal logic of its own, based on the domino theory of preventing any additional countries from falling into the communist bloc, and its sheer scale would have dwarfed any comprehensive strategic exercises. And Rostow, who replaced Bundy as Johnson’s National Security Advisor in 1966, did not continue to  press to conclude a national security strategy document— affirming the old adage that where you stand depends on where you sit. But had the Kennedy administration documented its strategic thinking more coherently, before crisis engulfed and clouded the U.S. government’s analysis and decision-making process, it could have provided guardrails for the Johnson administration and help it avoid entangling further in Vietnam over time. At the very least, it would have identified the clear misalignment between the U.S. objectives in Vietnam and available resources, as well as the imbalance that Vietnam was acquiring across the range of U.S. interests around the world. Henry Kissinger, as Richard Nixon’s incoming National Security Advisor, observed the failures of the LBJ machinery in developing strategy, noting the State Department’s “consistent failure to utilize its own Policy Planning Council adequately. Studies have been unrelated to real problems, have had no effect on policy, and have obfuscated rather than clarified alternatives.”63 Likewise, he chided the Johnson administration for using as the “key decision-making body … the so-called ‘Tuesday Lunch’ of the President and his principal advisers.”64 Although the format provided flexibility and speed, the decision-makers debated without the benefit of prior studies or subsequent systematic follow-up and implementation of decisions. Instead, Kissinger proposed a formalized national security structure, where the NSC “should consider middle and long-­ range policy issues as well as current crises and immediate operational problems” and be informed through prior “planning papers” coordinated by the NSC staff.65 The NSC papers—divided into two groups, decision memoranda and study memoranda—were supposed to “present a wide range of alternative policy options that are politically and administratively feasible” and “avoid the all-too-frequent practice of setting up extreme alternatives as straw men to the one course of action being urged.”66 Kissinger then proceeded to list different topics, including Vietnam and Europe, on which he sought alternative policy papers—all of this nearly a month prior to the start of the administration.

2  GRAND STRATEGY AND POLICY PLANNING 

27

Within three days of taking office, the Nixon administration had requested strategy papers on no less than nine separate topics, including with five pages of questions on Vietnam. Throughout Nixon’s tenure and subsequently into the Ford administration, Kissinger requested hundreds of decision and study memos to help inform the national security decision-­ making process. He also suggested to Nixon preparing “an annual report” to Congress that would serve as a “conceptual outline of the President’s foreign policy, as a status report, and as an agenda for action.”67 He wanted the strategy document to “simultaneously guide our bureaucracy and inform foreign governments about our thinking.”68 Reflecting fundamental strategic maxims, Nixon’s report argued that the U.S. “challenge was to understand th[e] change [of international politics], to define America’s goals for the next period, and to set in motion policies to achieve them.”69 It noted that a “more balanced and realistic American role in the world is essential if American commitments are to be sustained over the long pull.”70 Accordingly, it updated the Truman Doctrine with the Nixon Doctrine for the strategic context of the 1970s, when the United States did not command the same preponderance of power as in 1947: “the United States will participate in the defense and development of allies and friends, but that America cannot—and will not—conceive all the plans, design all the programs, execute all the decisions and undertake all the defense of the free nations of the world.”71 This strategic shift led to the policy of détente with the Soviet Union, reestablished diplomatic relations with Communist China, and a gradual end to the Vietnam War. Ultimately, although Kissinger viewed the annual reports as “some of the most thoughtful governmental statements of foreign policy,” he lamented that the administration “never managed to get across its basic purpose of raising fundamental questions and expressing a philosophy.”72 Notwithstanding all the criticism surrounding the substance of Nixon’s foreign policy, the process of Kissinger’s NSC system set the benchmark for a culture of strategy and preparedness for subsequent administrations. Within a day of the 1976 elections, President-elect Carter’s eventual National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski sent him a comprehensive memo setting out the need for a strategic concept and offering various options.73 Once in office, Brzezinski sent Carter “weekly national security reports,” providing strategic overviews on a range of issues.74 He stressed the “importance” of developing a “basic concept of what U.S. foreign policy should be at this historical stage” and proposed replacing Truman’s containment and Nixon’s détente with a “policy of constructive global

28 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

engagement.”75 Based on this concept, Brzezinski set out five broad purposes—U.S. security, international peace, U.S. prosperity, global wellbeing, and expanding fundamental human rights—and ten specific objectives. But the administration did not submit a public document to the Congress and the declassified parts of its internal strategy document, PD/NSC-18, did not necessarily reflect Brzezinski’s initial framework.76 Carter’s main intended impact on strategy was to elevate the role of human rights in U.S. foreign policy. However, the Carter Doctrine, as it came to be known and remembered, was not about democracy and human rights, nor about engagement and enlargement as Carter alums would help adopt  later in the Clinton administration, but instead  essentially a regional policy. Shortly after the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, he declared that “an attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.”77 Unable to fully define its own purposes and priorities and build public consensus around them, the Carter administration essentially exposed itself to the risk of events and crises driving its policies. Remarkably, it updated its strategy with PD/ NSC-62 as it was departing, only five days before its end of tenure.78 Ronald Reagan, seeking to reverse what it perceived to be  the prior administration’s mistakes and to proactively shape its public narrative, inaugurated the national security strategy process, first as an internal top-­ secret document79 and subsequently as a public report legislated by Congress.80 The strategy sought to “contain and reverse the expansion of Soviet control and military presence throughout the world, and to increase the costs of Soviet support and use of proxy, terrorist, and subversive forces.”81 It also sought to “foster, if possible in concert with our allies, restraint in Soviet military spending, discourage Soviet adventurism, and weaken the Soviet alliance system.”82 The strategy adopted the “roll-back” policy rejected previously by the Eisenhower administration in trying to push back against perceived Soviet gains. Ultimately, it led to Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, in part due to U.S. support for the Afghan mujahedeen rebels, and eventually to the collapse of the Soviet Union shortly after the end of the Reagan administration, during his Vice-­ President George H.W. Bush’s tenure as President. The year 1989 was a period of transformation in international politics, with the first free elections in Central Europe in Poland in June and the fall of the Berlin Wall in November. It also marked strategic transition for

2  GRAND STRATEGY AND POLICY PLANNING 

29

the United States from the policies of containment to something else, which the new administration found initially difficult to define. Bush’s first national security strategy of 1990 repeated nearly verbatim Reagan’s articulation of U.S. interests: survival as a free and independent nation; growing U.S. economy; stable and secure world, fostering political freedom, human rights, and democratic institutions; and strong relations with allies and friendly nations.83 Events, however, would soon clarify for the United States its sheer potential, even if not decide its precise purpose. The Persian Gulf War—in which the United States deployed over 500,000 troops, mobilized over 250,000 allied soldiers, and shared most of the cost with allies to oust Iraq’s Saddam Hussein from Kuwait—demonstrated not only unprecedented U.S. military prowess, but also its diplomatic wherewithal. This “new era,” Bush’s 1991 strategy argued, provided the opportunity for a “new world order”: an “extraordinary possibility that few generations have enjoyed—to build a new international system in accordance with our own values and ideals as old patterns and certainties crumble.”84 It observed that “[d]emocracy was gaining ground as were the principles of human rights and political and economic freedom.”85 And it determined that U.S. “interests are best served in a world in which democracy and its ideals are widespread and secure.”86 In this strategic environment, the administration wanted to avoid the pitfall of isolationism (akin to the 1920s, another period of perceived tranquility) as well as to preserve its alliance system (based on a continuity of community of values, even as the common threat of the Soviet Union was decreasing). Although Bush pursued a wide range of successful policies—including managing the collapse of the Soviet Union, reunifying Germany, and facilitating a Europe whole and free—he struggled to encapsulate a single strategic vision unifying the various lines of effort and articulating America’s purpose in the new environment. In a Carteresque manner, the administration updated its strategy with 19 days left of its tenure, proposing an “Age of Democratic Peace” with “free nations and free economies everywhere” around the globe.87 But it fell to the next team to develop a comprehensive post-Cold War strategy. To replace containment, the Clinton administration proposed, intuitively, a strategy of “engagement and enlargement.”88 Clinton elevated democracy promotion as one of the three core U.S. interests, in addition to security and prosperity, arguing that “[a]ll of America’s strategic interests—from promoting prosperity at home to checking global threats abroad before they threaten our territory—are served by enlarging the

30 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

community of democratic and free market nations.”89 It also outlined as a long-term goal “a world in which each of the major powers [including Russia and China] is democratic, with many other nations joining the community of market democracies as well.”90 America’s engagement around the world and enlargement of Western institutions such as NATO, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund was intended to serve this overall purpose of promoting a democratic peace as proposed by George H.W. Bush. Perhaps reflecting the continual change and complexity of the 1990s, the Clinton administration produced seven national security strategies, more than any presidency before or since. It held to the view that the “more that democracy and political and economic liberalization take hold in the world, particularly in countries of geostrategic importance to us, the safer our nation is likely to be and the more our people are likely to prosper.”91 It pushed for the enlargement of NATO across Central and Eastern Europe, and lobbied the European Union to expand its membership in the region. It also helped transform the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) into the World Trade Organization (WTO), and supported WTO accession negotiations with Russia and China. However, engagement and enlargement never acquired the status of containment as a strategic concept, perhaps given its potentially limitless scope and particularly in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. In contrast to Clinton’s complexity, George W. Bush oriented all of his strategy with stark clarity around fighting the “war against terrorism.”92 The method—“premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against innocents”—was the “enemy.”93 Terrorists were merged with “tyrants” as threats to a “just peace” that “favors liberty.” Although the Bush administration was at times perceived to seek to maintain U.S. preeminence or primacy at all costs, Bush’s strategy instead proffered to build “a balance of power that favors human freedom: conditions in which all nations and all societies can choose for themselves the rewards and challenges of political and economic liberty.”94 Notwithstanding the strategy’s overall focus on the war against terrorism and tyrants, it also maintained the prior emphasis on defending and expanding the liberal order: “[t]he great struggles of the twentieth century between liberty and totalitarianism ended with a decisive victory for the forces of freedom—and a single sustainable model for national success: freedom, democracy, and free enterprise.”95 The main problem was that the war on terrorism dwarfed all other U.S. objectives, militarized many questions of U.S. policy, and its

2  GRAND STRATEGY AND POLICY PLANNING 

31

flawed execution with the war in Iraq in 2003 constituted the largest U.S. foreign policy mistake since the Vietnam War. The other issue was the utter misalignment between ends and means, as even the U.S. military might found it difficult to establish basic order and security in Iraq after the initial successful invasion. Seeking to rebalance U.S. priorities and demilitarize its global posture, the Obama-Biden administration proposed a strategy of “national renewal and global leadership” to “rebuild[] the foundation of American strength and influence.”96 It transformed the concept of democracy promotion, which had been tainted with the Bush administration’s justification of the war in Iraq, into a focus on “promoting universal values abroad by living them at home,” not “impos[ing] these values through force” and “working to strengthen international norms on behalf of human rights, while welcoming all peaceful democratic movements.”97 It also placed higher emphasis on promoting a “just and sustainable international order” as one of four enduring U.S. national interests (in addition to security, prosperity, and values).98 It stressed the centrality of international institutions such as NATO and the UN to the success of the international order, and the relationship with Europe as “the cornerstone for U.S. engagement with the world, and a catalyst for international action.”99 Building international order became even more important in the aftermath of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine in 2014. The Obama-Biden administration argued the United States had “an opportunity—and obligation—to lead the way in reinforcing, shaping, and where appropriate, creating the rules, norms, and institutions that are the foundation for peace, security, prosperity, and the protection of human rights in the 21st century.”100 It sought “a rules-­ based international order that promotes global security and prosperity as well as the dignity and human rights of all peoples.”101 However, Obama struggled to find an all-encompassing strategic concept, in a way similar to that George H.W. Bush, a president whose foreign policy he admired the most in recent history. Obama’s strategy “eschew[ed] orienting our entire foreign policy around a single threat or region” and “establishe[d] instead a diversified and balanced set of priorities appropriate for the world’s leading global power with interests in every part of an increasingly interconnected world.”102 When pressed to articulate an “Obama Doctrine,” he continued to resist. And thus, commentators picked out phrases from Obama’s statements to fill the conceptual vacuum—such as “Don’t do stupid shit”103 or “strategic patience” (omitting the follow-on phrase, “and persistence”)104—warping the intended message and mis-defining the administration’s strategy.

32 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

Donald Trump failed to define any coherent strategy or even specific policies on many topics, instead issuing various statements and decisions that were often overturned by subsequent actions in a roller-coaster fashion.105 His 2017 National Security Strategy, by all accounts, was not a strategy in the proper meaning of the term.106 For instance, the strategy introduced the concept of “great power competition” with Russia and China, but Trump either cooperated with or kowtowed to Putin on many issues.107 Trump’s aversion to planning is well-established. His main impact was sloganeering, by putting “America first” and seeking “national greatness.”108 Many commentators misinterpreted Trump’s accidental and aberrational  presidency. Due to his own  incompetence and incoherence, he was unable to make much of a strategic impact in U.S. foreign policy and his successor Joe Biden  is likely to revert to long-standing U.S practice since World War II.  For instance, notwithstanding Trump’s tantrums against Europe’s insufficient defense spending, which had no notable impact, his administration significantly expanded U.S. military presence on the continent. Trump may have  been president, but he was  not a policy-­maker and his government mostly followed in the shadow of strategic choices made by previous administrations. * * * Since World War II, strategic thinking in the U.S. government has fluctuated significantly, from various approaches to containment (Kennan’s uncodified version with emphasis on political warfare and Nitze’s NSC-68 with emphasis on military buildup), improvisational approaches under Kennedy and Johnson (with the Vietnam War ultimately subsuming all effort), Nixon’s annual reports to Congress, Nixon and Carter Doctrines, to the recent practice of public national security strategies (themselves with diverse content and themes). And the quality of specific foreign policy decisions has also fluctuated over time, with some spectacular successes (such as European integration and the fall of the Soviet Union) and a few outright failures (such as the Vietnam War and the 2003 Iraq War). However, at a superficial glance, it might appear difficult to draw a causal link between the two processes: operational and strategic. The Kennedy administration had a stellar team of thinkers—“the best and the brightest” of their generation:109 McGeorge Bundy, Walt Rostow, and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. Contrary to Rostow’s

2  GRAND STRATEGY AND POLICY PLANNING 

33

preference for a “basic national security policy” document, it chose not to codify a strategy and instead maintain a flexible approach to policy-making—much as Kennan would have advised. Whether a final strategy document would have helped prevent mistakes in the Vietnam War is doubtful, as the Johnson administration was essentially led by the same cast of characters (or at least mindset) as the Kennedy team. Moreover, Rostow served as Johnson’s National Security Advisor, after Bundy, and presumably had the same basic strategic principles in 1966–1969 as he advocated in 1961–1966. On the flip side, the George W. Bush administration adopted a clear strategy and was able to implement it with a team of experienced policy-­ makers. Nonetheless, it still made a series of gravely wrong and costly decisions that would appear to discredit strategy altogether and perhaps lend credence to those skeptics, who like Mike Tyson and Donald Trump, disparage strategic planning. In contrast, the administrations that are retrospectively perceived to have lacked coherent strategic concepts—such as the George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and Obama-Biden teams—had relatively successful foreign policies, with good decisions and few clear mistakes. Thus, strategy appears to be neither a sufficient nor a necessary condition of sound decision-­making. Perhaps policy is all about luck, as Napoleon insinuated. And yet, strategy has become an inescapable element of responsible decision-making. Whether or not governments have a grand strategy, officials invariably have to make decisions—the basic building blocks of any political process. They need to decide what to say and with whom to meet; what norms, rules, institutions, and laws to promote and defend; how to collect and analyze information; how to spend money and where to expand or restrict economic exchange; and how to prepare for and use force. Few leaders (except perhaps for Trump) would prefer to make such diplomatic, regulatory, economic, intelligence, and military decisions in an arbitrary or reactive manner. In democracies especially, leaders arguably are ethically required to think coherently and act proactively, as they need to utilize public resources responsibly on behalf of citizens’ interests. Over time, the coherence of decisions defines policy and the logic of policies defines strategy. Success in foreign policy often relies more on steady, incremental progress than on headline-grabbing victories. During his presidency, Barack Obama articulated the appropriate benchmark:

34 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

If you look at the results of what we’ve done over the last five years, it is fair to say that our alliances are stronger, our partnerships are stronger … And that may not always be sexy. That may not always attract a lot of attention, and it doesn’t make for good argument on Sunday morning shows. But it avoids errors. You hit singles, you hit doubles; every once in a while we may be able to hit a home run. But we steadily advance the interests of the American people and our partnership with folks around the world.110

Ultimately, the decision and its consequences (rather than the document and its persuasiveness) are what really matters. It is preferable to have no strategy and good decisions to a good strategy and no (or bad) decisions, and good strategies can be concurrent with bad decisions. Thus, the strategies of containment during the Cold War were generally sound and ultimately proved successful, and yet the U.S. decision to wage war in Vietnam that seemed (at least to officials in the Johnson and Nixon administrations) to flow from the logic of containment was a mistake. Nonetheless, a good strategy can improve the quality and effectiveness of decision-making and a bad strategy can negatively distort decisions. For example, the George W. Bush administration’s strategic focus around the so-called war on terror was myopic and its logic in part led to the war in Iraq, another mistake. Strategic planning disciplines decision-making by ensuring consideration of all relevant factors across issues and time and maintaining a balance between potentially infinite ends and always finite means, as well as balance across objectives. It can help raise questions, evaluate assumptions, acquire additional information, and evaluate the costs and benefits of various policy alternatives. It ensures preparedness and helps avoid surprises, as decision-makers will have had the benefit of at least thinking through various courses of action before actually embarking on a particular path. Psychologically, it can increase the internal and external confidence in a decision, as it increases its durability. In any larger organization, strategic planning also structures thinking and action across various levels of decision-makers and accelerates necessary shifts in decisions. Finally, especially in democracies, strategy builds the necessary public support for any sustainable decisions. At the very least, it serves an educational function for officials, citizens, and external actors—as the foremost U.S. strategists were always attuned to. At a sufficient level of generality, U.S. policies since World War II can be encapsulated as a strategy of liberal order: gradual building of norms

2  GRAND STRATEGY AND POLICY PLANNING 

35

and institutions with like-minded partners to secure common values of peace, prosperity, and political inclusion at home by expanding them abroad. Even at apparent peaks of power, during the Truman and George H.W. Bush administrations, the United States pursued its national objectives within this broader purpose. When it deviated from this strategic course, during the George W. Bush and Trump administrations, it realized that it could not achieve even its more narrowly defined interests.

European Strategies It is useful to analyze strategic thinking in the United States over time, in order to observe sufficient variation and obtain historical granularity from archival materials that are unavailable publicly for contemporary documents. Conversely, one can analyze strategy in Europe across space, given the different approaches among the various countries and EU institutions. Any such analysis must begin at the national level, particularly with those countries that have relatively centralized decision-making, such as France and the United Kingdom. Traditionally, both countries have also had more of a global perspective, compared to other European states, given their respective historical experiences and their contemporary possession of military bases and some territories around the world. In order to get a complete picture of European strategic thinking, it would be ideal to review each of the 27 EU member states, over time, before seeing how it culminates at the EU level. Given the limitations of space, however, it is sufficient to explore the respective strategies of the six largest European states—France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, and the United Kingdom— which account for over 70% of Europe’s population, 70% of its GDP, and nearly 80% of its military spending.111 Even this selective approach is broader than other recent scholarly analyses.112 The review demonstrates many similarities among contemporary European national strategies, but also significant differences in priorities and policies to achieve certain objectives. Overall, European strategies demonstrate strong connection to the United States as a core partner as well as (apart from Italy) formal commitment to the liberal order. United Kingdom Grand strategy has a well-established tradition in the United Kingdom, both in theory and in practice. Traditionally, since World War II it has

36 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

been articulated as defense reviews or white papers.113 Starting in 2008, however, it has been formulated as national security strategy, akin to the U.S. model. In 2010, the U.K. government under David Cameron also established a National Security Council, supported by a National Security Adviser and staff, in order to further integrate strategy and policy across government. As of the time of this writing, the Boris Johnson government is conducting an “Integrated Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy Review” to “define the Government’s ambition for the UK’s role in the world and the long-term strategic aims for our national security and foreign policy.”114 Until it is published, the most recent document is the pre-Brexit 2015 National Security Strategy. Although parts of that strategy are outdated, it can still provide insights into U.K. purposes and priorities, given Lord Palmerston’s oft-invoked quote that British “interests are eternal and perpetual.”115 Moreover, post-Brexit referendum, Theresa May’s government endorsed the 2015 basic framework as “right.”116 The U.K. strategy listed security, global influence, and prosperity as core British interests.117 And it nested all three on “democratic and inclusive values” such as “promoting civil liberties, upholding the rule of law, and building diverse, integrated communities tolerant of different faiths and beliefs.” It also argued that domestic security and prosperity depend on a “stable international system that reflects” liberal values: “[d]emocracy, the rule of law, open, accountable governments and institutions, human rights, freedom of speech, property rights and equality of opportunity.” The strategy identified four primary threats: terrorism, state competition, technology, and erosion of the rules-based international order. It adopted a “full-spectrum approach” across British instruments of power, including the armed forces, intelligence, diplomacy, development, and culture. It noted that the United Kingdom was the only country to spend both 2% of GDP on defense (as required by NATO) and 0.7% of GNI on development (as required by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD). The BBC reached one of 16 adults in the world, it argued, and over a quarter of world leaders studied in the United Kingdom. It emphasized its “special relationship” with the United States and NATO as the “bedrock” of U.K. national defense. It also claimed to “sit at the heart of the rules-based international order,”118 which projected British global influence and promotes U.K. security and prosperity.

2  GRAND STRATEGY AND POLICY PLANNING 

37

At nearly 100-pages, the 2015 strategy provided a comprehensive and balanced approach to U.K. interests and the policies necessary to promote them. The projected objectives were also connected to the resources to attain them. And apart from the seminal question of Britain’s membership in the EU, its main strategic thrust was reaffirmed three years later by the May government. Although the Brexit process has transformed British politics and divided British society, it is still unclear what fundamental shifts it will have on U.K. strategy. The May government, for its part, argued that the “decision to leave the EU and bring decision-making and accountability closer to home does not alter [the United Kingdom’s] unconditional commitment to Europe’s security.”119 “Europe’s security is our security,” the 2018 report noted. Post-Brexit, the United Kingdom sought to develop “a deep and special partnership” with the EU-27 that would go “beyond any existing third country arrangements.” To what extent this goal is implemented is still subject to negotiations between the two sides. The report also reaffirmed that the United States continued to be the United Kingdom’s “single most important international partner” and that NATO remained the “cornerstone of [the United Kingdom’s] security posture.” The May government’s contribution to British strategy has also been to introduce the “Fusion Doctrine” in order to create “a more accountable system to support collective Cabinet decision-making, with the introduction of senior officials as senior responsible owners to deliver each of the NSC’s priorities.” It aimed to build a “culture of common purpose across departments” toward a “more genuinely whole-of-government approach” by having senior officials charged with implementing the government’s strategy. The May government coined “Global Britain” as the concept embodying its strategy, stating: the United Kingdom “will strengthen our overseas network so that we can reinvest in our relationships around the world, champion the rules-based system including free trade, and use our soft power to project our values and advance UK interests.” In substance, the strategy was essentially the same as that under Cameron, as was the overall slogan since the 2015 strategy proposed “Strong, Influential, Global” for the United Kingdom. To what extent the concept continues under future governments, captures the public imagination, and develops a consensus remains to be seen.

38 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

France Like the United Kingdom, France has a relatively global outlook on foreign policy and a highly centralized decision-making process centered around the President. Indeed, one scholar notes that “among European democracies, the French president holds unparalleled powers in defense and foreign affairs.”120 However, its approach to formulating strategy has been somewhat compartmentalized and articulated through the traditional method of defense and security white books issued by the ministry of defense—five livres blanc in the history of the Fifth Republic with the latest one issued shortly after the election of Emmanuel Macron as President. The 2017 Defence and National Security Strategic Review was conducted somewhat unusually, within six months of Macron’s election, by a Strategic Review Committee composed of 18 members: eight representatives of the military and the ministry for the armed forces, one each from the prime minister’s office, the interior ministry, and the foreign affairs ministry; six external high-level experts; and chaired by a Member of the European Parliament, Arnaud Danjean.121 It was ultimately published under the authority of the Minister of the Armed Forces, Florence Parly, with a foreword from Macron. However, it is unclear to what extent it was debated and edited jointly among the various French ministries and the Élysée, and whether it reflects a real consensus among the highest ranks of the French government. The strategic review provides a comprehensive and detailed expose of France’s strategic context, including the weakening of the multilateral order, threats from Russia and China, unpredictability of the United States, the expansion of terrorist groups throughout the Middle East and Africa, and various functional issues such as climate change, migration, public health, and technology—without necessarily prioritizing among them. Yet reflecting its defense ministry origins, the review weighed heavily toward military considerations, including nuclear deterrence policy, and at the expense of diplomacy and development. In particular, it emphasized significantly the “fight against terrorism” in language reminiscent of George W. Bush’s 2001 strategy, identifying a range of “jihadist organizations” and the “spread of radical Islam around the world.” Surprisingly, the strategic review addresses France’s interests in a cursory manner, defining them as “all factors that contribute to its security, prosperity, and influence.” However, it notes that French “vital interests

2  GRAND STRATEGY AND POLICY PLANNING 

39

have never been precisely defined, for it is ultimately the supreme responsibility of the President of the Republic to constantly assess threats in any circumstances, and to decide on appropriate responses on a case-by-case basis.” This reluctance to articulate France’s interests undermines the effectiveness of the document in explaining France’s strategy, as ultimately any policy decision can be justified by the president improvisationally, on a case-by-case basis. A further logical gap is in defining France’s interests in terms of its commitments to the European Union and to NATO, as the strategic review does, since the link is the reverse: France has commitments to these institutions because of its security and economic interests, not the other way around. Ultimately, the strategic review may have been effective in explaining and guiding the thinking of France’s military, whose “central role in the life of the Nation” the report emphasizes, but is insufficient in articulating France’s strategy that considers all of its interests and embraces all of its instruments of power. A fuller view of France’s grand strategy can be extrapolated from two key speeches by Macron: in August 2019 at the annual conference of French ambassadors and in February 2020 at the Ecole de Guerre. Mentioning strategy over 60 times in his speech to French diplomats, Macron expounded on the international context, French interests and objectives, and specific regional approaches—the essential elements of any strategy. He conceptualized France’s strategy around the “triptych of security, sovereignty and influence” and “putting France at the heart of the diplomatic game.”122 Noting the current “geopolitical and strategic reconfiguration,” he argued that the world was “experiencing the end of Western hegemony.” He claimed that whereas France was dominant in the eighteenth century, Great Britain in the nineteenth century, and the United States in the twentieth century, “mistakes made by Westerners in certain crises” in recent times enabled the rise of other powers. Surprisingly, he conceded that “China[’s] first and foremost as well as Russia’s strategy” has been pursued with “greater success over the last few years.” France needed to “examine [its] own strategy,” he argued, “because the two nations that now hold the real cards in this affair are the Americans and the Chinese.” The fundamental strategic choice for France was: does it “decide to become junior allies of one party or the other, or a bit of one and a bit of the other, or [does it] decide to be part of the game and exert [its own] influence?” Borrowing the Brexiteer slogan “take back control of our

40 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

lives, of our nation”—which he described as “very good”—Macron argued that is “how we should think and act in a country that is open: take back control.” In arguing for a “strategy of boldness, of risk-taking,” Macron called to “rediscover something that profoundly characterizes the French spirit and, as I see it, to restore what is essentially European civilization.” Provocatively, he claimed that the “United States is in the Western camp, but it is not promoting the same brand of humanism.” The “project of European civilization,” he claimed, “cannot be spearheaded by Catholic Hungary or by Orthodox Russia” but has been left to those countries’ leaders, who have provided “a cultural, civilizational vitality that is inspiring” although “misplaced.” In sum, he oriented this concept “in terms of human dignity.” Setting European civilization, human dignity, and the “spirit of the Enlightenment” as the lodestar, Macron argued that France “must act as a balancing power.” He further stated: [W]e must have the freedom to act, as it were; we must have mobility and flexibility. We are not an aligned power. … We have allies, we are Europeans and we must work with our European partners and respect them. We have allies in every part of the world, and we have an important ally in the United States of America, on the strategic and military fronts. But to put it simply, we are not a power that believes that the enemies of our friends are necessarily our enemies or that we are prevented from speaking to them. And that, I believe, is France’s strength. We must therefore have our own strategy, because that strategy serves our interests and our usefulness to the concert of nations, as we have seen in recent months and days. A balancing power is what we must be in major crises and conflict situations.

As examples of balancing diplomacy, he cited France’s attempted mediation between the United States and Iran over the nuclear deal, dialogue with Russia, and engagement with China. But it is unclear whether France is supposed to balance across power—joining the weaker side against the stronger to maintain equilibrium, as in the classical conception of balance of power—or to balance in favor of its lodestars: European civilization, human dignity, and Enlightenment—akin to the George W. Bush’s “balance of power that favors human freedom.” In his subsequent speech at the Ecole de Guerre, as the “Chief of the Armed Forces,” Macron expounded further on France’s “defense and

2  GRAND STRATEGY AND POLICY PLANNING 

41

deterrence” strategy, echoing some of the themes from the 2017 strategic review and his 2019 speech to the ambassadors, but with different prioritization and emphasis.123 He argued that the “global competition between the United States and China is an established strategic fact nowadays, which structures, and from now on will structure, all international relations”—in terms reminiscent of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. Calling for “renewed ambition and audacity,” he again underscored France’s “choice of either taking back control of our destiny or aligning ourselves with any power whatsoever, thereby abandoning the idea of any strategies of our own.” But instead of European civilization or Enlightenment, Macron here oriented France’s actions to “focus on the sole ambition of peace, through strong and effective multilateralism based on law.” He outlined “four pillars” for this strategy: “promotion of an efficient multilateralism, development of strategic partnerships, search for European autonomy, and national sovereignty.” He postured Europe as caught in-between great power competition and argued for greater European autonomy and sovereignty: “our norms cannot be controlled by the United States, our infrastructure, our ports and airports owned by Chinese capital, and our computer networks under Russian pressure.” At the same time, however, he also stressed the need for a “true French sovereignty.” Macron offered European partners being “associated with the exercises of French deterrence forces” and pursuing a “strategic dialogue” on the role of France’s nuclear deterrent in Europe’s collective security, although it is unclear to what extent the offer of its nuclear umbrella will be taken up by other European states. It is difficult to sum up the three strategic statements—2017 review, 2019 diplomatic speech, and 2020 defense speech—into an overall strategy, as there are inherent tensions among the three in terms of priorities and overall purposes. To be sure, Macron thinks and speaks strategically, and his rhetoric is backed by action in both diplomacy and defense. Yet, his approach is at times too improvisational and experimental to constitute an overall strategy for France—one that has consensus support within the French governmental bureaucracy and the wider public and communicates clearly its intention to foreign actors. France’s hierarchical structure centered around the president—himself a coherent thinker and disciplined actor—means that an overall strategy is likely to emerge, even if it is mostly observable to internal participants and subject to frequent adjustments.

42 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

Germany Much like France, Germany has historically articulated its security policy through white papers published by the ministry of defense. The latest strategy, issued in 2016, provides an extensive overview of German thinking regarding the international context, German interests, and potential threats, conceiving of its “security policy horizon” as “global.” The white paper lists a range of security interests: • protecting Germany’s citizens as well as its sovereignty and territorial integrity; • protecting the territorial integrity, the sovereignty and the citizens of Germany’s allies; • maintaining the rules-based international order on the basis of international law; • ensuring German prosperity through a strong economy as well as free trade; • promoting the responsible use of scarce resources throughout the world; [and] • deepening European integration and consolidating the transatlantic partnership.124 Perhaps uniquely among modern states, Germany conceives of its interests as “interwoven” with those of its allies and partners: “Pursuing German interests therefore always means taking into account the interests of our allies and those of other friendly nations.” Thus, it premises its security on “a strong and resolute North Atlantic Alliance and a united and resilient European Union”—the “two pillars of [Germany’s] foreign, security and defence policy.” It also emphasizes Germany’s commitment to the “rules-based international order” based on “norms and values” and where “might not right … creates lasting peace and stability.” In contrast to France, which emphasizes the need for freedom of maneuver, Germany stresses the importance of NATO as an “indispensable guarantor of German, European and transatlantic security,” particularly by ensuring the “indispensable commitment of the United States to the security of Europe.” For German security and defense policy, “NATO remains the anchor and main framework of action.” It also emphasizes that the EU is an “integral part” of Germany’s political identity, as it “stands for political stability, security, freedom and prosperity in Germany

2  GRAND STRATEGY AND POLICY PLANNING 

43

and in its member states as a whole.” In effect, Germany conceptualizes its security interests through the lens of both NATO and the EU, rather than through a national perspective. The white paper lists a wide range of nine threats to German security— terrorism, cyber, interstate conflict, fragile states, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, security of trade and supply, climate change, irregular migration, and pandemics—and proposes a “whole-of-government” approach to address them. However, it does not prioritize among these threats and does not discuss how Germany will deal with them. And not surprisingly for a defense ministry publication, it focuses on implications for German armed forces, but does not assess any consequences of the strategy on diplomacy, intelligence, or development. Ultimately, Germany’s approach to strategy is significantly constrained by its “interministerial approach” based on the principle of “ministerial autonomy,” which by design eschews centralized decision-making.125 Consensus within the German government necessary for strategy is even more difficult in the context of coalition governments, where the chancellery and defense ministries are held by one political party and the foreign ministry by another party. Such arrangements, of course, are inherent to many political processes and thus an inescapable part of decision-making, but they do impede strategy formulation. One illustrative example is the German defense minister’s proposal for a peacekeeping force in northern Syria in October 2019. This unprecedented initiative was not coordinated with the foreign ministry, received significant pushback within the German government, and ultimately was dismissed when the minister proposed it again within NATO.126 This lack of internal coordination on a momentous policy issue is emblematic of a wider gap in developing German strategy. One solution that has been repeatedly proposed is establishing a national security council for Germany, akin to the U.S. and U.K. models.127 Such institutional changes could help develop German strategy, but they do not guarantee success. Strategy flows from centralized systems, such as in France, the United Kingdom, or the United States, or from decentralized consensus. In the former case, a national security council and the supporting staff can help impose the will of the central decision-­ maker, president or prime minister, across the governmental bureaucracy. In the latter case, an NSC’s effectiveness is based much more on persuasion and education to build the consensus that can then serve as basis for a strategy.

44 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

Spain To account for these institutional challenges, Spain established a national security council in 2015 under the conservative government of Mariano Rajoy. Its most recent national security strategy was issued in 2017, before the current socialist government of Pedro Sanchez came to power. As with the U.K. document, parts of it are most likely outdated; however, the general framework can still provide insight into Spanish strategic thinking. The 2017 strategy defines Spain’s security as “protecting citizens’ freedom, rights and wellbeing, ensuring the defence of Spain and its constitutional principles and values, and contributing to international security, together with Spain’s partners and allies, in compliance with agreed commitments.”128 It conceives of Spain’s identity as “at once European, Mediterranean and Atlantic” with a “singular geostrategic position.” Reflecting Spain’s “long history of global interests beyond its natural borders” and continuing “global aspirations,” the strategy provides a comprehensive overview of Spain’s approaches to various regions that are of “special interest to Spanish national security: Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, North America, and Asia-Pacific”—essentially the whole world apart from the Arctic and Antarctica. It emphasizes the role of NATO as the “foundation of collective defence in Europe” and the centrality of the European Union as the “pillar of Spain’s democratic, political and security model.” It also affirms Spain’s commitment to the “rules-based international order,” describing it as the “liberal order.” The strategy lists a range of 15 threats and challenges to Spain’s security, including armed conflicts, terrorism, organized crime, espionage, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, irregular migration, climate change, cyber, and pandemics. To address these issues, it identifies five general objectives: develop the comprehensive crisis management model; promote a culture of national security; foster the proper use of global common spaces; emphasize the security dimension in technological development; and strengthen Spain’s international profile. It then proceeds to list several lines of action for each of the 15 threats and challenges. Whereas the strategy succeeds in comprehensiveness, it lacks in crispness and clarity regarding Spain’s priorities. In addition, greater structure in terms of the international context, interests, objectives, and policies would help focus and guide strategic decision-making.

2  GRAND STRATEGY AND POLICY PLANNING 

45

Italy In Italy, the most recent strategic review dates back to 2015 under the government of Matteo Renzi.129 The white book on defense, although drafted by the ministry of defense, went through an inclusive consultation process with other ministries and purports to “define a structured National Security Strategy.” Notably, it points out that a “real sharing of the same framework of values between citizens and their armed forces requires constant communication and assiduous interaction between the parties”—in other words, strategy requires exchange, education, persuasion, and ultimately consensus. The white book includes a subchapter on “national interests and objectives,” but does not define them. Instead, it notes, uncontroversially, that the “ultimate goal of the national policy of international security and defence is the protection of Italy’s vital and strategic interests.” Italy’s security interests are served by “ensuring the effectiveness of the European Union and Atlantic Alliance as collective political and military tools.” In particular, the transatlantic community is the “biggest guarantee for the defence of the nation” through NATO, which “remains central to the context of collective defence.” The white book emphasizes that “[t]o date, only the Alliance between North America and Europe is able to dissuade, deter and provide military defence against any kind of threat.” The review then outlines four key missions for the armed forces: • Defence of the State … to safeguard national territory; the vital interests of the Nation; the security of areas of national sovereignty and of Italian citizens abroad; and the security of lines of access to the nation; • Defence of the Euro-Atlantic and Euro-Mediterranean area; • Contributing to the development of peace and international security; [and] • Specific tasks and joint operations … in the event of public calamities and other cases of extraordinary need and urgency.130 And it lists a range of necessary reforms of the armed forces, without addressing other instruments of power, such as diplomacy, development, or intelligence. The Italian strategic review illustrates the importance of the penholder for the final outcome of any strategy. Even an inclusive consultation

46 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

process involving a range of perspectives will ultimately rely on the drafter to identify the salient points of the discussions and conclusions. For this very reason, George Kennan argued for an increased role of the U.S. State Department in drafting and shaping strategy; otherwise, foreign policy becomes a mere appendage of other considerations. Poland Poland published its most recent defense review and foreign policy strategy in 2017, two years after the current Law and Justice government came to power.131 Like Italy’s white book, the defense concept followed an extensive consultation process with other ministries and outside experts, but ultimately reflects primarily defense and military considerations. In contrast, the foreign ministry document is inherently broader and reflects a more comprehensive national security strategy.132 The Polish foreign policy strategy sets out three key interests for Poland: security, prosperity, and international influence and image. It notes the changed international context and the “multi-faceted crisis of the Western world” due to Russian “revisionist policy” and internal economic difficulties. It emphasizes the importance to Poland of the liberal order, centered around the UN, EU, NATO, OSCE, OECD, World Bank, IMF, and WTO. And in particular, it argues that any “long-term deterioration in the international status of both the EU and NATO would harm Poland’s vital interests.” To address security challenges, the report argues, “[s]trategic planning must strike the necessary balance between defending the Alliance’s eastern and southern flanks.” NATO continues to serve as “the bedrock of Polish and European security.” However, Poland also supports EU defense in “autonomous operations in theatres where united NATO involvement is redundant.” In terms of prosperity, it argues that “Poland’s economic prospects will largely depend on the course taken by the European Union.” And it also stresses the importance of values not only for their own sake but also as a way of building a country’s international image and influence through soft power: “a country’s image is no longer a matter of arbitrary opinion” but “can affect a country’s ability to achieve its foreign policy goals, as much as it can alter the costs of running a business.”133 Elements of Polish strategy are also contained in the annual report of the minister of foreign affairs to the Polish parliament. The most recent one, from 2019, observed the “steady erosion of a world order based on

2  GRAND STRATEGY AND POLICY PLANNING 

47

the conviction that democracy is the best form of governance, that human rights are universal and inherent, and that international law should underpin international relations.” It emphasized the role of the EU in promoting Polish economic growth and the centrality of NATO in Polish security policy. In particular, it argued that “the European Union must not build its strategic autonomy at the expense of NATO or by weakening transatlantic ties.” It also highlighted the importance of Poland’s “strategic partnership with the United States,” which represents “a significant component of the transatlantic community.” “[I]t is in everyone’s interest,” the foreign minister argued, “to maintain a strong transatlantic link on both sides of the Atlantic.” He also underscored Poland’s relationships with various EU members states, particularly Germany (its “most important neighbour and partner” in the EU), France, and the United Kingdom, and regional formats such as the Weimar Format, Visegrad Group, the Three Seas Initiative, and the Bucharest Nine.134 The defense review, focusing primarily on security challenges, notes that “[n]ational security must be understood in a broad sense” and lays out three primary threats to Polish national interests: potential aggression against Poland or one of its Allies; irregular hostile operations below the threshold of an armed conflict; non-military crisis situations; and operations abroad. Among the various threats, it singles out Russia’s “aggressive policy.” Moscow, it argues, “aims at enhancing its position in the global balance of power by using various means,” including use of force and coercion, and seeks to “create a new international order based on the so called ‘concert of powers.’” Over its 15-year time horizon, the white book assumes that “by 2032 Russia will maintain its aggressive stance in its foreign and security policies.” As a second and separate threat, the strategy also focuses on Russia as “the main source of instability in NATO’s eastern neighbourhood.” The review also highlights the “unstable neighbourhood of NATO’s southern flank” in the Middle East and North Africa. However, it argues that “the chances for effective actions in these areas are still slim, mainly because of the contradictory interests of the crucial actors in the region,” including by Russia “which treats its interference in this part of the world as another opportunity to put pressure on Western countries.” Finally, the defense concept lists the “fight against terrorism” as a key threat. Poland’s operational objective is to “possess effective deterrence potential … to be capable of defending Poland, and—if necessary—to offer assistance to our Allies.” It also underscores the importance of Poland’s

48 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

membership in “Western integration structures.” It highlights the role of NATO as “the most powerful military alliance” and stresses “the economic prowess of the European Union.” With respect to EU defense integration, it argues that “[a]ll EU actions in the security domain should complement and enrich NATO operations in a non-competitive manner.” 2016 EU Global Strategy Given the diversity of strategic approaches among the six largest EU member states, let alone the rest of the European Union, it is no small feat that the EU was able to adopt a Global Strategy in 2016.135 Formally issued by the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini, the document went through an extensive consultation process coordinated by the HRVP’s special adviser Nathalie Tocci and the EEAS’ strategic planning division. With drafts discussed among EU member states at the level of the Political and Security Committee of the Council of the EU, the final version reflects input from across the EU even if not from the highest levels of decision-making. Issued shortly after the U.K. referendum to exit the EU, the strategy observes the “times of existential crisis, within and beyond the European Union,” when the EU is “under threat” and the “European project, which has brought unprecedented peace, prosperity and democracy, is being questioned.” In this “more connected, contested and complex world, the strategy identifies four vital interests for the EU: “[p]eace and security, prosperity, democracy and a rules-based global order.” It highlights the intersection of internal and external security. It argues that EU prosperity is dependent both on the internal single market and on an “open international economic system.” It seeks to foster the “resilience” of EU democracies through the “respect for and promotion of human rights, fundamental freedoms and the rule of law.” And it commits to promoting the “rules-based global order with multilateralism as its key principle and the United Nations at its core.” It argues that the purpose of this order is to “embed[] democratic values within the international system,” which is the “only guarantee for peace and security at home and abroad.” Adopting a philosophy of “principled pragmatism,” the strategy does not define it. In a subsequent publication, however, Tocci explains it further:

2  GRAND STRATEGY AND POLICY PLANNING 

49

[T]he EU should remove its rose-tinted glasses and pragmatically look at the world as it is, and not as it would like to see it. The pragmatism comes in the diagnosis of the geopolitical predicament the EU finds itself in. … In doing so, however, the Union should not fall into the trap of cultural relativism: EU pragmatism should be principled. While different pathways, recipes and models are to be embraced, international law and its underlying norms should be the benchmark of what is acceptable for the EU and what is not.

It aims to strike “the balance between realism and idealism, between ambition and reality.”136 The strategy sets out five priorities for EU foreign policy: security, state and societal resilience in the east and south of the EU, an integrated approach to conflicts and crises, cooperative regional orders, and global governance. In particular, the strategy argues that an “appropriate level of ambition and strategic autonomy is important for Europe’s ability to promote peace and security within and beyond its borders.” It points to the EU’s enlargement policy and the European Neighbourhood Policy as mechanisms to “spur transformation” around its borders through the “enduring power of attraction.” It argues that the EU “will act at all stages of the conflict cycle” through conflict prevention, crisis management, stabilization, and sustaining peace. And it stresses the need for order-­building both within the EU’s immediate regions and across the world, particularly in collaboration with its three “core partners”—the United States, NATO, and the United Nations.137 The Global Strategy is effective in analyzing the EU’s overall international context and identifying its vital interests. It also gestures toward general objectives and policies, but does not necessarily connect them to specific lines of effort or resources. As Tocci recounts, there were “three main reasons to produce the EUGS: to promote policy direction, to strengthen political unity and to boost the effectiveness of external actions.”138 First, the aim was not to “provide a literal blueprint for action on the way ahead,” as “[r]eaction will continue to occupy centre stage in European foreign policy and indeed international relations,” but to indicate “the EU’s broad goals and address[] the necessary means to achieve these.” Second, if “Europeans could understand one another better and agree on a shared narrative concerning the EU’s role in the world” through the strategic reflection, then the EUGS could “rekindle a degree of political unity in the Union as a whole” and serve as an “identity-­ building exercise.” Finally, the strategy sought to break bureaucratic silos

50 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

within the EU, particularly between the Commission and the EEAS but also between the EU institutions and the member states, to form a “joined­up Union.” The Global Strategy identified the main center of gravity within elite and public opinion regarding the EU’s role in the world and future path. The strategy’s main limitation, however, is not linked to its substance but rather its process, insofar as it does not necessarily reflect the thinking and debates of EU national foreign ministers, defense ministers, or heads of state and government. Whereas the French president or the Spanish prime minister would be familiar with their respective national security strategies (uncodified or documented), EU leaders had no similar connection with the EU Global Strategy. According to Tocci, the Global Strategy was more focused on identity formation for the EU,139 rather than guiding specific policies and decisions as any strategy ought to do. But to the extent the strategy accomplished this objective of identity, it was mainly at the level of Political and Security Committee (PSC) ambassadors and EU staff in Brussels, rather than at the level of all relevant decision-makers. As Tocci concedes, the “European Council had only ‘welcomed the presentation’ of the EUGS, a step above a ‘taking note of,’ and a step below a flat ‘welcoming’ or ‘endorsement’ of the EUGS in Euro-speak.” Although she explains this lukewarm reception of the strategy among the EU leaders due to the timing of its publication, five days after the Brexit vote, it is more likely that the strategy process simply never reached their level throughout the consultation period of two years. In my interviews, several senior European officials, within the EU institutions and national governments, confirmed that few if any European heads of state and government read the EU Global Strategy—at best, as part of a briefing book on the way to the June 2016 European Council.140 Ideally, EU leaders would have debated earlier drafts or at least had direct input into the strategy-formulation process through their foreign ministers or diplomatic advisors. The main benefit of any strategy is not the ultimate document, but rather the underlying process, which can help structure, inform, and improve operational decision-making. And it is unclear to what extent the new strategy drove changes in EU’s policies and operations. 2010 NATO Strategic Concept European leaders, alongside their transatlantic counterparts, had in fact adopted a security strategy six years earlier—as part of NATO, an

2  GRAND STRATEGY AND POLICY PLANNING 

51

organization that had 28 member states back then and now contains 30.141 Representing views of “the Heads of State and Government of the NATO nations,” the strategic concept “reconfirm[ed] the bond between our nations to defend one another against attack, including against new threats to the safety of our citizens”; committed the Alliance to conflict prevention, crisis management, and post-conflict stabilization, in collaboration with its “most important[]” international partners—the United Nations and the European Union; and offered greater political engagement for NATO. The document noted that NATO’s “fundamental and enduring purpose is to safeguard the freedom and security of all its members by political and military means” as “an essential source of stability in an unpredictable world.” It also observed that NATO is a “unique community of values, committed to the principles of individual liberty, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.” It set out three “core tasks” for the Alliance: collective defense through the mutual commitment under Article 5 to “always assist each other against attack”; crisis management—before, during, and after conflict; and cooperative security, through the open door enlargement policy and international partnerships. It argued that NATO “remains the unique and essential transatlantic forum for consultations on all matters that affect the territorial integrity, political independence and security of its members.” One clear policy shift that accompanied the strategic concept was a new relationship between NATO and Russia. After a two-year suspension of meetings following the 2008 Russia-Georgia war, NATO leaders sought to turn the page and give the new Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, the opportunity to establish a different approach toward the West. This attempt at rapprochement ultimately proved unsuccessful, but the link between strategy, policy, and operations was appropriately maintained. The strategic concept has been significantly overtaken by events over the past ten years, especially Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, the Arab Spring, wars in Libya and Syria, the rise of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and a newly assertive China. Moreover, even though it was adopted by “the political leaders of NATO” to “preserve its effectiveness as the globe’s most successful political-military Alliance,” the strategy focuses primarily on military instruments of defense and deterrence, rather than diplomacy, geoeconomics, or intelligence. However, it illustrates that a strategy can be adopted at the level of heads of state and government in a diverse and large multinational organization.

52 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

Contemporary Principles Strategic planning in the current international environment should have several unique features: . agility, rather than full accuracy; 1 2. speed, rather than full comprehensiveness; 3. operations, rather than mere academic analyses detached from policy-making; 4. creativity, rather than mechanically extending prior trends and policies; and 5. narrative, which is simple and coherent rather than full of complexity and jargon. To be sure, some fundamental principles of strategy remain timeless: understanding the domestic and international context; establishing an organization’s goals based on its values and interests; prioritizing among objectives; connecting resources to ends; and evaluating progress. Agility. Strategy is best illustrated as navigating a tumultuous river, rather than surveying the landscape from atop a hill. In contrast to even a decade ago, events change rapidly, crises accumulate, media demand continuous communications, and senior principals require sufficient adaptability to manage the policy response. The implication for strategic planning officers is that they should be mostly generalists, capable across several regional and functional areas and with professional and academic backgrounds in diverse fields, rather than subject-matter experts exclusively in specific areas. Speed. Strategic planning functions should straddle the present and the near-term future of 3–12  months. Strategic planning officers need to know the day-to-day operations within their areas of responsibility—talking points, meetings, speeches, missions—but should focus their time and intellectual effort on anticipating the emerging challenges and opportunities. Periodically, especially at the beginning of any principal’s tenure, the time horizon of their work should span a longer period, potentially even beyond a given administration. But lest such exercises become academic and detached from actual policy-making, analyses beyond 12  months should be exceptions to the norm. Ideally, strategic analyses, three to seven pages long, become over time day-to-day operations and thereby

2  GRAND STRATEGY AND POLICY PLANNING 

53

inputs to the development of subsequent strategic analyses in a dynamic and iterative process. For instance, George Kennan’s first memo at the Policy Planning Staff, in seven pages, laid the intellectual foundation for the four-year $150 billion Marshall Plan. Operations. Strategic planning should have a close connection to underlying operations, but eschew duplicating the day-to-day work of the rest of an organization’s bureaucracy. As Henry Kissinger noted, planning runs the risk that “[s]tudies [are] unrelated to real problems, have … no effect on policy, and … obfuscate[] rather than clarif[y] alternatives.”142 Strategy needs to “consider middle and long-range policy issues as well as current crises and immediate operational problems” and be informed through prior papers, which present policy options that are feasible both politically and bureaucratically.143 In practice, this link can be developed through two institutional mechanisms: (1) clearing all papers up to an executive through the strategic planning officers; and (2) facilitating access to the principals through the strategic planning officers. The clearance function is primarily for intelligence purposes, involving minimal edits and serving to inform the clearers of the day-to-day work of the bureaucracy. The access function ideally enables the rest of the bureaucracy to expedite their ideas toward the principals and receive senior executive guidance. The best strategic planning is done with close consultation and integration of the operational bureaucracy, which, after all, can slow-roll the implementation of any strategic plans or, even if acting in good faith, will be relied upon to execute senior decisions. This preference for operational linkage is distinct from one model of strategic planning as detached and independent from the rest of the bureaucracy, which can often lead to irrelevance. The paradigmatic example of this type of strategic planning was Kissinger, who combined systemic thinking with operational control over key meetings, statements, negotiations, and use of force. In more recent times, one innovation in the Obama-Biden administration’s Department of State was dual-hatting the role of the Secretary’s Policy Planning Director and the Chief of Staff or Deputy Chief of Staff (with Jake Sullivan for Secretary Hilary Clinton and Jon Finer for Secretary John Kerry). The dual roles integrated in one mind all of the operational day-to-day activities along with all of the near-term strategic analyses, providing the principal with full-spectrum counsel across time and issues. In lieu of dual-hatting, close coordination between a strategic planning director and the chief of staff is essential.

54 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

Creativity. Strategic planning should inject creativity and innovation into the rest of the bureaucracy, which is inherently cautious and conservative, through new policy proposals. To be sure, there are clear inherent limits to this process, as institutional anti-bodies form to new ideas. One common refrain from the rest of the bureaucracy can be: “we have thought of this idea and it will never work,” or “we are already doing this,” or uncritically, “this idea will never work and we are already doing it.” And oftentimes, the bureaucracy will be correct in assessing the viability of new ideas, since new policies may be unrealistic or fail for other reasons not originally conceived of by the strategic planners. Another mechanism to inject creativity is the use of red-team exercises, whereby a current policy is challenged from the would-be perspective of an actor opposed to the policy or the red team games certain future scenarios based on divergent assumptions about the state of play. The Eisenhower administration, for instance, brainstormed strategies of containment and roll-back through three high-level task forces as part of Project Solarium. All parts of a bureaucracy theoretically have an interest in this process of creative tension as it enhances the work of each, but it is sustainable in practice only if there is mutual trust and confidence developed over time. Creativity can also be enhanced through external input, as illustrated by participation of outside academics and high-level experts in U.S. and European strategy formulation: Oppenheimer in NSC-68, Danjean in the French strategic review, and Tocci in the EU Global Strategy. Narrative. Strategic planning is as much about shaping the external and internal strategic narrative, as about the underlying policies. Given that the media market is much more decentralized, an image of chaos rather than order is much easier to develop, with multiple actors asserting competing views of reality. As a consequence, speechwriters should be included within the strategic planning function, so that a senior executive’s speeches can benefit from guidance of the strategic planning officers. Conversely, since policy is often made or at least announced through speeches, strategic planning officers can keep their analyses closely connected to the public pronouncements of their principals. Strategic planners can also help shape an organization’s strategic narrative through their interactions with the academic and think-tank communities outside of a given organization. These links, in turn, can also help improve the policy-making process of the organization. Notwithstanding the potential mutual exchange, these interactions should be used sparingly. They can easily consume the time of a strategic planner, at the cost

2  GRAND STRATEGY AND POLICY PLANNING 

55

of time spent on internal matters; and the benefits of shaping the public narrative or improving internal policy-making are likely to be limited. The same argument applies to internal workshops or conferences convened by strategic planners. On the other hand, policy planning talks with strategic planners in other governments or international institutions can be invaluable. * * * Done well, strategic planning can help senior executives structure thinking and decisions over time; shape policy coherence within an organization; project a sense of control, confidence, preparedness, and forethought; and convey a narrative that identifies where an organization should be in the future and what it is doing in the present to reach it. The most common pitfall for strategic planning functions is irrelevance, due to detachment from operational policy-making, complete independence (and isolation) from the bureaucracy, excessively long time horizons, or too much time devoted to lengthy reports or academic/think-tank events or conferences. In sum, as the chapters below on Russia, China, the Middle East, and Africa will illustrate, the practice of strategy requires four essential elements: • understanding the international context: what is the state of play on a given issue; what are the main trends; who are the relevant actors; • defining interests and objectives: what is at stake in a given issue; what are we trying to achieve concretely; • creating policy options: what are the means and resources that could be deployed to reach a concrete  objective and serve a specific interest; and • selecting recommendations: out of the myriad options, what should the principal decision-makers pursue, in what order, and with what priority. But a preliminary set of questions centers around more fundamental issues: what are the values that Europe cares about and seeks to uphold in developing its strategy. What is the underlying purpose that helps define Europe’s interests, determine its objectives, and guide concrete policies? This foundation is the basic building block upon which all other elements of strategy rest.

56 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

Notes 1. Interview with senior EU official, 8 November 2019. 2. Interview with senior EU official, 30 October 2019; interview with senior EU official, 8 November 2019. 3. Jonathan Swan, Trump’s strategic planning inspiration: Mike Tyson, Axios, 16 January 2019. 4. See Jeffrey Goldberg, The Obama Doctrine, The Atlantic (April 2016). 5. Lawrence Freedman, Strategy: A History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 72. 6. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, edited and translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret (New York: Random House, 1993), 146. 7. Antoine Henri de Jomini, The Art of War (London: Greenhill Books, 1992), 69. 8. See Paul Kennedy, Grand Strategies in War and Peace (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992). 9. Edward Mead Earle, introduction in Makers of Modern Strategy: Military Thoughts from Hitler to Machiavelli, ed. Edward Mead Earle (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1943), viii–x. 10. B.H. Liddell Hart, Strategy (New York: Prager, 1957), 336. 11. John Lewis Gaddis, On Grand Strategy (New York: Penguin Press, 2018), 20. 12. Lawrence Freedman, Strategy: A History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), xi. 13. See Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May, Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision Makers (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988). 14. For purposes of this book, the terms strategy and grand strategy will be used interchangeably, to avoid repetition and aim for concision. 15. Hal Brands, What Good Is Grand Strategy? Power and Purpose (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 2014), 2. 16. John Lewis Gaddis, On Grand Strategy (New York: Penguin Press, 2018). 17. For a worthwhile overview of the practice of grand strategy across a range of countries and institutions, see Comparative Grand Strategy: A Framework and Cases, eds. Thierry Balzacq, Peter Dombrowski, and Simon Reich (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019). 18. Judge Learned Hand, The Spirit of Liberty: Papers and Addresses of Learned Hand, ed. Irving Dillard (New York: Knopf, 1952) (“Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there, it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it.”).

2  GRAND STRATEGY AND POLICY PLANNING 

57

19. Lawrence Freedman, Strategy: A History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), xii. 20. Luis Simon, Geopolitical Change, Grand Strategy and European Security (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). 21. Global Trends to 2030—Challenges and Choices for Europe, ed. Florence Gaub (EUISS 2019). 22. Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (New York: W.W. Norton, 1969). 23. Zbigniew Brzezinski, “Purpose and planning in foreign policy,” National Affairs (Winter 1969). 24. John Lewis Gaddis, On Grand Strategy (New York: Penguin Press, 2018), 356. 25. For individual accounts of what they were trying to accomplish and how, see Henry L. Stimson and McGeorge Bundy, On Active Service in Peace and War (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1947); Cordell Hull, Memoirs (London: Macmillan, 1948); Dwight D. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe (New York: Doubleday, 1948); William A.  Harriman, America and Russia in a Changing World: A Half Century of Personal Observation (New York: Doubleday, 1971); William A.  Harriman, Special Envoy to Churchill and Stalin, 1941–1946 (New York: Random House, 1975). 26. John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American National Security Policy During the Cold War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). 27. X, “Sources of Soviet Conduct,” Foreign Affairs, 25:4 July 1947, pp. 566–582. 28. Ibid. at 580. 29. Ibid. at 581. 30. Ibid. 31. See PPS/13, Report by the Policy Planning Staff, Resume of World Situation (Nov. 6, 1947); PPS/23, Report by the Policy Planning Staff, Review of Current Trends (Feb. 24, 1948). See also John Lewis Gaddis, George F. Kennan: An American Life (New York: W.W. Norton, 2012). 32. The Director of the Policy Planning Staff (Kennan) to the Under Secretary of State (Acheson), PPS/1, 23 May 1947. 33. Ibid. 34. President Harry S. Truman’s Address Before a Joint Session of Congress, 12 March 1947. 35. The Director of the Policy Planning Staff (Kennan) to the Under Secretary of State (Acheson), 23 May 1947. 36. The “Marshall Plan” speech at Harvard University, 5 June 1947. 37. Marshall Plan was a stroke of good fortune in history, 21 June 2017. 38. Policy Planning Staff Memorandum, 4 May 1948.

58 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

39. Memorandum by the Director of the Policy Planning Staff (“Considerations Affecting the Conclusion of a North Atlantic Security Pact”), 24 November 1948. 40. Report by the Policy Planning Staff, PPS/13, 6 November 1947. 41. Memorandum by the Director of the Policy Planning Staff (Kennan) to the Secretary of State and the Under Secretary of State (Lovett), 24 February 1948. 42. Report by the Policy Planning Staff, PPS/13, 24 February 1948. 43. Memorandum by the Director of the Policy Planning Staff (Kennan) to the Deputy Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (Rusk), 7 September 1949. 44. Ibid. 45. Ibid. 46. A Report to the President Pursuant to the President’s Directive of January 31, 1950, NSC-68, 7 April 1950. 47. National Security Act of 1947. 48. A Report to the President Pursuant to the President’s Directive of January 31, 1950, NSC-68, 7 April 1950. 49. Memorandum from the Counselor of the Department of State (Kennan) to the Under Secretary of State (Webb), 30 March 1950. 50. Policy Planning Staff Memorandum, 4 May 1948 (on the inauguration of organized political warfare). 51. Memorandum for the Record by the Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (Cutler), 9 May 1953; Memorandum by the President to the Secretary of State, 20 May 1953; Paper Prepared by the Directing Panel of Project Solarium, 1 June 1953; Summaries Prepared by the NSC Staff of Project Solarium Presentations and Written Reports, 22 July 1953. 52. Memorandum for the Record by the Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (Cutler), 9 May 1953. 53. Report to the National Security Council by the Executive Secretary (Lay), 30 October 1953. 54. Memorandum from McGhee to Under Secretary, 5 December 1961 (setting forth the Basic National Security Policy). 55. Ibid. 56. U.S.  Department of State, Office of the Historian, Summary of Print Volume VIII; see also Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume VIII, National Security Policy, Editorial Note. 57. Memorandum From the Chairman of the Policy Planning Council and Counselor of the Department of State (Rostow) to Secretary of State Rusk, 23 July 1963. 58. Memorandum for the Record, December 4, 1963.

2  GRAND STRATEGY AND POLICY PLANNING 

59

59. Memorandum From the Joint Chiefs of Staff to Secretary of Defense McNamara, 4 February 1965. 60. Memorandum From the Chairman of the Policy Planning Council and Counselor of the Department of State (Rostow) to Secretary of State Rusk, 17 September 1963. 61. David Fromkin, Lyndon Johnson and Foreign Policy: What the New Documents Show, Foreign Affairs (Jan/Feb 1995). 62. Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted). 63. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs-Designate (Kissinger) to President-Elect Nixon, 7 January 1969. 64. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs-Designate (Kissinger) to President-Elect Nixon, 27 December 1969. 65. Ibid. 66. Ibid. 67. Henry Kissinger, The White House Years (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1979). 68. Ibid. 69. Report by President Nixon to the Congress, 18 February 1969. 70. Ibid. 71. Ibid. 72. Henry Kissinger, The White House Years (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1979). 73. Memorandum From Zbigniew Brzezinski, Richard Gardner, and Henry Owen to President-Elect Carter, 3 November 1976. 74. See, for example, Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Brzezinski) to President Carter, 1 April 1977. 75. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Brzezinski) to President Carter, 29 April 1977. 76. Presidential Directive/NSC-18, U.S. National Strategy, 24 August 1977. 77. Address by President Carter on the State of the Union Before a Joint Session of Congress, 23 January 1980. 78. Presidential Directive/NSC-62, Modifications in U.S. National Strategy, 15 January 1981. 79. NSDD-32, U.S. National Security Strategy, 20 May 1982. 80. Goldwater–Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of October 4, 1986 Pub.L. 99–433. 81. NSDD-32, U.S. National Security Strategy, 20 May 1982. 82. Ibid. 83. U.S. National Security Strategy, March 1990. 84. U.S. National Security Strategy, August 1991. 85. Ibid., p. 2.

60 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

86. Ibid., p. 4. 87. U.S. National Security Strategy, January 1993. 88. U.S. National Security Strategy, July 1994. 89. Ibid. 90. Ibid. 91. U.S. National Security Strategy (1995). 92. U.S. National Security Strategy (2002). 93. Ibid. 94. Ibid. 95. Ibid. 96. U.S. National Security Strategy (2010). 97. Ibid. 98. Ibid. 99. Ibid. at 41. 100. U.S. National Security Strategy (2015). 101. Ibid. 102. Ibid. 103. Jeffrey Goldberg, The Obama Doctrine, The Atlantic (April 2016). 104. U.S. National Security Strategy (2015). 105. See, for example, Jon Finer, Trump has no foreign policy, Politico (Feb. 19, 2017); Bart M.J. Szewczyk, Less Is More? The US at the UN, EUISS Brief (Oct. 11, 2017); European Political Strategy Centre, Geopolitical Outlook for Europe: Confrontation vs Cooperation (June 8, 2018). But see Michael Anton, The Trump Doctrine, Foreign Policy (Apr. 20, 2019); Hal Brands, American Grand Strategy in the Age of Trump (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2018); Brendan Simms and Charlie Laderman, Donald Trump: The Making of a World View (London: Endeavour Press, 2017). 106. Rebecca Friedman Lissner, The National Security Strategy Is Not a Strategy: Trump’s Incoherence Is a Reminder of Why a New Approach Is Needed, Foreign Affairs, 19 December 2017. 107. U.S. National Security Strategy (2017). 108. Ibid. 109. David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest (New York: Random House, 1972). 110. Josh Gerstein, “Obama Fed Up with Foreign Policy Critics,” Politico, 28 April 2014. 111. Europe here means the EU-27 member states and the United Kingdom. 112. See, for example, Comparative Grand Strategy: A Framework and Cases, eds. Thierry Balzacq, Peter Dombrowski, and Simon Reich (Oxford University Press 2019) (discussing only France, the United Kingdom, and the EU).

2  GRAND STRATEGY AND POLICY PLANNING 

61

113. Claire Mills, Louisa Brooke-Holland, Nigel Walker, A brief guide to previous British defence reviews, House of Commons Library Briefing Paper (26 February 2020). 114. Boris Johnson, Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy: Written statement, HCWS126 (26 February 2020). 115. Lord Palmerston, speech in the House of Commons, 1 March 1848, Hansard, vol. 97 cc. 66–123. 116. UK National Security Capability Review (March 2018). 117. UK National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015: A Secure and Prosperous United Kingdom (November 2015). 118. For instance, it is observed that the “UK is the only nation to be a permanent member of the UN Security Council and in NATO, the EU, the Commonwealth, the G7 and G20, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the OECD, the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.” 119. UK National Security Capability Review (March 2018). 120. Thierry Balzacq, France in Comparative Grand Strategy: A Framework and Cases, Thierry Balzacq, Peter Dombrowski, and Simon Reich eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2018). 121. French Defence and National Security Strategic Review (October 2017). 122. Speech by M.  Emmanuel Macron, President of the Republic, 27 August 2019. 123. Speech of the President of the Republic on the Defense and Deterrence Strategy, 7 February 2020. 124. White Paper 2016 on German Security Policy and the Future of the Bundeswehr (July 2016). 125. Ibid. 126. Hans von der Burchard, German minister’s Syria plan falls flat, Politico (25 October 2019); Judith Mischke, German defense minister pushes for international “security zone” in Syria, Politico (22 October 2019). 127. See, for example, Julie Smith, Does Germany Need a National Security Council?, GMF (19 November 2019). 128. Spanish National Security Strategy (December 2017). 129. Italian White Paper for International Security and Defence (July 2015). 130. Ibid. 131. The Defence Concept of the Republic of Poland (May 2017). 132. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Polish Foreign Policy Strategy, 2017–2021. 133. Ibid. 134. Information of the Minister of Foreign Affairs on Polish Foreign Policy Tasks in 2019, 14 March 2019. 135. European External Action Service, Shared Vision, Common Action: A Stronger Europe, A Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign

62 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

and Security Policy (June 2016). The EU’s previous strategy, the European Security Strategy, was issued in 2003 in a different strategy environment: the aftermath of the U.S.-led war in Iraq and before the entry of 13 new EU member states from across Central and Eastern Europe. For insights into the thinking behind the 2003 strategy’s main drafter, see Robert Cooper, The post-modern state and world order (London: Demos, 1996) and The Breaking of Nations: Order and Chaos in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2004). 136. See also Nathalie Tocci, Framing the EU Global Strategy: A Stronger Europe in a Fragile World (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). 137. European External Action Service, Shared Vision, Common Action: A Stronger Europe, A Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy (June 2016). 138. See also Nathalie Tocci, Framing the EU Global Strategy: A Stronger Europe in a Fragile World (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). 139. See Nathalie Tocci, Framing the EU Global Strategy: A Stronger Europe in a Fragile World (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). 140. Interview with senior EU official, 8 November 2019; interview with senior EU official, 30 October 2019. 141. NATO, Active Engagement, Modern Defence, Strategic Concept for the Defence and Security of the Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 19–20 November 2010. 142. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs-Designate (Kissinger) to President-Elect Nixon, 7 January 1969. 143. Ibid.

CHAPTER 3

Europe’s Liberal Foundations

Debates in Brussels and around Europe feel a bit like what they may have been in Washington in the late 1940s: when George Kennan and Paul Nitze designed strategies of containment and Cold War and George Marshall and Dean Acheson, “present at the creation,” shaped the liberal order.1 Perhaps more so than at any other time in modern European history, it is a period of fundamental questions and big ideas with global implications. To be sure, Europe has gone through several foundational changes over the past seven decades: the European Coal and Steel Community (1952), the European Economic Community (1957), the Single Market Act (1986), the European Union (1992), large-scale enlargement of the 2000s across Central and Eastern Europe, and finally the 2009 Lisbon Treaty that created the current EU structures of the European Council President and the European External Action Service. Each decision was driven by a set of visionary insights, but each was also primarily oriented inwardly or regionally. European integration also occurred with a supportive transatlantic ally during the Cold War and a permissive international environment after 1989. Now, concepts such as strategic autonomy, European defense union, and European sovereignty have become common parlance among European decision-makers to signify Europe’s ambition to act as a global actor and shape the world order. But sometimes such concepts obfuscate © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 B. M. J. Szewczyk, Europe’s Grand Strategy, Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60523-0_3

63

64 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

rather than clarify strategic choices. In the words of Acheson, each idea is “clearer than truth,” capturing the core essence but also easily misunderstood without the full context and background understanding.2 Each is essential to pragmatic cooperation and can be used by European leaders to pursue visionary steps without illusions and with a deep sense of realism.3 But what is most striking is that there is often little substance behind the concepts. Typically, a phrase seems to be chosen as a catchy slogan in search of a strategy—only later to be defined, or most frequently, undefined and contested. For instance, countless hours and pages have been spent over the past four years over the notion of “strategic autonomy”—without much progress. First introduced by the EU Global Strategy in 2016, the concept was left undefined but at least constrained as an “appropriate level of ambition and strategic autonomy.”4 Nathalie Tocci’s companion volume to the strategy also does not expand on the concept. Greater insight can be gleaned from the 2017 French strategic review, which outlines as objectives, paradoxically, strategic autonomy for both France and Europe. It defines France’s strategic autonomy as “its capability to decide and act alone to defend its interests.”5 For Europe, however, strategic autonomy “requires the development of a common strategic culture” and can be autonomous from the EU itself; as an example, the French white paper provides the European Intervention Initiative, a French-led coalition of willing EU and non-EU states, that is separate from the EU institutions. In French doctrine, the concept of strategic autonomy dates back to Charles de Gaulle: in the aftermath of the 1956 Suez Crisis—when Dwight Eisenhower told the United Kingdom and France to call off their intervention in Egypt—de Gaulle determined that France should always preserve its freedom of maneuver, backed by its own nuclear arsenal and independence from NATO’s military structures. “Nuclear deterrence” guarantees France its “freedom of decision and action.”6 Yet, the EU, with multilateralism at the core of its decision-making, clearly cannot seek the same unilateral freedom of maneuver. And in any event, it is not for the French defense white book to define the EU’s strategic autonomy. Strikingly, neither the German, Spanish, nor Polish strategies—all of which post-date the EU Global Strategy—include the concept at the national or EU level. Likewise, the debate over strategic autonomy has not been advanced by substituting other slogans, such as “strategic sovereignty”7 or “cooperative autonomy.”8

3  EUROPE’S LIBERAL FOUNDATIONS 

65

Likewise, the European defense union has been bedeviled by similar conceptual confusion. One former EU official tried to explain to me several times that NATO is about collective defense and the EU, about common defense—but could not expound on the substantive distinction beyond this semantic difference. Much greater effort has gone into describing what the defense union is not—does not duplicate NATO, does not envision an EU army, does not transfer defense responsibility to the EU level—rather than what it was. This gap is particularly surprising, given that there is no shortage of models, including the unratified 1952 Treaty establishing the European Defence Community; this version, however, would compete with NATO. The underlying purposes of the defense union have also been unclear: whether to increase capabilities (the German-led view), to serve operations (the French-led view), or generate savings. Efficiency gains became a particularly attractive argument, but rested on widely divergent estimates: between €25 billion and €100 billion, or between 10% and 40% of Europe’s collective defense budgets.9 This analysis was based solely on an outdated seven-year-old report from the European Parliament, which itself was highly circumspect in the accuracy of its prediction.10 By the time the information filtered into speeches by senior officials, the lower end of the range would be dropped in favor of a more ambitious €100 billion estimate. And thus paradoxically, the main strategic logic for a European defense union appeared to be to cut spending by 40%, at a time when many of the same countries had committed (at NATO’s summit in 2014) to a 40% increase. The main focus of the debate has been on streamlining weapons systems and avoiding duplication, whereas the priority should be on whether various types of defense spending are tied to overall operational objectives: military missions can be accomplished with different guns, tanks, and planes as much as with one standardized system. Finally, European sovereignty was highlighted by former European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in his 2018 State of the European Union speech.11 He argued that the “geopolitical situation makes this Europe’s hour: the time for European sovereignty has come.” He further stated that “European sovereignty is born of Member States’ national sovereignty and does not replace it. Sharing sovereignty—when and where needed—makes each of our nation states stronger.” Likewise, French President Macron has called for European sovereignty to guarantee Europe’s “ability to exist in today’s world to defend our values and interests.”12 The Élysée has organized disparate lines of policy across

66 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

security, defense, economics, migration, social affairs, technology, culture, and education under the framework of European sovereignty.13 And France and Germany enshrined it as a legal concept in the Treaty of Aachen signed in January 2019.14 However, its repeated use has not clarified basic questions such as who is the European sovereign and what is the concept’s scope in relation to national sovereignty.15 Perhaps even worse than the lack of answers to such questions is that these types of fundamental issues never get raised nor fully analyzed.

Debate and Decision Concepts are supposed to have consequences. The gravest problem with contemporary European debate is not necessarily the lack of content behind particular ideas, but rather the absence of contestation around competing visions. Sometimes, the fault lies with the lack of seriousness on the part of the participants, as they launch various slogans or buzzwords to see what will stick. The ephemeral media market, driven by the latest tweet or headline, also does not facilitate considered debate. But the main reason, I think, is paradoxically due to consensus decision-making within the EU. In the U.S. government, the hierarchy of foreign policy-making is relatively clear: the president ultimately decides. Thus, the challenge for each aide—from Cabinet members down to lower officers—is to persuade him of a particular idea or position through the various national security policy processes of the principals committees, deputies committees, and interagency committees. Most of the choices presented for presidential decision entail competing viewpoints; otherwise, they are decided at lower levels (except for issues of sufficient importance, such as covert operations, where presidential decision is necessary even if there is consensus below). As part of this process, opposing perspectives develop, say between the State Department and the Defense Department, and ideally clear arguments are sharpened in favor of and against particular positions, with supporting briefing or study papers. The whole process is by design adversarial, much like in a courtroom, with the objective that the competition of ideas leads to the most comprehensive picture of reality and ultimately the best decision. And in the end, there is normally a clear resolution to particular debates, once the president decides.

3  EUROPE’S LIBERAL FOUNDATIONS 

67

Such an adversarial decision-making structure facilitates the development of clear alternatives, backed by extensive arguments and supporting analysis. Even if one’s perspective is not ultimately adopted, as happened frequently to strategists such as Kennan or Nitze, all of the participants can benefit from the competing viewpoint. The governmental hierarchy also helps structure public debate, as arguments are funneled in favor or against the president’s stated policy choices. In the EU, the decision-making process is inherently different and there is typically no single decision-maker or body that an advisor needs to convince, but rather a complex collection of actors: heads of state and government in the European Council, foreign and defense ministers in the Council of the EU, the College of Commissioners, and potentially the Parliament. Even if the institution is just the Council or the Commission, the number of decision-makers is already nearly 30. Over the five-year term of the Commission and Parliament, Council members change frequently, with several national elections each year adding further complexity to the policy-making process. Thus, the challenge is not to present clear choices, with arguments in favor and against, for a particular decision-­ maker to resolve, but rather to identify a potential center of gravity that can serve as consensus. Real debate can lead to hardened positions and ultimate deadlock; consensus-building can at least hope for decision. Structurally, this drive for consensus permeates all EU decision-making and debate, particularly on foreign policy and defense issues where voting is unanimous. As a consequence, it clouds real choices and competing analyses to the extent that individual decision-makers or their advisors dampen their own viewpoints, and instead tend toward a lowest-common denominator as a default position. What is the point of sharpening arguments and positions if ultimately they will become diluted anyway? Internal conflict-avoidance is corrosive for decision-making not only because it can lead to group-think, but more importantly because it numbs the underlying intellectual analysis and sometimes prevents individuals from developing their own considered judgments and opinions. The objective of each position is not to persuade, but rather to prevent disagreement. Everyone speaks the same terms, nodding in approval, but no one shares the same meaning. Language is sanitized and thereby made empty. Slogans abound but strategy, which relies on choices, priorities, and objectives, is missing. These internal dynamics within the EU institutions, in turn, affect the type of external public debate, which similarly rehearses consensus arguments and echoes catch phrases. No

68 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

wonder the former EU official advised me to pepper my paper with trendy buzzwords. What if European leaders engaged in a structured debate on Europe’s strategy, supported by underlying study papers and policy options, in a formalized rather than improvisational manner and with contested arguments rather than consensual talking points? Such deep-dive sessions across various regional and thematic issues—analyzing the international context, European interests and objectives, and policy options—would require many hours at the level of heads of state and government, as well as hundreds of hours of preparatory sessions at ministerial and staff levels. Instead of coordinating logistics of meetings and talking points, formats such as the Commissioners’ Group on External Action or the Group for External Coordination could facilitate such discussions. Yet, contemporary crises, which seem to only accumulate, normally preclude such exchanges let alone specific conclusions. In any event, the rapid evolution of issues and the diversity of interests within Europe may make it difficult to capture at a single point in time in one document all of the necessary arguments and perspectives, as Kennan and Bundy had argued even in the case of the United States. But if strategy is conceived not as a static document, but rather a dynamic process of thought and action resting in the hearts and minds of strategists throughout EU institutions and European governments, current debates on European strategies can advance and serve as sounder foundations to improve the quality of policy-making. Moreover, there are sufficient statements over time by leaders collectively, individually, and by various institutions and ministries to be able to reconstruct descriptively how a strategic debate among European policy-makers might develop, as well as how, prescriptively, it should evolve. There is an identifiable center of gravity in elite opinion, as well as outstanding questions that would need to be further fleshed out and resolved based on a full assessment of the competing alternatives. A useful starting point is the European Council’s five-year strategic agenda adopted in 2019. It lists four main priorities—protecting citizens and freedoms; developing a strong and vibrant economic base; building a climate-neutral, green, fair, and social Europe; and promoting European interests and values on the global stage.16 Regarding foreign policy, the European Council determined that:

3  EUROPE’S LIBERAL FOUNDATIONS 

69

In a world of increasing uncertainty, complexity and change, the EU needs to pursue a strategic course of action and increase its capacity to act autonomously to safeguard its interests, uphold its values and way of life, and help shape the global future. The EU will remain a driving force behind multilateralism and the global rules-based international order, ensuring openness and fairness and the necessary reforms. … The EU will promote its own unique model of cooperation as inspiration for others. It will uphold the European perspective for European States able and willing to join. It will pursue an ambitious neighbourhood policy. It will develop a comprehensive partnership with Africa. Together with global partners sharing our values, the EU will continue to work towards global peace and stability, and to promote democracy and human rights. But to better defend its interests and values and help shape the new global environment, the EU needs to be more assertive and effective. This requires us to be more united in the stances we take, and more determined and effective in exerting our influence. It also means making more resources available and better using those we already have at our disposal. And it means giving a clearer priority to European economic, political and security interests, leveraging all policies to that end. … Relations with strategic partners, including our transatlantic partners, and emerging powers have to be a key component of a robust foreign policy. To that end, there need to be far more synergies between the EU and the bilateral levels. The EU can only engage with other global powers on an equal footing if it avoids a piecemeal approach and presents a united front, backed up by EU and Member State resources.

This focus on Europe’s role in shaping the global order follows the European Council’s earlier conclusion regarding the “importance of preserving and deepening the rules-based multilateral system.”17 It was also reflected in the latest review of the EU Global Strategy conducted by the European External Action Service, which held that the “rules-based international order, centered on International Law, including Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law, is an existential interest of the Union.”18 The EEAS also resolved that a “more autonomous EU is one which is more able to act, together with its partners wherever possible, but alone when necessary.” This tone of language marks a subtle but important shift in European thinking. The EU Global Strategy also emphasized the liberal order as a

70 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

core interest for Europe; however, its focus was more internally oriented. As Nathalie Tocci explains in her commentary: the EUGS can be viewed as a “liberal” rather than as a “post-liberal” strategy. But its liberal connotations are internal more than external. In other words, the EUGS stands firm on the affirmation of the EU’s internal liberal values, which lie at the core of the European project. Its firmness on this point is all the more important given that those values are being questioned within, as evident with the rise of extreme right-wing populism across the continent. But this does not mean that the EU expects its internal liberal values to be adopted externally too. What it does mean is that the EU’s internal democratic values, of which the respect for rule of law and international law is the key, should guide the Union’s external policy. As explained below, the pragmatism with which the EU observes the world should not distract or detract from its commitment to the principles which underpin its foreign policy.

In this conception, liberal values shape order-building within the EU but externally act only as constraints on EU action rather than as lodestars to shape the global order. Concretely, this view would imply that the EU should care about the rule of law in Hungary, but toward Ukraine or Tunisia, the rule of law only requires transparency of EU aid or other policies but does not necessarily help define EU objectives. Currently, liberal order is under attack both within and without Europe. For the first time since 1989, illiberal authoritarianism (primarily in China and Russia, but also in parts of Europe) is proffered as an attractive alternative for global success in juxtaposition to democracy, human rights, and social market economy. The unpredictability of the Trump administration’s foreign policy further shook  the foundations of the free world. Strikingly, the 2017 U.S. national security strategy excluded the liberal order as a core U.S. interest, in breach with decades-long tradition dating back to NSC-68 that articulated in 1950 the Truman administration’s strategy for the defense of the free world. At the 2018 G7 Summit, the United States sought to delete any references to the rules-based international order. For Europe, its primary strategic choice is whether also to give up its commitment to the external liberal order, and focus internally as argued by Tocci, or whether to defend the liberal order internally and externally, as suggested by the European Council and EEAS more recently. My argument is that the European Union, as a creature of the liberal order, has an existential stake in preserving it externally as well as

3  EUROPE’S LIBERAL FOUNDATIONS 

71

internally, in Ukraine as well as in Hungary. As former U.S.  Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott once noted, the EU is the “greatest experiment in regional cooperation the world has ever known.”19 But its continued strength and vitality relies in part on a wider network of institutions and norms committed to the same fundamental values of democracy, human rights, rule of law, and market capitalism. History shows that the vibrancy of democracy is contingent on international factors as well as domestic sources. These external dynamics apply especially to European countries, given the limited size yet high degree of openness of most EU member states. For instance, whether democracy succeeds in Ukraine matters to the health of democracy in Poland or France. Thus, to exist let alone succeed, the EU needs to make the world safe for the liberal order, at home and abroad. As the liberal order is fraying, Europe has a vital interest in defending it, and can muster the political will and power resources to do so—with like-minded allies if possible, and in some cases, alone if necessary. Thus resurgent Europe—through the EU and its member states—needs to develop a strategy to preserve liberal values against illiberal forces, particularly in frontline states. Above all, European decision-makers need to take a broader view of their core, if not existential, interests at stake and devote greater time and resources to serving them. Designing and implementing a strategy of liberal order, as Kennan and Nitze had experienced, ultimately requires public understanding and support for its success. What is then the liberal order, as viewed from Europe, how has it fared, and how has Europe benefited from it?

Liberal Order’s Fabric Any order (international or domestic) is best envisioned as a complex quilt, with various layers and threads incorporated over time and with varying coverage and protection. The liberal order—often referred to also as the “rules-based global order” or “free world”—was a new vision to organize international politics after the devastation of World War II.20 It sought to transcend balance-of-power politics and eschew concepts of spheres of influence, yet its underlying theory was based more on hope than experience. The 20 years preceding 1939 did not inspire confidence that a liberal order organized around democracy, human rights, and market economy could succeed in generating peace and prosperity over a long period of time. But the six years of destruction unleashed subsequently

72 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

appeared to leave no alternative but to reconstruct a stronger and more durable liberal order. “Order” meant a set of rules and norms to govern state and non-state behavior, through international law centered around the UN Charter and multilateral treaties, as well as political norms generated by state practice. Its primary objective was to minimize violence and provide stability. And its opposite was “disorder,” characterized by war, conflict, and uncertainty. “Liberal” meant a specific set of rules and norms, based primarily around democracy, human rights, rule of law, market economy, and fair trade. Its primary objective was to promote these values, which were deemed universal in aspiration though partial in actuality. Its contrast was illiberal, characterized by authoritarianism, arbitrariness, and non-market economies. Thus, the liberal order is a particular type of rules-based order and does not necessarily span the whole world, as it avowedly did not during the Cold War. The overarching interest of the liberal order was peace. Both the European Communities (EC; the initial European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community) and NATO were constructed as peace projects to prevent conflict from within and deter aggression from without. For Robert Schuman, European integration was “a grand experiment, the fulfillment of the same recurring dream that has concerned us Europeans for ten centuries: the guarantee of perpetual peace.”21 In calling for joint regulation of the coal and steel markets, Schuman explained: World peace cannot be safeguarded without the making of creative efforts proportionate to the dangers which threaten it. The contribution which an organized and living Europe can bring to civilization is indispensable to the maintenance of peaceful relations. In taking upon herself for more than 20 years the role of champion of a united Europe, France has always had as her essential aim the service of peace. A united Europe was not achieved and we had war. Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a single plan. It will be built through concrete achievements which first create a de facto solidarity.22

Likewise, Dean Acheson described NATO as a “great cooperative step to promote peace through discouraging aggression and contributing

3  EUROPE’S LIBERAL FOUNDATIONS 

73

toward the stability and security of the North Atlantic area”23—a theme emphasized in the Washington Treaty establishing the alliance.24 An integrally related interest was prosperity. The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (to run the Marshall Plan, and subsequently refashioned as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD), the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (under which countries committed to reduce trade barriers), and the European Economic Community (which facilitated economic integration in Europe) were paradigmatic institutions serving this interest. Economic well-being was good in itself, but also helped sustain peace: by reducing causes for conflict and by providing the liberal order with material resources to protect itself from external threats. Over time, economic security became synonymous with national security. The final core interest was political inclusion, through democratic processes, rule of law, and protection of human rights. For instance, the Council of Europe was established in 1949 with the express purpose to uphold “individual freedom, political liberty and the rule of law, principles which form the basis of all genuine democracy.”25 In 1975, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, including the United States and the Soviet Union, reached agreement on the Helsinki Final Act, in which the parties agreed among other things to “respect human rights and fundamental freedoms.”26 Whereas other orders could provide peace (as, e.g., bipolar balance-of-power during the Cold War) and perhaps even prosperity (as, e.g., in China), only the liberal order considered the individual as the central actor with inalienable rights. Like prosperity, liberal democracy was an end in itself, but also served the wider cause of peace, as democracies were viewed less likely to go to war with each other, and their peace was viewed as more genuine and sustainable than prior balance-of-­ power models.

Benefits On all three interests, the liberal order has broadly delivered, particularly for Europe and the West. Within the order, a genuine peace emerged such that war among its members is unforeseeable and unthinkable. Prosperity steadily grew internally. And democracies gradually expanded in number. In short, the hopes of 1945 were validated by subsequent decades of historical experience, notwithstanding prior setbacks and lessons. Western

74 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

citizens grew wealthier, as average annual growth in GDP per capita in the European Union and the United States exceeded global growth. To be sure, some countries outside of the liberal order, such as China and India, grew even faster, but those were outliers compared to other regions in the world. Economic growth in the Soviet Union was difficult to assess accurately, but the available World Bank figures for Russia between 1989 and 2016 show a meager 0.50% growth per year in GDP per capita, or effectively stagnation. During the Cold War, the liberal order roughly encompassed and benefited the so-called West—Western Europe, the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand—a broad geographical scope but clearly not the whole world. Its primary institutions were NATO, the European Communities, the World Bank, IMF, OECD, and the GATT. Its language was based around law and values, while fully cognizant of power realities and interest calculations. In contrast, an illiberal order was established by the Soviet Union, based around the Warsaw Pact and the Comecon. Its structures reflected naked power, with routine internal violence in the form of the secret police and periodically reinforced with military muscle to crush resistance, as during the Hungarian uprising in 1956, Prague spring in 1968, or the imposition of martial law in Poland in 1981. The two orders co-existed uneasily in the world, within the United Nations, which accommodated both liberal values and illiberal participants in a type of tragic balance-of-power between freedom and oppression.27 Paradoxically, the UN was constructed to make the world safe for democracy (through its references to human rights and political freedoms) as well as to make the world non-threatening to authoritarians (through its protection of sovereignty and political independence). For Western Europe, in particular, the liberal order during the Cold War provided the necessary structural conditions to establish supranational institutions of the European Communities, as well as to establish democratic governance in countries such as Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Greece. NATO’s Article 5 guarantee and the presence of U.S. troops in Western Europe took the historical security concerns among the European states off the table. Similarly, the daily habits of political and economic integration through the European Communities transformed European politics and began to frame national interest for EC member states from a European-wide perspective, especially for West Germany.

3  EUROPE’S LIBERAL FOUNDATIONS 

75

After the fall of communism in 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the liberal order began enlarging rapidly. The general organizing principle for European strategies in 2003 and 2016 and the NATO strategic concepts in 1991, 1999, and 2010 was expansion of democracy, human rights, and market economy around the world—and potentially to encompass the whole globe—as foundations for international peace and prosperity. For instance, NATO reaffirmed as its primary objective “the establishment of a just and lasting peaceful order in Europe” based on “common values of democracy, human rights and the rule of law.”28 During this time period, the European Community transformed into the European Union and doubled in membership and geographic size in the 1990s and 2000s. The EU’s first security strategy in 2003 opened triumphantly, stating that “Europe has never been so prosperous, so secure nor so free,” with a “period of peace and stability unprecedented in European history.” It argued that the “creation of the European Union has been central to this development” as “European countries are committed to dealing peacefully with disputes and to co-operating through common institutions.” It stressed the importance of “the progressive spread of the rule of law and democracy” to transform “authoritarian regimes” into “secure, stable and dynamic democracies,” as well as highlighted the ability of enlargement to implement “the vision of a united and peaceful continent.” The 2003 strategy also acknowledged that the United States played a “critical role in European integration and European security, in particular through NATO.”29 Describing the transatlantic relationship as “irreplaceable,” the report stated that “[a]cting together, the European Union and the United States can be a formidable force for good in the world” and called for an “effective and balanced partnership with the USA.” Finally, the 2003 document argued that the EU’s “security and prosperity” depend on an “effective multilateral system.”30 It set out as the EU’s strategic objective the “development of a stronger international society, well functioning international institutions and a rule-based international order.”31 Echoing a Kantian vision of perpetual peace, it noted that the “quality of international society depends on the quality of the governments that are its foundation,” and therefore the “best protection for our security is a world of well-governed democratic states.” For the European Union, it argued, “[s]preading good governance, supporting social and political reform, dealing with corruption and abuse of power, establishing

76 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

the rule of law and protecting human rights are the best means of strengthening the international order.”32 Alongside EU enlargement, NATO expanded across Central and Eastern Europe and was considered (albeit briefly) to potentially include Russia. The GATT transformed into the World Trade Organization in 1995 and welcomed over 20 new non-GATT members, such as China, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, and Russia. During this period, the number of democracies nearly doubled and freedom was on the rise. Peace among the great powers continued and was intended to facilitate integration of China, Russia, and other states into the liberal order by adopting the same model of democracy, human rights, rule of law, and market economy. In many respects, the 1990s were the golden age of the liberal order: internal confidence, external enlargement, and a sense of convergence around a common vision for global success. European leaders, alongside their Western colleagues, actively participated through various instruments of the liberal order to expand its orbit and benefits. It was a time of institutional vitality and innovation, as the EU went through four treaty changes in less than a generation (the same number as during the prior four decades). And it seemed that history had come to an “end” with the ultimate victory of the model of liberal democracy and market capitalism.33 But the liberal order’s growth and overall attractiveness obscured emerging critiques of the order. German Chancellor Angela Merkel noted that the “peace that we have today, and that we sometimes take too much for granted, is anything but a matter of course. … We see that international cooperation, the peaceful balancing of interests, and even the European peace project, are again being called into question.”34 UN Secretary-General António Guterres argued that globalization “has brought enormous benefits but also dramatically increased inequalities in the world with terrible consequences in relation to the wellbeing of people, and also to the security of our world.”35 And as former European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker put it, “the international order that served Europeans so well after the Second World War is being increasingly called into question,” both internally and externally.36

3  EUROPE’S LIBERAL FOUNDATIONS 

77

Internal Discontents The liberal order’s success in delivering broad benefits to its members in terms of peace, prosperity, and political inclusion obfuscates the diversity of outcomes experienced by various parts of society within the order. While globalization has lifted millions out of poverty (primarily in China) and has enriched the global elite, it has also occurred concurrently with a squeezing and decline of the developed-world middle class. In particular, inequalities have built up within the system, in parts of Europe and especially in the United States, such that the basic bargain is deemed by some to be fundamentally unfair. To be sure, many of the criticisms are not often framed as debates about the rules-based global order or even merely economic interest, and instead are driven by a slew of local, regional, or national concerns or issues—as most domestic politics is. Nor are inequalities of income the only sources of critiques; migration, identity, and sovereignty also feature prominently in various debates. However, a general narrative has emerged that the current institutional structures—however they are called—are not delivering for various groups of people, who may prefer other alternatives. A single change in one or another policy would not be viewed as a claim to overturn the liberal order; but a wholesale set of claims to unravel many of the long-established norms, rules, and institutions can be viewed from this wider perspective as a systemic challenge. In Europe, income inequality has increased compared to the 1980s, but only slightly in aggregate terms. And in fact, it has gradually decreased since the 1990s, as Central and Eastern Europe states have grown quickly in terms of GDP per capita compared to Western European states. Currently within the EU, there is a range of income inequalities, but all EU member states are more equal than the United States now and all apart from Lithuania and Bulgaria have greater equality than the United States even in the 1980s or early 1960s. And inequalities in the EU fluctuated only marginally since the large-scale enlargement across Central and Eastern Europe in 2004, with marked deterioration only in the United Kingdom and Portugal and significant improvements in some countries such as Poland (Fig. 3.1). In the United States, on the other hand, real wages stagnated for most workers in recent decades, with significant gains only for the top earners.37 As a consequence, income inequality in the United States, already high in the 1980s, rose significantly. Thus, to the extent that there is

78 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

Fig. 3.1  Income inequality in Europe and the United States. Source: Gini coefficients adapted from Bruegel, 2016. Data from US Standardized World Income Inequality Database (SWIID), while EU28 data is from Darvas, 2016, based on individual country data from Solt (2016)

disenchantment with the liberal order due to globalization and income inequalities, it reflects reality primarily in the United States but not in Europe. In fact, Europe’s social market economy—with an extensive welfare state to provide unemployment benefits and job retraining to compensate for displaced sectors—has managed to maintain relatively equal societies. The overall level of income inequality in Europe has essentially stayed the same between 2005 and 2016 and improved in some countries, such as Ireland, Poland, and Portugal (Fig. 3.2). These growing economic gaps, particularly in the United States, became one of the central critiques of populists, who argued that the system was rigged in favor of the elites, which were able to capture most of the economic growth at the expense of a hollowed-out middle class.38 Yet, economic discontent was more a consequence of domestic tax and spending policies than foreign policies or even trade policy, as evident in the stark differences between U.S. and EU experiences. Nonetheless, foreign policy has become an easy scapegoat for flaws in domestic policies (Fig. 3.3).

3  EUROPE’S LIBERAL FOUNDATIONS 

79

2016 Gini 2005 Gini

Slovakia Slovenia Czech Republic Finland Belgium Netherlands Austria Sweden Denmark Hungary Malta France Germany Ireland Croatia Poland European Union Luxembourg United Kingdom Cyprus Estonia Italy Portugal Greece Latvia Spain Romania Lithuania Bulgaria

45.0 40.0 35.0 30.0 25.0 20.0 15.0 10.0 5.0 0.0

Fig. 3.2  Income distribution in Europe. Source: Eurostat; 2005 data not available for Bulgaria, Croatia, and Romania

Fig. 3.3  Is life better or worse than 50 years ago? Source: Pew Research Center

Growing income inequality was not the only reason for the rise of populism and extremism, and a waning of support for the liberal order within the West. Other factors include a wider sense of loss of sovereignty and national identity, as well as misgivings about potential loss of control over one’s future, with larger forces of globalization overpowering individual initiative. It is difficult to assess fully the impact of these trends, as concepts such as identity and culture are elusive to measure in theory and

80 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

malleable in practice. Yet, the psychological need for simplicity and clarity, rather than complexity and ambiguity, is an ineluctable feature of modern politics and needs to be acknowledged with empathy and addressed through exchange and dialogue. The whole slew of concerns, with economics as the most measurable and palpable one, became conflated as grounds to revisit wholesale fundamental commitments to liberal order and its underlying norms. The basic political fault lines, instead of traditional distinctions between right and left, have become reoriented around divisions between those favoring open and liberal societies versus closed and illiberal societies. For the critics, the argument seemed simple: if the order has not delivered for us in terms of our prosperity and perhaps even our political inclusion, why should we support it? And most importantly, why should taxpayer funding be allocated for global efforts, when there are so many problems at home?

External Challengers As Angela Merkel recently noted, it seemed in the early 1990s that “the world was on the road to liberty, to more democracy and human rights. We were all full of this optimism, which invigorated the transatlantic partnership in the early years.”39 Yet, this hope for global convergence around democracy, human rights, rule of law, and market economy was short-­ lived. Instead of global buy-in, the liberal consensus started to receive pushback from two main sources—Russia and China. Rather than democratizing, both countries grew more authoritarian, while embracing some capitalist principles to expand their material base. The paradigmatic feature of today’s world disorder is increased great power competition. The rivalry between autocracy and democracy—once thought a thing of the past—is back again and reshaping the twenty-first century’s geostrategic landscape, after roughly a quarter of a century of “great power consensus.” As Russia and China have grown economically, both have started to pose structural challenges for the liberal order, but each in different ways, given their vastly distinct scale and scope. Over the medium term, Russia is likely to act as a spoiler to the liberal order’s objectives and policies. First in Georgia in 2008 and then in Ukraine in 2014, Russia has sought to forestall EU and NATO engagement in the region by invading both countries and supporting separatist movements. Its most recent national security strategy, published in December 2015, explicitly blamed NATO’s expansion as “creating a

3  EUROPE’S LIBERAL FOUNDATIONS 

81

threat to [Russia’s] national security.” It also sought to defend “traditional Russian religious and moral values” against “external expansion of ideologies and values.” Yet, Russia’s limited economic base of only 2% of global GDP (less than South Korea and comparable to Australia) and meager economic performance over the past quarter century severely constrains its ability to attract new adherents to its model. Its sizable military instrument still enables Russia to play the role of a spoiler in destabilizing the liberal order. But given its small scale of material resources, it cannot even purport to overturn the order. Challenge

Russia

China

Type Scale Duration

Spoiler Limited Near and medium term Regional and beyond Military and hybrid threats Stagnating (e.g., Eurasian Economic Union) Frequent use of veto to block action

Transformational Systemic Medium to long term

Scope Instrument Institutional initiatives UN Security Council activity

Global Political, economic, and military Flourishing (e.g., Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Belt and Road Initiative, 16+1 Format in Central and Eastern Europe) Largest P5 contributor of peacekeeping troops and second largest donor for peacekeeping

Over the long term, China presents a transformational challenge to the liberal order, given its economic heft, extraordinary prosperity gains, and rapidly expanding military. President Xi Jinping’s outline of the “Chinese Dream” in speeches during 2017 emphasized the role of Communist “Party leadership,” “consultative democracy,” and “democratic dictatorship” in driving China’s economic success. His elimination of term limits enabling him potentially to remain in power for life further cements China’s authoritarian model. China has the potential to create a new global order: rules-based and predictable, but not liberal—that is, without protection of human rights, provision of rule of law, promotion of democracy, or preservation of market capitalism. In the near term, it will be difficult for China to reshape the liberal order given institutional resilience.40 Over time, however, China could promote authoritarianism and illiberal values around the world, just as the West promoted democracy and liberal values, given its commensurate economic scale and growing military might.

82 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

Western Fissures Since World War II, Europe’s liberal foundations have been built with extensive support from the United States, through not only NATO but also the GATT/WTO, OECD, OSCE, and various joint missions and operations. Donald Trump’s breach with long-standing U.S. policy toward Europe—attacking the EU as a “foe” akin to China,41 reportedly mandating his former ambassador to “destroy the EU,”42 imposing trade tariffs on the EU, encouraging France to leave the EU,43 questioning the credibility of NATO’s Article 5,44 and threatening to withdraw from NATO45— left Europe without its core partner in defending liberal values, until the arrival of the Biden-Harris team (potentially  the most transatlanticist U.S. administration in decades). The Trump years were the “lowest” point in the history of transatlantic relations, one senior German government official told me, with the U.S. administration for the first time “hostile” toward European integration.46 Wolfgang Ischinger observed that the dismal  state of affairs reflected “a particularly severe case of a lack of coordination and consultation on a number of issues.”47 Europeans “have a special place of disdain for Trump for all kinds of reasons that go way beyond what he did,”48 another German foreign policy expert concluded. Given that “Trump looks like he is destroying American democracy, at least for many Germans, that means for us that the master that we learned from all of a sudden is going over to the dark side and that makes us nervous about ourselves.”49 This psychological impact is “deeply ingrained” among Germans in particular, “because the little confidence they have they cannot have shattered.”50 As bad as the transatlantic relationship was under Trump, Europeans feared it would get even worse if he won a second term. One senior German official described the challenge as “different in kind” and “existential,” arguing that a second Trump administration would require Europe to significantly reconsider the transatlantic relationship.51 On the other hand, one senior EU official observed that if Europeans “do soul-­ searching, thinking that they have to rethink their relationship with the United States, they will not get very far as the issue would become very divisive within the EU.”52 Combined with the internal challenges and external threats to the liberal order, this fissure within the West also raised fundamental questions about Europe’s strategy. European leaders quickly determined that they needed to chart their own course. In response to numerous attacks from Trump, Donald Tusk asked: “With friends like that, who needs enemies?”53 Trump’s “capricious

3  EUROPE’S LIBERAL FOUNDATIONS 

83

assertiveness,” Tusk argued, helped Europe get “rid of all illusions.” He continued: “if you need a helping hand, you will find one at the end of your arm.”54 Tusk argued that the European Union should “do everything in its power to protect, in spite of today’s mood, the transatlantic bond,” but would also need to prepare for “those scenarios, where [it] will have to act on [its] own.”55 In a similar vein, German President Frank-­ Walter Steinmeier concluded, the “we of the West that was [previously] taken as given is something that can no longer be taken for granted.”56 Chancellor Merkel likewise argued that the “times in which [Europeans] could completely depend on others are, to a certain extent, over” and that “Europeans truly have to take our fate into our own hands.”57 She later doubled-down, explaining that “it is not the case that the United States of America will simply protect us. Instead, Europe must take its destiny in its own hands. That is our job for the future.”58 President Macron has also numerously emphasized the need to develop a European strategy. This drastic shift in Europe’s strategic context—the loss of a core partner in jointly upholding the liberal order, internal questioning of the order’s distribution of benefits, and external threats from Russia and China—could have had several consequences. European leaders could have decided to focus on internal issues, in order to protect their liberal democracies, and lower ambitions for foreign policy. Likewise, they could have joined forces with Trump’s nationalist and populist vision for the West59 and give up on liberal values externally and internally. Instead, they chose a more ambitious set of objectives: saving the liberal order at home by protecting it abroad. In a speech to the Joint Session of the U.S. Congress, Macron called for “a more effective, accountable, and results-oriented multilateralism” to build the “21st century world order.”60 Similarly, at the European Parliament, Merkel argued that “[o]ld allies are calling tried and proven alliances into question” but stressed that “tolerance is the soul of Europe.” She described solidarity as the core value of “European DNA”: “solidarity as a universal, fundamental value; solidarity as a responsibility for the community; and solidarity in terms of one’s own rational interest.” She emphasized that “nationalism and egoism must never again be allowed to gain a foothold in Europe” and instead “tolerance and solidarity are our common future.”61 She later expanded that she would always “continue to advocate for good, intensive, values-based transatlantic relations,” but that Europe’s “interest in good transatlantic relations is, in [her] opinion, greater than is perhaps the interest of the United States of America at the

84 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

moment.”62 In effect, European leaders have gradually come to the view that Europe would need to help defend and shape the liberal order, as much as benefit from its existence. As former European Council President Donald Tusk argued, the “European Union stands for freedom and a credible rules-based global order. Because this order is a real sine qua non condition for peace, stability and a global economy that works for everyone. An alternative to this order is chaos which always encourages violence, egoism and extremisms.”63 Europe would strive to defend the liberal order, with like-minded partners when possible and alone if necessary. Yet, any strategic shift in desired interests and objectives also requires a proportional change in allocated resources, which has been a more difficult endeavor.

Burden-Sharing At the level of elites and governments, there has been a growing public debate as to the distribution of costs in upholding the liberal order, both within the West and within Europe, particularly across two categories: defense and development. Although the current arguments have focused around defense spending, both instruments of power were debated historically and deserve equal attention. The issue of burden-sharing within the transatlantic community dates back to the John F. Kennedy administration in the early 1960s. After the Marshall Plan was completed and Western Europe was able to recover economically, Kennedy argued privately in a Cabinet meeting that the United States “cannot continue to pay for the military protection of Europe while the NATO states are not paying their fair share and living off the ‘fat of the land.’ We have been very generous to Europe and it is now time for us to look out for ourselves, knowing full well that the Europeans will not do anything for us simply because we have in the past helped them. … We should consider very hard the narrower interests of the United States.”64 The need for burden-sharing was due to the collective responsibility for the fate of the free world, and involved both defense and development spending: “building of a workable international system requires that Europe’s resources be available for defense and for aid to less developed areas in much greater amounts than has so far been the case.”65 Publicly, Kennedy communicated the need for burden-sharing more diplomatically: “The United States, because of its larger resources, is prepared to bear a heavy share of this burden. But I am confident that the

3  EUROPE’S LIBERAL FOUNDATIONS 

85

nations of Western Europe will wish to commit an equitable proportion of their own growing resources to the common effort of economic development, as well as to the tasks of the common defense.”66 Subsequent administrations from Lyndon Johnson to George H.W. Bush repeated the same message, and with good effect. In fact, European defense spending doubled during the last three decades of the Cold War, between 1961 and 1990, whereas U.S. spending increased by only half—notwithstanding significant spikes during the Vietnam War and the Reagan military buildup. By the end of the 1990s, European defense spending was approximately 60% of the U.S. total—not equal but considerable. Through NATO, Europe and the United States successfully intervened jointly in Bosnia to end its civil war and stop human atrocities, after a series of delays and mistakes, as well as in Kosovo to prevent crimes against humanity from escalating there. In 1999, the European Council committed to be able to deploy up to 60,000 troops within 60 days and sustainable over a year to conduct a range of crisis management operations. However, these positive trends in relative burden-sharing reversed sharply over the subsequent two decades. The massive expansion of the U.S. military during the George W. Bush administration, in the war against terror and the 2003 Iraq War, combined with significant defense cuts in Europe in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, meant that the ratio plummeted to 33% by 2011. Operational gaps were particularly evident during NATO’s intervention in Libya, when France and the United Kingdom pushed to overthrow the Qaddafi regime but “[o]nly eight of the 28 allies sent combat forces and most ran out of ammunition, having to buy, at cost, ammunition stockpiled by the United States.”67 In this context, U.S.  Secretary of Defense Robert Gates fired a warning shot shortly before leaving office: “The blunt reality is that there will be dwindling appetite and patience in the U.S. Congress—and in the American body politic writ large—to expend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary changes to be serious and capable partners in their own defense.”68 Indeed, aggregate defense spending levels in Europe were over 13% lower in 2014 than in 1991. Among the top six spenders in Europe, the biggest decreases occurred in Germany (minus 32%) and Italy (minus 16%), with the biggest increase in Poland (plus 100%). In 2014, these downward trends finally began to reverse.

86 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

In the aftermath of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and aggression in Ukraine, European leaders agreed at the NATO summit in Wales to increase defense spending to 2% of GDP within ten years—about $100 billion more, or a 40% increase. Some European countries have been able to drastically increase their defense spending within a single year: for instance, Lithuania (33% in 2015), Latvia (44% in 2016), and Romania (50% in 2017). If European allies were able to implement the Wales spending commitments, they would restore the relative levels in defense burden-­ sharing of the 1990s (about 60% of the U.S. total) (Fig. 3.4). Donald Trump used these long-standing arguments as a rhetorical cudgel launched pell-mell against European allies. In 2017 at the NATO summit, he argued that allies “must finally contribute their fair share and meet their financial obligations,” claiming that they “owe massive amounts of money from past years and not paying in those past years.”69 Two years later, he suggested that he might not come to the defense of such “delinquent” countries.70 Notwithstanding Trump’s threats and bluster, he had no notable influence on European defense spending, which increased the same 5%

800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 1949 1951 1953 1955 1957 1959 1961 1963 1965 1967 1969 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015 2017

0

United States

Europe

China

Russia

Fig. 3.4  Military spending in the world. Source: SIPRI; data in USD billions; Europe consists of Western European countries before 1990 and includes Central European countries after 1990; Russia includes USSR data for 1989–1990 for the sake of comparison

3  EUROPE’S LIBERAL FOUNDATIONS 

87

the last two years of the Obama-Biden administration as during the first two years of Trump’s administration. As the French strategic review observed, “Europeans have started rebuilding their forces and capabilities … less as a response to American demands of fairer burden sharing, than as Europeans taking increasing responsibility for their own security; an action made indispensable by the degradation of Europe’s strategic environment.”71 The argument around wholesale European free-riding on U.S. defense spending and security provision is inaccurate across time and across Europe: (1) it does not acknowledge the significant aggregate increases in European spending throughout the Cold War; and (2) it does not account for the variation of spending growth across the EU (Fig. 3.5). In fact, European spending has increased steadily over the past six years, since Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea, such that it has added the near-­ equivalent of Italy or Spain to its defense arsenal. Moreover, European countries have still managed to deploy their troops on numerous missions and operations, and in significant numbers, throughout the Middle East and Africa. Collectively, Europe fielded around 34,000 troops in over 20

70 60 50 40 30 20 10

1949 1951 1953 1955 1957 1959 1961 1963 1965 1967 1969 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015 2017

0

France

UK

Germany

Italy

Spain

Poland

Fig. 3.5  Military spending in Europe. Source: SIPRI; data in USD billions; Europe consists of Western European countries before 1990 and includes Central European countries after 1990

88 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

countries in 2017, including on missions with high degrees of risk in combat zones such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Sahel. Although the disparity in defense capabilities and power projections between Europe and America is significant, the main point is that Europe already has a vast core base of resources and battle experience that it can expand and build on. And there may be an inherent logical division of labor between Europe and America in projecting stability based on comparative advantage, historical linkages, and regional proximity. However, the allocation of effort within Europe has been as uneven as across the West. The debate about burden-sharing is not only taking place between the United States and Europe, but also within Europe. Quoting General de Gaulle, Macron observed that “[n]o alliance can be considered separately from the effort undertaken by each of its members, on its behalf, at its cost and on the basis of interests which are its own.”72 He posed several questions for Europeans (Fig. 3.6): • Why have they diminished their efforts to such an extent since the 1990s? • Why aren’t they more willing to make defense one of their budgetary priorities and in doing so, make the necessary sacrifices at a time when risks are accumulating?

6.0% 5.5% 5.0% 4.5% 4.0% 3.5% 3.0% 2.5% 2.0% 1.5% 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

1.0%

United States

France

United Kingdom

Italy

Spain

Poland

Germany

Fig. 3.6  Allied defense spending after the Cold War. Source: SIPRI; data as % of GDP

3  EUROPE’S LIBERAL FOUNDATIONS 

89

• Why are there such big differences between budgets and defense capabilities of European States when the threats we are facing are similar, for the most part?73 He further argued that European defense “should not remain empty rhetoric, as was the case after 1999.”74 Although Macron did not identify any particular European countries, the data shows that Germany, Italy, and Spain could spend significantly more, given that each country spent only about 1.3% of GDP on defense in 2018. While the low ratios are sometimes attributed to the austerity measures after the 2008 financial crisis, they in fact predate it to the early 2000s (Fig. 3.7). Although the burden-sharing debate has focused thus far on defense spending, others can point to inequalities between the United States and Europe in terms of official development assistance. Indeed, since the 1970s the gap has widened significantly and now accounts for over $50 billion that the European Union collectively spends more than the United States on development. While development burden-sharing has not become yet as prominent an issue as defense burden-sharing in public debates, it should. Each is a form of material resources allocated in part to secure the benefits of the liberal order, with development often a more effective way to spend money to prevent problems from arising in the first place. Development aid was also core to the U.S. approach in constructing the liberal order through the Marshall Plan, the World Bank, and the

1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016

200 180 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0

Total

Europe

United States

Fig. 3.7  Official development assistance. Source: OECD; data in USD billions; Europe consists of Development Assistance Committee EU Members + European Commission

90 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

OECD.  And it deserves to resume its rightful place in the panoply of mechanisms to preserve the order. * * * Six decades ago, at a time when the costs of protecting the liberal order in terms of defense spending and development aid first came up, the Kennedy administration considered that the problem was due to the fragmentation of European efforts across various member states. One member of the Policy Planning Staff argued, the “European will to bear these sacrifices is lacking, in part, because individual governments remain preoccupied with relatively local interests and, shocked by the dramatic postwar decrease in their national power, do not believe that increased national effort could have significant effect.”75 He hypothesized that the “situation might change, however, if decisions about increased effort could be taken by a single European Community for its members as a whole. Europe’s potential for contributing to the defense and development of the free world might then become sufficiently clear to move the Europeans to needed external action.”76 European defense spending did increase over the subsequent three decades, but not because of any new European integration on defense policy. Instead, it reflected a series of national decisions based on internal logic and the larger Western strategy of containment against the Soviet Union. After the Cold War, strategies of engagement and enlargement led to so-called peace dividends across the West, as both European and U.S. militaries gradually demobilized. The main problem for Europe’s defense is that it continued to demobilize after the 1990s, notwithstanding new threats to its security from terrorist groups and attacks from Al-Qaeda in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005. Shifts in the strategic context did not translate into shifts in resources. At the same time, there were significant efforts at increasing European defense coordination, through the U.K.-France Declaration at St. Malo in 1998, the Helsinki headline goals in 1999, and the European Defence Agency in 2004. The dual external shocks of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine in 2014 and Trump’s election in 2016 have provided a new opportunity to reconsider the basic principles of European strategy: desired ends and allocated means. At a collective level, European leaders seemed to have doubled-­ down on their commitment to the liberal order as a strategic interest and

3  EUROPE’S LIBERAL FOUNDATIONS 

91

objective. They should also ensure that the liberal order is recognized as a central concern as part of their national strategies as all have a vital interest in preserving it. Recent strategy speeches by President Macron and Chancellor Merkel are paradigm examples of these commitments. Public debates on forging an ever closer Union, including the Conference on the Future of Europe, should also address the wider questions of sustaining liberal order, as the two are inextricably intertwined. Post-Brexit, this organizing principle could also provide for continued coordination between the EU and the United Kingdom on a wide range of defense, security, and foreign policy issues. Perhaps even more important than the recognition of the liberal order, externally and internally, as a European interest will be connecting this idea to specific policies and operations across various regions and themes. The bureaucratic link between objectives and implementation is crucial for the effectiveness of any strategy. It would also reveal the gaps in necessary resources, just as similar analyses in the United States in the late 1940s helped galvanize the required spending for a strategy of liberal order. None of these shifts in interests, objectives, means, or resources are possible without a coherent intellectual architecture linking all the relevant arguments in a single process or document: in short, a strategy. What occurs more frequently currently in Europe is separate debates on interests, disconnected negotiations on budgeting, and at another level and later time, consideration of specific policies. Without a full understanding of the strategic choices, it is also more difficult to build public consensus and galvanize the necessary resources. Thus, several imbalances have emerged over time within the liberal order, such that its various constituent parts could question its basic fairness in distributing benefits and burdens. Redressing these imbalances is crucial toward restoring the sense of solidarity and common destiny that served as the foundation for the liberal order and toward ensuring its success and sustainability into the future—particularly given challenges to the order from the outside. Even if the United States were to become more equal in terms of income distribution and development aid, and Europe would spend more on defense, other grievances voiced by populists could remain. But these three steps, which are politically feasible over a sustained period of time, would go a long way toward restoring transatlantic solidarity in defense of the free world, which is essential given threats to the West from without, particularly from Russia and China.

92 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

Notes 1. See Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1969). 2. See Robert Kagan, How Dean Acheson Won the Cold War: Statesmanship, Morality, and Foreign Policy, Carnegie (14 September 1998). 3. See Andrew Moravcisk, ed., Europe Without Illusions: The Paul-Henri Spaak Lectures, 1994-1999 (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2005). 4. European External Action Service, Shared Vision, Common Action: A Stronger Europe, A Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign And Security Policy (June 2016). 5. French Defence and National Security Strategic Review (October 2017). 6. Ibid. 7. Mark Leonard and Jeremy Shapiro, Strategic Sovereignty: How Europe Can Regain the Capacity to Act, ECFR (2019). (“The purpose of talking about ‘sovereignty’ is to create circumstances in which – if Europeans have a clear and shared sense of what they want to do in the world – they are able to achieve it. The term ‘strategic’ refers to setting rules at a global level rather than getting into the weeds of national life.”) 8. Speech by High Representative/Vice-­President Federica Mogherini at the European Parliament plenary session on the reports on Common Foreign and Security Policy and on Common Security and Defence Policy (11 December 2018). 9. See, for example, European Commission, A European Defence Fund: €5.5 billion per year to boost Europe’s defence capabilities (7 June 2017). 10. Blanca Ballester, The Cost of Non-­ Europe in Common Security and Defence Policy, European Parliamentary Research Service (2013). 11. Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, State of the European Union: The Hour of European Sovereignty (12 September 2018). 12. Emmanuel Macron, President of France, Speech at Sorbonne University (26 September 2017). 13. See Progress in European projects: One year after President Macron’s Initiative for Europe speech (26 September 2018). 14. Treaty Between France and Germany, signed at Aachen on January 22, 2019. (“Convaincues que l’amitié étroite entre la France et l’Allemagne a été déterminante et demeure un élément indispensable d’une Union européenne unie, efficace, souveraine et forte.”) 15. For my own view, see Bart M.J.  Szewczyk, European Sovereignty, Legitimacy, and Power (London: Routledge, 2020). 16. European Council, A New Strategic Agenda: 2019-­2024 (21 June 2019). 17. European Council, Conclusions, 28 June 2018.

3  EUROPE’S LIBERAL FOUNDATIONS 

93

18. EEAS, The European Union’s Global Strategy: Three years on, looking forward, 14 June 2019. 19. Strobe Talbott, ‘What Would Jean Monnet Have Done?’, New York Times (7 February 2014). 20. See G.  John Ikenberry, ‘The end of liberal international order?’, International Affairs 94: 1 January 2018, pp. 7–23; Joseph S. Nye, Jr., ‘Will the Liberal Order Survive? The History of an Idea’, Foreign Affairs, 96: 1 January/February 2017, pp. 10–16. 21. Robert Schuman, speech on the establishment of a European Community, Strasbourg, 16 May 1949, quoted in Guy Verhofstadt, Europe’s Last Chance: Why the European States Must Form a More Perfect Union 40 (New York: Basic Books, 2017). 22. Robert Schuman, Declaration, 9 May 1950. 23. The Secretary of State to the Embassy in Portugal, 21 March 1949. 24. The North Atlantic Treaty, Washington DC., 4 April 1949 (“The Parties to this Treaty reaffirm their faith in the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and their desire to live in peace with all peoples and all governments. They are determined to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilisation of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law. They seek to promote stability and well-being in the North Atlantic area. They are resolved to unite their efforts for collective defence and for the preservation of peace and security.”). 25. Statute of the Council of Europe, London, 5 May 1949. 26. Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe Final Act, Helsinki, 1975. 27. See Guido Calabresi and Philip Bobbitt, Tragic Choices (New York: W.W. Norton, 1978). 28. The Alliance’s New Strategic Concept, 8 November 1991; The Alliance’s Strategic Concept, 24 April 1999. 29. European Security Strategy -­A secure Europe in a better world (2003), p. 1. 30. Ibid. at 9. 31. Ibid. 32. Ibid. 33. Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992). 34. Speech by Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel at the opening of the Paris Peace Forum, 11 November 2018. 35. UN Secretary-General António Guterres, Opening remarks at joint press conference with European Commission President, Jean-­Claude Juncker, Brussels, 16 May 2018.

94 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

36. Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, State of the European Union: The Hour of European Sovereignty (12 September 2018). 37. See also Congressional Research Service, Real Wage Trends, 1979 to 2017 (Mar. 15, 2018); European Commission, European Semester Thematic Factsheet: Addressing Inequalities. 38. Jeff D. Colgan and Robert O. Keohane, “The Liberal Order Is Rigged: Fix It Now or Watch It Wither,” Foreign Affairs, 96: 3 May/June 2017, pp. 36–44. 39. Remarks at the Henry Kissinger Prize for Chancellor Angela Merkel, 21 January 2020. 40. Daniel Deudney and G.  John Ikenberry, “Liberal World: The Resilient Order,” Foreign Affairs, 96: 4 July/August 2018, pp. 16–24; Jake Sullivan, “The World After Trump: How the System Can Endure,” Foreign Affairs, 97: 2 March/April 2018, pp. 10–19; Joseph Nye, Jr., “How Sharp Power Threatens Soft Power,” Foreign Affairs Snapshot (24 January 2018); Ikenberry, “The end of liberal international order?”. 41. CBS News, “I think the European Union is a foe,” Trump says ahead of Putin meeting in Helsinki (July 15, 2018). 42. Sharon LaFraniere, Michael Crowley and Michael S.  Schmidt, Gordon Sondland Elbowed His Way Into Ukraine Policy. It Could Cost Him, The New York Times (Oct. 16, 2019). 43. Josh Rogin, Trump is trying to destabilize the European Union, Washington Post (June 29, 2018); Andrew Gray, Macron on Trump suggestion to leave EU: ‘You can imagine my response’, Politico (June 29, 2018). 44. Susan B.  Glasser, Trump National Security Team Blindsided by NATO Speech, Politico (June 5, 2017). 45. Josh Rogin, Trump is trying to destabilize the European Union, Washington Post (June 29, 2018); Remarks by President Trump and Prime Minister May of the United Kingdom in Joint Press Conference, July 13, 2018 (“Are you still threatening to potentially pull the United States out of NATO for any reason? And do you believe you can do that without Congress’s explicit support and approval? THE PRESIDENT: I think I probably can, but that’s unnecessary.”) 46. Interview with senior German government official, 21 February 2020. 47. Interview with Wolfgang Ischinger, 9 January 2020. 48. Interview with German foreign policy expert, 9 January 2020. 49. Ibid. 50. Ibid. 51. Interview with senior German government official, 21 February 2020. 52. Interview with senior EU official, 10 March 2020.

3  EUROPE’S LIBERAL FOUNDATIONS 

95

53. Remarks by President Donald Tusk ahead of the EU-­Western Balkans summit and the Leaders’ agenda dinner, May 16, 2018. 54. Ibid. 55. Ibid. 56. Opening Statement by Frank-­ Walter Steinmeier, Munich Security Conference (Feb. 14, 2020). 57. Giulia Paravicini, Angela Merkel: Europe must take ‘our fate’ into own hands, May 28, 2017. 58. Speech by Federal Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel at the ceremony awarding the International Charlemagne Prize to French President Emmanuel Macron in Aachen on 10 May 2018. 59. Michael Anton, The Trump Doctrine, Foreign Policy (Apr. 20, 2019). 60. Emmanuel Macron’s Speech at the United States Congress, Apr. 25, 2018. 61. Speech by Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel to the European Parliament, Strasbourg, 13 November 2018. 62. Remarks at the Henry Kissinger Prize for Chancellor Angela Merkel, 21 January 2020. 63. Address by President Donald Tusk at the 72nd United Nations General Assembly, 20 September 2017. 64. Remarks of President Kennedy to the National Security Council Meeting, 22 January 1963. 65. Draft Paper Prepared by Unknown Drafter, 8 November 1963 (on Basic National Security Policy). 66. Message to the Permanent Council of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 15 February 1961. 67. Steven Erlanger, What the War in Libya Tells Europe, Carnegie Europe, 21 September 2011. 68. Thom Shanker, Defense Secretary Warns NATO of ‘Dim’ Future, N.Y. Times, Jun. 10, 2011. 69. Remarks by President Trump at NATO Unveiling of the Article 5 and Berlin Wall Memorials – Brussels, Belgium, 25 May 2017. 70. Remarks by President Trump and Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada Before Bilateral Meeting | London, United Kingdom, 3 December 2019. 71. French Defence and National Security Strategic Review (October 2017). 72. Speech by M.  Emmanuel Macron, President of the Republic, 27 August 2019. 73. Ibid. 74. Ibid. 75. Draft Paper Prepared by Unknown Drafter, 8 November 1963 (on Basic National Security Policy). 76. Ibid.

CHAPTER 4

Managing Russia’s Decline

Europe’s liberal foundations, nested within the collective security of NATO and the political and economic integration of the EC, were in many ways designed in juxtaposition to the illiberal order imposed by the Soviet Union across Central and Eastern Europe through the Warsaw Pact and the Comecon. Contemporary Russia has nowhere near the political, economic, military, or ideological scale or momentum of the Soviet Union. But its leaders continue to have grand ambitions—with Vladimir Putin staying in power potentially until 2036—even with a diminishing material base. After the Cold War, Europe’s strategic objective was to integrate Russia into the liberal order. Indeed, since 1989, relations among Europe, the United States, and Russia were not only (mostly) peaceful and cooperative, but also aimed—at least by Western leaders—at a degree of political and economic convergence over time. In particular, Russia was viewed as an emerging democracy and even a potential candidate, around the turn of the century, for NATO membership. Of course, there were notable exceptions to these halcyon years, such as divisions over NATO’s intervention in Kosovo in 1999 or Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008. But the general sense of convergence enabled significant great power collaboration, with Russia agreeing to German reunification and East Germany’s incorporation into NATO; Russia’s acquiescing to the enlargement of NATO and the EU across Central and © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 B. M. J. Szewczyk, Europe’s Grand Strategy, Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60523-0_4

97

98 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

Eastern Europe; the NATO-Russia Founding Act; Russia’s accession to the Council of Europe; the expansion of the G7 into the G8; the accession of Russia to the WTO; the U.S.-Russian New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and agreement on supply routes into Afghanistan; and Russia’s acquiescence in the UN Security Council’s authorization of NATO’s intervention in Libya. Ultimately, however, the generational commitment of Europe as well as the United States to integrate Russia into the liberal order was not successful.1

Growing Threat of Stagnating Russia Notwithstanding earlier signs of disagreement, 2014 was a clear turning point. The stand-off over Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea and aggression in eastern Ukraine marked a severe breach of the international order. The following year, Russia intervened militarily in the Syrian civil war to bolster its ally, the Assad regime, in direct opposition to European and U.S. objectives to restore stability and facilitate a Syrian-led political process in the war-torn country. Intentionally or not, Russia’s actions also fueled mass irregular migration into Europe, as refugees fled Assad’s brutality. Russia’s interference in U.S. and European elections in 2016 and 2017, including attempted regime change in Montenegro to prevent its accession to NATO, further exemplified a scale of tension not seen since the end of the Cold War. In 2018, Russia’s secret service used a nerve agent in the United Kingdom to poison its former spy in the first use of chemical weapons on European soil since World War II.  The following year, Russia dispatched a 4000-strong private military unit, the Wagner Group, to intervene in the Libyan civil war against the UN-recognized government. It also has negotiated access rights to Egypt’s airspace and military bases, and held joint military exercises with Cairo. In sum, Russia over the past six years has tactically exploited its military instrument to create leverage in several countries in Europe’s neighborhood. It has done so without any explicit strategic vision, but has positioned itself with greater options to weaken Europe’s institutions and the wider liberal order. Over the medium term—the next two to five years—one of Europe’s primary challenges will continue to emanate from Russia. Although security challenges are historically created by rising powers, it is Russia’s stagnation (and the drive to conceal it) that, like a supernova, has destabilized the foundations of European security and the liberal order.

4  MANAGING RUSSIA’S DECLINE 

99

Russia, notwithstanding its outsized geography and self-image, has been, by and large, at a standstill in terms of material power over the past 25 years, and is likely to continue to remain so. Its population, uniquely for a developed country, has shrunk and its GDP per capita is only marginally higher than at the end of the Cold War. It has few close allies and its key institutional initiative in the form of the Eurasian Economic Union has plateaued at best. By all objective measures of material resources, Russia is arguably no longer a great power, but rather a regional power with localized influence. Nonetheless, it continues to act as a great power and is perceived as such in some quarters. Russia has been investing in its military, with expenditure growing at 10% annually between 2011 and 2016, and accounting for 4.3% of Russian GDP in 2017—against 3.1% in the United States, 1.9% in China, and 1.5% on average in the EU. But this spike in military spending is likely to be unsustainable and Russia may need to revert to its 3–4% historical average. Russia’s limited economic base of only 2% of global GDP (less than South Korea and comparable to Australia) and meager economic performance over the past quarter century (0.5% in GDP per capita annual growth) severely constrains its ability to attract new adherents to its model. Its sizable military instrument still enables Russia to play the role of a spoiler in destabilizing the liberal order. But given its small scale of material resources, it cannot purport to overturn the order. Instead, Russia will continue to opportunistically exploit strategic openings, whether in Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan, or elsewhere, to destabilize Europe and the liberal order. President Putin’s continuation in office after the March 2018 elections suggests that the Kremlin’s policies will persist over the medium term and will require commensurate resolve on the part of the EU, particularly in key frontline states such as Ukraine and in the Balkans.

Ukraine Strategic Context The Ukraine crisis originated in relatively benign negotiations on an Association Agreement (AA) and a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) to facilitate greater political and economic integration between Ukraine and the EU. The agreements were similar to many others signed by the EU with countries within its neighborhood, in the Balkans and in Eastern Europe, as well as other parts of the world: in

100 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

South America, the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia. Starting in 2008, the talks took place gradually over five years, with final signing envisioned for November 2013 at the EU’s Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius. Recognizing that the DCFTA might shift some of Ukraine’s trade from Russia to the EU, the EU had repeatedly invited Russia to share its perspective and determine a mutually acceptable position to all sides. Moscow declined. Instead, the Kremlin pressured its ally in Kyiv Viktor Yanukovych to reverse Ukraine’s course at the eleventh hour and refuse to sign the agreement with the EU. As an incentive, Moscow promised a $15 billion loan and a subsidized gas deal. The EU rejected Russia’s attempted “veto” and stated that its offer was still available.2 More importantly, Ukrainian citizens rejected Russia’s interference. Tens of thousands braved winter conditions, gathered in the Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square), later also dubbed Euromaidan, to wave EU flags and show their support for the agreement. After several months, in February 2014, the crisis escalated into violence as Ukraine’s secret police shot at the protesters, apparently with Moscow’s encouragement, killing nearly 100 civilians. The Ukrainian parliament impeached Yanukovych, who then fled to Russia. In this context, Putin decided to exploit the chaotic political situation and seize Crimea, a Ukrainian peninsula on the Black Sea. Historically, Crimea had been part of Russia since Catherine the Great conquered it in 1783. It remained under Russian sovereignty until 1954 when Khrushchev formally transferred it to Ukraine. That legal change had little immediate political consequence since both Russia and Ukraine were part of the same Soviet Union and controlled from Moscow. However, it had important implications after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, as Crimea stayed under Ukrainian sovereignty. On the other hand, Russia was able to maintain its lease on a naval base in Sebastopol, its sole warm-water port for its Black Sea Fleet. In 2010, the lease was extended until 2042. Thus, for over a generation, this practical arrangement satisfied the interests of both sides without much contestation. The Kremlin utilized its naval presence in Crimea, where it was entitled to station up to 25,000 troops, to infiltrate into Ukraine “little green men,” either covertly or under the pretext of snap military exercises. On February 27, Russian troops seized government institutions in Crimea. Within two weeks, the local Crimean authorities under Russian supervision held a referendum on accession to Russia, yielding a rigged vote of 96% in favor, on an 82% turnout. Two days later, Russia completed the takeover.3

4  MANAGING RUSSIA’S DECLINE 

101

On the day of annexation, 18 March, Putin delivered a sweeping address to explain Russia’s actions. “Crimea has always been an inseparable part of Russia,” he claimed, with “shared history and pride.”4 Remarkably, he sought to lay blame on the West for the turn of events: Our colleagues in the West … have lied to us many times, made decisions behind our backs, placed us before an accomplished fact. This happened with NATO’s expansion to the East, as well as the deployment of military infrastructure at our borders. … [W]e have already heard declarations from Kiev about Ukraine soon joining NATO. What would this have meant for Crimea and Sevastopol in the future? It would have meant that NATO’s navy would be right there in this city of Russia’s military glory, and this would create not an illusory but a perfectly real threat to the whole of southern Russia. … NATO remains a military alliance, and we are against having a military alliance making itself at home right in our backyard or in our historic territory. I simply cannot imagine that we would travel to Sevastopol to visit NATO sailors. Of course, most of them are wonderful guys, but it would be better to have them come and visit us, be our guests, rather than the other way round.5

Putin also questioned whether Ukraine is a sovereign state, a claim recently reaffirmed by a senior Russian official. To be sure, this argument was complete non sequitur. NATO’s enlargement to include two countries that border Russia, Latvia and Estonia, occurred in 2004—ten years prior to the conflict in Ukraine. In 2008, NATO had promised membership for Ukraine and Georgia, but no one was actively pursuing this policy, which itself had been downgraded from a possible membership action plan for both countries. It is possible that Putin sought to prevent any possibility of Ukraine joining NATO, however remote the prospect was into the future, just as he did with Georgia in 2008. After all, NATO had already set out in the 1990s as part of its accession policy that the resolution of “external territorial disputes, including irredentist claims” would be a “factor in determining whether to invite a state to join the Alliance.”6 Thus, Russia would be able to forestall NATO enlargement indefinitely through the use of force and by supporting separatist movements in both countries. Its most recent national security strategy, published in December 2015, explicitly blamed NATO’s expansion as “creating a threat to [Russia’s] national security.” It also sought to defend “traditional Russian religious and moral values” against “external expansion of ideologies and values.”

102 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

It bears repeating that there was no immediate or medium-term likelihood in early 2014 that either Ukraine or Georgia would be invited to join NATO. The only active talks were regarding the EU AA-DCFTA agreements. Yet, it is likely that Russian decision-makers nowadays view the EU and NATO as two sides of the same Western coin, and over the long term, seek to prevent their expansion as well as the evisceration and hollowing out of both institutions. With 21 members in common, the EU and NATO often enlarged concurrently to the same countries in Central and Eastern Europe, such that leaders of the new members also viewed “Europe and North America [as] two sides of the same coin.”7 In some ways, Putin could have perceived EU integration with Ukraine as an even greater existential threat for his regime than NATO enlargement. He may have worried that a democratic government in Kyiv, with a vibrant civil society and active journalists, could have inspired similar movements in Russia, given the historical, cultural, and linguistic links. Thus, Moscow sought to sow chaos and nip democracy in the bud by seizing Crimea at the barrel of the gun and through aggression in eastern Ukraine. Russian dreams of Novorossiya propagated throughout 2014 and 2015 threatened to further carve up Ukraine. Russia’s ongoing military presence and support for separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk were driven by the same historical rationales and concerns about Ukraine’s integration with the West. In turn, the EU along with G7 partners expelled Russia from the G8, canceling a planned summit in Sochi, and imposed extensive economic sanctions on Russia to penalize its action and incentivize a change of policy behavior. As shown in the table below, transatlantic sanctions—at a cost for Russia of 1–1.5% of its GDP annually, or over €100 billion since 2014—appear to have succeeded at least in constraining Russia’s military spending. Economic pressure against Russia contributed to decreasing its GDP in 2015 and 2016, and forcing it to cut defense spending drastically by 20% in 2017 and stunting its growth outlook. By contrast, between 2000 and 2014, Russia’s military spending nearly tripled, with annualized growth rates of around 8%. Even though the Kremlin has not changed its aggressive stance and the ultimate objective of compelling Russia to end the conflict in Ukraine has not yet been achieved, its capacity to inflict damage is today more limited. The “python” strategy of squeezing Russia is particularly evident in the increased share of Russia’s budget spent on defense (around 11% in 2000–2014 and 14–15% in 2015–2016) (Fig. 4.1).

4  MANAGING RUSSIA’S DECLINE 

103

90

20.0%

80

15.0%

70

10.0%

60

5.0%

50

0.0%

40

-5.0%

30

-10.0%

20

-15.0%

0

-20.0%

1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

10

Military Spending

Share of GDP

Share of Budget

GDP growth

Fig. 4.1  Russia’s military spending under pressure. (Sources: SIPRI for military spending; World Bank for GDP)

Alongside the economic leverage due to sanctions, there have been several diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict. In September 2014 and again in February 2015, Ukraine and the Russian-backed separatists reached interim agreements in Minsk with several interlocked objectives: ceasefire, border control by Ukraine, free elections in the Donbas, and decentralization. The EU’s sanctions policy was tied to the implementation of the Minsk agreements. Subsequently, however, negotiations between Ukraine and Russia—facilitated by Germany and France in the so-called Normandy format since the initial meeting in June 2014 to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the D-Day invasion—have occurred only three times at the leaders’ level: in 2015 and 2016, and more recently in December 2019. The last summit was driven primarily by French President Macron, as part of his wider strategy of engagement and potential rapprochement with Russia, as well as by the election of President Zelensky, who may been interested in restarting negotiations with Moscow to bolster his own credibility. (In August 2019, Macron invited Putin to Biarritz, shortly before the G7 summit there. The following month, the French foreign and defense ministers met with their counterparts in Moscow.) The five-hour summit in Paris yielded little in substance, as reflected in the 500-word conclusions: reaffirming prior commitments under the

104 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

Minsk agreements, providing renewed ceasefire and disengagement measures, and calling for another summit within four months. Violence flared up again in February 2020, the first time the separatists tried to seize additional territory in two years, although the OSCE reported 300,000 ceasefire violations by both sides in 2019. One novel feature of the December 2019 communiqué was the commitment to adopt the so-called Steinmeier formula into Ukrainian law, which envisions a specific sequence of steps: elections in the Donbas under Ukrainian law, OSCE decision whether the elections are free and fair, and if so, special status for Donetsk and Luhansk and Ukrainian control over the border. In addition, the two sides committed to further disengagement of assets from three additional zones, to follow on prior disengagement efforts. The summit also capped an exchange of 70 prisoners between Kyiv and Moscow in September and the release of sailors and vessels Russia seized in the Kerch Strait. After the summit, Ukraine and Russian-led separatist forces exchanged 200 more prisoners and in mid-April 2020, Ukraine and Russia agreed to an additional swap involving 19 Ukrainians and an unknown number of Russians. Notwithstanding these gains, diplomatic efforts have not advanced significantly for more than five years. While there is not much confidence in the Normandy format leading to a resolution of the conflict—with the same fundamental gaps between Russia and the West—neither are there any apparent better alternatives. Several ideas, such as adding the EU or the United States formally to the negotiations, have been explored in the past (through the so-called Geneva format) but are unlikely to change the underlying dynamic. Both the EU and the United States are regularly consulted on the negotiating terms and strategies. Moreover, the U.S.-Russia negotiating channel, initiated during the Obama administration by Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, and continued with Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker (until his resignation in September 2019), was conducted in sync with the Normandy format discussions, without much effect on the overall peace process. Russia thus far has failed in most of its primary objectives in Ukraine. Ukraine’s government is still in power and its civil society has shown extraordinary resilience and resolve. And the Kremlin’s fundamental concern—its continued viability next to a democratic Ukraine—has been invalidated: democrats in Kyiv are no more a threat to Moscow than those in Tallinn or Riga. On the other hand, Russia has been able to act as a

4  MANAGING RUSSIA’S DECLINE 

105

spoiler to Europe’s objectives and policies in Ukraine, as it will most likely for the foreseeable future. The biggest recent change in Ukraine since the Euromaidan has arisen with the election of President Zelensky. His campaign pledges generally reaffirmed the current strategic orientation for Ukraine, but some of his initial decisions upon coming into office raised questions over the future path. In terms of foreign policy, Zelensky, responding to Putin’s passport offer to citizens in eastern Ukraine, highlighted the bleak way of life in Russia and called for increased EU sanctions against Russia. On domestic policy, his earlier appointment of two former ministers of finance and economy, Oleksandr Danylyuk and Aivaras Abromavičius, as campaign advisors signaled commitment to reform. However, once in office, his appointment as chief of staff of Andriy Bogdan—Igor Kolomoisky’s lawyer and previously a deputy minister of justice under Viktor Yanukovych— sent a deeply negative signal about his even-handedness on anti-corruption given the ongoing investigations against Kolomoisky over the $5.5 billion bank fraud at PrivatBank. Notwithstanding campaign promises to continue reforms, the new administration has faltered over the past several months, particularly on anti-corruption. In March 2020, Zelensky had Ukraine’s prosecutor-­ general replaced, apparently because he refused to prosecute former president Petro Poroshenko. The Ukrainian government was completely reshuffled, with a new prime minister and new ministers in charge of foreign affairs, defense, and finance. The jury is still out on the new team, but the expectations are bleak. For instance, the new finance minister Ihor Umanskiy questioned the value of working with the IMF, at a time when Ukraine was seeking to secure a new $5.5 billion loan agreement with the Fund. Europe’s Interests and Objectives What is at stake for Europe in Ukraine? The EU’s stated interests of security, prosperity, democracy, and the rules-based global order are all affected in Ukraine. Europe is not at peace and does not feel secure while Russia wages war in eastern Ukraine, with casualties in the tens of thousands and forced displacement in the millions. Europe can also prosper with higher economic growth in Ukraine, given its geographic proximity and considerable potential. And as European leaders have repeatedly stated, the EU’s commitment to a world order based around democracy, human rights,

106 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

rule of law, and social market capitalism was violated with Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea—the first unilateral redrawing by force of borders in Europe since World War II—and ongoing military activities in eastern Ukraine. In the six years since the Euromaidan Revolution, Ukraine has also been a central arena for the EU’s vision for world order organized around principles of democracy, human rights, rule of law, and social market capitalism. The struggle in Ukraine has also been a test case for the credibility of EU’s foreign policy: whether the EU and its Member States, given the scale of material resources and political attention collectively committed to Ukraine, can accomplish the objectives they set out. The EU’s strategy toward Ukraine, in turn, is inextricably intertwined with its strategy toward Russia—which, as the late Zbigniew Brzezinski argued, ceases to be an empire without Ukraine. And as former President Tusk noted in his remarks at the Ukrainian Rada, the future of Ukraine will shape profoundly the future of Europe. To be sure, Ukraine is part of the wider EU policy in the form of the Eastern Partnership, which recently celebrated its tenth anniversary. Yet, Ukraine is the fulcrum on which much else turns. Ukraine is the largest country, in terms of territory, wholly in Europe. Its population of 42.5 million is the sixth-largest in Europe and its GDP per capita is about 8% of the EU average (and by comparison, about half of average income in Bosnia and Herzegovina). Beyond even its sheer scale and economic growth potential, the initial Euromaidan protests in Ukraine in late 2013 and early 2014—in which the Heavenly Hundred were killed and hundreds were injured—were inspired by EU values and infused by EU flags. Since then, in fighting in eastern Ukraine, approximately 13,000 people have been killed, a quarter of them civilians, with as many as 30,000 wounded. Due to these strong political, economic, and psychological connections, Ukraine is a vital interest for the European Union and a primary foreign policy challenge. For the same reasons, Ukraine has also been a vital interest for the United States, whose established policy has been to promote Europe whole, free, and at peace. As former President Obama had noted, the struggle was not just about Ukraine, but about the “kind of Europe” and the “kind of world” the United States wanted to support.8 The EU’s objectives in Ukraine are twofold: increasing political and economic integration with Ukraine through the Association Agreement and the DCFTA and resolving the conflict with Russia by implementing

4  MANAGING RUSSIA’S DECLINE 

107

the Minsk agreements. The integration process is highly active—led in Brussels by a Support Group for Ukraine and, in Kyiv, by the second largest EU delegation in the world (with about 100 staff) and the EU Advisory Mission (with about 300 staff). However, the peace process has stagnated, perhaps even moribund, and not progressed significantly since the initial outlines of a potential agreement were set out in 2014. From the beginning of the Euromaidan Revolution, time was on the side of democratic and free-market reforms in Ukraine. Whereas the initial two years involved a wide range of potential scenarios, with GDP decreasing by a total of 12–16% in 2014 and 2015 in real terms according to the World Bank, subsequent years have solidified steady political and economic progress. As former European Commission President Juncker noted at the EU-Ukraine summit in 2018, Ukraine has made more reforms since 2014 than in the previous decades of independence. And indeed the list of reforms is long and fundamental: macroeconomic stabilization, banking, energy sector, police, military, procurement, courts, and prosecutors. Nearly every single aspect of political, economic, and social life in Ukraine has changed, though substantial work remains to be done (primarily on anti-corruption and privatization). Economically, Ukraine is potentially poised for long-term catch-up growth of over 5%. Just as Poland was able to quadruple its average income relative to the EU since the fall of communism, so can Ukraine. After all, Ukraine’s GDP per capita was similar to Poland’s in 1990 but now is only one-fifth. Ukraine can potentially experience decades of high economic growth as it recovers its historic losses. It is often rightly said that even with conflict ongoing in Donetsk and Luhansk (3% of Ukraine’s territory) and the ongoing unlawful seizure of Crimea (4% of its territory), Ukraine can be successful in the remaining 93%. The international community’s economic and technical assistance to Ukraine has been conducted quite effectively through the G7+ format, which has also coordinated sanctions policy against Russia. Perhaps paradoxically, there may be greater room for further policy innovation in facilitating reform in Ukraine than in resolving the conflict with Russia. In particular, EU financial support for Ukrainian reform has continued, with over €13 billion pledged since 2014, visa-free travel available for Ukrainians since June 2017, and significant increase in trade. Ukraine has surprised most observers in persevering in its reforms notwithstanding significant sacrifices across its society.

108 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

Zelensky’s administration also reaffirmed the pro-Western strategic orientation for Ukraine. During his visits in Brussels in June 2019, he confirmed his desire for Ukraine to seek EU and NATO membership, but it is highly unlikely that accession to either organization will happen in the foreseeable future. The main progress, if any, will occur in Ukraine’s domestic policies, which the EU could facilitate. The options listed below are intended to support, rather than supplant, the current lines of effort. Policy Options Taking into account that the resolution of the conflict in Ukraine might not come right away, largely due to the continued intransigence of the Kremlin’s policies, there is a range of policy options the EU should consider to help continue facilitating Ukraine’s political and economic reforms. The list below is organized from the most to least ambitious and difficult: surge, support, synergize, showcase, and shift. (a) Surge: Enlarging European Economic Area to Ukraine The strongest incentive for long-term reform in Ukraine, as previously in Central and Eastern Europe, is political and economic integration with the EU. The past six years have been organized around implementing the Association Agreement, including the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area. The EU has also extended visa-free travel to Ukrainian citizens for up to 90 days. Given that the ultimate incentive of EU enlargement is not foreseeable in the near term, one intermediate and realistic objective that both sides can work toward to further their integration is expanding the European Economic Area (EEA) to Ukraine. Like for Iceland, Lichtenstein, and Norway, the EEA would extend the Internal Market of the EU, including core rules related to the free movement of goods, capital, services, and persons. It would be primarily a decision for the EU and Ukraine, but consent from the three EFTA countries would facilitate well-structured legal, political, and institutional ties with the EU, with all the rights and obligations derived from that status. EEA enlargement would not preclude EU enlargement in the future, and perhaps would improve the conditions to make the latter more likely. But most importantly, it would sustain the political momentum on reform and provide further tangible benefits from reforms to Ukrainian citizens.

4  MANAGING RUSSIA’S DECLINE 

109

(b) Support: EU Oversight on Anti-corruption Corruption is at the core of Ukraine’s political, economic, and social problems, and has permeated all of its structures, from cradle to grave, over the past decades. Whereas during the communist times, petty bribes could have served as the necessary grease to get things done when the formal structures were too rigid, a culture of corruption now serves as the main obstacle to Ukraine’s economic potential and, crucially, impedes much needed foreign investment. To tackle this problem, Ukraine has adopted a flurry of measures—anti-corruption strategy, National Anti-­ Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, National Agency for Prevention of Corruption, Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, e-­declarations on assets, online public procurement, and now a High Anti-­ Corruption Court. According to Transparency International, its corruption ranking improved gradually from 144th in 2013 to 120th in 2018. The main problem with anti-corruption policies in Ukraine, however, is their Sisyphean nature: as soon as one aspect is improved (say investigations) another worsens (say prosecution or adjudication). Perhaps the new High Anti-Corruption Court, launched in April 2019, will help resolve matters, but it is doubtful. Ultimately, the system may be too big and entrenched to reform fully by itself, as it was able to do for instance in Georgia with summary firings and replacements. The EU might consider, pending full agreement of the Ukrainian government, exercising greater oversight on anti-corruption procedures in Ukraine. The EU’s engagement on this issue would be periodic and selective, to serve as a backstop and catalyst for Ukrainian anti-corruption and deoligarchization reforms, including through enhanced training of Ukrainian lawyers and judges as well as supporting Ukrainian civil society’s scrutiny of appointments of prosecutors and judges. Operationally, this oversight function could be placed within the EU Advisory Mission, which at 300 staff is still significantly smaller than EU Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (about 800). The Ukrainian government’s interest in pursuing this option could be in breaking the existing cycle of corruption, which appears difficult to self-correct. (c) Synergize: EU Special Adviser for Ukraine The EU’s multiple lines of effort and numerous institutional actors make it difficult for any single individual to see the whole picture, ensure

110 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

coherence among difference policies, and fully leverage resources. The virtue of an EU Special Adviser for Ukraine based in the Commission or an EU Special Representative based in the EEAS would be to ensure synergies among the various EU policies and lines of effort in Ukraine and to sustain the importance of Ukraine on Europe’s political agenda. It would help institutionalize the current policies beyond this Commission’s mandate. And it would enhance consultation and coordination with other partners on Ukraine, such as the United States, Canada, and Japan. Given that there was already such a position in the U.S. Department of State, perhaps the EU could also convince other G7 partners to appoint similar special envoys. In a similar vein, the EU could consider unifying the EU Advisory Mission and the EU Delegation, akin to the model in Bosnia. Notwithstanding the EU’s billions of euro in economic assistance to Ukraine, along with extensive technical assistance, Europe overall is arguably punching below its weight, given that its various lines of effort are divided up rather than integrated. To be sure, there is extensive consultation, in good faith, among the relevant officials. Yet, the ultimate leverage that the EU Advisory Mission or the EU Delegation is able to exercise separately is lower than if their activities were integrated, particularly under the authority of an EU Special Representative for Ukraine. (d) Showcase: Short-Term Headline Reform Projects The EU’s reform assistance in Ukraine has been focused on long-term, institutional projects, such as drafting strategic documents on national security and security sector reform, developing manuals on the rule of law, providing legislative support, and training police. Yet these important efforts often lack the visibility, concreteness, or salience for average Ukrainian citizens, who may not perceive the benefit of reforms. One early reform that was popular involved the traffic police: the older system that was corrupt and extracted bribes on a daily basis from the populace was summarily replaced by new and better-paid police officers, with new uniforms, cars, and professional standards. Though such headline-grabbing qualities will not be available for all worthwhile reforms, greater sensitivity should be paid to short-term, concrete projects that will be perceived by Ukrainian citizens as worth the long-term, systemic sacrifice. For instance, individual EU Member States could develop short-term work programs for Ukrainians. To help promote increased connections and trust with

4  MANAGING RUSSIA’S DECLINE 

111

eastern Ukraine, the EU could help fund new infrastructure projects or support microfinance programs. The College of Europe could open a campus in Ukraine to help train its new generation of leaders, or provide temporary refuge for displaced scholars and students from eastern Ukraine. A House of Europe could be established in Kyiv or Lviv to showcase Ukraine’s European heritage and its contributions to Europe. Erasmus+ programs could be expanded even further beyond the already high number of 1800 Ukrainian students and scholars, who benefitted from its support since 2014. In a similar vein, the EU roaming-free zone could be partially extended to Ukraine, with reduced fees, to further promote integration and facilitate the use of visa-free travel. (e) Shift: Calibrating Economic and Technical Assistance Given that the four policy options listed above are intended to incentivize reform with potential benefits, they would be more effective if accompanied by a credible prospect that further economic and technical assistance to Ukraine would be calibrated based on its commitment to reform changes. Indeed, the international community’s prior assistance programs to Ukraine in the 2000s were not completed—that is, budgeted loans were not disbursed—due to waning domestic support for reform. This downside scenario is possible over the medium term, given the open questions surrounding the current political environment in Ukraine. Yet, in the worst-case scenario outlined above, it would be more prudent to cut the EU’s losses rather than continue investing good money after bad. For Europe’s and Ukraine’s sake, however, the previous four policy options offer potential paths toward more attractive future scenarios.

Balkans In addition to Ukraine and the eastern neighborhood, the Balkans are another key region where Europe has the continued opportunity to expand the liberal order. In a world with few clear foreign policy successes in recent times, the region has had two countries join NATO over the past three years and is the main area for potential EU and NATO enlargement. The EU’s Balkans policy is inextricably intertwined with its strategy toward Russia, which has routinely sought to act as spoiler to Western objectives in the region.

112 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

Strategic Context Notwithstanding their relatively limited population, economy, and geography, the Balkans pose significant complexity in terms of history and policy. The EU’s active engagement in the Balkans dates to the early 1990s in the context of the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the resultant ethnic conflicts. As individual Yugoslav republics declared independence from the Serbian-dominated federal state, Belgrade waged war to preserve its control. As part of a high-level European delegation, the Luxembourg foreign minister, Jacques Poos, declared: “This is the hour of Europe— not the hour of the Americans…. If one problem can be solved by the Europeans, it is the Yugoslav problem. This is a European country and it is not up to the Americans. It is not up to anyone else.”9 Nonetheless, the civil conflict continued for over three years, primarily in Bosnia and Herzegovina, until the U.S.-led NATO intervention and diplomacy brought it to an end in late 1995. Three years later, Serbia resumed conflict in Kosovo until NATO’s military intervention, again led by the United States, ended it in 1999. During this time period, Russia—which had extensive historical, cultural, and religious ties with Belgrade—was itself going through significant turmoil with the fall of the Soviet Union and chaotic rule under Boris Yeltsin. Thus it lacked either the will or ability to engage in the region. In its place, Europe’s role, both through the EU and (alongside the United States) through NATO, increased substantially. Whereas the 1990s marked a period of conflict in the Balkans, the subsequent two decades witnessed the region’s gradual integration with the West. In 2003, the Thessaloniki European Council declared all of the states of the former Yugoslavia, as well as Albania, as potential EU candidate countries. Two former Yugoslav republics, Slovenia and Croatia became members of the EU and NATO, and two others, Montenegro and North Macedonia, acceded to NATO in 2017 and 2020 respectively. Albania also became a NATO member in 2009. And the EU opened accession negotiations with Serbia in 2011 and Montenegro in 2012, followed by Albania and North Macedonia in March 2020. The remaining potential EU candidate countries are Bosnia and Kosovo, both of whom have Stabilisation and Association Agreements to provide for further integration with the EU. At the 2020 Western Balkans Summit, the EU “reaffirm[ed] its unequivocal support for the European perspective of the Western Balkans,”

4  MANAGING RUSSIA’S DECLINE 

113

which the regional partners in turn also confirmed as “their firm strategic choice.”10 Both sides noted that the EU support for the region, including a recent package of €3.3 billion for Covid-19 related measures and Green Lanes to facilitate transport of essential goods, “goes far beyond what any other partner has provided” and “deserves public acknowledgement.” Equally important is recognizing the stakes as well as challenges on both sides in continued integration of the region with the EU and the West. Russia has periodically sought to thwart the region’s integration with the West. In October 2016, it attempted covertly to overthrow the government in Montenegro, assassinate the prime minister, and install a pro-­ Kremlin regime.11 In 2018, Russia also interfered in the referendum in North Macedonia over its name change to resolve an ongoing dispute with Greece and open the path for EU and NATO accession.12 The Kremlin was unsuccessful in its strategic objectives, as both countries entered NATO and have ongoing negotiations with the EU, but tactically it was able to demonstrate that it can frustrate the West’s goals.13 More recently, in 2019, the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union signed a free trade agreement with Serbia, which if ratified, could make EU integration more difficult. Russia also conducted joint military exercises with Serbia, where its so-called humanitarian center reportedly serves as a base for spy operations. Paradoxically, the greatest challenges remain where EU presence has been the most extensive, in Bosnia and Kosovo. In Bosnia, the Dayton Peace Agreement of 1995 created a complex power-sharing structure, which was necessary to provide peace and stability but has also slowed Bosnia’s integration with the EU. Given that under the Bosnian Constitution each representative of the three ethnic groups in the Bosnian Presidency (Bosniak, Croat, and Serb) had veto power over any legislation, there was inherent friction in the ability of the Bosnian political institutions to reach decisions. For the initial two years, Bosnian political actors could not agree on basic attributes of statehood such as a common passport, currency, flag, anthem, or car registration plates. In effect, the Bosnian Constitution helped preserve peace through inclusive power-sharing but also slowed political progress. Within this complicated domestic structure, Dayton also created the Office of the High Representative (OHR), which has provided Europe with unique powers and responsibilities. During the peace negotiations, “the Europeans made clear that if Washington expected them to pay the lion’s share of reconstruction and other economic assistance, the civilian

114 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

coordinating effort would have to be in Europe’s hands.”14 Since the beginning, the OHR has been headed by Europeans, and between 2002 and 2011, the High Representative was dual-hatted as the EU Special Representative.15 The dual-hatting was discontinued in 2011 when the EUSR post was merged with the EU delegation, but the head of OHR remained European. For nearly 20 years, between 1997 and 2014, the OHR resorted to unusual executive powers to preserve peace and ensure the basic functioning of the Bosnian political system.16 Under the so-called Bonn Powers, the OHR had authority to determine the “timing, location and chairmanship of meetings of the common institutions,” legislate “interim measures to take effect when parties are unable to reach agreement,” and execute “other measures to ensure implementation of the Peace Agreement throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina.” In particular, the Bonn Powers included removing officials from office and imposing bans for electoral eligibility.17 Over a generation later, these executive powers continue to exist in principle though they have not been utilized since 2014 (primarily due to internal reluctance to use them, as well as due to concerns regarding their effectiveness and legitimacy). In many ways, the Bonn Powers are a relic of the past, but their history also reflects Bosnia’s internal friction that continues presently and prevents effective decision-making. For instance, the Bosnian government could not form for over a year following the 2018 elections due to divisions among the three ethnic groups. This domestic fragmentation also enables Russia to meddle in Bosnian affairs through its support for the Serbian representative in the Presidency. In 2016, Russia supported a divisive referendum in Republika Srpska (a part of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina) that echoed conflicts of the 1990s.18 In 2020, the Bosnian Serbs, with Russia’s support, have continued to threaten holding a referendum on independence. Based on the experience in Bosnia, the EU also launched its largest civilian mission ever, the EU Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX) with significant executive powers. Established in 2008, EULEX initially consisted of 3000 officials: police officers, judges, prosecutors, and administrative personnel. For the first six years, it had an extensive mandate, including investigating and prosecuting serious and sensitive crimes, as well as adjudicating cases in hybrid panels (of two international judges and one Kosovar judge). Gradually, the mission decreased in size and focused more on training local rule of law institutions; for instance, in 2014, the

4  MANAGING RUSSIA’S DECLINE 

115

hybrid court panels started having a majority of Kosovar judges. Currently, EULEX focuses on monitoring and support, while retaining a limited residual capability to serve as secondary support responder (primarily due to the lack of any realistic alternatives). The EU’s involvement in Bosnia and Kosovo has reflected not only the significant challenges within the wider region, but also the need for sustained resolve on both sides. The appointment in April 2020 of Miroslav Lajčák as the EU Special Representative for the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue and other Western Balkan regional issues demonstrates the EU’s commitment to enhance its engagement, due to his high-level profile and regional experience. And it also shows the necessity of a long-term perspective, as Lajčák himself served in a similar capacity in Bosnia 13 years ago. Europe’s Interests and Objectives Given the generation-long duration of the region’s integration with the EU, it is sometimes easy to overlook the underlying interests that have animated the process.19 After all, the EU and the individual Balkans have established association agreements and are negotiating potential accession as a means to larger strategic goals.20 Europe’s interests in the Balkans started from humanitarian concerns and evolved over time to wider interests regarding security and values. European engagement in the region was initially primarily humanitarian: to stem the bloodshed of the 1990s, provide stability, and enable the return of refugees to their home countries. Over time, the region’s proximity to the EU gave rise to an ineluctable logic of political and economic integration to ensure the EU’s interests in peace and security. As former European Commission President Juncker argued, the EU has “to export stability to the Western Balkans by extending … prospects of accession rather than importing instability from the” region.21 In addition to preventing conflict, such security concerns include countering organized crime or terrorist cells in the region. With a population of around 18 million, the remaining six countries that seek EU accession—Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia—also provide some economic opportunities for the EU, but the main interests are political. Finally, the EU’s engagement in the region helps enlarge its liberal vision of a rules-based order that ensures the “primacy of democracy and the rule of law”22—further validating its own model of governance and reinvigorating the European project. It goes without saying that an expanding zone of liberal values around the EU helps protect them at home.

116 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

The EU also faces in the Balkans a test of the credibility of its overall foreign policy. For this reason, HRVP Josep Borrell argued that the “Balkans and the eastern front of Europe” are “the priority of our external policy” because “if we as Europeans are not able to solve this problem in our immediate vicinity, it’s very hard to believe that we are going to be a geopolitical power.”23 Even before EU accession, one indicator of success will be the extent of each country’s “full alignment with EU foreign policy positions,” as set out by both sides.24 Yet, due to the complexity of challenges in the region, Europe’s policies should be compared to realistic alternatives and timelines: it can succeed by improving the regional situation and prospects even without formal EU enlargement before 2025. The long-term and diffused nature of Europe’s interests in the region also implies that the effectiveness of its strategy will need to be evaluated over time. No surge in diplomatic engagement or economic assistance will be sufficient to complete reconciliation of societal divisions or develop functioning internal decision-making. Such changes require time and often depend much more on internal than external factors. On the other hand, the Balkan countries themselves feel a sense of urgency to accelerate integration with the EU, which has now lasted over a generation, given the potential economic and political gains. Perhaps the main realistic benchmark is whether both sides have confidence in and commitment to the integration process. Policy Options Throughout its quarter-century long engagement in the Balkans, the EU has pursued a comprehensive range of policy options, leaving limited room for truly new ideas that have not been considered or tried before. Generally, the EU has faced a tension between two impulses. On the one hand, it recognized its responsibility as well as interest in providing stability in the region through a range of measures and ultimately the prospect of EU accession. On the other hand, it has shown a certain reluctance and discomfort with the use of executive powers in countries such as Bosnia and Kosovo, which is viewed by some as undemocratic, illegitimate, and ineffective.25 In some ways, the return to the region of Miroslav Lajčák as EU Special Representative illustrates the full spectrum of measures that the EU has pursued with varying degrees of success—not for the lack of effort or imagination but primarily due to the underlying challenges, such as the internal divisions within and among countries in the region.

4  MANAGING RUSSIA’S DECLINE 

117

Over the past four years, one missing element of effective policy in the region has been the lack of U.S. leadership (primarily due to the overall chaotic foreign non-policy of the Trump administration). For instance, in late 2019, the United States created two new positions of special envoys for the region: Matthew Palmer as Special Representative for the Western Balkans and Richard Grenell as Special Envoy for Serbia and Kosovo Peace Negotiations. But Palmer already had responsibility for Balkans policy as deputy assistant secretary for state for the region, leaving it unclear what was the purpose of his new title. And Grenell not only kept his prior position as U.S. ambassador to Germany, but also served back in Washington, DC, as acting Director of National Intelligence—until resigning from all three positions to join the Trump reelection campaign. This proliferation of positions has not helped clarify U.S. policy, and perhaps has even exacerbated the situation on the ground.26 And it stands in stark contrast to the EU’s elevation of focus and priority for the region with the appointment of a senior diplomat such as Lajčák. Greater transatlantic coordination could be facilitated through an already-existing format, the Adriatic Charter Summit, which has served to aid the region’s integration with NATO.  Indeed, in 2017, U.S.  Vice-­ President Mike Pence expounded on how the “Western Balkans show the diversity of Western civilization” and argued that “by bringing the Adriatic ever closer to the Atlantic, we can ensure a brighter future not only for the Western Balkans, but for the West itself.”27 But there was little follow-­ through on this declaration in the subsequent three years. Given the extent of EU-NATO cooperation since the 2016 Joint Declaration, greater coordination should also take place in the Balkans, for instance by including the EU as an informal observer at future Adriatic Charter high-level meetings. After all, G7 and G20 meetings already include guest participants invited at the discretion of the host country. Future EU summits with the Western Balkans could include the NATO Secretary-General and U.S. representatives. Moreover, increased joint EU-U.S.-NATO appearances in the region could help provide greater leverage to achieve common objectives and synchronize strategic communications. For the United States, the Balkans remain an interest due to its overall policy of supporting a Europe whole, free, and at peace, as well as in its great power competition with Russia as well as China, which has extensive economic engagement in the Balkans and Central Europe through the so-­called 17+1 format. Given the lack of ongoing crisis in the region, this interest is unlikely to translate into high-level U.S. engagement by the

118 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

president or secretary of state. But perhaps that dynamic opens up greater opportunities for genuine transatlantic cooperation at the level of special envoys or other senior officials. Unity of message from all international partners in the region can help focus minds on the key priorities and accelerate progress. The EU’s integration with the Balkans has been a generational endeavor that has lasted longer than perhaps initially anticipated at the initial Zagreb summit in 2000, when the EU first announced the “European perspective” for the region.28 Nonetheless, it has witnessed significant progress and can expect the same direction over the next five years. One medium-­ term objective would be EU accession by 2025 for several Balkan countries, such as Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia—all current NATO members—or Serbia. At stake for the EU is not only peace and stability in the region, as well as its internal security, but also the wider liberal order. This is the hour of the Balkans, which with support from its transatlantic partners, can complete its long-term project and contribute to a Europe that is whole, free, and at peace.

Europe’s Strategic Persistence As I testified in November 2018 at the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, the strength of Europe’s response to Russia has rested on unity internally within the EU and externally with like-minded partners.29 The EU’s Russia strategy, adopted by the EU foreign ministers in 2016, is based on firmness and engagement as reflected in its five principles: • full implementation of the Minsk agreements as a key element for any substantial change in the EU’s relations with Russia; • strengthening relations with the EU’s Eastern Partners and other neighbours; • strengthening internal resilience of the EU; • selective engagement with Russia on foreign policy and global issues and other areas where there is a clear EU interest; and • willingness to support Russian civil society and invest in people-to-­ people contacts.30 The current strategy, which could be summarized as “confront where we must and cooperate when we can,” remains sound. Translated as policy in the Balkans, it would imply taking a strict position on issues such as

4  MANAGING RUSSIA’S DECLINE 

119

Serbia’s negotiations with the Eurasian Economic Union, which are ultimately incompatible with its EU accession. To be sure, in contrast to Russia’s actions in Ukraine, the EU respects each country’s sovereign right to choose its alliances and partnerships, but it can also expect policy consistency from its candidate countries. As a sixth guiding principle, one should add close policy coordination with G7 partners, such as the United States, Canada, and Japan. This norm operated already in the background in 2016, but one should not lose sight of its necessity to the success of any strategy toward Russia. Russia’s attempts to divide Europe and the transatlantic community have largely failed—and instead had the opposite effect of closing ranks within the West. But transatlantic and European unity on Russia did not happen automatically and should not be presumed as a given; instead, it needs to be continually maintained and coordinated, whether in Ukraine, the Balkans, or elsewhere. Over the medium term, Europe’s relations with Russia are likely to remain limited to a small set of core common interests, such as counterterrorism, climate change, and nuclear non-proliferation. Ultimately, Russia’s revealed foreign policy aims to preserve the existence of the Putin regime from internal opposition and to serve the perceived prestige of acting as a would-be great power. Russia’s true national interest in reconciling with the West by fundamentally changing its offensive behavior will continue to be elusive, as long as this goal cuts against the self-perceived concerns of the Kremlin in remaining in power as an authoritarian regime. But this long-term objective needs to be pursued since there is no real European security for future centuries without Russia. Overall, the EU needs to maintain its strategic persistence. In this endeavor, its decision-making process—gradual, deliberate, consensus-­ driven, and rules-based—is its key competitive advantage. Like a grand flotilla, the EU and its member states take time to establish a particular course of action, but once on it, they stick to it until they reach their objectives, however long it may take and however arduous the journey. Its ability to sustain sanctions against Russia for six years, given the need for unanimous approval of extensions every six months, is testament to its resolve in Ukraine. Keeping to the original schedule with the EU-Western Balkans Summit, notwithstanding the Covid-19 crisis and logistical difficulties, is a prime example of the EU’s resolve to abide by its commitments. Periodically, Russians as well as some Europeans float the prospect of rapprochement or a new European security architecture. Russian Foreign

120 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

Minister Sergey Lavrov argued that he hoped a “choice will be made in favour of building … a post-West world order.”31 In 2008, then Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called for a new European security architecture, without specifying the details but gesturing similarly toward a post-­ NATO, post-West model. At times, French President Macron has also signaled his intention to reset Europe’s relationship with Russia. After the 2019  G7 summit in Biarritz, ahead of which he invited Putin for a bilateral meeting, Macron argued that the post-Cold War relationship with Russia was built on a “a series of misunderstandings” in the 1990s and 2000s. During this period of great power cooperation, he claimed, “Europe no doubt did not enact its own strategy and gave the impression of being a Trojan Horse for the West, whose final aim was to destroy Russia.” As a consequence, “Russia built a fantasy around the destruction of the West and the weakening of the EU.”32 He claimed that Russia should be construed as part of Europe just as France. If Europe again becomes the “theatre of a strategic battle between the United States and Russia, with the consequences of the Cold War still visible on our soil,” he continued, it will be unable to “lay the groundwork for the profound recreation of European civilization.” Instead of “pushing Russia away from Europe” toward “isolation” or “alliances with other great powers such as China,” Macron argued that Europe “must build a new architecture based on trust and security.” Otherwise, he explained, “the European continent will never be stable, will never be secure, if we do not ease and clarify our relations with Russia.”33 In a subsequent speech, he also argued that “there can be no defence and security project of European citizens without political vision seeking to advance gradual rebuilding of confidence with Russia,” which should be conducted with European partners but not others—implicitly not the United States.34 Criticizing economic sanctions against Russia as not in France’s interest, but instead in the interest of some of its allies, Macron instead has resumed active diplomatic engagement with Russia. In September 2019, he dispatched his foreign and defense ministers for bilateral meetings in Moscow, hoping for cooperation with Russia on areas of common interest. The hope for a new détente with Russia is alluring but ultimately has proven to be elusive and futile, as the French government itself now acknowledges.35 In contrast to these proposals, the main objective for Europe should be to manage Russia’s decline in a way that does not threaten the liberal

4  MANAGING RUSSIA’S DECLINE 

121

order. The 20-year post-Cold War period did not entail misunderstandings but instead a genuine effort on the part of the West—Europe as well as the United States—to integrate Russia into the liberal order. This engagement strategy was applied equally under Yeltsin, when Russia was weaker, as well as during the first 14 years of Putin’s rule, when Moscow gained in strength. It is merely revisionist history to argue that EU or NATO enlargement threatened Russian security or prosperity. To be sure, the Kremlin holds a different interpretation of events and is unlikely to be convinced. The main point, however, is not to be persuaded of Russia’s propaganda. Europe must not to lose sight of how it arrived at the current strategic context nor of what are the overall interests and objectives it is trying to achieve. Europe’s objective is not to threaten the Kremlin in any way: it seeks no regime change and does not seek to contain Russia. European leaders have been extraordinarily careful in not interfering in Russian domestic affairs and merely expect the same from Moscow. In this way, European strategy toward Russia is categorically different from the containment strategies of the Cold War and still seeks to maintain the promise of cordial relations from the 1990s and 2000s. On the other hand, Europe’s strategic posture toward its neighborhood in the east and in the Balkans resembles in part that of the United States at the dawn of the Cold War insofar as it seeks to expand institutions and norms of liberal order, as a way of safeguarding democracy, human rights, and rule of law at home. As open and medium-size societies, European countries are invariably susceptible to conditions within their geographic proximity and can either export liberalism or import illiberalism, to paraphrase former European Commission President Juncker. It is a pro-active agenda of political and economic support for reform in countries such as Ukraine or in the Balkans, as part of Europe’s overall commitment to the liberal order. For the time being, Europe will need to abandon the hope of the 1990s of seeing democracy, human rights, and rule of law take root in Russia. The most it can expect is predictability and non-aggression from Moscow. At some point, Russia may view it within its interest to rejoin the same liberal community. But in the meantime, Europe should continue to pursue progress within its neighborhood, in collaboration with like-minded partners, until the Kremlin fundamentally changes its own strategic posture.

122 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

Notes 1. See generally Angela Stent, Putin’s World: Russia Against the West and with the Rest (New York: Basic Books, 2019); Robert Legvold, Return to Cold War (New York: Polity, 2016); Angela Stent, The Limits of Partnership: U.S.-Russian Relations in the Twenty-First Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015); Andrei P.  Tsygankov, Russia and the West from Alexander to Putin: Honor in International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012); Robert Legvold, ed., Russian Foreign Policy in the Twenty-First Century and the Shadow of the Past (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007). 2. EU rejects Russia “veto” on Ukraine agreement, BBC, Nov. 29, 2013. 3. Joint Statement by Group of Seven Leaders on the Situation in Ukraine, March 2, 2014; Executive Order 13660—Blocking Property of Certain Persons Contributing to the Situation in Ukraine, March 6, 2014; Executive Order 13661—Blocking Property of Additional Persons Contributing to the Situation in Ukraine, March 16, 2014. 4. Address by President of the Russian Federation, 18 March 2014. 5. Ibid. 6. Study on NATO Enlargement, 3 September 1995. 7. Speech by NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoană at the “NATO Engages: Innovating the Alliance” conference, 3 December 2019. 8. The President’s News Conference with President Herman Van Rompuy of the European Council and President José Manuel Durão Barroso of the European Commission in Brussels, Belgium, March 26, 2014. 9. Quoted in Josip Glaurdić, The Hour of Europe: Western Powers and the Breakup of Yugoslavia (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011). 10. European Council, Zagreb Declaration, 6 May 2020. This commitment also echoed language used two years earlier when the EU “reaffirm[ed] its unequivocal support for the European perspective of the Western Balkans” and noted that the regional “partners have recommitted to the European perspective as their firm strategic choice.” EU-Western Balkans Summit, Sofia Declaration, 17 May 2018. 11. Shaun Walker, Alleged Russian spies sentenced to jail over Montenegro “coup plot,” The Guardian, 9 May 2019. 12. Samuel Stolton, US scolds Russia for meddling in Macedonia name deal referendum, Euractiv, 17 September 2018. 13. See Stanislav Secrieru, Russia in the Western Balkans, EUISS Brief (July 2019). 14. Ivo H. Daalder, Getting to Dayton: The Making of America’s Bosnia Policy 157 (2000); see also Simon Chesterman, Ownership in Theory and Practice,

4  MANAGING RUSSIA’S DECLINE 

123

in Statebuilding and Intervention: Policies, Practices and Paradigms (David Chandler ed., 2009) (“[T]here was an implicit agreement among the guarantors at Dayton that the High Representative would always be European.”). 15. Carl Bildt (1996–1997); Carlos Westendorp y Cabeza (1997–1999); Wolfgang Petritsch (1999–2002); Paddy Ashdown (2002–2006); Christian Schwarz-Schilling (2006–2007); Miroslav Lajčák (2007–2009); and Valentin Inzko (2009–present). Carl Bildt also carried the title of EU Special Envoy. 16. See generally Bart M.J.  Szewczyk, The EU in Bosnia and Herzegovina, EUISS Occasional Paper No. 83 (2010). 17. Peace Implementation Council, Bonn Conclusions (1997). 18. Maxim Samorukov, Is Russia Supporting a Bosnian South Ossetia?, Carnegie (4 October 2016). 19. See, for example, Western Balkans: Significance Overlooked or Ignored?, Warsaw Security Forum, 2 October 2019. 20. See Council of the EU, Conclusions on Enlargement and Stabilisation and Association Process, 25 March 2020; European Commission, Enhancing the accession process—A credible EU perspective for the Western Balkans, 5 February 2020. 21. Speech by President Jean-Claude Juncker at the 54th Munich Security Conference, 17 February 2018; see also Council of the EU, Western Balkans and Turkey: Joint conclusions of the economic and financial dialogue, 17 May 2019. 22. European Council, Zagreb Declaration, 6 May 2020. 23. Hearing of Josep Borrell Fontelles, High Representative/Vice-President-­ designate of the European Commission, 7 October 2019. 24. European Council, Zagreb Declaration, 6 May 2020. 25. See, for example, Bart M.J. Szewczyk, The EU in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Powers, Decisions and Legitimacy, EUISS Occasional Paper No. 83 (2010); see also Bart M.J.  Szewczyk, European Sovereignty and Legitimacy (London: Routledge, 2020). 26. Kurt Bassuener and Bodo Weber, US Burns Credibility in Grenell Quest for Foreign Policy Win, as Kosovo Government Falls, Just Security, 2 April 2020; Gorana Grgić, America’s Destabilizing Involvement in SerbiaKosovo Talks, War on the Rocks, 11 May 2020. 27. Remarks by the Vice-President at the Adriatic Charter Summit, Aug. 2, 2017. 28. European Council, Zagreb Summit Final Declaration, 24 November 2000. 29. Bart M.J. Szewczyk, Testimony to the European Parliament, Committee on Foreign Affairs, 22 November 2018. 30. Council of the EU, Foreign Affairs Council, 14 March 2016.

124 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

31. Statement by Sergey Lavrov, 18 February 2017. 32. Speech by M.  Emmanuel Macron, President of the Republic, 27 August 2019. 33. Ibid. 34. Speech of the President of the Republic on the Defense and Deterrence Strategy, 7 February 2020. 35. A year after Russia reset, France sees no concrete results: minister, Reuters (2 July 2020).

CHAPTER 5

Countering China’s Assertiveness

In addition to maintaining its strategic resolve regarding Russia, the other central challenge for Europe will be designing its China policy as part of an overall strategy in the Indo-Pacific region. In many respects, China may pose greater long-term problems for Europe, given its sheer scale and rapid rise (Fig. 5.1).1 The EU Global Strategy provides a useful starting point for thinking about Europe’s policies in Asia.2 It argued that there is a “direct connection” between European prosperity and Asian security, and sought “to make greater practical contributions to Asian security” through partnerships with Japan, South Korea, and others. With respect to China, the strategy recommended engagement based on “respect for rule of law, both domestically and internationally” and expanding connectivity with Asia. Implementing these political guidelines, the European Commission and the European External Action Service, in a joint communication to the European Parliament and Council in September 2018, proposed concrete policies to improve connections between Europe and Asia, including through interoperable transport, energy, and digital networks.3 This EU-Asia Connectivity Strategy was intended as a response to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, an extensive set of state-backed infrastructure projects launched by President Xi Jinping in 2013. In March 2019, the Commission and the EEAS also released a joint communication on a strategic outlook for EU-China relations, identifying a range of policy areas where both © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 B. M. J. Szewczyk, Europe’s Grand Strategy, Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60523-0_5

125

126 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

14000

10000 9000

12000

8000 7000

10000

6000

8000

5000 4000

6000

3000

4000

2000

2000

0

1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

1000

Russia's GDP

China's GDP

Russia's GDP per capita

0

China's GDP per capita

Fig. 5.1  Russia’s stagnation and China’s surge. (Source: World Bank (2016); GDP per capita in $ (left axis) and GDP is in $ billions (right axis))

sides would either cooperate, negotiate, compete, or rival each other.4 The overall trend in EU policy over the past four years has been toward countering China’s assertiveness, even though it has not been articulated fully as such yet. More broadly, three geopolitical factors since 2016—the return of great-power rivalry, China’s growing ambitions, and emerging U.S.Chinese tensions—have raised anew the question of how Europe should update strategy toward Asia. What are its core interests and objectives in the region, and how much commonality or diversity of interest is there within Europe in its relations with Asia? What are the main instruments that the EU or individual Member States have at their disposal to serve their interests in Asia? And who are Europe’s potential partners and competitors in the region? Formulated at this level of generality, it would be a Sisyphean task to set out a comprehensive set of advisable and politically feasible policies that EU policymakers—representing 500 million people and 27 countries— can and should pursue toward a region of 4.5 billion people and around 50 countries. Yet, it is possible to outline key elements of a strategic approach that the EU and individual Member States should adopt as part of their overall posture in Asia, as well as how to coordinate their policies with like-minded partners, particularly the United States, to develop a common course of action. China is the key factor in developing Europe’s and the United States’ strategies, but it should not exclusively determine the approach of either.

5  COUNTERING CHINA’S ASSERTIVENESS 

127

Strategic Context For Europe, the central dynamic in Asia has been rapid economic growth there, particularly in China, and the opportunities this offers for trade and investment. Asia, with roughly 60% of the world population, accounts for 35% of the EU’s exports (€618 billion) and 45% of the EU’s imports (€774 billion).5 Between 1989 and 2016, GDP per capita growth rates in Asia were more than double those in the EU and the United States (3.25% compared to 1.47% and 1.39%, respectively), and in China and India in particular people grew wealthier on average by 8.76% and 4.85%, respectively.6 In 2019, the EU concluded trade and investment-protection agreements with Vietnam and Singapore, as well as a strategic and economic partnership agreement with Japan. It has also opened trade talks with Australia and New Zealand. The security situation in Asia is tense, with an ongoing acute crisis with North Korea over its nuclear weapons program, tension over China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea and the militarization of its newly constructed artificial islands there, the dispute between China and Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, and periodic tensions between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. Moreover, terrorist groups in Afghanistan and Central Asia pose a security concern for the region and have a direct impact on European security. Any escalation of these conflicts has the potential to disrupt European trade in Asia. Generally, Europe has relied on the United States’ military primacy in Asia to provide regional security and stability, as much as regional powers such as Japan, South Korea, India, or Australia have done. European countries, with the exception of France and Great Britain, have only shown limited interest in security in the Asia-Pacific. On the diplomatic front, Europe has been a staunch supporter of international law and promoted a rules-based order in the region. EU statements carry weight with the actors in the region and are well-noted, be it in protest of the introduction of an Air-Defense and Identification Zone by China in the East China Sea or the judgment against China by the Permanent Court of Arbitration with regard to the South China Sea dispute, which was viewed as a helpful endorsement of the process and of the other regional claimants, such as the Philippines. France has periodically run freedom-of-navigation operations in the region, which could be deemed by outside observers as a type of EU rule-of-law mission, to contest China’s claims and to support the law of the sea. Generally, European strategies toward Asia are likely to be

128 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

compatible with the Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy introduced by the Trump administration in recent speeches by senior U.S. officials, but some tensions between the two approaches are also likely. Europe generally has good relations with many countries in Asia, particularly India, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. Interactions with China, however, have gone through a significant evolution in recent years, given the country’s rapid rise in economic, military, and political power, and its growing assertiveness. Since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, it has become a global economic player, expanding as an investor and trading partner and no longer only being seen as a low-cost manufacturing base. The 2008 financial crisis created numerous opportunities in Europe for China to exploit by deploying its vast savings in the form of investments or loans. Finally, the appointment of Xi Jinping as China’s president in 2013, as a compromise candidate among various factions of the Communist Party, and his subsequent elimination of term limits have further centralized power in the country. Generally, the West’s hope that economic liberalization in China would gradually lead to political liberalization has not materialized. In fact, the two trends have continued in opposite directions. In contrast to Russia, China’s economic development is highly dependent on a world order governed by rules and predictability. For this reason, President Xi argued that his vision of a “Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation” can be “realized only in a peaceful international environment and under a stable international order.”7 Notwithstanding its scale as the world’s second largest economy (and the largest in terms of purchasing power parity), China continues to view itself as a developing country, appropriately so given that its GDP per capita falls in-between that of Mexico and Kazakhstan and is equal to around 15% of U.S. average income. Yet, China’s approach to global order is selective: whereas it is generally compatible with Europe’s view of fair trade and market economy, it is contrary to the importance Europe places on democracy, human rights, and rule of law. For instance, Xi Jinping’s defense of globalization in his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2017 focused exclusively on its economic aspects and China’s need for an “orderly environment for investment.”8 Thus, China is a staunch supporter of the World Trade Organization, World Bank, and IMF, but draws clear red lines over human rights issues in areas such as Tibet, Taiwan, Xinjiang (with its Muslim Uighur minority), or Hong Kong.

5  COUNTERING CHINA’S ASSERTIVENESS 

129

In its joint 2019 strategic outlook, the European Commission and EEAS outlined a “shift towards a more realistic, assertive, and multi-­ faceted approach” with respect to China. It distinguished four types of interactions depending on the policy area where China can be: • a cooperation partner with whom the EU has closely aligned objectives; • a negotiating partner with whom the EU needs to find a balance of interests; • an economic competitor in the pursuit of technological leadership; and • a systemic rival promoting alternative models of governance.9 The first three categories are relatively non-controversial. For example, the EU and China share common interests in global sustainable development, climate change, and resolving regional security challenges such as through the Iran nuclear deal. They are negotiating a bilateral investment treaty, which entails tradeoffs just as any agreement. And the two sides compete economically, though on an unequal playing field and with no reciprocity as the Chinese market is much less open. However, describing China as a systemic rival was an unprecedented strategic decision and received significant pushback from Beijing. With unusual directness, the EU argued that “China’s engagement in favour of multilateralism is sometimes selective and based on a different understanding of the rules-based international order.” Given the EU’s commitment to a liberal vision of the rules-based order, it concluded that the “ability of EU and China to engage effectively on human rights will be an important measure of the quality of the bilateral relationship.” It did not specify what type of world order China was pursuing. However, it noted that “the human rights situation in China is deteriorating, notably in Xinjiang and regarding civil and political rights, as witnessed by the continuing crackdown on human rights lawyers and defenders.”10 The competing visions of world order between Europe and China are neither going to clash nor be resolved in the near term. Europe wants to expand its liberal institutions first and foremost within its immediate neighborhood, such as in Ukraine or in the Balkans, where China’s interests are not directly affected. China’s support for the economic pillars of the rules-based international order, such as the WTO, is aligned with the EU’s objectives. For this reason, the two sides were able to adopt a

130 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

relatively harmonious joint statement at the 2019 EU-China Summit emphasizing a “new cooperation agenda.”11 Yet, lurking over the horizon, there is a deep disagreement between Europe and China on the desired political characteristics of world order that will partly inform current policies. For its part, China respects the EU as an institution, but views Europe as a region divided into four parts with which it engages separately: • Big states—Germany, France, and the United Kingdom; • Northern Europe—the Scandinavian states, Ireland, Iceland, and so on; • Central and Eastern Europe—Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and so on; • Southern Europe—Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and so on.12 The distinction between the EU and Europe is evident in Chinese state visits. President Xi’s only official visit to Brussels was in 2014 when he met with European Commission President Barroso and European Council President Van Rompuy.13 Since then, however, Xi has prioritized state visits to specific member states rather than the EU: France (three times), Germany (twice), Spain (twice), as well as once in the United Kingdom, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Poland, Finland, and the Netherlands. Although EU-China summits occurred on an annual basis since 2014, the Chinese side was represented by Prime Minister Li Keqiang, indicating a lower relative importance China gives to the EU compared to the individual member states, particularly the largest ones.14 To be sure, EU member states have not let themselves be so easily split. In 2019, President Macron invited European Commission President Juncker and German Chancellor Merkel to his meeting with Xi Jinping, noting that “China has a real diplomatic genius for playing on our divisions and weakening us.”15 In 2020, Germany invited all 27 EU member states to the planned summit with China in Leipzig in the fall. On the other hand, China has been effective in engaging a large group of Central and Eastern European countries outside of the EU institutional framework in the so-called 17+1 format.16 This has been a success of China’s diplomacy, yet enthusiasm has been curbed by China’s failure to deliver on the high (and sometimes outsized) expectations of the participating nations.

5  COUNTERING CHINA’S ASSERTIVENESS 

131

A large part of each country’s interest in developing bilateral relations with China is its Belt and Road Initiative—an extensive set of land and maritime infrastructure projects seeking to further connect China with the rest of Asia as well as with Europe and Africa. With over 70 countries now participating and with total estimated as over $1 trillion, EU member states see extensive immediate economic opportunity from collaborating with China. Thus far, however, there have been few successful projects and many have stalled.17 And China’s commercial enticements have not translated into real political influence in Europe. China’s December 2018 policy paper on the EU is a laundry list of demands and instructions (such as treating Taiwan and Tibet as taboo subjects, and being granted market-economy status), and largely tone deaf in terms of building a relationship with the union. On the other hand, China reportedly has funded various think-tanks and academic initiatives in Europe to ensure that a pro-China line emerges within public debates. Globally, its growing economic and political presence also manifests itself in international organizations, such as the UN, where any criticism of the country is actively countered. Yet, for all its material prowess, China has few real friends and allies, particularly in Asia, where public opinion of it is very low in some countries. An overarching factor in Europe’s strategic context in Asia is the evolving U.S. policy in the region, particularly toward China, as articulated in recent speeches by senior officials such as Vice-President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Generally, the U.S. strategy is more confrontational toward China than Europe’s, through trade tariffs and other measures, and seeks to maintain military and political primacy in Asia, because China is a direct strategic competitor and potential military adversary for the United States.

Europe’s Interests and Objectives Primarily, Europe’s core interest in Asia is in promoting its economic prosperity through greater trade and investment, and in particular with China with its flow of direct and portfolio investment. This interest is both short term and long term and is likely to overshadow other interests related to democracy promotion and human rights or security in Asia. It may even become accentuated over time as China expands its economic presence in Europe and turns its trade and investment relationships into political leverage. For some European countries, particularly France,

132 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

Germany, and the United Kingdom, economic interest will also include arms exports to the region. Second, Europe has a vital interest in protecting its way of life and the wider liberal order—based on democracy, human rights, rule of law, fair trade, and a social market economy—from illiberal forces. But it is an open question whether China poses the same political threat to this European interest as Russia, or whether it simply wants mutual non-interference in internal affairs. After all, democracy and human rights in Europe do not, ipso facto, pose a threat to China’s political and social structure, as they are perceived by the Kremlin to pose to Russia’s, due to their infectious effect on neighboring countries such as Ukraine and on opposition groups within Russia. Apart from its heightened sensitivities on Taiwan and the One China Policy as well as on Tibet, China’s regime remains relatively secure domestically and one-party rule can be expected to continue for decades. Third, with respect to regional security, Europe prefers the status quo of U.S. military primacy in Asia as the best-case scenario. It also has a particular interest in the credibility of U.S. security guarantees to its Asian allies, such as Japan or South Korea, as an indicator of the credibility of U.S. guarantees to NATO. For this reason, it has a unique stake in the outcome of the North Korea crisis and would view a deal that addresses solely the long-range missile threat from the country as unsatisfactory (as it would be perceived to serve U.S. interest over allied interest). In the event of growing military tensions between the United States and China, Europe is likely to prefer to remain neutral for all intents and purposes, beyond diplomatic support, and to avoid getting involved in conflicts in the region, which it may view as quagmires. The Vietnam War experience would be a central analogy in such debates. Fourth, Europe wants to promote the so-called rules-based global order, which provides for a degree of predictability and stability in interactions with Asian countries, and can help guide the rise of China toward positive global contributions. It would prefer these rules to be liberal, but above all, it prefers the presence of rules to the lack thereof. With respect to democracy and human rights, Europe wants to promote universal values in Asia and may be able to leverage its trade and investment agreements there to promote better labor regulations, anti-­ corruption mechanisms, legal reforms, and political transparency. But any positive changes are likely to be gradual and to involve numerous regresses and setbacks, rather than transformational improvement akin to the 1989 wave in Central and Eastern Europe.

5  COUNTERING CHINA’S ASSERTIVENESS 

133

Europe’s interests in Asia also illustrate the distinction between the liberal (geographically limited) order and the rules-based (global) order. Sometimes, the two concepts are used interchangeably because the post-­ Cold War vision of liberal order was global and intended to eventually include both Russia and China. But Russia’s and China’s actions over the past six years have eliminated this prospect at the least for the medium term. And China may use its continued support for the economic pillars of the international order, which facilitate its development, to gradually reshape the political pillars in its own image. For its part, Europe does not have the objective to change the domestic structures in either Russia or China. It has neither the capacity to do so nor the interest, as any such direct attempts would be highly destabilizing to its own security and prosperity. On the other hand, Europe can establish partnerships with like-minded countries in the Indo-Pacific region to help build and strengthen liberal institutions, as a way of preempting China’s activities in the neighborhood, particularly by enhancing the political aspects of its economic agreements in the region.

Policy Options Over the near-to-medium term—the next two to five years—Europe’s primary policy instrument in relation to Asia is likely to continue to be economic, through trade and investment agreements. Traditionally, its economic policy has been used to maximize prosperity and commercial opportunity, but it could consider further strengthening within economic negotiations stricter political criteria, such as human rights, democracy, rule of law, labor standards, anti-corruption, and transparency—as it has done with the partnership agreements with Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. In addition to further bilateral treaties with countries in the region, the EU could potentially join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership with 11 Pacific states as a way of reviving the high-standards that characterized the prior TPP from which the Trump administration withdrew. Beyond trade and investment policies, the EU-Asia Connectivity Strategy provides a wider framework for economic engagement in Asia and responding to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). But the devil will be in the details, and in the scale to which various concrete transport, energy, infrastructure, communications, and digital projects will be funded. The challenge will be to maintain an overarching strategic

134 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

narrative encompassing various disparate initiatives and ensuring credibility of commitments; arguably, China’s BRI has been successful on messaging, but less on delivery. A new set of policy considerations that Europe will need to process will be centered on protecting its way of life from illiberal forces. For instance, efforts to screen foreign direct investment into Europe for security concerns have quickly galvanized. As a consequence, Huawei’s 5G technology, though cost-competitive and advantageous in terms of communications speed, is suspect and may be rejected in European countries, because it could facilitate Chinese surveillance. The same dynamic will characterize other decisions related to scientific cooperation, particularly in areas such as artificial intelligence. Another policy option would be to obtain credible mutual guarantees of political non-interference, which may be possible between Europe and China. However, this would require Europe sacrificing its support for democratic and human rights values in China, and may not be politically palatable. Europe has several formats for consultation and engagement with Asia—in particular the Asia-Europe Meeting of 53 partners across Europe and Asia, the EU-ASEAN format, and the EU-India strategic partnership—that it can strengthen and utilize to promote a liberal order in Asia with like-minded partners. The open question is whether there will be sufficient interest in Europe and Asia to organize collective action on issues related to this, which are inevitably diffuse, of general interest and shared benefit, with long-term consequences but short-term costs, and thus the most difficult to galvanize political effort for. Finally, apart from France and the United Kingdom, Europe has limited military assets in Asia. However, the EU could explore launching civilian missions or military operations, pursuant to its Common Security and Defence Policy, to help advise on rule of law, security sector reform, the national security process, or military training, as it does in 16 such missions and operations across Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. This kind of assistance in states such as Sri Lanka or Myanmar could be a valuable contribution to regional security.

Indirect Strategies in the Indo-Pacific The EU Global Strategy aims for “an appropriate level of ambition” for Europe’s “ability to promote peace and security within and beyond its borders.” This applies with special force to Europe’s strategies in Asia,

5  COUNTERING CHINA’S ASSERTIVENESS 

135

which span multiple layers of abstraction, encompass numerous decision-­ makers and political entities, and need to balance a range of diverse and potentially conflicting interests. Europe’s economic scale, internal resilience, institutional stability, diplomatic and political reach, confidence in its values, and military potential give it a vast range of tools to design sophisticated policy options for the future, regardless of what scenarios emerge in the Indo-Pacific. However, developing a specific strategy for the region is more complicated than for Russia: the challenges are less immediate; the geography, more distant; the near-term economic interests, alluring; and the familiarity of the region, diffused. It is no surprise that the 2019 EU strategic approach characterized China into four separate categories—cooperating partner, negotiating partner, economic competitor, and systemic rival—and listed ten separate action items with China. This perspective’s gain in comprehensiveness was also a loss in clarity. Which category dominates Europe’s relations with China? How should Europe prioritize its range of actions with China? European leaders have thought in different ways about strategy in Asia or toward China. French President Macron, for instance, has argued that Europe must play a “balancing power” in the region.18 But he defined balancing primarily in the area of commerce: establishing greater reciprocity and a level playing field for economic exchange. He noted that France has “interests to champion in several areas, from civil nuclear energy to agrifoods to aeronautics,” as its “businesses know all too well.” He also pointed out Europe’s interest in engaging with the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative. Finally, he claimed that “China has very much become our ally” on climate change, having signed onto the Carbon Neutrality Coalition for 2050 at the G20 Osaka summit. During the March 2019 visit by Xi Jinping, France and China signed a joint declaration on improving multilateralism and global governance, suggesting that the two sides have similar visions of world order.19 Eight months later, Macron reached an action plan with Xi, committing each other to annual meetings at the level of head of state and promoting high-level exchanges on strategy, economics, finance, and human rights. Instead of balancing, France’s strategy risks appearing as bandwagoning. Notably, Macron does not describe China as a systemic rival, as the EU has done, nor even as an economic competitor. Moreover, Macron at times equates China with the United States in arguing that Europe should be a “trusted third party” balancing between the two.20 He has argued that “Europe has a responsibility and a role in

136 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

relation to China and in relation to the United States because our vision, our DNA of relationship between freedom, justice, equity, individual rights, is completely unique.”21 In February 2020, shortly before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic across the world, he continued this theme: The United States loves freedom as much as we do, but they do not have the same ideas of equality, cultural diversity and pluralism. China is opening up to the market economy. It does not have the same ideas of freedom and equality that we have. We are genuinely a singular continent and political power in our collective preferences and philosophical roots.22

Taken to its logical conclusion, this strategy of balancing can be quite dangerous as it treats Europe’s traditional ally and security guarantor, the United States, as the equivalent to China—a trading partner, at best, and a systemic rival, at worst. In the event of tensions in the region between the United States and China, would European allies side with the weaker side (presumably China) in an effort to balance the scales? Would they stay neutral (like during the Vietnam War) or would they support the United States if its cause was just? Conversely, should the United States start to approach its European policy as a form of balancing in the world, where it would side with Russia or China as the weaker sides (depending on the issue)? Macron’s strategic approach toward China appears to misapply nineteenth-­century models of balancing, rather than the more applicable Cold War model. Balance-of-power strategies may have made sense during the nineteenth century in Europe when all the great powers were of a similar category (constitutional monarchies or absolute monarchies) and individual actors could choose allying with France, Germany, Austria, Russia, or Great Britain depending on the constellation of opposing forces (since all of the relevant decision-makers spoke French in any event). During the Cold War, balance of power between the West and the Soviet bloc logically implied a certain level of internal unity and cohesion, rather than balancing, within the West. Arguably, the challenge posed by China is more akin to that of the Soviet Union rather than one of the powers in the Concert of Europe and therefore requires allied rather than agnostic balance-of-power strategies. Most likely, if push comes to shove, French strategy does not intend to equate between a long-standing ally such as the United States and a competitor or rival such as China. Indeed, Macron has gestured toward Europe’s broader potential in the region as a builder and defender of

5  COUNTERING CHINA’S ASSERTIVENESS 

137

liberal institutions. He stressed that France’s strategy will only be successful if it takes a “European approach” as well as cooperates with the “powers of the region.” France is in a unique position among the EU-27 as it can claim to “act as an Indo-Pacific power,” with “more than a million inhabitants in the region because of its overseas territories.” In addition, France has “more than 8,000 soldiers” and is “one of the region’s main maritime powers, among the only ones conducting real military operations in the [South] China Sea.”23 Thus, Macron called for a set of partnerships with like-minded countries in the Indo-Pacific—such as India, Australia, Japan, Indonesia, and Singapore—to develop a “non-confrontational but complementary” alliance in juxtaposition to China. Various instruments of power that France and Europe have in the region—diplomatic, economic, development, military—must be “joined up,” he further argued.24 It is unclear why he has not included the United States in this intellectual mapping of like-­ minded partners in the region, but it is possible that he reflected merely the general frustrations with cooperating with the Trump administration on any long-term foreign policy objective, given the roller-coaster and chaotic features of its decision-making. A balancing strategy toward China can make sense for Europe if it is directed in support of Europe’s larger interest in the liberal order—a balance of power toward freedom. From this perspective, Europe is in a similar position with respect to China as was the United States toward the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War: in search of like-minded allies to build up the strength of the free world as a counterpoint to the illiberal adversary, be it China or Russia. In this effort, no European strategy without the United States can hope to succeed, and generally, the transatlantic allies share the same common interests in peace, prosperity, an expanding liberal order, and a stable rules-based global order. Whether Europe will find a predictable and reliable partner in the United States will depend on the future administration. German Chancellor Merkel has likewise emphasized primarily a strategy of engagement and cooperation with China, but instead of balancing against it, she has argued in favor of embedding it within the existing rules-based global order.25 “On trade issues as in other fields we [Germany and China] trust in multilateralism,” argued Merkel.26 Germany has a “comprehensive strategic partnership” with China, covering a wide range of issues.27 While acknowledging the long-term challenges from China, and the changed strategic context from the 1990s, Merkel also recognized

138 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

the limits of strategies that are directed against China. As she set out at the 2019 meeting with Xi Jinping in Paris, the strategic question for her is whether leaders can “bring this multilateral system into a new, changed era, and modify it as required, or will this multilateral system ossify, will it prove to be completely inflexible and thus, historically, will it one day be unable to do the job it must do?”28 In this endeavor, she highlighted the importance of cooperation between the EU, the United States, and China, stressing that there “can be no multilateralism without the United States of America.”29 Merkel’s framing of the China challenge seems to be that the changed balance of economic power should be reflected in international institutions. At the 2019 World Economic Forum in Davos, she argued that the emergence of an Asian Investment Bank, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the 17+1 format is “a warning shot which should tell us—or tell me, as an example of a western politician—that we have to do something to stop the fragmentation of the international architecture, that we have to be ready to reform the existing institutions to reflect the true balance of power in the world.”30 Yet, in the meantime, Germany has sought to develop new economic agreements with China, which has become Germany’s largest trading partner outside of Europe; the two sides signed 20 government and commercial agreements in 2018.31 Like France, Germany has also sought to build up strategic partnerships with other countries in the region. In particular, Merkel highlighted India as a democracy that “counts on the world being networked and sensibly shaped.”32 These additional regional links are not postured as countering China, but should be viewed as a way to build up the political, economic, and military strength of the free world in the Indo-Pacific region through increased partnerships among liberal democracies such as India or Australia. For its part, the EU has had an active diplomatic and economic agenda in the region. It reached a free trade agreement with South Korea in 2015 and an economic partnership agreement with Japan in 2019. It has ongoing trade negotiations with Australia, Indonesia, Myanmar, New Zealand, and the Philippines, as well as with China. Equally important, the EU has established a strategic partnership agreement (SPA) with Japan, provisionally in force since 2019, to facilitate coordination of foreign policy. The EU’s only other SPA is with Canada, in force since 2017, underscoring its uniqueness as an instrument of EU strategy. The SPA sets forth broad goals for EU-Japan cooperation:

5  COUNTERING CHINA’S ASSERTIVENESS 

139

(a) strengthen the overall partnership between the Parties by furthering political and sectoral cooperation and joint actions on issues of common interest, including regional and global challenges; (b) provide a long-lasting legal foundation for enhancing bilateral cooperation as well as cooperation in international and regional organisations and fora; (c) contribute jointly to international peace and stability through the promotion of peaceful settlement of disputes in conformity with the principles of justice and international law; and (d) contribute jointly to the promotion of shared values and principles, in particular democracy, the rule of law, human rights and fundamental freedoms.33 Notably, both sides commit to upholding the values of democracy, human rights, rule of law, and fundamental freedoms and to promote international and regional peace and security. The SPA also establishes a Joint Committee to coordinate efforts across a wide range of issues: crisis management, non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, arms control, criminal enforcement, counterterrorism, UN affairs, development, humanitarian action, economic and financial policy, climate, health, and other matters. The breadth and depth of topics covered under the SPA is similar to the EU’s association agreements with neighboring countries and intended to treat Japan (and likewise Canada) as core partners. The SPA is a useful mechanism for the EU to build similar institutional links, based around common values of democracy and human rights, with other like-minded partners in the region as a way of strengthening the free world in the Indo-Pacific. To be sure, an SPA is not a defense alliance nor can the EU offer security guarantees in the region akin to those by the United States. However, the rivalry with China, to the extent it takes place, will occur in numerous forums and primarily in the political and economic spheres, rather than in military domains. Thus, SPAs should be considered as part of Europe’s overall strategy in countering China’s assertiveness, indirectly. In many respects, current European strategy in Asia has much in common with the Obama-Biden administration’s approach toward China and the region. Obama argued that the United States and China shared a range of common interests, such as global economic growth, preserving the climate, nuclear non-proliferation, and transnational threats. And, he maintained, instead of “try[ing] to contain China’s ambitions” or fearing

140 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

a “rising China,” the United States could “benefit from engagement that is grounded in mutual interest and mutual respect.”34 Through the strategic dialogue, Obama sought “a future where China is a strong, prosperous, and successful member of the community of nations, a future when our nations are partners out of necessity, but also out of opportunity.”35 This general approach continued into President Xi Jinping’s administration. Only three months after assuming office, Xi visited the United States and President Obama reaffirmed that he welcomed the “continuing peaceful rise of China as a world power” but sought to address contentious issues such as cybersecurity and intellectual property.36 Xi struck a slightly more wary tone, noting somewhat ominously that the “vast Pacific Ocean has enough space for the two large countries of China and the United States” and that China hoped to “build a new model of major country relationship.”37 He referenced the “Chinese dream of the great national renewal,” and argued for its compatibility with “the American Dream and the beautiful dreams people in other countries may have.”38 Alongside greater diplomatic and economic engagement with China, President Obama also invested in expanding the U.S. relationship with other countries in the region, particularly India. He extended the prestige of the first official state visit of his administration to the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.39 Obama viewed India not only as a “21st-­ century center[] of influence”40 but also as America’s “partner of first resort[] in addressing global challenges”41—the only instance in which Obama referred to America’s relationship with another country in this way. The tangible record of deliverables with India was limited—for example, U.S. participation in the Global Center of Nuclear Energy Partnership or Singh-Obama Twenty-First Century Knowledge Initiative in higher education42—but the administration’s focus on the relationship was extensive. The administration’s strategy in Asia also included the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a comprehensive trade agreement with 11 other countries in the region. Currently, the balance of effort within Europe in Asia seems to be tilted in favor of engaging China economically and seeking to update the rulesbased order as a way of accommodating China’s rise. Due to China’s size and global economic interdependence, Europe cannot and should not seek to contain China in the manner of Cold War approaches toward the Soviet Union. On the other hand, the long-term systemic challenge of China’s authoritarianism should shift Europe’s diplomatic and economic efforts toward like-minded partners in the region, in a network of liberal

5  COUNTERING CHINA’S ASSERTIVENESS 

141

SPAs with Australia, New Zealand, India, and others that can help dampen China’s illiberal influence in the future. And all of these multilateral efforts will be much more successful if they can be coordinated with the United States as well.  * * * As this book was going to press, the EU announced a new deal with China on a comprehensive agreement on investment (CAI)—on the penultimate eve of 2020 as most EU officials were away on customary weeks-long holidays—surprising many observers and officials on both sides of the Atlantic. The deal is actually still in draft form, its contents remain unpublished, and the agreement was reached only “in principle” with significant negotiations remaining, not to mention required government approvals and parliamentary ratifications that can take another several years. Yet, there was potent political symbolism to the joint announcement by President Xi Jinping flanked by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Charles Michel, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and French President Emmanuel Macron—particularly given the request by the Biden-Harris transition team to consult with Europe on this matter. Indeed, the potential EU-China deal seems in strategic tension with Europe’s offer to the new U.S. administration, announced by EU leaders with great fanfare only four weeks earlier, to reinvigorate and reimagine transatlantic relations in the wake of the Trump years. Having reviewed the 95-page EU working document, including its underlying strategic rationale, one is struck that the drafters were aware of this conflict but nonetheless pursued the agreement. The explanatory note provides that the “conclusion of the CAI would not prevent us [the EU] from joining forces with other like-minded partners in pursuing a common China strategy. We share, with the US and others, similar concerns about the distortions caused by China’s economic system. With or without CAI, we aim to deepen our cooperation on China with the future US administration and others.” On the other hand, the EU argues that many of its “main trading partners have now concluded agreements with China (Canada and Switzerland; Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Vietnam and other [Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership] RCEP members), including the Trump administration’s ‘Phase 1 deal covering investments in financial services and rules against forced technology transfers.’” It also argues that the deal is only a part of

142 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

the EU’s “broader China strategy, where we combine bilateral/multilateral engagement with autonomous tools, including to offset the distortive effects of China’s economic model on the EU internal market and on third countries.” Yet, the deal’s strategic rationale is primarily mercantilist, “focusing on investment,” rather than seeking “structural reforms in China … let alone political change.” The draft text seems to read from the time when its negotiations were commenced, seven years ago, when economic liberalization with China was viewed widely as the best way to promote political progress in China. Since then, significant shifts have occurred both in Europe and the United States in terms of strategic thinking toward China, with the EU in particular adopting a more complex approach toward China as a systemic rival, economic competitor, negotiating partner, or cooperation partner (depending on the issue). Perhaps what the draft EU-China deal and its fallout illustrate the most is the urgent need for real and honest strategic debate in Europe, at the level of all leaders and across all the main issues, to ensure consistency and coherence of its various policies. If Europe’s grand strategy can reinvigorate the West, manage Russia’s decline, and counter China’s assertiveness, it will go a long way toward securing the liberal foundations for Europe’s continued survival and success. Yet, it will also need to guide policies in other parts of the world, including stabilizing the Middle East and Africa.

Notes 1. See generally David C.  Kang, American Grand Strategy and East Asian Security in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017); Michael R.  Auslin, The End of the Asian Century: War, Stagnation, and the Risks to the World’s Most Dynamic Region (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2017); Parag Khanna, Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2016); Thomas Christensen, The China Challenge: Shaping the Choices of a Rising Power (New York: W.W.  Norton, 2016); Noah Feldman, Cool War: The Future of Global Competition (New York: Random House, 2013); Henry Kissinger, On China (New York: Penguin, 2011); Joshua Kurlantzick, Charm Offensive: How China’s Soft Power Is Transforming the World (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008). 2. A Global Strategy for the European Union (2016). 3. Joint Communication, Connecting Europe and Asia - Building blocks for an EU Strategy (2018) (hereinafter “EU-Asia Connectivity Strategy”).

5  COUNTERING CHINA’S ASSERTIVENESS 

143

4. Joint Communication, EU-China—A strategic outlook (2019). 5. EU-Asia Connectivity Strategy. 6. World Bank Open Data. 7. Chinese President Xi Jinping, Secure a Decisive Victory in Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects and Strive for the Great Success of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, Beijing, 18 October 2017. 8. Chinese President Xi Jinping, Jointly Shoulder Responsibility of Our Times, Promote Global Growth, Davos, 17 January 2017. 9. Joint Communication, EU-China—A strategic outlook (2019). 10. Ibid. 11. EU-China Joint Statement, Brussels, 9 April 2019. 12. See, for example, Philippe Le Corre, China’s Rise as a Geoeconomic Influencer: Four European Case Studies, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (October 2018). 13. Joint Statement: Deepening the EU-China Comprehensive Strategic Partnership for mutual benefit, 31 March 2014. 14. After the June 2020 EU-China Summit via videoconference, Xi joined for an exchange of views. See EU-China Summit: Defending EU interests and values in a complex and vital partnership—press release by President Michel and President von der Leyen (22 June 2020). 15. Speech by M.  Emmanuel Macron, President of the Republic, 27 August 2019. 16. Twelve EU states and five Balkan countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, and Slovenia. 17. See generally, European Parliament, “Research for TRAN Committee: The new Silk Route—opportunities and challenges for EU transport” (2018). 18. Speech by M.  Emmanuel Macron, President of the Republic, 27 August 2019. 19. Déclaration conjointe entre la République française et la République populaire de Chine sur la préservation du multilatéralisme et l’amélioration de la gouvernance mondiale, 26 March 2019. 20. Speech by Emmanuel Macron on the Occasion of the Opening of the Second Paris Peace Forum, 12 November 2019 (“Cette Europe géopolitique, elle doit être souveraine, démocratique, mais en effet construire les solutions de nouveaux équilibres et, je pense, être cette espèce de tiers de confiance entre les États-Unis d’Amérique et la Chine.”). 21. Speech by the President of the Republic at the World Economic Forum in Davos, 24 January 2018 (“l’Europe a une responsabilité et un rôle par rap-

144 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

port à la Chine et par rapport aux États-Unis parce que notre vision, notre ADN de relation entre la liberté, la justice, l’équité, les droits individuels, c’est tout à fait unique et nous avons cet équilibre entre ces valeurs en Europe.”). 22. President Emmanuel Macron’s speech at Jagiellonian University, Krakow, 5 February 2020. 23. Speech by M.  Emmanuel Macron, President of the Republic, 27 August 2019. 24. Ibid. 25. Remarks at the Henry Kissinger Prize for Chancellor Angela Merkel, 21 January 2020. 26. Working together for free world trade, 9 July 2018. 27. Taking good relations to a new level, 5 July 2017. 28. Taking multilateralism to the next level, 26 March 2019. 29. Ibid. 30. Speech by Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel at the 49th World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, 23 January 2019. 31. Working together for free world trade, 9 July 2018. 32. “We have taken our strategic partnership to a new level,” 30 May 2017. 33. Strategic Partnership Agreement between the European Union and its Member States, of the one part, and Japan, of the other part, 24 August 2018. 34. Remarks at the United States-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, July 27, 2009; see also Letter to the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, May 24, 2010. 35. Ibid. 36. Remarks Prior to a Meeting with President Xi Jinping of China in Rancho Mirage, California, Jun. 7, 2013. 37. Ibid. 38. Remarks Following a Meeting with President Xi Jinping of China and an Exchange with Reporters in Rancho Mirage, California, June 7, 2013. 39. Remarks at a Welcoming Ceremony for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India, Nov. 24, 2009. 40. Remarks at the United States-India Strategic Dialogue Reception, June 3, 2010. 41. Joint Statement by President Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India, Sept. 27, 2013 (“President Obama and Prime Minister Singh believe that the United States and India should look to each other as partners of first resort.”). 42. The President’s News Conference with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India in New Delhi, Nov. 8, 2010.

CHAPTER 6

Stabilizing the Middle East and Africa

A senior EU official once told me, when I asked him what were Europe’s interests and objectives in Syria, that the EU just wants to make the world a better place. To be sure, the impulse was admirable, but did not help clarify Europe’s strategy for the country nor the wider region. After all, the EU is not a charitable organization but instead is intended to reflect the interests of its member states and ultimately, its citizens. One overriding contemporary feature of the Middle East and Africa is the persistence of conflict and increased violence. Over the past ten years, since the outbreak of the Arab Spring, not only have new crises erupted, most dramatically in Syria and Yemen, but also old ones persist (e.g., in Afghanistan and Iraq). Conflicts thus accumulate, unabated. The human cost of these conflicts has been profound. Overall casualties in Syria alone have ranged from 300,000 to 500,000, and in Iraq nearly 100,000. After a long-term global decline from 1945 to 2011, war-related deaths have increased dramatically within the last decade (Fig. 6.1).1 Regional conflict in both the Middle East and Africa has given rise to one source of concern for Europe: irregular migration. Refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) flee conflict zones due to concern for their safety. Europe has a humanitarian interest in providing relief for both groups, and a legal obligation to provide protection for refugees who arrive in its territory. It also has a political interest in ensuring orderly

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 B. M. J. Szewczyk, Europe’s Grand Strategy, Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60523-0_6

145

146 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

100000 90000 80000 70000 60000 50000 40000 30000 20000 10000 0 2011

2012

2013

Fragile and conflict affected situations

2014 Syria

2015

2016

Afghanistan

2017 Yemen

2018 Iraq

Fig. 6.1  War casualties. (Source: World Bank data on battle-related deaths (2018). This data illustrates the global trend, but does not necessarily reflect precise pinpoint estimates; accurate data on casualties in war zones is often difficult to obtain and consists of wide ranges)

processing of asylum applications to distinguish between refugees fleeing violence and voluntary migrants in search of better economic opportunities. Finally, it has an interest in resolving the underlying conflicts, whether in Syria or elsewhere, in part to enable the eventual return of refugees to their home countries. Conflict in the region has also fueled another source of concern: international terrorism. Terrorists exploit the chaos of conflict to organize and plan attacks, including against external targets in Europe and elsewhere. In particular, the rise of ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) in Syria and Iraq led to the largest attacks in European history: in France, Belgium, the United Kingdom, and Germany. Over the past five years, both irregular migration and terrorism have topped the list of concerns among European citizens, according to Eurobarometer reports. There has been most likely more attention paid by European leaders to migration than to any other foreign policy issue, based on the number of summits and meetings on this issue. And countering and preventing international terrorism has been the primary justification for extensive military operations in the Sahel, even by countries traditionally reluctant to use force, such as Germany. To be sure, there are many other areas of interest for Europe in the Middle East and Africa, such as promoting mutual prosperity through economic integration, supporting democracy, rule of law, and human

6  STABILIZING THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA 

147

rights, as well as providing for cultural and educational exchanges. But any strategy needs to prioritize issues, and both irregular migration and terrorism have been the core concerns for both citizens and leaders of Europe.

Global Refugee Crisis The refugee crisis in Europe in 2015 and 2016 emerged as part of the worst global humanitarian crisis since World War II. Between 2011 and 2018, refugees and asylum-seekers more than doubled, and the total number of internally displaced persons nearly tripled across the world. At the end of 2018, the most recent statistics available from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) at the time of writing, there were 23.9 million refugees and asylum-seekers under UNHCR’s mandate, in addition to 5.5 million Palestinian refugees registered by the UN Relief and Works Agency, as well as 41.4 million IDPs. Currently, there are 22 “protracted” conflicts, whereby over 25,000 refugees have been displaced for at least five years. The total number of forcibly displaced persons of over 70 million is a historic high even compared to World War II, when estimates were around 40–60 million people displaced. In contrast to these record levels of forced displacement, the overall proportion of international migration (people who reside outside the country of their birth due to necessity or by choice) has grown only marginally over the past 20 years (around 3.5% of the global population, or 272 million by the end of 2019, compared to 2.8% of the population in 2000). Within the EU-27, non-EU citizens composed merely 4.7% of the population in 2019, only slightly higher than the 4% in 2010. (By comparison, 13.6% of U.S. residents in 2019 were foreign-born.) Voluntary international migration, driven by diversity of economic, social, and political opportunity, has been a regular, well-established, and positive feature of globalization, rather than a new phenomenon or source of crisis (Fig. 6.2). Approximately half of the refugees (over 13 million) have come from four conflicts: in Syria, Afghanistan, South Sudan, and Somalia. Most of them generally fled to neighboring countries, such as Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan (for Syrians), Pakistan and Iran (for Afghanis), and Uganda, Ethiopia, and Sudan (for South Sudanese). This makes logical sense, since families will seek refuge in the closest place available where they can get shelter and basic support. In theory, residing in the neighboring countries is not only practical but advisable as it can also expedite returning home once the conflict ends. However, refugees seek secondary shelter if the

148 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

2,50,00,000 2,00,00,000 1,50,00,000 1,00,00,000 50,00,000 2011 Syria

2012

2013

Afghanistan

2014

2015

South Sudan

2016 Somalia

2017

2018 World

Fig. 6.2  Refugees and asylum-seekers. (Source: UNHCR)

conditions in the neighboring countries become too difficult, due to conflict or lack of sufficient sustenance. For Europe, the main burden from this crisis arose during 2015 and 2016 when there were record levels of asylum-seekers of around one million each year. By the end of 2016, there were a total of 1.8 million refugees in the EU and 2.2 million the following year, most of whom came from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. And it was the conflict in Syria, more than any other factor, that explained both the timing and the source of refugees. The war in Syria had already been in its fourth year, with no sign of abating. By the end of 2014, there were already nearly 4 million Syrian refugees in the neighboring countries, including 1.6 million in Turkey. Then, in December 2014, the World Food Program, which provided basic sustenance to Syrians in the region, announced severe cuts in its supplies due to funding shortages. Subsequently, significant escalation in fighting due to Russia’s military intervention in September 2015 convinced Syrian refugees that they could neither stay in the neighboring countries nor expect returning home anytime soon. Thus, they risked onward journeys from the region into Europe, with Iraqi and Afghani refugees following suit once the transport networks were established.2 Notwithstanding the large scale of these flows and its potential open-­ endedness, the perception of the crisis as existential for the EU appeared to be overstated. Nearly half of the refugees eventually settled in Germany, with most of the rest in five other countries: France, Sweden, Italy, Austria, and the Netherlands. Thus, almost 90% of refugees have resided in six EU

6  STABILIZING THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA 

149

member states, but the issue appeared to become an existential crisis for all and generated multiple extraordinary summits and late-night discussions seeking to resolve the problem. When I worked on these issues in 2015 and 2016 at the U.S. Department of State, one anecdote illustrated the mismatch between actual and perceived risks of irregular migration. A national security advisor from an EU member state lamented that hundreds of thousands of migrants came into his country. When I asked how many actually stayed and applied for asylum, he responded without any sense of irony, just one. Levels of irregular migration have now plummeted to pre-crisis and sustainable flows, largely due to the EU-Turkey deal in 2016 and increased humanitarian funding for refugees.3 Nonetheless, public and governmental attention remains focused on the issue, given that it is possible that another conflict, or escalation of existing conflicts, could again spike flows of refugees from the Middle East and Africa. For instance, since the peak of the European crisis in 2016, the number of Syrian refugees has increased by more than one million and the conflict is ongoing. Moreover, given the scale and the widespread distribution of internally displaced persons, the overall number of refugees can increase even further from the current record levels (Table 6.1). Approximately two-thirds of the more than 40 million internally displaced persons around the world reside in ten countries in the Middle East and Africa: Syria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Yemen, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Sudan, and Iraq. That is nearly twice the current number of refugees, meaning that the global refugee crisis could triple in its intensity if the IDPs are forced to flee outside of their countries. If that occurs, the immediate places of refuge are likely to be the countries neighboring the conflict zones. However, if basic order, stability, and sustenance are not available in the region, refugees will be forced by necessity to seek shelter wherever they can find it. This strategic context—record levels of forced displacement (both refugees and IDPs) and stable levels of economically driven voluntary migration—places a premium on resolving the underlying conflicts to enable safe return of IDPs and refugees to their homes, as well as intermediate measures to provide humanitarian relief and safe havens in neighboring countries around the conflict zones. By contrast, economic programs to stem voluntary migration appear less necessary, since the predominant crisis has been driven by forced displacement, not people seeking better economic opportunities.

Syria Congo Somalia Ethiopia Nigeria Yemen Afghanistan South Sudan Sudan Iraq World

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

– 2,016,500 6,520,800 7,632,500 6,563,462 6,325,978 6,150,005 6,183,920 1,709,278 2,669,069 2,963,799 2,756,585 1,555,112 2,232,900 4,351,376 4,516,865 1,356,845 1,132,963 1,133,000 1,133,000 1,133,000 1,562,554 2,116,705 2,648,000 – – – – – – 1,078,429 2,615,800 – – – 1,188,018 2,172,532 2,219,272 1,704,080 2,167,924 347,295 385,320 306,614 334,093 2,532,032 2,025,060 2,014,062 2,144,718 447,547 486,298 631,286 805,409 1,174,306 1,797,551 1,837,079 2,106,893 560,161 345,670 331,097 1,645,392 1,790,427 1,853,924 1,903,953 1,878,153 2,422,520 1,873,300 1,873,300 2,192,830 3,218,234 2,225,557 1,997,022 1,864,195 1,332,382 1,131,810 954,128 3,596,356 4,403,287 3,604,285 2,615,988 1,802,832 15,471,378 17,670,369 23,925,555 32,274,619 37,494,172 36,627,127 39,118,516 41,425,147

Internally displaced persons 2011

Table 6.1  Internal Displacement

150  B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

6  STABILIZING THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA 

151

This conclusion may seem somewhat counterintuitive. After all, given the income disparities between Europe, on the one hand, and the Middle East and Africa, on the other hand, one might expect greater voluntary migration flows driven by economic opportunities. According to the World Bank, GDP per capita is 20 times higher in Europe than sub-­ Saharan Africa and nearly 10 times higher than the Middle East and North Africa (excluding high income countries). Moreover, the population in Africa and the Middle East is more than three times the size of the European Union. However, the pull factors of increased potential income need to be considered alongside the countervailing pull factors to stay in one’s home country—familial, linguistic, cultural, ethnic, and religious ties—alongside the obstacles anyone faces in finding economic opportunities in foreign countries: language barriers, lack of social networks, and other labor market frictions. For these reasons, the flow of voluntary migrants as part of the overall process of globalization has been rather steady over the past 10–20 years, rather than a sudden source of crisis in Europe or elsewhere. In the future, it is of course possible that the balance of factors will shift significantly toward much greater voluntary migration, due to new environmental factors as a result of climate change or public health concerns as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic or other viruses. But the recent experience of crisis in 2015 and 2016 that drives current policy debates and decision-making was due to refugees fleeing violence and food shortages; thus, these are the core challenges to resolve by addressing the underlying conflicts and providing intermediate relief in the neighboring countries.

International Terrorism The years 2015 and 2016 also witnessed a record number of terrorist attacks in Europe. After an attack in May 2014  in Brussels against the Jewish Museum, which killed four people, there was a mass attack in November 2015 in Paris at the Bataclan nightclub, which killed over 130 and injured over 400. The following year, there was another mass-scale terrorist attack in March 2016 at the Brussels airport, which killed over 30 and injured over 300, and in July 2016 in Nice, which killed over 80 and injured over 400. The spike in terrorist attacks resulted from the rise of a new terrorist group called the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS, also referred to as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, ISIL, or the Islamic State). ISIS

152 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

was a radical offshoot of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Established in 2013, it gradually expanded control amidst the civil war in Syria and the instability in Iraq after the U.S. withdrawal of combat troops at the end of 2011. In June 2014, ISIS captured Mosul, the second-­largest city in Iraq, and proclaimed itself as the caliphate, or the Islamic State. In 2015 and 2016, ISIS both inspired and directly organized attacks in Europe, such as the Bataclan and the Brussels airport attacks. Europe responded with a range of external and internal measures. Externally, all EU countries joined the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS, formed by the Obama-Biden administration in September 2014. Some European countries, such as France and the United Kingdom, eventually deployed special forces to fight alongside U.S. troops. And Germany, for the first time in history, sent weapons to equip Iraqi Kurds in the fight against ISIS. Fifteen European countries contributed troops for training and advising missions and five countries flew strike operations in Iraq and Syria. In 2016, over half of the coalition troops came from Europe, although the United States took the lead in air strikes and overall coalition command. European countries took the lead responsibility for issues such as stopping the flow of foreign terrorist fighters, cutting off terrorist financing, countering ISIL propaganda, and mobilizing humanitarian relief. By 2019, the U.S.-led global coalition defeated ISIS in the sense of depriving it of all physical control of territory, but the group remains a threat in a metastasized form. Internally, European countries established interoperability of law-­ enforcement databases and an EU directive on Passenger Name Record data—both measures in order to enable better sharing of information regarding potential terrorist suspects. These steps, while seemingly technical, marked a significant increase in Europe’s ability to prevent terrorist attacks. As a consequence of both external and internal measures, the time period of 2017–2019 saw an overall decline in terrorist attacks in Europe.4 This trend has been consistent with the global decrease in the number of deaths due to terrorist attacks from a peak of around 34,000 in 2014 to around 16,000 in 2018.5 Overall, the ratio of terrorist deaths in Europe to non-­ terrorist murders has been around 3%, with nearly 400 Europeans killed in terrorist attacks since 2015.6 The main objective for Europe will be to continue to mitigate, even if not completely eliminate, the risk from terrorism by accurately calibrating the scale of the threat and allocating the required resources, with neither overstretch nor underinvestment (Table 6.2).

6  STABILIZING THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA 

153

Table 6.2  Military coalition contributions to countering the Islamic State Country

Training and advising Air strike contributions mission contributions

Other contributions

Belgium

Approx. 35 personnel

Approx. 120 personnel in support of air-combat

Denmark Estonia Finland France

Germany

Strike operations in Iraq; 6 F-16A/Bs based in Jordan Approx. 180 Strike operations in personnel Iraq and Syria; 7 F-16 s Approx. 10 trainers N/A Approx. 100 personnel N/A Approx. 1000 Strike operations in personnel Iraq and Syria; 14 Dassault fighters; Charles de Gaulle Carrier Strike Group Approx. 150 N/A personnel

Hungary

Approx. 125 troops deployed for force protection in Northern Iraq Latvia 10 trainers Netherlands Approx. 150 personnel Norway Approx. 150 personnel Poland Approx. 60 personnel

N/A

Portugal Spain

N/A N/A

Sweden United Kingdom Europe— total United States

Approx. 30 personnel Approx. 300 personnel Approx. 35 trainers Approx. 400 personnel Approx. 2735 personnel 4647 personnel authorized for Iraq; 300 personnel authorized for Syria

N/A Strike operations in Iraq and Syria

N/A

N/A Strike and surveillance operations in Iraq & Syria Strike operations in Iraq and Syria Strike operations in Iraq and Syria; largest contributor to the coalition

Approx. 20 staff officers at coalition headquarters N/A N/A Approx. 1000 total personnel in theater in support of missions (air-combat) Maximum of 1200 personnel based out of theater in support of missions that include refueling and aerial ISR; 15 Iraqi Counter-IED NCOs in Hungary in “train the trainers” program N/A Approx. 50 staff officers in theater Unspecified special forces to support operations in Syria Approx. 150 personnel deployed to Kuwait N/A N/A N/A Country-wide program to counter IEDs Approx. 2705 personnel Global capabilities and key enablers to meet operational requirements

Source: Kathleen J.  McInnis, Coalition Contributions to Countering the Islamic State, Congressional Research Service, 24 August 2016 (based on data from the Department of Defense)

154 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

Defining Europe’s Core Interests and Objectives Perhaps somewhat counterintuitively, the main challenge for Europe in formulating a strategy toward the Middle East and Africa will be to clearly identify its core interests at stake—be it irregular migration, counterterrorism, humanitarian, or other interests—in order to prioritize its objectives and allocate appropriate resources to attain them. The distinction between core and non-core interests is not widespread in European discourse, but is a useful method of focusing attention of policy analysts and senior decision-makers. For instance, former President Obama identified the two categories of interests that the United States had in the Middle East and North Africa.7 Its core interests were four-fold: confronting external aggression against U.S. allies and partners; ensuring the free flow of energy from the region to the world; defeating terrorist groups that threaten U.S. citizens; and countering the development or use of weapons of mass destruction. To serve these interests, the United States was prepared to act alone if necessary and use all instruments of power, including the use of force. By contrast, non-core interests involved issues such as peace, prosperity, and promotion of democracy, human rights, and open markets in the region. U.S. unilateral or military action would not be effective in serving these interests, and instead would require collective action with international partners. Based on Europe’s experience in 2015 and 2016, it would appear that preventing irregular migration and countering international terrorism would be Europe’s core interests in the region, more so than other potential interests, such as managing voluntary migration, promoting economic integration, or supporting democracy, human rights, or rule of law. This would explain Germany’s brokering the deal with Turkey in 2016 to stem flows of refugees and economic migrants into Europe. It would also appear to explain France’s military operations in the Sahel, along with European partners, as well as the EU’s multiple civilian and military missions in the region. On the other hand, European leaders have been careful to be future-oriented in defining interests, to avoid the common mistake of only preparing for the last war or the last crisis. The European Union has significant credibility in both the Middle East and Africa: as a rules-based and consensus-driven institution, its decisions are rarely suspected to have hidden agendas and, though they may be slow

6  STABILIZING THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA 

155

to develop, they stick. As such, Europe is a trusted and respected actor through the region, and can equally mediate in Syria, Iraq, Ethiopia, or South Sudan. However, Europe needs to translate its large economic and diplomatic might into political leverage in the region, and in particular, to focus its efforts on issues of its core interest. Generally, the guiding motivation should be stability in both the Middle East and Africa through the full spectrum of conflict prevention and sustaining peace: military intervention, crisis management, diplomacy, peacebuilding, development, and rule of law. In practice, designing policies should be sensitive to the country-­specific conditions and establish certain criteria to assess how much resources to allocate to serve the objectives of stability. Perhaps in no country has this task been more difficult than in Syria, which was the main source of both irregular migration and international terrorism in Europe in 2015 and 2016.

Syria Europe’s involvement in Syria over the past decade originated in the context of the wider Arab Spring that swept across the Middle East and North Africa in 2011. The protest movements forced the resignation of the authoritarian regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen. However, the conflicts began to escalate shortly, as other dictators refused to leave office peacefully. In Libya, the Qaddafi regime determined to use mass violence to retain power. His threat to massacre hundreds of thousands of civilians in the city of Benghazi in March 2011 led to NATO’s humanitarian intervention, authorized by the UN Security Council, to prevent mass atrocities. French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron drove the decision to intervene and convinced President Obama to back it. German Chancellor Merkel was skeptical of the prospects of the intervention’s effectiveness and voiced concerns to Obama about potential refugee flows that the intervention might trigger. Germany withdrew all of its military personnel from NATO operations in the Mediterranean Sea and temporarily impeded the use of NATO’s AWACS surveillance plans by prohibiting its pilots from participating in the mission in Libya. Ultimately, NATO’s intervention was successful in its military objective of civilian protection in Libya. In September 2011, the opposition seized control of Tripoli and eventually captured Qaddafi.

156 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

By the fall of 2011, Europe and the United States perceived that the Arab Spring could follow the democratic transformations in Central and Eastern Europe in 1989. For instance, Polish Solidarity activists traveled to Tunisia to share their experiences and best practices. Most of the momentum was driven by local actors, but the Libyan example showed, at least in 2011, that transatlantic military intervention could be helpful in tilting the balance in favor of democratic opposition groups. This strategic logic framed European thinking with respect to Syria, which appeared to follow a similar course to Libya’s. To be sure, there were several similarities between Libya and Syria. The Bashar Al-Assad regime cracked down on peaceful protesters with extensive violence and intensity, such that there were 10,000 casualties at the end of 2011. Like Qaddafi, the Assad family’s four-decade-long rule appeared to atrophy and be prime for change. On the other hand, there were also marked differences. The Syrian military and its air defense were much stronger than Libya’s. The opposition groups appeared to be more fractured. And Russia, which abstained from voting on the UN Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force in Libya, felt that NATO overstepped its mandate (by pursuing regime change rather than stopping at civilian protection) and vowed to veto any similar resolution in Syria. For the time being, Europe and the United States hoped that the local opposition forces would be able to compel the Assad regime to step down, as other dictators had done in the region. Both sides imposed economic sanctions on Syria and called for Assad to step down, arguing that he had lost the legitimacy to rule. Undeterred, Assad held onto power and continued to use force against the opposition groups. The strategic context appeared to shift in the summer of 2012, when reports emerged regarding chemical weapons in Syria. Damascus confirmed that it had chemical weapons and would use them against external aggression. Now, the interests of the United States and Europe in the Syrian conflict were no longer only about humanitarian concerns but the well-established interest in non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. President Obama signaled potential military intervention by drawing a “red line” in the conflict: We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus.

6  STABILIZING THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA 

157

That would change my equation. … We have communicated in no uncertain terms with every player in the region that that’s a red line for us and that there would be enormous consequences if we start seeing movement on the chemical weapons front or the use of chemical weapons. That would change my calculations significantly.8

Both France and the United Kingdom agreed. French President Francois Hollande stressed that “preventing the use of chemical weapons … for the international community would be a legitimate reason for direct intervention.”9 British Prime Minister Cameron argued that “the use—or threat—of chemical weapons was completely unacceptable and would force them to revisit their approach so far.”10 However, it was difficult to justify intervening in Syria when chemical weapons had not yet been used, given the experience of the U.S.-led war in Iraq in 2003 and the flawed intelligence that was used to justify that preventive war. Moreover, this debate over Syria occurred as the situation in Libya deteriorated drastically, after what appeared to be the benchmark of success for military intervention. On 11 September 2012, terrorists attacked several U.S. sites in Benghazi, killing the U.S. ambassador and several diplomats. Libya, instead of being a successful precedent, joined the ranks of Iraq and Vietnam as the types of conflicts to avoid: an anti-­ precedent. This logic, in any event, framed thinking in the Obama-Biden administration. The following year, the red line was tested as reports came in regarding Syria’s actual use of chemical weapons against civilians: on a small scale in Homs and Aleppo and then leading to more than 1000 casualties in Ghouta, on the outskirts of Damascus. Both Cameron and Hollande called for air strikes to enforce the international norm against the use of chemical weapons. However, the British House of Commons voted against intervention, leaving only France ready for air strikes, given that Hollande would not have to consult the National Assembly for several months under the French constitutional system. In the United States, Obama determined to enforce the red line and declared that the “United States should take military action against Syrian regime targets” to accomplish three objectives: holding Assad accountable for the use of chemical weapons, deterring the future use of chemical weapons, and degrading the regime’s chemical weapons capacity.11 However, given Cameron’s request for authorization from parliament, Obama also decided to seek Congressional support before launching the

158 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

air strikes. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry also suggested that military intervention would not be necessary if Syria gave up its chemical weapons.12 Picking up on Kerry’s suggestion, Russia offered that Syria would be willing to have its chemical weapons removed under international control and dismantlement. Syria confirmed and a deal was formalized within several days.13 Within nine months, all of the declared stockpiles of chemical weapons were removed. Perhaps no other foreign policy decision over the past decade has been as debated and as misunderstood as the red line episode in Syria. Some observers criticized Obama for blinking at the eleventh hour and backing away from his stated threat in a way that severely damaged U.S. credibility. Obama countered that it was not his personal credibility on the line, but rather the credibility of the international community and the United States collectively, “because we give lip service to the notion that these international norms [against chemical weapons] are important.”14 In any event, the U.S. administration argued, the main objective to draw the red line— eliminating the use of chemical weapons—was served by removing those weapons from Syria. What good would come by launching air strikes that would at best destroy only some chemical weapons site and at worst derail the diplomatic deal with Russia and Syria? The best interpretation of this series of decisions was that the red line was enforced with the U.S. and French threat of air strikes that led to the underlying objective of removing chemical weapons from Syria. Many commentators, however, explained this event differently: as evidence that the United States was withdrawing from the Middle East or the world, that Obama was indecisive or reluctant to use force, or that the United States had separate interests from Europe in Syria and the Middle East and was indifferent to the concerns of its allies. When I served in the U.S. State Department between 2014 and 2017, my European counterparts routinely brought up the red line episode as a source of tension. Over the past three years, my students at Sciences Po in Paris in my graduate course on transatlantic grand strategies also debated intensively the logic of this decision. In 2020, French President Macron, who at the time served as Hollande’s deputy secretary-general of the Élysée, argued that the U.S. decision in Syria in 2013 emboldened Putin to intervene in Ukraine the following year as he did not expect American or European resistance.15 Indeed, he pointed to Russia’s performance in Syria and the region as a sign of strategic success:

6  STABILIZING THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA 

159

Look at that great country: it has gained room for manoeuvre thanks to our weaknesses. In the past five years Russia has played an unprecedented role in every major conflict; it has played an unprecedented role because the United States of America, Britain and France have been weak. We set red lines, they were crossed and we did not take action. They understood this very well, they advanced, and so we cannot shun people when we are weak: we must choose an approach. And it is not in our interest to take a heavy-handed approach to our neighbour. In the current situation, Russia has maximized all its interests: it has returned to Syria, it has returned to Libya, it has returned to Africa, it is present in every crisis because of our weaknesses or mistakes.16

Macron’s argument rested not only on the 2013 red line incident, but also on Russia’s military intervention in Syria in 2015 to shore up its ally and prevent the overthrow of the Assad regime, which was on the brink of collapse that summer. Russia’s intervention also had the intended or indirect effect of destabilizing Europe through mass flows of Syrian refugees fleeing the Assad regime. The war in Syria became even more complicated with the rise of ISIS in 2013. Countering international terrorism added another reason for European and U.S. interest in Syria, in a conflict that began with humanitarian interests and then concerns about the use of chemical weapons. The interest in defeating ISIS potentially reshuffled the constellation of forces in Syria, because in theory at least, Russia and Syria had the same interest as Europe and the United States in fighting ISIS.  In the fall of 2015 and into 2016, the Obama-Biden administration discussed extensively with the Kremlin prospects for military cooperation in Syria against ISIS. In practice, however, Russia did not express any interest in joining the global coalition to defeat ISIS. Moreover, Russia’s and Syria’s definition of terrorism included all opposition groups in Syria, not just ISIS, and only a small fraction of targeting by Moscow and Damascus was directed against ISIS. At times, ISIS even proved to be a useful foil for the Assad regime, as justification for the eradication of all opposition. Over time, it became easy to lose track of the real interests at stake in the two wars in Syria: between the Assad regime and the opposition groups, and against ISIS. Was it humanitarian concern, chemical weapons, or international terrorism? If all three interests were at stake, what were the relative priorities, concrete objectives, feasible means, and potential partners? The U.S. position gradually shifted to focus on counterterrorism

160 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

efforts through the global coalition and the use of special forces within Syria. The United Kingdom and France also contributed significant combat forces within the country, around 1000 troops each. Numerous European countries participated in the tens of thousands of air strikes launched by the coalition. And ultimately, the counterterrorism objectives were largely achieved. For Europe, stemming the flows of Syrian refugees into the EU became an urgent interest to ensure political stability in the continent. However, it was unclear whether this objective had to be achieved through political transition in Syria and the fall of the Assad regime to enable the safe return of refugees home. Or whether it was sufficient to provide intermediate relief through humanitarian aid in Syria’s neighboring countries to enable refugees to obtain shelter and sustenance for the duration of the conflict (however long it might last). The interest in preventing the use of chemical weapons appeared to have been achieved through the 2013  U.S.-Russia deal. However, even though all of the declared stockpiles of chemical weapons were removed, Syria had hidden undeclared stockpiles, which it then used in 2017 and again in 2018. Both times, the United States launched air strikes as retaliatory measures, and France and the United Kingdom joined in 2018, thereby reinforcing the red line drawn earlier. However, the very fact of the need for second set of airstrikes showed their limited utility and the relative attractiveness of the removal deal forged through diplomatic effort backed by the threat of the use of force. Finally, there was the humanitarian interest in seeing a political resolution of the conflict in Syria, where, many argued, there was no military solution. Whether sustainable peace in Syria required Assad to depart, as European and U.S. leaders urged in 2011, or could foresee some type of power-sharing arrangement between the Assad family and some opposition groups in a new constitutional system was an open question. Notwithstanding Assad’s military victories since 2015, his regime has not been able to establish complete control over Syria and continues to risk a resurgent opposition fueled by external funds, arms, and personnel. On the other hand, some argue that Damascus needs to control only the core parts of Syria that are economically productive to sustain some form of peaceful order, even if unjust, brutal, and coercive. Conflicts such as in Syria can last for 10–15 years, if not longer. It is thus unclear whether the war is beginning to end or is only midway through. As Chancellor Merkel noted in 2019, the political process in

6  STABILIZING THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA 

161

Syria is moving at a “glacial pace.”17 For Europe as well as the other international actors involved, it will be imperative to sort through the core versus non-core interests at stake in the conflict and design policies closely tied to serving those interests. Otherwise, it risks misidentifying potential partners, such as Russia, which has consistently adopted positions contrary to Europe’s interests (apart from the 2013 chemical weapons deal), whether in the fight against ISIS, refugee crisis, or humanitarian matters. Moreover, it risks misallocating resources, for instance, in providing reconstruction funds for the Assad regime that may be in tension with its humanitarian interests in supporting democracy and human rights in Syria, as well as in enabling the safe return of refugees. Similar discipline regarding interests, objectives, and resources needs to apply to another area of concern for Europe, in the Sahel.

Sahel Around the time of the emergence of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, in February 2014, five Sahel countries—Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger—formed an institutional framework (G5 Sahel) to cooperate on development policies and security matters. At the invitation of the five countries, France launched in August 2014 a 3000-strong military mission, Operation Barkhane, to fight terrorist groups in the Sahel, with its troops focused primarily in Mali and Chad. Eventually, the force grew to 5000 troops and was reinforced by soldiers from Estonia, the United Kingdom, and Denmark. It is supposed to be further supported by Task Force Takuba, a set of European special forces that are to be deployed in the second half of 2020. The stated purpose of the intervention was to support the local governments in fighting jihadist groups as a way of ensuring regional stability as well as preventing the emergence of safe havens of terrorist groups that could then plan, organize, and direct terrorist attacks in Europe. Alongside French military operations, the EU established several training and capacity building missions in 2013 and 2014: European Union Capacity Building Mission in Niger (EUCAP Sahel-Niger) and two in Mali, EUCAP Sahel-Mali and the EU Training Mission. The civilian missions, EUCAP Sahel Mali and Niger, consist of over 100 officials each to provide technical advice to ministries of interior and the police on issues such as security sector reform. The military mission, EUTM Mali, consists of over 700 soldiers from 22 EU member states as well as the United

162 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

Kingdom to train local troops and support the restoration of state authority. In addition, since 2013, the UN has had a large peacekeeping force in Mali with over 13,000 troops (MINUSMA), including over 1000 European troops. In 2017, the G5 Sahel countries launched a Joint Force, with a full operational capacity at 5000 troops with three objectives: counterterrorism, organized cross-border crime, and human trafficking. The same year, the EU, France, and Germany established the Sahel Alliance of 12 donors to support the regional security and development efforts. The Sahel Alliance is set to fund over 600 projects worth a total of more than €9 billion. European leaders have focused on the Sahel as the central battleground in the fight against terrorism. At a 2017 G5 Summit organized by France at the La Celle-Saint-Cloud Palace near Paris, Merkel argued: “Islamist terrorism is spreading. We cannot afford to wait. We must begin this fight as swiftly as possible.”18 In a subsequent speech to German ambassadors, Merkel emphasized that she was “trying to ensure that peace can be achieved and the fight against terrorism won” in the Sahel.19 Germany allocated €1.7 billion in development aid to the Sahel countries between 2017 and 2020, in part to “combat illegal migration” through security and development in the region.20 By 2018, Germany also provided €50 million for the Joint Force (for vehicles, training, and infrastructure), and the European Commission allocated another €100 million.21 For Macron, the Sahel is “an essential theatre of operations” where “France played a key role in avoiding the rise of jihadism and preventing it from taking root.” He explained that “were it not for France’s quick decision to take action” with Operation Barkhane in 2014, the “situation would probably not be as it currently is in the Sahel.” However, he also conceded that “the situation in the Sahel is becoming unstable and terrorism is on the increase.”22 France organized another summit with the G5 Sahel countries in early 2020. And the EU, in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis, held a summit with the G5 Sahel via videoconference in April 2020—underscoring the region’s perceived importance to Europe.23 The main challenge for the EU in the Sahel is calibrating the scope of the terrorist threat to Europe. After all, none of the five Sahel countries ranked in the top ten sources of terrorism in 2019 and no large-scale attacks in Europe were directed by terrorist groups based in the Sahel. It is possible that the preventive measures by France and the G5 countries have been effective in forestalling potential attacks in Europe. And it is

6  STABILIZING THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA 

163

difficult to prove the counterfactual of what the situation would be without French or European military presence. Finally, Europe’s military engagement in the region can be justified as peacekeeping operations to support the host countries maintain peace and security. In that case, additional measures of sharing the burden with the local troops of the G5 Sahel Joint Force or other international partners should be explored. The distinction between Europe’s core and non-core interests developed above would help sort through these issues. * * * Both Syria and the Sahel illustrate the myriad of challenges Europe faces in the Middle East and Africa, with concerns about irregular migration and international terrorism perhaps at the top of the agenda. To be sure, as noted earlier, the past several years have also witnessed positive issues for engagement, including mutual prosperity and supporting democracy and human rights in the region. For instance, the G20 launched a Compact with Africa during Germany’s presidency in 2017. Chancellor Merkel noted that development and security are intertwined: “development is only possible if security is given” but “in many parts of Africa security is not yet sufficiently guaranteed  – be it due to fragile sovereignty, conflicts, terrorism or humanitarian crises.”24 The following year, Germany hosted the largest number of heads of state and government from African countries in its history.25 Merkel explained Africa’s significance to Europe: It’s important to us because we’re neighbours, as you can see on a world map, and because we therefore have a vested interest in ensuring that not only we in Europe but also the entire African continent is thriving. In some ways, Africa is a very rich continent. Just think of its natural resources and, above all, young people—of whom there are not so many in Europe. Africa also has a rich history and a wonderful culture. From a business point of view, I believe we can say that Africa is the continent with the greatest potential for development.26

Thus, she argued, Europe’s economic engagement and private investment in Africa could help further the interests in peace and stability in the region.27 Likewise, EU leaders have underscored Africa’s priority for Europe. In 2018, former European Commission President Juncker launched the

164 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

Africa-Europe Alliance for sustainable investment and jobs. Current Commission President Ursula von der Leyen chose the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, as her first foreign trip. European Council President Charles Michel emphasized Africa as a “continent of opportunities,” which shares “many common interests” with Europe.28 In March 2020, the European Commission and EEAS unveiled a new African strategy centered around four objectives: green transition, digital transformation, sustainable growth and jobs, and migration and mobility.29 Similarly, the EU has increased its diplomatic engagement in the Middle East, with the first-ever EU-Arab League Summit in February 2019  in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.30 Although the summit did not yield significant deliverables, it provided for an effective forum for exchange between the two sides on a wide range of issues, including democracy and human rights. Priority of effort and clear-eyed distinction between core and non-core interests should be the two main guiding principles for Europe’s policy-­ making to help stabilize the Middle East and Africa. After all, as the U.S. experience in Afghanistan and Iraq showed over nearly two decades, it is incredibly difficult to transform societies from the outside even with a significant allocation of military and economic resources. Those two countries, which are a small fraction of the overall size of the Middle East and Africa (1.5 billion people), should serve as cautionary examples for what is achievable and advisable in the region.

Notes 1. See Joshua S. Goldstein and Steven Pinker, The decline of war and violence, The Boston Globe (15 April 2016). 2. Roderick Parkes, Nobody move! Myths of the EU migration crisis, EU Institute for Security Studies Chaillot Paper No. 143 (2017). 3. See European Political Strategy Centre, Ten Trends Shaping Migration (2017); European Council, EU-Turkey statement, 18 March 2016. 4. See Eurostat, available at http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-­ explained/index.php/Crime_and_criminal_justice_statistics. 5. Institute for Economics & Peace, Global Terrorism Index 2019. 6. See Eurostat, available at http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-­ explained/index.php/Crime_and_criminal_justice_statistics; Thomas Renard, Terrorism and Counterterrorism in Continental Europe, Australian Strategic Policy Institute Counterterrorism Yearbook 2017 (21 March 2017).

6  STABILIZING THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA 

165

7. Remarks by President Obama in Address to the United Nations General Assembly, Sept. 24, 2013. 8. The President’s News Conference, Aug. 20, 2012. 9. Steven Erlanger, France Urges Creation of Interim Syrian Government, Pledging Recognition, 27 August 2012. 10. Cameron echoes Obama’s warning to Syria over chemical weapons, The Guardian, 23 August 2012. 11. Remarks on the Situation in Syria, Aug. 31, 2013. 12. Remarks with U.K. Foreign Secretary Hague, Sept. 9, 2013. 13. Statement on the Framework Agreement Between Russia and the United States on the Elimination of Chemical Weapons in Syria, Sept. 14, 2013. 14. The President’s News Conference with Prime Minister John Fredrik Reinfeldt of Sweden in Stockholm, Sweden, Sept. 4, 2013. 15. Chairman’s Interview with Emmanuel Macron, Munich Security Conference (Feb. 15, 2020). 16. Speech by M.  Emmanuel Macron, President of the Republic, 27 August 2019. 17. Speech by Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel at the reception for the Diplomatic Corps, 9 July 2019. 18. Germany supports measures to fight terrorism, 13 December 2017. 19. Speech by Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel at the reception for the Diplomatic Corps in Meseberg, 6 July 2018. 20. Significantly more assistance for the Sahel region, 23 February 2018. 21. Ibid. 22. Speech by M.  Emmanuel Macron, President of the Republic, 27 August 2019. 23. EU-G5 Sahel video conference, 28 April 2020. 24. Speech by Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel at the “G20 Africa Partnership—investing in a common future” conference, Berlin, 12 June 2017. 25. Speech by Federal Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel at the Conference on the G20 Compact with Africa in Berlin, 30 October 2018. 26. Ibid. 27. Speech by Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel at the reception for the Diplomatic Corps, 9 July 2019. 28. Speech by President Charles Michel at the official dinner of the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, 9 February 2020. 29. Joint Communication to the European Parliament and the Council: Towards a comprehensive Strategy with Africa (9 March 2020). 30. EU and Arab League step up cooperation, 25 February 2019.

CHAPTER 7

Crafting Grand Strategy for Europe

The future of Europe—its peace, prosperity, and political inclusion—is inextricably intertwined with the fate of the liberal order. And the wider global order rests in part on Europe’s ability to craft an effective grand strategy, not only in addressing threats to the liberal order from Russia and China, but also in dealing with core issues of concern in stabilizing the Middle East and Africa. As the UN Secretary-General António Guterres noted, the world must “preserve two things: multilateral governance institutions and the rule of law in international relations. And for that to be possible … the role Europe, of the European Union is absolutely essential.”1 Likewise, former EU HRVP Mogherini argued that the “European Union is today the point of reference for all those that are investing in peace, multilateralism, free and fair trade, sustainable development, fight against climate change, human rights and democracy, social economy—in a rules based global order.”2

Global Order, Liberal Order, and Core Interests In essence, there are three separate categories of issues that are logically interrelated and often become conflated, but should remain analytically distinct: the global order, the liberal order, and Europe’s core interests.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 B. M. J. Szewczyk, Europe’s Grand Strategy, Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60523-0_7

167

168 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

The global order is the set of rules, norms, and institutions that apply across the world, such as the United Nations or the Nuclear Non-­ Proliferation Treaty (NPT). They help provide stability and predictability to international relations, but are not necessarily inherently liberal. To be sure, the UN Charter contains many aspirations around democracy, human rights, and rule of law, but also is structured to be non-threatening to authoritarian regimes, such as the Soviet Union/Russia or Communist China. Likewise, the NPT freezes a particular distribution of nuclear weapon capability across the world, while aspiring to a nuclear-free world. The liberal order is a particular subset of rules, norms, and institutions oriented around democracy, human rights, rule of law, free and fair trade, and market economy. Its paradigmatic institutions are the European Union, NATO, Council of Europe, and the WTO. Like the structures of the global order, they also provide predictability but can also be disruptive in helping transform societies around a particular vision of governance with human dignity at its center. Finally, Europe’s core interests are those issues beyond the liberal order that European countries need to address, either collectively or unilaterally, to ensure the basic objectives of any state: physical security of its citizens and territory, control over borders, and internal order. Unilateral initiatives, such as Germany’s negotiation of the migration deal with Turkey in 2016 or France’s Operation Barkhane in the Sahel in 2014, can be constructive and should be welcomed, if they seek to serve wider common interests rather than merely those of the state taking the unilateral action. The same principle applies to plurilateral measures outside of the EU institutions, such as the European Intervention Initiative or increased Franco-­ German cooperation through the Treaty of Aachen. A certain degree of self-help experimentation can be productive if it is inclusive, rather than exclusive. Most of European strategic debate appears to take place from the perspective of the first level of analysis: the global order. One senior EU official lamented that EU discourse sometimes merely echoes UN declarations without independent thinking, analysis, or decisions. His intuition was consistent with the remark of another official regarding European interests and objectives in Syria: simply to make the world a better place. But Europe has neither the will nor the resources to effectuate such lofty goals, and should not base its strategy solely on such ambitious impulses. As with any strategy, it needs to balance ends and means, and define its interests in an achievable manner given its resources.

7  CRAFTING GRAND STRATEGY FOR EUROPE 

169

Even though the whole world may not be shaped over the medium term in a liberal image, as was the hope of the 1990s, Europe can still make significant progress on the second level of analysis: the liberal order. There is an ongoing struggle in Europe’s neighborhood, in Ukraine and in the Balkans, over fundamental principles of democracy, human rights, and rule of law. The outcome of these contests will profoundly shape, in turn, the vibrancy of these values within the EU. Thus, EU leaders should ensure that the liberal order is recognized as a central concern as part of their national strategies as all have a vital interest in preserving it. For instance, appearing before a joint session of the U.S. Congress in 2018, Macron argued: If we do not act with urgency as a global community … we would then inevitably and severely undermine the liberal order we built after World War II. Other powers, with the strongest strategy and ambition, will then fill the void we will leave empty. … We can build the 21st century world order based on a new breed of multilateralism, based on a more effective, accountable, and results-oriented multilateralism, a strong multilateralism.3

Macron at times conflates the liberal order and the rules-based global order, and alternates between the necessity of Europe or the wider West in defending the liberal order. For instance, in the same speech at the U.S. Congress, he argued that the United States and France were “rooted in the same soil, grounded in the same ideals of the American and French Revolutions,” and “have worked together for the universal ideals of liberty, tolerance, and equal rights.”4 He also emphasized “the friendship between our two countries, which has contributed to forging this Western world based on democracy, the freedom of individuals, and enabled us to build the international order that we know.”5 However, at other times as noted above, he distinguished European civilization and notions of freedom from American norms. Nonetheless, he has been consistent on the centrality of Enlightenment values in guiding his strategic thinking, and his oscillations in rhetoric toward the Trump administration perhaps merely reflected an initial open-hand in search of a like-minded partner and subsequent frustration and disappointment in this endeavor. Finally, there are some questions that may not be readily captured within the conceptual framework of liberal order as a guiding principle for Europe’s grand strategy, and may require either unilateral action or

170 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

coalitions of the willing organized around particular issues within and across the EU and NATO. As Chancellor Merkel explained: If you look at the regions around Europe, you will see that most global conflicts are taking place on our doorstep. We experienced this in 2015 when one might say globalisation arrived in Europe in the form of people, refugees, when we did not in fact deal with the civil war in Syria or with IS in Iraq. I am sure that my Italian counterpart just reported here on the challenges regarding migration from Africa. We basically have the Sunni-Shi’ite conflicts on our doorstep. We have IS on our doorstep. Our neighbour is Africa, just a few kilometres from the southern part of Europe. Syria is a neighbour of Cyprus.6

European leaders should shift adroitly among these three levels of analysis, while retaining the liberal order as the overall organizing principle for the purpose of Europe’s grand strategy. Public debates on forging an ever closer Union should also address the wider questions of sustaining liberal order, as the two are inextricably intertwined. In the aftermath of Brexit, this organizing principle could also provide for continued coordination between the EU and the United Kingdom on a wide range of defense, security, and foreign policy issues. Keeping the European house in liberal order will be one of the EU’s key contributions to the sustenance of the order.7 Internal review mechanisms on the rule of law to ensure the independence and reliability of judicial systems, and potential linkage with the European budget as proposed for the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), is one element. More broadly, addressing political extremism should be placed on the EU political agenda at the highest level, thereby enabling constructive dialogue and potential peer pressure. More dire scenarios of internal unraveling and external threats to liberal order are possible; thus, Europe should increase its resilience to weather future storms. Rhetorical support for the liberal order outside of the EU, including with like-minded partners such as the G7 and the G20, will need to be matched with the appropriate resource allocations, particularly in the areas of defense and security, as well as disruptive technology. Indeed, in launching the Permanent Structured Cooperation process in November 2017, EU member states recommitted to “[r]egularly increasing defence budgets in real terms.” Here, the role of Germany, Italy, and Spain in substantially reversing post-Cold War declines in defense spending is the priority,

7  CRAFTING GRAND STRATEGY FOR EUROPE 

171

as they are the ones with the scale to shift significantly overall European spending levels.8 The aggregate increases in European defense spending between 2014 and 2018 of 2–3% per year are important reverses of prior decreases between 2009 and 2014. Yet, with nearly 1.5 million troops in 2017, the EU had deployed only about 30,000, or 2% on various peacekeeping, training, and combat missions. The only country to have had outsized deployments, and in high-risk areas, was France, with 8000 troops deployed, or 4% of its military. By contrast, the United States had deployed over 200,000 troops across the world, or more than 15% of its force, even after its significant drawdowns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thus, increased European defense spending will need to be matched by increased deployability of troops and a greater willingness to use them. There is no shortage of places where the additional resources could be deployed—whether to project stability in Ukraine, Tunisia, Mali, Libya, or elsewhere. In particular, European leaders will need to debate and decide (at least in general terms) what are the operational objectives of increased defense spending and capability at the EU level. One senior EU official told me that one potential benchmark would be for the EU to be able to conduct on its own an operation akin to NATO’s intervention in Libya in 2011— with the necessary intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capability, air lift, missiles, bullets, and post-conflict stabilization forces. Another objective could be the ability to establish humanitarian safe zones in northern Syria or other conflict zones, as proposed by the German defense minister. Other officials have offered even more ambitious objectives, such as deterring Russia with a French nuclear umbrella across the EU. Either way, the myriad lines of effort in EU defense will need to be tied more effectively to an overall strategic narrative explaining the purpose of these endeavors. Europe should also lead efforts to reform the institutional underpinnings of liberal order to make it fit for purpose in the twenty-first century. The EU’s core institutional partners continue to be the United Nations and NATO, as set out by the EU Global Strategy. And both organizations have adapted significantly over time to match future challenges. But more should be done to make the UN effective in its core mission of conflict prevention and international peace and security, particularly by ensuring that the vast demands placed on the UN are matched by the requisite resources through troops, materiel, and funds. Likewise, the EU has collaborated closely with NATO to address common challenges, such as

172 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

hybrid warfare, terrorism, and rise of new powers. Yet, reform should also be done in good faith and not serve as a cloak for destruction or nihilism, as advocated by some; thus, pretextual reform proposals should be exposed for what they are. In exploring new multilateral formats for the liberal order or the global order—such as the European Intervention Initiative, the European Security (and Defence) Council, or the Alliance for Multilateralism— Europe should balance “the efficiency and capacity for action with inclusiveness.”9 In any event, all countries would try to keep the group as small as possible so long as it included them. A useful example to consider is the G20. In the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis, it became over time the “premier forum to deal with international economic issues.”10 In 2010, it appeared that the G8 summit had become a mere warm-up act to the “real event” at the G20 since the two meetings were scheduled back-­ to-­back at the end of June in Canada. Some predicted that the G20 would also become the central format for matters of international peace and security, and potentially supplant the UN Security Council given its greater inclusiveness. However, geoeconomic power of the G20 turned out not to be coextensive with geopolitical power or purpose, and thus the G7 reemerged as the premier forum for international political issues among like-minded partners. Europe should also consider developing new rules-of-the-road in trade and investment, including through reform of the World Trade Organization, that continue to promote not only prosperity (on the Chinese model) but also political inclusion through democracy, human rights, and rule of law.11 In the case of the WTO, the European Council has set out extensive guidelines for reform at its June 2018 meeting: (i) more flexible negotiations, (ii) new rules that address current challenges, including in the field of industrial subsidies, intellectual property, and forced technology transfers, (iii) reduction of trade costs, (iv) a new approach to development, (v) more effective and transparent dispute settlement, including the Appellate Body, with a view to ensuring a level playing field, and (vi) strengthening the WTO as an institution, including in its transparency and surveillance function. The EU’s ability to both serve as a top trading region and maintain fair income distributions shows that globalization and free and fair trade can be combined with inclusive prosperity.12 Indeed, as one European Commission report argued, open and liberal societies are equipped to master the twenty-first-century challenges without having to become

7  CRAFTING GRAND STRATEGY FOR EUROPE 

173

illiberal and build walls.13 Yet, whether in development aid in Africa or infrastructure projects in the Balkans, it should maintain the link between economic well-being and political freedom, as otherwise life in these regions may become materially comfortable but spiritually bleak. The EU’s free trade agreement currently being negotiated with Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay) is a paradigmatic example of utilizing economic liberalization to support political progress. The EU’s proactive trade agenda shows that Europe invests in future global rules, from health and labor standards to intellectual property and data protection. Like a craftsman, Europe continues to steadily weave the strong and durable fabrics of the liberal order quilt that is designed to last beyond transient turbulences. Europe’s global heft also translates through standard-setting in new areas such as data protection and cyberspace. The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has quickly become adopted by actors outside of the EU, because economic logic often drives multinational companies to establish a single standard that applies across their operations globally.14 The large size of the EU’s economy means that its rules are frequently harbingers of international norms. Likewise, the 2018 Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace, signed by 54 countries (including all EU member states) and hundreds of companies and organizations,15 is another example of European efforts to shape the global agenda in support of liberal values. Europe’s main strategic opportunity is leadership in galvanizing like-­ minded allies, such as Canada, Japan, and Australia, as well as persuading emerging powers, such as India, Brazil, Indonesia, and South Africa in support of defending liberal values. Liberal order is a potential organizing concept for many (eventually perhaps all) countries to adopt as part of their grand strategy—if it delivers substantive benefits to their people and comports with basic principles of justice and fairness. In this vein, one mechanism to explore could be establishing a Liberal Order Fellowship, potentially named after Voltaire or Rousseau, to provide for an exchange program for mid-career officials at the European Commission, EEAS, European foreign ministries, and like-minded states. The core potential partner for Europe will continue to be the United States, if there is a like-minded administration. As the former President of the European Council Donald Tusk argued, there needs to be a new “renaissance of faith in [the transatlantic] community,” invoking the American motto “[u]nited we stand, divided we fall.”16

174 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

Reinvigorating the Transatlantic Alliance What a difference four years can make. Although Europeans have mixed impressions of transatlantic relations under the Obama administration, Obama routinely stated that “Europe is America’s closest partner” and “the cornerstone of [U.S.] engagement around the globe.”17 In particular, he stressed the importance of the liberal order in guiding U.S. foreign policy, as illustrated for instance by the conflict in Ukraine. In a meeting with the NATO Secretary-General, Obama observed that the situation in Ukraine had “focused everyone’s attention on the importance of the transatlantic relationships, [particularly] of NATO, [which] is the bedrock of America’s security as well as European security.”18 During the Cold War, he continued, the West’s vision of a liberal order “stood in sharp contrast to life on the other side of an Iron Curtain” where ideas reflected “an older, more traditional view of power.” Although the West prevailed in the Cold War, Obama noted, “the contest of ideas continues.” He conceded that choices in Ukraine were not obvious, and that the United States risked ignoring the conflict: “To be honest, if we defined our interests narrowly, if we applied a cold-hearted calculus, we might decide to look the other way” since U.S. security and prosperity were not directly affected. However, he noted, “that kind of casual indifference would ignore the lessons that are written in the cemeteries of this continent, and the “message would be heard not just in Europe, but in Asia, in the Americas, in Africa, and the Middle East.”19 Obama elaborated on the need for continued vigilant defense of the liberal order by Europe, America, and like-minded partners in a wide-­ ranging speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin: [M]ore than two decades after that triumph [in 1989], we must acknowledge that there can, at times, be a complacency among our Western democracies. Today, people often come together in places like this to remember history, not to make it. After all, we face no concrete walls, no barbed wire. There are no tanks poised across a border. There are no visits to fallout shelters. And so sometimes, there can be a sense that the great challenges have somehow passed. And that brings with it a temptation to turn inward: to think of our own pursuits and not the sweep of history; to believe that we’ve settled history’s accounts, that we can simply enjoy the fruits won by our forebears.

7  CRAFTING GRAND STRATEGY FOR EUROPE 

175

But I come here today, Berlin, to say complacency is not the character of great nations. Today’s threats are not as stark as they were half a century ago, but the struggle for freedom and security and human dignity, that struggle goes on. … [T]he tests of our time demand the same fighting spirit that defined Berlin a half-century ago. … Our alliance is the foundation of global security. Our trade and our commerce is the engine of our global economy. Our values call upon us to care about the lives of people we will never meet. When Europe and America lead with our hopes instead of our fears, we do things that no other nations can do, no other nations will do.20

In a subsequent speech in Hanover, Germany, Obama tried to place the liberal order and its importance to Europe in a historical context: [T]he vision of European unity soldiered on, and having defended Europe’s freedom in war, America stood with you every step of this journey: a Marshall Plan to rebuild, an airlift to save Berlin, a NATO alliance to defend our way of life. … But your accomplishment—more than 500 million people speaking 24 languages in 28 countries, 19 with a common currency, in one European Union—remains one of the greatest political and economic achievements of modern times. … And today, more than ever, a strong, united Europe remains, as Adenauer said, a necessity for all of us.21

In his last speech to the UN General Assembly in September 2016, President Obama observed that “there appear[ed] to be a growing contest between authoritarianism and liberalism right now”—a contest in which he was “not neutral.”22 He reaffirmed that he believed in a “liberal political order: an order built not just through elections and representative government, but also through respect for human rights and civil society and independent judiciaries and the rule of law.”23 However, over the past four years, it was not clear on which side the Trump administration stood in this contest between authoritarianism and liberalism. Some U.S. officials voiced traditional support for the transatlantic alliance and liberal values. Vice-President Mike Pence, in his first foreign trip, reflected customary statements at the Munich Security Conference: “the fates of the United States and Europe are intertwined. Your struggles are our struggles. Your success is our success, and ultimately, we walk into the future together.”24 Pence’s speech recounted the familiar transatlantic narrative: achievements of West in prevailing over the Soviet Union during the Cold War, NATO’s first and only invocation of Article 5  in defense of the United States after 9/11, and ongoing

176 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

common challenges that required shared sacrifice and strength. At various times, Pence oscillated between the “the timeless values that unite America and Europe together in the West—freedom, democracy, and the rule of law” and a more insular vision of “Western civilization [as] a beautiful mosaic of diverse, free nations and peoples—each with their own unique and special histories, cultures, languages and traditions.”25 Nonetheless, Trump largely titled toward authoritarianism rather than any liberal vision of the West. In his first major foreign policy speech in Warsaw, he expounded in dramatic overtones: the defense of the West ultimately rests not only on means but also on the will of its people to prevail and be successful and get what you have to have. The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive. Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost? Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders? Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it?

In recounting the tragic history of the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, he drew stark conclusions: Those heroes remind us that the West was saved with the blood of patriots; that each generation must rise up and play their part in its defense—and that every foot of ground, and every last inch of civilization, is worth defending with your life. Our own fight for the West does not begin on the battlefield—it begins with our minds, our wills, and our souls. Today, the ties that unite our civilization are no less vital, and demand no less defense, than that bare shred of land on which the hope of Poland once totally rested. Our freedom, our civilization, and our survival depend on these bonds of history, culture, and memory. … Just as Poland could not be broken, I declare today for the world to hear that the West will never, ever be broken. Our values will prevail. Our people will thrive. And our civilization will triumph.26

In his first speech to the UN General Assembly, he argued that he did “not expect diverse countries to share the same cultures, traditions, or even systems of government” but he did “expect all nations to uphold these two core sovereign duties: to respect the interests of their own people and the rights of every other sovereign nation.”27 He called for “a

7  CRAFTING GRAND STRATEGY FOR EUROPE 

177

great reawakening of nations, for the revival of their spirits, their pride, their people, and their patriotism.”28 In his third appearance before the UN General Assembly, he expounded on his earlier themes with even greater bombast and thrust: The free world must embrace its national foundations. It must not attempt to erase them or replace them. Looking around and all over this large, magnificent planet, the truth is plain to see: If you want freedom, take pride in your country. If you want democracy, hold on to your sovereignty. And if you want peace, love your nation.29

Europe’s grand strategy will depend extensively on which type of partner it finds in the U.S. government: one that is committed to a liberal vision of the West, as under the Obama-Biden administration  or now under the Biden-Harris team, or one that pursues a nationalist, insular, and illiberal vision of the West, as under Trump. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, some observers view more continuity than difference between the Obama and Trump administrations. For instance, former EU ambassador to the United States David O’Sullivan stated that the United States and the EU “had a very troubled relationship in the last 20-30 years,” with both “support for Pax Americana” and “a lot of disagreements” over questions such as Iraq and trade. O’Sullivan further argued that the Cold War was no “golden age” for the transatlantic alliance, since, for instance, “the Europeans offered no support to the Americans” during the Vietnam War. He acknowledged that U.S. policy-­ making was currently “upside down” since Trump “treats allies as enemies and potential enemies as allies.”30 But, he claimed, U.S. foreign policy may actually be “reverting to type” with the six-decade period between 1945 and 2008 as the exception and pre-World War II isolationism the rule.31 Another senior EU official also stated that he did not expect “things to revert to normal” even  if Trump lost the 2020 election, as “America is going to pivot away from the European Union and will have other more pressing immediate interests.”32 He argued that “America will go back to its old normal: offshore balancing, defending its core interests, rather than being the global police officer”—construing the years 1941–2008 as “the exception to the rule rather than the rule.”33 Others are more hopeful about the prospects of reinvigorating transatlantic alliance with a new administration, particularly with a statesman like Joe Biden at the helm. Wolfgang Ischinger, Chairman of the Munich

178 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

Security Conference and former German ambassador to the United States, emphasized that Europeans know, like, and trust Biden: “He’s been around for so many decades. He’s been Vice President. He’s been a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for four decades. So he is the promise of no surprises, and also the promise of …. not more, and hopefully less isolationist tendencies of the United States.”34 It is possible that Biden’s return to normalcy for the transatlantic relationship could even be recognized with the Charlemagne Prize, awarded for work done in the service of European integration.35 Ischinger acknowledged that “[w]e are not going to return to the golden age of transatlantic relations. This relationship will require a lot more care and engagement than previously. It is not going to work if we believe we can put it on automatic pilot.”36 But he stressed that “for most Europeans, there is no viable, credible alternative, in terms of security and defense, to a functioning NATO Alliance.”37 In particular, he noted that NATO in the past was viewed in Europe “as the primary place where consultations on important international events, in particular crises, should be consulted and where the fundamental decisions should be taken.”38 A transatlantic renaissance will be even more likely and effective if Europe can fully harness its geoeconomic power and leverage additional synergies from EU-NATO cooperation.

Geoeconomic Power Geoeconomics is the use of economic instruments—such as sanctions, tariffs, investment, aid, and regulations—to pursue geopolitical objectives. It has long been a form of statecraft in illiberal states, such as China or Russia, where political, economic, and military power is centralized and used interchangeably to serve the ruling regime’s interests. The United States— long committed to liberal economic policy of free trade and free movement of capital unencumbered by political considerations, dubbed the “Washington Consensus” in the 1990s—has in recent years also found geoeconomic tools useful to achieve foreign policy goals. The European Union has long been an economic power. It was founded originally to promote economic cooperation and dedicated to landmark achievements such as the Single Market Act, the euro, and free trade agreements. It has generally focused on using economic means for economic objectives, such as prosperity and efficiency, in contrast to political goals such as confronting adversaries, changing other countries’ policy

7  CRAFTING GRAND STRATEGY FOR EUROPE 

179

behavior, or promoting human rights. The underlying logic was that economic liberalization itself would indirectly lead to positive political outcomes, as countries that grew wealthier would become more democratic, peaceful, and just. Along with its transformative power for its neighborhood and normative power for the rest of the world, the EU’s strategy was that countries would over time become more like its member states without much political direction necessary. Yet, whereas the 1990s were a plausible test case for this proposition that economic and political liberalization were interdependent, the past two decades of developments in countries such as China and Russia have disproved this thesis. Both have grown more authoritarian and aggressive as they have become wealthier. Although Europe would prefer cooperation to competition with other great powers, it cannot disarm its economic arsenal unilaterally. Classic game theory shows that if others compete geoeconomically, so must the European Union. Otherwise, it will lose disproportionately relative to rivals such as China or Russia. Geoeconomics is also the EU’s greatest potential source of power in the near term. Notwithstanding significant improvements over the past few years in the EU’s security and defense policy, the EU still has some way to go before it could confront Russia or China militarily, even in a posture of deterrence or in proxy conflicts. In any event, great power competition in an age of nuclear weapons is likely to refrain from the use of force against each other, as it did during the Cold War. Thus, global competition will be pursued by other means, through the use of economic levers to pursue geopolitical goals. One successful example of the EU’s geoeconomic strategy has been the Eastern Partnership. Established in 2009 as part of the overall Western response to Russia’s invasion of Georgia the previous year, the policy’s biannual summits culminated in association agreements (AA) and DCFTA with Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine in 2014. The economic carrot of the DCFTA was utilized to attain the political objective of the AA: enhanced political association, increased political dialogue, and deeper cooperation on justice and security issues. Ukraine, in particular, has been a central arena over the past six years where geoeconomics has featured prominently in the struggle between autocracy and the EU’s vision for liberal order. Since 2014, the EU and European financial institutions have delivered more than €15 billion in grants and loans to support Ukraine’s political and economic reform process, with strong conditionality on continued progress. The EU has also

180 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

been essential to transatlantic sanctions against Russia, which have imposed significant pain on the Kremlin and limited its ability to inflict damage. Economic pressure on Russia has led to an overall decrease in GDP in 2015 and 2016, forcing it to cut defense spending by 20% in 2017 and stunting its growth outlook by approximately €100 billion. And this sanctions effect was attained with minimal downside to the EU’s economy, about 0.05% of GDP. The conflict in Ukraine has been in many ways a test case for the credibility of the EU’s geoeconomic and foreign policy: whether the EU and its member states, given the scale of material resources and political attention collectively committed to Ukraine, can accomplish the objectives they set out. Thus, geoeconomics is central to protecting the EU’s interests and values. However, the EU has yet to fully harness and deploy its geoeconomic power. On a scale of 1 to 10, it probably rates around 4 in terms of using its economic tools for geopolitical purpose. Galvanizing the EU’s economic resources into powerful leverage takes only political will and institutional innovation. For instance, as one think-tank report argued several years ago, the EU “should develop an economic statecraft taskforce and a sanctions bureau to coordinate this increasingly powerful tool.”39 Similarly, it should develop geoeconomic contingency planning to identify economic weak spots of its adversaries and to insulate its own economic vulnerabilities. Although geoeconomic policy is second-best to purely economic considerations in a peaceful and cooperative world, it is preferable to inaction in a competitive and potentially hostile international environment. Europe can build up additional strength by identifying additional synergies between its two primary institutions of foreign and security policy, EU and NATO, particularly in the area of external operations.

EU-NATO Operational Cooperation NATO and the EU, with over 20 common members, are going through halcyon years of cooperation at both the strategic and operational levels. From joint declarations on strategic partnership in 2016 and 2018 through mutual invitations to summits and other high-level meetings to 74 projects across seven policy areas, the two institutions have coordinated their efforts more than ever. This underlying reality of shoulder-to-shoulder efforts and mutual reliance as partners of first resort should inform debates

7  CRAFTING GRAND STRATEGY FOR EUROPE 

181

around transatlantic burden-sharing and European strategic autonomy: America and Europe, the EU and NATO need each other to address global challenges and manage crises. Yet, notwithstanding the already high level of coordination, the EU and NATO should go even further: beyond complementarity to synergies. In particular, the new “level of ambition” for EU-NATO operational cooperation should include joint planning and joint action to project stability, prevent conflict, and manage crises in the future. Moving toward further synergies will be neither automatic nor easy. The organizations are pulled toward cooperation due to the long-term interests of their member states, but also toward competition due to institutional mandate maximization, treaty overlap, and strategic self-­ conception. Surmounting these obstacles will require enlightened strategies on both sides. Achievements Since the 2016 Joint Declaration In the area of Common Security and Defence Policy, the EU has approximately 3000 troops deployed across six military operations40 and around 2000 officials across ten civilian missions.41 EU member states have also deployed troops to various counterterrorism operations (such as Counter-­ ISIS in Iraq and Syria or Operation Barkhane in the Sahel) and to peacekeeping missions (such as the UN missions in Mali or the Central African Republic). NATO has eight military operations and missions, including troop deployments in Afghanistan (Resolute Support Mission, with about 13,000 personnel from 39 allied and partner countries), Kosovo (KFOR, with about 4000 troops from 28 countries), Iraq (NATO Mission in Iraq (NMI), with several hundred personnel), and in the Mediterranean Sea with Operation Sea Guardian.42 In addition, it has several thousand troops on its eastern and south-eastern flanks as part of the Enhanced Forward Presence and Tailored Forward Presence deterrence measures against Russia. NATO also has active defense capacity-building projects in Georgia, Iraq, Jordan, the Republic of Moldova, and Tunisia. To date, the EU and NATO have coordinated missions and operations largely through de-confliction (i.e., not doing the same activities and avoiding contradictory purposes) rather than joint planning or joint action. The paradigmatic example was Afghanistan, where both the EU

182 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

and NATO had police training missions, which were more de-conflicted than really working together so as to maximize their respective impact. Inter-institutional cooperation has nevertheless taken place at different levels. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, the EU-led Operation Althea is the only “Berlin Plus” operation, under which the EU can access NATO assets, with the NATO Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe acting as the Operation Commander while the Force itself is under EU command. This arrangement, in place since 2004, enables the EU to serve as the operational lead, with NATO providing a supporting role. In Kosovo, the EU and NATO have reinforced each other through the separate work of EULEX on the rule of law and KFOR in maintaining security. At the inception of EULEX in 2008, NATO foreign ministers welcomed its deployment as an “urgent priority.”43 The two missions currently view themselves in a layered security role, with the Kosovo Police in the lead, EULEX as backup, and NATO as ultimate backstop.44 Cooperation is facilitated by a Joint Operational Procedure document, signed in 2013, and full-time liaison officers at each other’s headquarters. More recently, NATO launched Operation Sea Guardian in the Mediterranean Sea in 2016 that operated in parallel with the EU’s Operation Sophia’s counter-smuggling networks mandate. The two sea operations benefitted from information sharing and logistical support, including refueling, between the EU and NATO.45 In the Aegean Sea, NATO has also provided real-time information to Greek and Turkish coast guards, as well as to the EU’s Frontex, to locate smugglers.46 Even if classified information cannot be formally exchanged between the two institutions, EU and NATO staff can advise each other on the basis of underlying information: for example, one operation would go and intercept a smuggler boat in a particular part of the sea based on information shared by the other, but short of providing the supporting imagery. Moreover, NATO and the EU have had several staff-level meetings on potential joint counterterrorism efforts, which could serve as basis for future operational coordination. There are also ongoing efforts to coordinate EU and NATO missions in Iraq (see below). Nonetheless, there are several underlying obstacles to further collaboration, which can be surmounted only with reinforced efforts with a view toward the long-term interest of each institution.

7  CRAFTING GRAND STRATEGY FOR EUROPE 

183

Challenges and Drivers of Cooperation The key driver for further EU-NATO cooperation is the similarity of interest of the two institutions, due to overlapping membership. For instance, both the EU and NATO have an interest in defending and deterring against Russia, promoting peace and stability in the Balkans, as well as projecting stability in the Middle East and North Africa to counter terrorism and prevent conflict. Since ultimate responsibility and sovereignty lies with the member states, even though power and resources can be pooled, they determine how they utilize both institutions to accomplish their foreign policy objectives.47 Of course, operational cooperation will remain difficult as long as the so-called Cyprus dispute will continue to confine the formal relationship to the framework of the Berlin Plus agreement—in practice only in Bosnia today. Informal cooperation can play a role, but is inherently limited. In addition, there are at least three sets of challenges that impede EU-NATO operational coordination: institutional mandate maximization, treaty overlap, and strategic self-conception. First, competition arises from the EU and NATO wanting to be able to act everywhere and autonomously—at least in principle. The inherent tendency for any institution to maximize its mandate is exacerbated in their case because the dynamic flows not only from the officials within the organizations, but also from the representatives from member states. For instance, a country’s position might be viewed differently by its ambassador to the EU from the one to NATO, and likewise within the ministries of foreign affairs and defense back in member-state capitals. Second, another source of potential friction is the scope of, and hierarchy between, NATO’s Article 5 on collective defense and the EU’s Article 42(7) on mutual defense. Some argue that their text, history, and structure suggest that Article 5 takes precedence to Article 42(7), which is what Article 42(7) itself acknowledges for those countries that are members of both the EU and NATO.  For the opposite proposition, others cite the precedent of France invoking the EU’s clause but not NATO’s after the terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015.48 Still others point out that the two clauses operate at different levels: Article 5 has to be collectively invoked whereas Article 42(7) can be invoked individually.49 This debate is unlikely to be resolved soon but is partly revisited in the context of the EU defense momentum and the EU aspiration to strategic autonomy.

184 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

Third, problems can also arise from psychological dissonance between the EU and NATO about which one can claim more credit for preserving peace in Europe up to now. Both contributed and it is difficult to assess the respective shares, but their strategic narratives sometimes overlook this reality. Thus, the default reflex is sometimes for each institution to position itself as the primary security guarantor in Europe. However, recent crises with Russia have clarified minds as to the unique roles of both the EU and NATO working together in providing resilience and deterrence. Such pragmatic realization should help overcome this particular obstacle to cooperation, but it may continue to provide background friction. As a consequence of these factors, any quest for a full division of labor between the EU and NATO is going to be Sisyphean. Some overlap and duplication is inevitable—some of which can be even beneficial by covering all contingencies and providing greater security for all participants— and it should not impede coordination. The next-best alternative stems from what Jean Monnet called “solidarité de fait”—solidarity through action on the ground, or practice before principles, whereby operational cooperation can occur in fact, even if not all of the theoretical issues are resolved. In some countries (like Bosnia), it may be better for one institution to be in the lead, with the other in a supporting role. In others (like Kosovo), there may be natural synergies due to comparative advantages. Still in others, each institution’s objectives may be better served by working quietly with other partners such as the United Nations (e.g., in Libya) or the African Union (e.g., in Somalia). In this institutional context, coalitions of the willing within and across the EU and NATO (i.e., member states and institutional staff) will initiate action and cooperation. As a result, certain understandings and norms can emerge through practices, leading to greater trust, confidence, and solidarity. Senior officials and commanders have already developed ways to cooperate and are likely to do so in the future. Interactions in crises, rather than abstract discussions, will also reveal where duplication is unhelpful or beneficial; thus, there should be a healthy tolerance for trial and error, experimentation, and course-corrections. According to current senior EU and NATO officials, many of the habits developed in this way will never be codified and, in fact, any attempt to do so might restrict unduly flexibility of action during crises and eviscerate operational understandings. But cooperation in practice, when in works well, becomes part of the muscle memory and DNA of each institution, producing true synergies, namely where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

7  CRAFTING GRAND STRATEGY FOR EUROPE 

185

Operational Synergies In light of these dynamics, the EU and NATO could explore real common efforts. Where there is separate EU and NATO presence (Iraq, Georgia, and the Republic of Moldova), they should look into what is feasible through common political messaging, policy coordination, and joint staff and resources. Iraq may be one arena where true synergies could be achieved. Since October 2017, the EU has established a civilian advisory mission assisting the country’s national security advisor and the interior ministry with security-­sector reform. The EU Advisory Mission in Iraq has over 100 civilian personnel based in Baghdad, with a mandate until April 2022. In parallel, NATO launched a defense capacity-building mission in 2018 to “train the trainers” of the Iraqi military, while also working with the national security advisor and the defense ministry “to help Iraq develop its capacity to build more sustainable, transparent, inclusive and effective national security structures and professional military education institutions.”50 The NATO Mission in Iraq is expected to have several hundred military trainers, based in and around Baghdad. The EU’s and NATO’s missions in Iraq clearly relate to each other, though they address different aspects of Iraq’s national security process. EU and NATO planners have started coordinating their efforts and ideally will be able to institutionalize their cooperation on the ground. Synergy gains would include greater impact of capacity building due to a united message and better implementation speed due to time efficiencies. Exchange of information would also reveal remaining gaps and needs for future efforts. Ukraine, where the EU has a rule-of-law mission and NATO has various projects involving a few dozen persons, could be another case where their efforts could be usefully integrated. For instance, one project could be for the EU to support the various NATO Trust Funds in Ukraine, akin to its support for NATO’s Building Integrity program to reduce corruption and promote good governance in the defense and security sector, to which the EU contributed €2 million. It should be noted that staff from the EU Advisory Mission (EUAM) in Ukraine and from NATO already periodically meet jointly with Ukrainian counterparts to leverage their efforts. These practical on-the-ground habits should be institutionalized further.

186 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

The EU and NATO should also explore liaison teams in the European Commission, the European External Action Service and at NATO headquarters that could coordinate efforts across the two organizations. This proposal would build on the current respective cells NATO and the EU have at each other’s institutions. The EU and NATO are complex institutions, with distinct decision-making processes and cultures, and there are only a few individuals who have extensive knowledge and experience of both. In particular, such teams could facilitate simultaneous, coordinated, and parallel crisis-management exercises, and potentially even joint exercises. They could also work toward facilitating timely mutual benefits of classified information, whereby classified information is not directly exchanged but can be utilized toward advising each other on a particular decision. On counterterrorism, stability projection through capacity building and security sector reform have been NATO’s and the EU’s most valuable (if under-utilized) tool on their periphery. Whether in Georgia, Iraq, Jordan, the Republic of Moldova, Tunisia, or elsewhere, increasing assistance packages on counterterrorism, defense and security sector reform, and institution building can facilitate governance, help prevent conflict, and preclude safe havens for terrorist groups. Particularly now that ISIS is likely to metastasize into disparate groups scattered throughout the Middle East and North Africa, it is imperative that NATO allies and like-­ minded partners can deny ISIS the territory and capability to organize and plot further terrorist attacks in Europe and North America. Finally, it should also continue to be normal and expected that both the EU and NATO will have separate missions without the misperceptions that they are necessarily in competition, conflict, or duplication. Each institution has unique competitive advantages and mechanisms, some of which may be better suited than others in a particular operation or mission. For instance, NATO has extensive battlefield experience in Afghanistan that it can share with the EU, which in turn has greater expertise in interior policies such as countering violent extremism and anti-­ radicalization programs, law-enforcement information-sharing, police monitoring, and criminal prosecution. Thus, a comprehensive strategy that builds on each institution’s comparative advantage is necessary to maximize each institution’s interests. What is imperative, nonetheless, is the political impulse to treat each other as core partners or partners of first resort, and ensure full consultation and transparency in decision-making.

7  CRAFTING GRAND STRATEGY FOR EUROPE 

187

Even absent further institutionalization (in part due to the political Cypriot-Turkish deadlock), coordination between the EU and NATO is likely to grow organically, though probably more slowly in that case as it would then still depend on personalities and circumstance. For instance, particular midlevel or senior officials are more likely to collaborate if they know and trust each other from prior interactions. Similarly, staff can develop creative or innovative policy ideas or proposals for institutional cooperation, if they had worked in the other institution or are familiar with its specific decision-making processes. Yet, with a bit of strategic planning, the two institutions could move toward a new level of ambition and cooperation, without depending on luck and happenstance, that would serve both their interests and that of their member states. The test case for true operational synergies may be in Iraq, where the EUAM and NMI have sought to link efforts. The logic of common interests of EU and NATO member states will drive both institutions toward cooperation, but officials should also be cognizant of the underlying impediments due to institutional mandate maximization, treaty overlap, and strategic self-conception. Finally, both institutions should resist the siren calls for clear division of labor either by region or by function. As noted above, it is difficult to identify ex ante any clear lines of demarcation, and forcing agreement on all theoretical issues may impede practical cooperation in ongoing operations, which in the end is what matters most.

Strategic Innovation in Europe In a post-Covid-19 resource-scarce budgetary environment, Europe will need technological innovation perhaps more than ever in the area of security and defense. The strategic purpose of innovation is to maintain Europe’s technological edge in preserving NATO as the strongest military alliance in history. Innovation must serve the Alliance’s core task: strengthening deterrence and defense by improving the readiness and lethality of NATO’s forces while preserving its core values of individual liberty, democracy, and rule of law. And it must occur in rapidly changing, complex, and unpredictable security environment, where other state and non-­ state actors are also pursuing technological improvements to gain a competitive edge. Given these factors, innovation must span a wide range of areas so that Europe can benefit from advancements in each specific technology and counter developments by adversaries. To prevail, Europe, as well as the

188 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

United States, must always remain in the lead of technology, especially with a revisionist Russia and the immense technological strides made in recent years by China. Maintaining a competitive edge through scientific advancement will be particularly important in an increasingly resource-­ scarce budgetary environment in the aftermath of the Covid-19 crisis. We will have to do as much with less, and technology can help provide the necessary solutions. As set out in the NATO Secretary-General’s Annual Report for 2019, the Alliance has adopted the right approach on emerging and disruptive technologies across several key areas such as “space, data, Artificial Intelligence, Autonomy, hypersonic systems, new missile technologies, quantum technologies and biotechnologies.” This list also reflects topics identified in Allied defense strategies. For instance, the 2017 French Defence and National Security Strategic Review lists hypersonics, directed-­ energy weapons, biotechnology, big data technologies, the Internet of Things, robotics, artificial intelligence, and autonomous systems. Likewise, the 2018 U.S. National Defense Strategy highlights advanced computing, big data analytics, artificial intelligence, autonomy, robotics, directed energy, hypersonics, and biotechnology. Covering nearly a billion people, half of the world’s GDP, and most of the top universities, NATO needs to be able to benefit from potential innovation across the Alliance, as scientific ideas know no boundaries. Some of the larger allies, such as the United States, France, and the United Kingdom, have extensive domestic defense industrial and technological bases. The key value-added of NATO is its convening power across its 30 members and, in turn, its ability to promote innovation at the national level for each Ally. There is already extensive innovation work done across NATO.  In 2018, the Allied Command Transformation in Norfolk, Virginia, initiated a roadmap on emerging and disruptive technologies, which was adopted by NATO defense ministers the following year. Over the past several years, ACT’s Innovation Hub has run semi-annual Innovation Challenges on select topics—currently on Covid-19 and disinformation. Also in 2018, the NATO Science and Technology Organization (STO) adopted a strategy on sustaining technological advantage. STO continues to serve as the focal point for a community of over 5000 actively engaged scientists across more than 300 projects on fields such as autonomous systems, anti-­ submarine warfare, hypersonic vehicles, quantum radar, and the impact of social media on military operations. Since 2014, more than 40% of STO’s

7  CRAFTING GRAND STRATEGY FOR EUROPE 

189

projects have been focused on emerging and disruptive technologies. Finally, the NATO Communications and Information Agency, in leading digital innovation in the Alliance, runs an annual flagship industry event, the NATO Innovation and Technology Conference and the Defence Innovation Challenges. The main value of innovation within NATO’s HQ is to guide the process according to the main strategic objectives of the Alliance and accelerate the communication process between the scientific level of ideas and capability development to the political level of decisions and funding. The first step would be to get a comprehensive overview of the state of play across innovation efforts across the Alliance in the areas set out by the Secretary-General: space, data, artificial intelligence, autonomy, hypersonic systems, new missile technologies, quantum technologies, biotechnologies, as well as directed energy (which is mentioned elsewhere in the Annual Report and highlighted as a key area by both France and the United States). This overview report would be based on a series of roundtables across the nine topics, involving NATO staff, allied representatives, and potentially outside think-tank or academic experts. Second, based on the consultation, the review report would identify particularly promising areas and specific applications, as well as potential funding gaps. The necessary resources could be generated by all NATO allies or a subset of interested NATO members. Third, NATO, as well as individual European allies, should also consider establishing an investment function similar to the Defense Innovation Unit in the United States and the United Kingdom, which have significant funds they can invest in promising enterprises (over $400 million in 2019 with $9 billion leverage in private investment in the United States, and £800m over ten years in the United Kingdom). Such public resources, on the order of a €1 billion fund, can spur innovation and ensure NATO’s continued success. Fourth, pubic innovation should liaise with the private sector and civil society to identify promising technological advancements, including through interactions with industry, research laboratories, universities, and think-tanks. It should convene annual conferences on emerging and disruptive technologies to serve as the cutting-edge forum across the Alliance for thought and debate on these issues. Finally, all of this work needs to be periodically reviewed to ensure proper implementation and to enable strategic shifts in identified needs. In consultation with relevant NATO staff and other actors, it also needs to

190 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

consider legal and ethical norms, as well as arms control aspects, as scientific ideas turn into specific capabilities and weapons applications. Innovation, or a new way of doing something, is not only about defense capabilities but can also apply to decision processes. To be sure, there are different actors involved—commanders, not scientists; political leaders, not technologists—and different considerations. However, innovation should be on the agenda for NATO and Allied forces, as it has been already in several NATO members.

Strategic Agility Throughout its history, Europe has adapted its strategy successfully to confront emerging security challenges. Over the past six years, multiple crises—Russian illegal annexation of Crimea and aggression in eastern Ukraine, terrorist attacks throughout Europe and the United States, Russian interference in European and U.S. elections, and large-scale flows of refugees and migrants into Europe—have tested and stretched Europe and the wider transatlantic alliance. But both responded with creativity and resolve. NATO deterred further Russian aggression through the Enhanced Forward Presence in the East. It addressed more diffuse threats from the South, with operations in the Mediterranean and defense capacity building to project stability. At the Warsaw Summit, it solidified cooperation with the EU across a range of issues. And it should confront new crises with the same flexibility and fortitude. Over the next few years, NATO should pursue a strategy of deterrence, defense, and stability. First, it needs to maintain its strong posture toward Russia, until the Kremlin fulfills the Minsk agreements in Ukraine and fundamentally changes its aggressive behavior. Second, NATO should further develop hybrid defense measures against hybrid threats such as terrorism and cyber. Finally, it should address the root causes of instability on its periphery by expanding defense capacity building. Deterrence has been reinstated to the core of the Alliance’s work due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and electoral interference in multiple NATO countries through cyber and other active measures. While confronting Russia where it must, NATO should also explore opportunities (albeit limited) to cooperate with Russia where it can until an atmosphere akin to the 1990s can be restored. Hybrid defense against hybrid threats from terrorism and cyber has also become a core security issue for all NATO allies and partners. No NATO

7  CRAFTING GRAND STRATEGY FOR EUROPE 

191

state is able to ensure its security against terrorism, nor against the related threat of weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of terrorist groups, without the close cooperation with other allies, partners, and international institutions. For these reasons, NATO has been integral in the fight against terrorism in Afghanistan. Additionally, all 30 allies, as well as NATO itself, are part of the approximately 80-partner Global Coalition to Defeat Daesh, which is supported by NATO AWACS. NATO has also decided to establish a new regional “Hub for the South” based in Naples to increase monitoring and threat analysis capacity. NATO should remain at the forefront of the fight against terrorism, and explore cooperating with the EU and the UN to ensure full exchange of information and to identify opportunities for joint action. NATO should also expand the burden-­sharing debate to include a broader range of security spending, such as counterterrorism, law enforcement, and intelligence. Cyberattacks by Russia in Estonia, Ukraine, the United States, France, Germany, and elsewhere—particularly when used to influence domestic elections—challenge NATO’s foundational principles of democracy and the rule of law. Other states such as North Korea and China, as well as non-state actors, also use cyberspace for nefarious purposes. NATO has taken the appropriate steps to recognize cyberattacks as potential triggers for Article 5 collective defense and cyberspace as a domain of operations. Now, it needs to work with allies, partners, industry, and international institutions to increase NATO and national cyber capacity, share best practices, promote information-sharing and mutual assistance, and shape political norms on cyber. Stability projection through defense capacity building has been NATO’s most valuable (if under-utilized) tool in its periphery, particularly in the South. Whether in Georgia, Iraq, Jordan, Moldova, and potentially in Libya and elsewhere, increasing assistance packages on defense and security sector reform and institution building can facilitate governance and help prevent conflict. The new security environment arguably calls for a new strategic concept for NATO.  However, revising the 2010 document could be time-­ consuming and create unnecessary fissures. Given the multiplicity of challenges, varying threat perceptions, and periodic claims of its existential crisis, NATO above all needs to preserve and strengthen its unity and cohesion. Since there has been insufficient support within the North Atlantic Council (NAC) for a new text, NATO has established a high-level panel to explore how the 2010 Strategic Concept applies to new

192 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

challenges. It should also shape a public narrative weaving the various lines of effort into an overall strategy of deterrence, defense, and stability through speeches by the Secretary-General and senior NATO officials. And it needs continued strategic agility. * * * There is currently “a wide gap of unactualized power” within Europe, between its potential capabilities and actual spending on defense and diplomacy, akin to the position of the United States in 1950 when Paul Nitze drafted the Truman administration’s strategy for the defense of the free world. Beyond the material resources potentially within its disposal, Europe’s other main source of power is its international network. All that remains is to clarify the purpose and interest for which it should deploy its power, as well as to identify ways in which the liberal order should be updated to address the income, defense, and development inequalities highlighted above. Europe has a long tradition in building political orders, from Richelieu to Bismarck, from which it can draw inspiration to deal with current challenges. Grand strategy is developed in the abstract, but needs to be demonstrated in concrete cases. Consider the NSC-68 call for U.S. containment of the Soviet Union and military buildup for the Cold War: it provided an intellectual structure for decades of U.S. foreign policy, but its vitality was showcased immediately with the Korean War, only two months after the document was presented to President Truman. In the current geopolitical context, there is no shortage of crises around the world where Europe’s defense of the liberal order can be tested. For instance, continued support for democratic transitions in Ukraine and Georgia, outreach to Eastern Partnership countries, and increased engagement in the Western Balkans will help promote liberal values in these areas and potentially set the stage for further enlargement of the liberal order in the future through various institutional mechanisms.51 Europe’s strategy in defense of the liberal order will continue to face a test case in Ukraine, where the clash between liberal and illiberal values is particularly vivid.52 Thus far, Europe’s assistance of Ukraine’s political and economic reforms and sanctions against Russia have stood the test of time and weathered numerous storms. At the EU-Ukraine Association Council in December 2018, the EU pledged an impressive €13.8 billion support package for the next few years to continue to support the reform process.

7  CRAFTING GRAND STRATEGY FOR EUROPE 

193

Yet, the near-term future will be especially trying in Ukraine, such that the liberal progress and Western trajectory over the past six years may be halted or reversed. The necessary commitment of material resources and political will to Ukraine will be aided by viewing Europe’s interests there through a wider prism of the EU’s stake in preserving and expanding the liberal order. Viewed from a longer-term perspective, the EU’s track record is impressive. It has helped sustain the Paris climate agreement, forge and preserve the Iran nuclear deal, and maintain a friendly relationship with the United States, notwithstanding numerous occasions when the situation could have deteriorated in any of these areas. Moreover, its energetic trade policy through deals with Japan, Canada, Singapore, and Vietnam (and ongoing negotiations with Australia, New Zealand, and Mercosur) means that free and fair trade rules are expanding and modernizing; indeed, the EU has included within its new trade agreements protections for fundamental values, such as democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. It has kept true to the spirit of liberal order and parried assaults from within and without, while maintaining a multilateral and open approach, and seeking like-­ minded allies. And it remained receptive to working jointly with the Trump administration on areas of common interest in support of liberal values, such as addressing the rise of China, protecting democracies from foreign interference, confronting Russia, and managing the crisis in Venezuela. Given that the liberal order is its existential interest, Europe should have the resources and the will to fight to defend it. Although it is sometimes said that European countries face greater difficulties in generating support for defense spending and deployment due to parliamentary constraints, the United States also requires the same legislative and public support for its defense posture. The main difference, thus, is not the institutional structure, but the forms of argument and justification that have developed over time to arrive at the current strategic context.

Notes 1. UN Secretary-General António Guterres, Opening remarks at joint press conference with European Commission President, Jean-­Claude Juncker, Brussels, 16 May 2018. 2. High Representative/Vice-President Federica Mogherini, State of the Union Address, 11 May 2018.

194 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

3. President Emmanuel Macron, Speech to Joint Session of US Congress, 25 April 2018. 4. Emmanuel Macron’s Speech at the United States Congress, Apr. 25, 2018. 5. Remarks by Vice President Pence and President Macron of France at State Luncheon, Apr 24, 2018. 6. Speech by Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, 24 January 2018. 7. See also Dworkin & Leonard, “Can Europe save the world order?” 8. Mark Leonard, “What Liberal World Order?”, ECFR Policy Brief (March 2017). 9. President Barack Obama, The President’s News Conference in L’Aquila, Italy, Jul. 10, 2009. 10. Joint Statement by the United States of America and India: Partnership for a Better World, Nov. 24, 2009. See also G20 Toronto Summit Declaration, Jun. 27, 2010 (describing the G20 as “the premier forum for our international economic cooperation”). 11. Michael H.  Smith & Richard Youngs, “The EU and the Global Order: Contingent Liberalism,” The International Spectator: Italian Journal of International Affairs, 53: 1 March 2018, pp. 45–56. 12. Jennifer Lind, “Saving the Liberal Order from Itself,” Politique Étrangère, 82: 4, Winter 2017–2018, pp. 1–13. 13. European Commission, Reflection Paper on Harnessing Globalisation (10 May 2017). 14. See, for example, Anu Bradford, The Brussels Effect: How the European Union Rules the World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020). 15. See https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/french-­foreign-­policy/digital-­ diplomacy/france-­and-­cyber-­security/article/cybersecurity-­paris-­call-­of-­12­november-­2018-­for-­trust-­and-­security-­in. 16. Remarks Prior to a Meeting With President Donald F.  Tusk of the European Council and an Exchange With Reporters, March 9, 2015. 17. Ibid. 18. Remarks Prior to a Meeting With Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Brussels, Belgium, March 26, 2014. 19. Ibid. 20. Remarks at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, June 19, 2013. 21. Remarks in Hannover, Germany, April 25, 2016. 22. Remarks to the United Nations General Assembly in New  York City, September 20, 2016. 23. Ibid. 24. Remarks by the Vice President at the Munich Security Conference, Feb 18, 2017

7  CRAFTING GRAND STRATEGY FOR EUROPE 

195

25. Remarks by the Vice President to Enhanced Forward Presence and Estonian Troops, Jul 31, 2017. See also Remarks by the Vice President at the Adriatic Charter Summit, Aug 2, 2017 (“The Western Balkans show the diversity of Western civilization — a beautiful mosaic of free countries and peoples — each with their own unique histories, cultures, languages and traditions and all of which deserve to be cherished, celebrated, and protected. … And by bringing the Adriatic ever closer to the Atlantic, we can ensure a brighter future not only for the Western Balkans, but for the West itself.”). 26. Remarks by President Trump to the People of Poland, July 6, 2017. 27. Remarks by President Trump to the 72nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly, Sep 19, 2017. 28. Ibid. 29. Remarks by President Trump to the 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, Sept. 24, 2019. 30. Interview with David O’Sullivan, 28 October 2019. 31. Ibid. 32. Interview with senior EU official, 8 November 2019. 33. Ibid. 34. Interview with Wolfgang Ischinger, 9 January 2020. 35. The last American to receive it was Bill Clinton in 2000; previous U.S. recipients were Henry Kissinger in 1987 and George C. Marshall in 1959. 36. Interview with Wolfgang Ischinger, 9 January 2020. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid. 39. Mark Leonard, ed., Connectivity Wars: Why Migration, Finance and Trade are the Geo-­Economic Battlegrounds of the Future, ECFR (2016), 24. 40. EUNAVFOR MED, EU NAVFOR Atalanta, EUFOR Althea, EUTM Mali, EUTM Somalia, and EUTM RCA. 41. EULEX Kosovo, EUMM Georgia, EUAM Ukraine, EUBAM Moldova and Ukraine, EUCAP Sahel Niger, EUPOL COPPS/Palestinian Territories, EUBAM Rafah, EUCAP Sahel Mali, EUAM Iraq, EUCAP Somalia, and EUBAM Libya. 42. The other missions include NATO Mission Iraq (NMI) (several hundred trainers starting in 2019); Operation Althea (operational command held by NATO Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe); Iceland’s “Peacetime Preparedness Needs,” Operation Sea Guardian (OSG), NATO Patriot Mission in Turkey, and NATO Air Policing. 43. See NATO, KFOR History. 44. See EULEX, EULEX Head met with KFOR Commander (18 December 2018).

196 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

45. Third progress report on the implementation of the common set of proposals endorsed by NATO and EU Councils on 6 December 2016 and 5 December 2017 (May 2018). 46. See Margriet Drent, “Militarising migration? EU and NATO involvement at the European border,” 72 Clingendael Spectator 4 (2018). 47. Samantha Power, citing Richard Holbrooke, once quipped in the context of the United Nations that blaming the Security Council for its failures was akin to blaming the Madison Square Garden for the way the basketball team NY Knicks play. The same principle applies to the EU and NATO. 48. See generally European Parliamentary Research Service, The EU’s mutual assistance clause: First ever activation of Article 42(7) TEU (Nov. 2015). 49. See, for example, European Council on Foreign Relations, Article 42.7: An explainer (Nov. 2015). 50. See NATO, NATO Mission in Iraq (December 2018). 51. See European Political Strategy Centre, Engaging with the Western Balkans: An Investment in Europe’s Security (May 2018). 52. See Lawrence Freedman, Ukraine and the Art of Strategy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019).

CHAPTER 8

Conclusion

This book was completed in the midst of the worst public health and economic crisis to strike Europe and the world within a century due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Its medium- and long-term consequences are still uncertain, but one immediate effect that is clear is the urgent need for better strategic thinking and a forward-leaning, pro-active posture by European leaders and like-minded partners. The first gap that the pandemic has exposed is in intelligence: the basic and speedy gathering of facts and analysis that any official needs to make sound judgments and decisions. Although things are always clearer in hindsight, there were warning signs weeks if not months before the lockdowns began in March 2020. One institutional mechanism established in the United States to prevent strategic surprises after Pearl Harbor and World War II was the Presidential Daily Briefing—an overview by the intelligence community of all the main threats and challenges that the president and his senior staff should be informed about. In the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the U.S. intelligence apparatus expanded even further. Extensive information and analysis is available routinely throughout the U.S. government to many officials, who can and should raise issues in real-time, as they emerge and hopefully before they evolve into a global crisis. (In this case, the system did not work, because the ultimate intended client of intelligence, Trump, either did not or could not process the information. Moreover, he and his advisors dismantled the © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 B. M. J. Szewczyk, Europe’s Grand Strategy, Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60523-0_8

197

198 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

NSC Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense that the Obama-Biden administration established in the aftermath of the Ebola crisis to prevent precisely this type of pandemic.)1 To avoid future strategic surprises, the EU and individual member states will need to enhance their ability to gather, analyze, and present information to senior officials also on a daily basis. These habits will require extensive additional resources and sufficient time to establish, but are well worth the investment. The pandemic has also illustrated that Europe’s outlook needs to be global: a crisis can originate in one distant part of the world and quickly become the top domestic priority due to modern processes of globalization, trade, and travel on which the world depends. Europe will need to expand its diplomatic presence around the world in order to ensure security at home. The crisis will also require better utilization of resources, as economic recession inevitably will put pressure on all public spending for the foreseeable future. Yet, just as France and the United Kingdom were able to double their defense spending in 1950–1952, while still emerging from post-World War II destruction and in the midst of the Marshall Plan, so too can European countries now mobilize their resources more effectively for various foreign policy objectives if the intellectual case is persuasive. Efficiency needs to accompany increased spending, rather than seek to replace it. Any strategy is inherently designed by a specific strategist, with his or her own personal perspectives, potential biases, and unconscious assumptions. My transatlantic or global outlook is in part a function of my upbringing and exposure to many different geographies. My liberal political philosophy is in part a consequence of education and reflection, as well as my personal experience of the universality of humanity across the world; all individuals seem to want and expect the same basic things: dignity, freedom, peace, prosperity, and political inclusion. The book has tried to apply the wide range of my professional, educational, and personal experiences to the broad subject of Europe’s grand strategy. Having spent nearly 20 years working in academia, think-tanks, government, courts, law firms, and international institutions in the United States and Europe (with a brief stint in Asia), I have been privileged to be able to analyze issues and make decisions from various perspectives. I joined the U.S. government from teaching at Columbia Law School, as one of two academics selected nationwide for the Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship.2 In addition, my broad

8 CONCLUSION 

199

educational background has enabled me to approach policy questions in creative and comprehensive ways. Finally, I have straddled many different personal environments. For most of my life, I have been an immigrant, whether in the United States, England, Holland, France, and now Belgium. Yet, I have also felt at home wherever I have resided. A realistic idealist, my political views are largely liberal, but I value tradition and an incremental if not conservative approach to progress; too many societal experiments failed in my native Poland to bet on revolutionary change. An insider-outsider, I hope I have been able to develop greater empathy and see things from the perspective of others, be it individuals or countries. To be sure, no single person can be a complete expert on all topics or all perspectives, and thus the book does not seek to address all strategic issues that European leaders face, such as policy toward South America, the Arctic, or on climate change. Instead, it outlines a structured framework for leaders and policy-makers to solicit further analysis on any topic they may have. This process should not be improvisational, but rather disciplined and conducted through study memos and decision memos, akin to the system Kissinger established at the U.S.  National Security Council a half century ago. And ultimately, it needs to feed into the thinking, statements, and actions of leaders in whose hands effective strategy ultimately rests. The book’s primary aim is to contribute to strategic debate in Europe in a structured format with four fundamental sets of questions: • What is the context of a particular issue? Who are the relevant actors, what are the main trends, and what is the expected near-term and medium-term future? • What are the interests at stake and what are the concrete objectives to serve them? • What policy options are available given the existing and foreseeable resources? • What are the recommended courses of action, in what sequence, and with what priority? Generally, strategy debates in Europe are good in understanding the underlying context, although at times, commentators and policy-makers can be loose with statistical data, say on migration or European defense spending. On the other hand, the flow of information across the decision-­ making process could be faster; for instance, in one conversation with a

200 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

senior European official when I worked in the State Department, I had the readout of his government’s actions and meetings in Ukraine even before he received it through his internal channels. The speed with which a governmental bureaucracy operates can have important strategic consequences, as revealed tragically in the case of the Covid-19 pandemic. Strategy discourse in Europe is relatively weaker on identifying interests and defining objectives, neither of which are automatic as sometimes assumed by outside observers. Why should we care about a particular issue? What is at stake: our security, wealth, democracy, conscience, or something else still? Even more difficult is defining concrete objectives to serve the identified interest: goals should be realistic and ambitious, achievable and attractive. Not all issues will be adequately captured within concepts such as multilateralism or the rules-based global order. As Chancellor Merkel notes, quoting Alexander von Humboldt, “everything is interaction.”3 However, intellectually, one needs to start in a particular place, on firm ground: setting out the interests and objectives. Policy options often follow a familiar pattern of things that have been tried in the past, and innovative proposals are difficult to generate and implement. In government, there are many difficult challenges since the underlying issues are complex and solutions difficult to obtain. Reasonable people, of good faith and with extensive experience and expertise, can often disagree on the appropriate path forward, or how to prioritize efforts. For instance, one particular challenge occurred when I first joined the U.S. State Department, in the context of the conflict in Ukraine. The crisis had been going on for about a year and was slowly plateauing into a stalemate and a frozen conflict. There were ongoing debates within the U.S. government whether to focus on security and politics, or on economics and reform. My general view was that time, over the long term, was actually on the side of Ukraine’s democratic reforms and Western orientation, as long as we could sustain public support of the reforms in the near term. However, based on prior reform efforts, public support tended to wane after 12–24 months of sacrifice and difficulty. And there were significant financial needs in Ukraine that the international community had to fill during this crucial window of time. One innovative proposal I developed was the concept of a joint U.S.-EU special envoy to join up transatlantic efforts on technical assistance and economic aid. The position, unprecedented in its dual-hatted nature,

8 CONCLUSION 

201

would have reduced potential duplication between the United States and the EU, yielded synergies in our efforts, and helped sustain the profound political and economic transformations in Ukraine by demonstrating a unified transatlantic front. I had conducted extensive outside research and consultations with allies as well as think-tank experts. However, whereas some officials embraced this idea, it was resisted elsewhere within the U.S. government. Through many meetings with various counterparts, a compromise was reached that was satisfactory for everyone involved. Although my specific proposal of a joint U.S.-EU special envoy was not ultimately adopted, it generated greater coordination between the United States and the EU through a G7 Contact Group of ambassadors in Kyiv, as endorsed by the G7 leaders at the summit at Elmau in 2015, as well as through regular meetings among officials in Washington, Brussels, and Kyiv. And most importantly, it highlighted the underlying issue of the need for coordination on economic assistance and the imperative to address it one way or another. For Europe, preserving an element of creativity and innovation will be crucial in developing an effective grand strategy. As much as anything, strategy is about being prepared for various potential future scenarios. For instance, in June 2016, in the run-up to the U.K. referendum on membership in the European Union, most observers expected the Remain vote to prevail. However, given my role at the Policy Planning Staff, I prepared a memo to the Secretary outlining the opposite scenario, where the United Kingdom would vote to leave the EU.  The memo analyzed the overall strategic context, the U.S. interests affected by the outcome, the desired objectives, and potential steps the Secretary and the U.S. government could take to engage. It was in draft form until 24 June, the day after the referendum, at which point we were already prepared with comprehensive advice for the Secretary and a path forward. The referendum was an unexpected outcome with unclear consequences, but my expertise on Europe and the EU helped me understand the underlying dynamics more accurately. The thrust of my framing of the problem was that the United Kingdom would need to develop a new relationship with the EU—as opposed to pursuing a friendly divorce—since I argued the strategic dynamics were such that the United Kingdom and the EU would continue interacting through various mechanisms given their shared values and interests, and given their geography. Fundamentally, a true divorce—picking up, leaving, and separating all assets and obligations—was not a realistic option,

202 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

and the real question was what the referendum implied for the new relationship. The Secretary and various allies liked this formulation of the issue, and so I helped lead the thinking and shaping of policy on Brexit within the State Department and the U.S. government. The Secretary spent the next several days after 24 June meeting with key leaders in Europe, with Secretary-General Stoltenberg, EU High Representative Mogherini, and with British Foreign Minister Hammond to help calm the situation and emphasize the continued stability and perseverance of the transatlantic alliance. The phrase “new relationship” quickly appeared in various statements by U.S. and European officials.4 Secretary Kerry also later delivered an important speech on the transatlantic relationship in October in Brussels. We remained engaged on this issue and developed several creative and innovative proposals for our European allies, and maintained focus on implementing them. And with all these efforts, we were able to serve the Secretary effectively, as well as strengthen the transatlantic alliance, most importantly because we were prepared, had deep insight into the underlying situation, and had the wherewithal to generate creative policy options. Of course, preparedness does not ensure policy success: fortune and circumstance always play a role. But at the very least, strategy can help avoid surprises. * * * Perhaps more than at any point in recent history, “Europe’s soul has been put to the test,” as Chancellor Merkel noted.5 Challenged internally and externally, and emerging from the worst public health and economic crisis in a century, Europe’s ability to develop an effective grand strategy will be ever more important. Its interests in peace, prosperity, and political inclusion will require a renewed commitment to defending the liberal order by building up military, economic, and diplomatic strength within the free world. With a hopefully reinvigorated transatlantic alliance, it will need to manage Russia’s decline, counter China’s assertiveness, and stabilize the Middle East and Africa. Organizing principles in grand strategy—such as liberal order—are essential to set objectives, priorities, and approaches, but are not intended to address every single policy that is important or determine a granular course of action. Some policies worth pursuing, such as preserving the

8 CONCLUSION 

203

Iran nuclear deal or preventing the next pandemic, may be pro-order, but not necessarily pro-liberal.6 (Nuclear weapons and deadly viruses destroy without regard for the democratic nature of the domestic regime.) Other policies, such as supporting democratic dissidents, may be pro-liberal, but not necessarily pro-order (at least in the short term). And reasonable observers can disagree whether a particular policy will strengthen or weaken the liberal order in terms of optimal allocation of resources among peace, prosperity, and political inclusion. Thus, Europe should maneuver like a fox and hedgehog to mobilize its vast diplomatic, economic, and military resources in support of the liberal order as the last, best hope for it, for the time being. The aspirational scope of liberal order may no longer be global, as was hoped during its golden age of the 1990s—my formative decade, which probably in part explains my underlying optimism for the future and the enduring spirit of 1989. But the order’s core can continue to flourish and expand incrementally. Ultimately, the benchmark for whether organizing Europe’s grand strategy around liberal order will be successful is whether it continues to deliver on the three core interests of peace, prosperity, and political inclusion, and whether it provides Europe with an enhanced global position. The historical record suggests it will.

Notes 1. See Christopher Kirchhoff, Ebola Should Have Immunized the United States to the Coronavirus: What Washington Failed to Learn From the National Security Council’s Ebola Report, Foreign Affairs (28 March 2020). 2. The CFR IAF was previously held by former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power; former U.S. Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights Sarah Sewall; former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; former U.S.  Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg; former U.S.  Ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad; former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Philip Gordon; former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Ivo H. Daalder; and NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe James Stavridis; and former NATO Deputy Secretary-General Rose Gottemoeller. 3. Speech by Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel on 16 February 2019 at the 55th Munich Security Conference, 16 February 2019. 4. See, for example, Stephen Castle, Theresa May’s British Cabinet Has New Faces but Old Divides, N.Y. Times (14 July 2016) (noting that U.K. Foreign Minister Hammond “suggested that the country move quickly to forge a

204 

B. M. J. SZEWCZYK

new relationship with Europe to reduce the uncertainty hanging over the economy”). 5. Speech by Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel to the European Parliament, Strasbourg, 13 November 2018. 6. See Erik Brattberg and Michael Kimmage, “Trump and the (Liberal) International Order,” The National Interest (26 February 2018).