Expansion, Norfolk and Europe

Yesterday, I wandered through the fine Norfolk countryside on a lengthy winter walk. What, you might ask, can walking through rural East Anglia possibly have to do with the European Union? At first glance, the answer can only be very little. Norfolk is today a backwater, with little industry, poor communications, and considerable rural poverty. Norwich, the capital city of Norfolk, is the only remaining British city without an expressway or motorway connection to London or the Midlands.

Yet by scratching beyond the surface, one can see that Norfolk was once a powerhouse of expansion and innovation. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, it was one of the most affluent and productive counties in England and as part of East Anglia formed one of the wealthiest parts of Europe. Norwich was once England’s second most important city, and boasts one of the finest castles, guildhalls and cathedrals—representing the trinity of mediaeval power: the authority of the monarchy, the wealth of the merchants, and the influence of the church—to be found in any city in the British Isles. Indeed, the cathedral boasts the second highest spire in the United Kingdom, after Salisbury cathedral, and is one of the most majestic. Norwich was also of considerable strategic importance, and was once defended by an extensive ring of city walls which spread out from the castle itself, towering high above the city. And due to its proximity to mainland Europe and the affluent regions of Northern France, the Low Countries and Scandinavia, Norwich had a very ‘European’ population, including English, French, Flemings, Danes and Dutch.

But Norfolk’s importance to the formation of modern Europe is greater than the importance of Norwich. With its fertile land and abundant agricultural yields, Norfolk was at the very core of the late mediaeval wool trade in England. Norfolk’s many market towns, including Aylsham, Worstead, Holt and North Walsham, were the production centres for yarn and various forms of lace. Enormous wealth poured into these settlements, which aided learning, industrial innovation and above all, agricultural expansion. The numerous and often vast estates in Norfolk are testament to the economic importance the county once had. The great halls at Holkham and Blickling are amongst the finest in Britain, and the way in which the surrounding land has been husbanded and cultivated is at the vortex of European history, and represents one of Europe’s most important legacies and gifts to humanity.

The picture above, taken overlooking fields surrounding the estate of Blickling Hall, is a powerful marker of the willingness of Europeans to subjugate and domesticate what was once nothing but woodland and wasteland. Spaces of dense thicket and forest were cleared during the late middle ages; swamp and marshland were drained; and in some cases, land was literally reclaimed from the sea. Many reasons can be given for this incredible activity, from a desire to master nature and move closer to the supposed creator, to a simple desire to survive or be rich. The industry of Europeans during the era between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries produced great dynamism and expansion, and was a time when new ideas and entire ideological formations were born. Principal among those was of course liberalism, which is merely another synonym for ‘expansion’. Indeed, John Locke, widely seen alongside Thomas Hobbes as the founder of the liberal tradition, provided one of the most powerful of all justifications for imperialism and overseas colonisation.

But more than that, a winter walk in Norfolk’s countryside has more to tell us about contemporary Europe. The vast fields, waiting to be planted with fresh crops for the summer harvest, or greened with grass for animals to eat, themselves emphasise the importance of power and space. It seemed clear to me that these fields—which we rely on for sustenance and life—were not a product of ‘soft power’ or the ability of attracting or wooing, but rather from a willingness and ability on the part of past Europeans to physically generate a new world. These huge fields were made by our forefathers literally thrusting back the natural environment of chaos and death, constituting in its place a domesticated and cultivated space to serve their interests, namely their security and prosperity. The sheer aggression they visited on the natural environment of mediaeval Europe was immense: England, for example, was in the tenth century covered in many areas by woodland and forest; by the early modern era it was beginning to be enclosed in privately owned farms, with large open fields ripe for the growing of crops. With the domestic environment firmly under their command, Europeans had greater freedom to expand overseas, to engage in manufacturing processes and to enhance knowledge by the furtherance of discovery, science, art and engineering.

This should teach us that we cannot remain still, or hope that the outside world will leave us alone. The European Union is surrounded by a region not so dissimilar, metaphorically speaking, to the natural environment of chaos and uncertainty that plagued mediaeval Europeans. And like that natural environment of the European past, the contemporary world beyond Europe will not be changed, and the threats which emanate from it will not be reduced, by our so-called ‘soft power’, or by shirking our duties and obligations to others. Regions and societies plagued with chaos and conflict will not be domesticated without the exercise of power, or more importantly the willingness to deploy power in the service of our interests. If axes, scythes and ploughs were the tools used to hack down and domesticate the thicket, then armed forces, peacekeepers and political will are the instruments needed to domesticate zones of chaos and turmoil. As Europeans, we must re-acquire the ‘will to power’, and stand firm in defending our collective interest. If we fail to do so, others will assert and expand their own interests, and as they grow in strength and confidence, we Europeans might also come under their sway, just as so many came under our sway in the past. Given the importance of Europe, that can be in nobody’s interest, especially those on the side of constitutional government, social justice and freedom.

Introducing the ‘Grand Area’

In the latest edition of Progress, Brendan Simms and I unveil what we describe as the European Union’s ‘Grand Area’. We feel that this geopolitical space, which stretches like a crescent from northern Russia to the African shores of the Mediterranean, will be of fundamental importance to the security and prosperity of the European Union in the twenty-first century, just as central Europe was crucial to world affairs in the previous century. More specifically, the ‘Grand Area’ is the region just beyond the ‘European Neighbourhood’, although both are increasingly bound together for the purposes of European security. Needless to say, it is within this area that we find most of the contemporary threats and challenges to our cohesion and safety, problems that are unlikely to fade away or dissipate anytime soon.

As we put it:

The broader Middle East and south Asia are regions of crucial importance to Britain and the rest of the European Union. Both form a large residual basin akin to a ‘Grand Area’—an outer perimeter of defence on which the security of the European Neighbourhood and ultimately, the European Union, depends. The security of the Union depends on the security of the Neighbourhood and the security of the Neighbourhood in turn is determined by the situation in the Grand Area. Working alongside the United States, the European Union must become more strategically involved in what is emerging as the geopolitical shatter-belt of the 21st century.

By this, we mean that the international reach of the European Union must be expanded in the coming years. We must enhance our ability to project power into the ‘Grand Area’, not only for the purposes of geopolitical engineering, but also to sustain our energy supplies, and produce forms of society and government more conducive to our liberal values and to our liking. Given the rise or resurgence of other powers in recent years—not least the People’s Republic of China and Russia—we Europeans must ensure that our foothold is solid and firm in Asia and the Middle East. Failure to engage strategically in the ‘Grand Area’ will mean that others will do so instead, not only reducing our influence, but also empowering forces unlikely to have our interests very high on their list of priorities.

The concept of the ‘Grand Area’—particularly when presented in cartographical form, such as in the map below—might help Europeans to think more spatially and geopolitically. This will be essential in the production of a more strategic and coherent European foreign and security policy in the years to come, especially after the reforms are implemented as laid out in the Treaty of Lisbon.

Map of the European Union and the ‘Grand Area’

• Please click here to read the rest of the article.