Ireland: Don’t turn Europeans into minnows

The latest economic statistics from the International Monetary Fund show that European financial and economic dominance is losing ground to China, Russia, India and the United States. A quick glance at the graph, below, should remind us that the individual European Union Member States—even the ‘big four’ like Germany, Britain, France and Italy—are already beginning to look small in comparison to China and the United States. In 2013, the disparity will be even larger. By 2050, according to Goldman Sachs, the gap will be truly vast: China’s annual economic yield may be comparable to that of the European Union and the United States combined.

Graph showing the global powers’ Gross Domestic Product (Purchasing Power Parity) in Euros (€)


* Figures originally converted from International United States Dollars (US$).

If anything should convince all Europeans of the need for further and speedy integration in the areas of foreign, security and defence policy, it is the prospect that, within twenty years, the inhabitants of our continent will count for progressively little in the wider world. Economic power is clearly moving toward the Orient, and this will have a considerable impact on the global financial system, as well as international politics, perhaps including the domestic and social cohesion within the Member States of the European Union too. As the Venusberg Group points out, the European Union must become the ‘strategic hub’ and the ‘one stop shop’ for all Europeans, so that we can realise our commercial, economic, industrial and geopolitical objectives. This becomes even more pressing if global warming and climate change leads to the kind of havoc projected by many strategists, and should we see the re-emergence of international volatility and intense competition between the key world powers as American hegemony comes under mounting challenge.

The people of the Republic of Ireland—one of the European Union’s greatest success stories, and heavily reliant on world trade and foreign direct investment—have here a great weight on their shoulders to ensure that they ratify the Treaty of Lisbon in their upcoming referendum. After all, many of the articles within that treaty, from the integrated High Representative, the External Action Service, and the Solidarity Clause, can only come into operation once all Member States in the European Union have ratified the treaty. Should the treaty be rejected, it would spell disaster for our future prosperity, and send a message to our competitors that we are unable to get our act together. Irish rejection will make European decline all but inevitable, and endanger the security of future generations of Europeans. Surely it is not hyperbole to state that never has so much counted on so few?

The great German strategic awakening?

A week ago the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union (the German conservatives) revealed their first major attempt at compiling a security strategy for the Federal Republic of Germany. Had a major political grouping in Britain or France created such a document, the only interest among the public and concerned parties would likely have been its content; both Member States, after all, have long and renowned military histories. Indeed, Britain revealed its own National Security Strategy in March, while France is due to outline a comprehensive Defence White Paper in the next few months. What is significant about the German attempt is the fact that certain elements of German society felt it necessary to produce a security strategy in the first place. While Germany has, since 1945, been very reluctant to discuss concepts like defence and security, the German armed forces—the Bundeswehr—have been deployed in ever greater numbers in the Balkans and Afghanistan in recent years, as Germany has gradually taken a greater—albeit still very modest—role in upholding global security through the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. So if anything, it is a shame a German National Security Strategy was not crafted a long time ago.

Ulrike Guerot and Daniel Korski, of the European Council on Foreign Relations, suggest that the Christian Democrats may have other motives for producing their security strategy at the current time. As they ask:

Could it be as a reaction to the publication in London, and preparation in Paris, of a National Security Strategy and a Defence White Paper, respectively? Or is it in response to the recent Franco-British ‘Schulterschluss’ on European defence, to show that Berlin is not lagging behind? Or, alternatively, could it be seen as a preemptive move by Berlin to determine the content of the European Security Strategy, expected to be revised under the French EU Presidency?[1]

The answer is that it is probably connected with all of these things—and rightly so. Germany is the biggest, richest and most populous Member State of the European Union. It is an established liberal democracy, and the largest exporter in the world. Yet in the realm of security and defence, it has had a tendency to consume security, rather than help to provide it, a task left primarily to the American, British and French armed forces. Indeed, Germany has one of the lowest per capita military budgets in the European Union; it spends a lousy 1.3% of its Gross National Product on defence; and the Bundeswehr continues to drag its feet with military reform, tending towards conscript forces and land armour, rather than moving into the expeditionary warfighting capabilities required for the kind of overseas interventions as set out in the European Security Strategy.[2] Having said that, much of this is not so much the fault of the Bundeswehr, but rather the political establishment and the indifference of the German public, who seem to have lost their will for a fight. The German contribution to the NATO mission in Afghanistan, for example, has been poor: German soldiers are not allowed to be deployed along the front lines, leaving the heavy lifting to the British, Danes, Dutch, Canadians—and the United States.

So the German attempt at discussing security and defence represents a movement in the right direction. What is more, the content of the Christian Democrats’ security strategy mirrors in many ways the European Security Strategy. Similar to the latter, it outlines the following as the key threats facing Germany and the rest of the European Union: (1) Organised terrorism; (2) the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; (3) energy and raw materials insecurity and supply problems; (4) the consequences of climate change; and (5) the threat posed by overseas conflict and zones of chaos. In light of these threats and challenges, the security strategy proposes that Germany has to: (1) enhance network homeland protection and disaster management; (2) strengthen civilian and military instruments for intervention abroad; (3) upgrade energy security provisions and bring into being a National Security Council; and (4) increase links with the business and scientific communities. It also mentions the need for better German integration into the European Security and Defence Policy.

While the security strategy does not say very much about the importance or the need to use armed force—other than for combating terrorism—it does talk of ‘policing’ and ‘crisis management’, which are perhaps the German codewords for military intervention. Equally, although the Christian Democrats’ proposal for the European Union to take far greater responsibilities for energy security are worthy of further consideration, little is said about the often deferential and flawed German approach towards Russia and the Kremlin, not least the failure of the German government to re-invest in the one form of power able to meet Germany’s growing requirements: nuclear energy. But what is perhaps most significant is that the word ‘pre-emptive’ is used three times, along with some fairly assertive rhetoric. As the security strategy puts it:

Together with our partners we must make a concerted effort to increase our prevention capabilities in order to pre-empt conflict and crises and be in a position to offer solutions for stabilisation that take into consideration cultural and religious issues...Pursuing our interests and strategic objectives will require taking action in a more active, timely, speedy, coherent and, if necessary, firm manner. We must apply this to all the instruments and capabilities at our disposal for conducting crisis management and conflict prevention...We must have the capacity to act before a crisis occurs. If violent conflict cannot be averted, we must be prepared to combat it in its place of origin, especially if we can anticipate negative consequences for Germany’s security and that of its citizens.[3]

This could just be a mistranslation of ‘preventive’, but if not it certainly represents boldness, especially given the controversy in Germany over the idea of ‘pre-emptive defence’ after the revealing of the ‘Bush Doctrine’ in the United States in 2002. Due to the mounting dangers in the modern world, options clearly need to be kept open, and ‘pre-emption’ must be one of them—any European government thinking otherwise is passing on the responsibilities it has to protect its citizens. So the Christian Democrats must be congratulated in bringing the concept of ‘pre-emption’ into the debate.

However, they should not be congratulated for some rather silly statements in their security strategy about universal nuclear disarmament: so unlikely is this, that it is unworthy even of discussion. If anything, given the threats the European Union is likely to face as it deploys progressively more civilian and military missions overseas in the coming years—perhaps even from a rogue regime armed with atomic weapons—Britain and France may need to consider transferring their ballistic missiles up to the European level, or at the very least promise to use them should any fellow Member State be attacked with a weapon of mass destruction. So far from repeating outmoded—even puerile—ideas, the Christian Democrats should be preparing the German public for accepting the inevitable, that is, the acquisition of nuclear weapons by the European Union, including the means to deliver them.

Those problems aside, the Christian Democrats’ security strategy is a good start, and moves German strategic thinking in the right direction. It mirrors in many places not only the British and French approaches to ‘grand strategy’, but also the European Security Strategy. Indeed, the Christian Democrats’ security strategy includes, at the very beginning, the most powerful line from the European Security Strategy: ‘We need to develop a strategic culture that fosters early, rapid, and when necessary, robust intervention.’ Here, what we may be witnessing is a two-step process: first, British and French strategic thinking is being transferred up to the European level, thereby shaping the European Security and Defence Policy, which, in turn, is second, filtering down and developing the lesser strategic cultures in the other Member States—like Germany. This should be welcomed.

And yet, having been taught how to ‘do’ security by Britain and France, Germany must not relinquish its attachment to the European Union. Indeed, equipped with a more assertive Anglo-French style approach, Germany might find itself in a far stronger position to shape European foreign, security and defence policies, making Berlin more of a security provider, rather than a security consumer. Simultaneously, Britain and France should integrate themselves more deeply into the European Security and Defence Policy, throwing everything they’ve got into making it assertive, efficient and credible. But for the time being, Germany now needs to decide whether it should adopt the Christian Democrats’ security strategy, and moreover, whether it will actually lead to concrete improvements—like the increasing of Germany’s military capacity and armaments spending—or whether it is to remain nothing more than hot air.

[1] Ulrike Guerot and Daniel Korski, 2008, ‘New German Security Strategy—going it alone?’.
[2] For more on German military spending in relations to other parts of the European Union, see the European Defence Agency’s National Defence Expenditure in 2006.
[3] Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union, 2008, A Security Strategy for Germany, p. 9 , p. 11 and p. 13.

Ukraine: A lynchpin in Europe’s ‘Manifest Destiny’?

Ukraine is one of the largest and most populous countries on the fringes of the European Union. Although with an area comparable to France, and a population of just under fifty million, Ukraine has nevertheless suffered a cruel fate during much of the previous century. Long part of the Russian empire, the nation was ruled firmly from Moscow, and suffered the vices of dictatorship, Russification and forced famines, especially under the regime of Joseph Stalin. With the collapse of the Iron Curtain in 1989, Soviet Russian power deteriorated, enabling the Ukrainians to gain their independence in December 1991. Nominally free from the Kremlin’s interference, the Ukrainians’ future looked brighter than their more unfortunate past.

Alas, poverty and corruption stalled progress, as did relaxed European engagement with the new Ukrainian authorities. To some extent, this was predictable. Preoccupied during the 1990s, the European Union was itself evolving, and set on a path of massive expansion with enlargement into Central and Eastern Europe, with several countries in Europe’s periphery queuing up to gain accession. This was compounded by the tumultuous events in the Western Balkans, meaning the European Union saw Ukraine as either too far away, or simply—and appallingly—as another country in Russia’s so-called ‘near abroad’, otherwise known as a ‘sphere of influence’. Yet with the ‘big bang’ enlargement complete in 2004, the time was surely ripe for Brussels to take a more considered and active stance towards the largest country in Europe’s backyard? Unfortunately, has failed to materialise: instead, Romano Prodi, the former president of the European Commission, notoriously declared that Ukraine ‘has as much reason to be in the EU as New Zealand.’ At best, his comments were obtuse, short-sighted, and severely lacking of vision. At worst, they were merely an impoverished but calculated attempt to appease the increasingly aggressive leadership in the Kremlin, on which several European Union Member States—including Italy—depend so hazardously for their oil and gas supplies.

Rather than promises of accession, the Ukrainians were bestowed with a ‘Partnership Agreement’ in 1998, and later given a place in the European Neighbourhood Policy. This was an attempt to provide countries around Europe’s frontiers with progressively more integration into the European economy, but little or no place within the constitutional structures, particularly the common political institutions in Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxembourg. The trouble is that this policy—while tailored to each respective country—is nevertheless geographically ‘one-size-fits-all’. That is to say, it includes European countries like Ukraine and Moldova, alongside those in the Middle East and North Africa like Morocco, Egypt and Jordan.

Even at the height of the ‘Orange Revolution’ between November 2004 and January 2005, when the struggle between the pro-European reformer, Viktor Yushchenko, and the pro-Russian regressive, Viktor Yanukovych, was at its most intense, it was the United States, and not the European Union, which was in the real driving seat for change. America threw its full support behind Mr. Yushchenko in the face of clear Russian opposition, thereby providing a stamp of legitimacy for the ‘Orange’ reformists. While it would be unfair to say that Europeans merely mumbled quietly about the ‘dirty tricks’, which they suspected of having been employed by the ‘Orange’ reformists’ opponents, they were certainly less than visible in a time of crisis—when European support for the forces of progress in Ukraine could have secured a decisive victory for the supporters of Mr. Yushchenko. What is more is that had European support for the ‘Orange Revolution’ been clearer, more organised and ultimately, sustained, then the new pro-European government in the country might have been helped to bed-down more successfully, providing the Ukrainian people with something to work towards—not least eventual accession into the European Union itself.

We—Europeans—could have thrown our full support behind the reformists under Mr. Yushchenko, setting out a clear set of criteria for Ukrainian accession into the Union, with Brussels as the tutor. We could have offered greater political support, in the form of legal specialists, economists and experts in the area of civil society. We could have even offered Ukraine a full security guarantee against Russian meddling, providing the authorities in Kyiv with a clear agenda for modernisation for the Ukrainian people. With the full might of our continent behind them, many of the destabilising influences occurring after the ‘Orange Revolution’ may have been prevented or averted, or may have been less dramatic. Such considerable, if only incremental, change, in Ukraine would potentially have transformed the country for the long-term, creating from a precariously volatile former Soviet republic an increasingly democratic, prosperous and stable country on our borders. Unfortunately, this opportunity was lost on the part of the European Union, and the consequences may not yet have been fully played out.

Ukraine is now racked with division. It is ‘split’: should it face Europe, or should it tow Russia’s line? Should it become fully liberal and democratic, or would Russian-style ‘sovereign democracy’ constitute a better future? Who can Ukrainians trust: the less-than-decisive Europeans, or the steely and assertive Russians? And who is the most daunting: the often-enfeebled Europeans, or the supposed might of Mother Russia? Our—that is, European—short-sightedness during the latter 1990s, which continues today, has led to the creation between Europe and Russia of something akin to a ‘shatter-belt’, a zone of turmoil stretching from Belarus to the Caucasus, where Russian power expands unrelentingly as Moscow attempts to regain influence lost after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Consequentially, Europe’s Neighbourhood, far from becoming a ‘ring of friends’, becomes instead a group of rickety and incoherent acquaintances. A geopolitical space cannot be shared, especially when the other side is diverging from European values and interests at an alarming rate. Further, Ukraine is an independent country, with clear and growing preferences for a European-oriented future—considerably more than half the population wants Ukraine to become a part of the Union. As such, the Ukrainians deserve our full, indefatigable and active support.

So what is to be done? Ukraine’s government, under President Yushchenko, and his Prime Minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, and their coalition of reformists, pro-Europeans, pro-Atlanticists and democrats, wants greater decisiveness on the part of we Europeans. They want an agreement from Brussels, one which explicitly states that Ukraine could and should become fully integrated into Europe, so long as Ukraine’s necessary economic, political, constitution and social reforms have got well underway. They also want greater European support in their frequent tussles with Gazprom and the Kremlin over energy supplies, in order to provide greater domestic security and stability for their people. At the upcoming European Union summit with Ukraine on 9th September 2008, to be held in France under the French presidency of the Union, these two requests should be granted. As Mrs. Tymoshenko said yesterday at a press conference in Kyiv:

We expect certain serious steps to be taken along the lines of preparing the new enhanced agreement and the free trade agreement [between Ukraine and the European Union]…We look forward to the EU flashing the green light for us that would help us on our way forward.[1]

But if not an accession agreement, we must, at the very least, consent to France’s recent proposal that Ukraine be granted an ‘Association Agreement’. This would explicitly align the country with the European Union, if not by way of eventual accession, then certainly through political recognition. European political and economic assistance should also be stepped-up—and dramatically—particularly in the face of growing pressure from Russia. Ukraine cannot and must not fall back into the Kremlin’s grip: it would be unfair on our part to allow this to happen, and it would also further jeopardise European energy security, and our wider strategic interests. Crafting a real European Neighbourhood is a long-term geopolitical and ideological effort, and one Europeans must be ready to accept.

It was said in the nineteenth century by many Americans that they had a ‘Manifest Destiny’ to spread across their continent. Today, Europeans have a similar destiny: to utilise the European Union to make their homeland whole and free. It must eventually stretch from the northern reaches of Scandinavia and Iceland to the depths of southern Turkey; it must expand from the Irish coast through Ukraine and deep into the Caucuses. It must also absorb the remainder of the Western Balkans—and perhaps, one day, Israel too. And far from impeding further political integration, European expansion will spur the project to its logical conclusion, as it has continued to do for the past fifty years. Expansion and integration are not mutually exclusive, but reciprocally reinforcing. We must think more assertively and strategically for the realisation of this incredible vision. As one of the remaining lynchpins, Ukraine needs a firm commitment on our part—and soon.

[1] Cited by: Elitsa Vucheva, 2008, ‘Ukraine has high hopes for French EU presidency’.
* Credit to Muumi at Wikipedia for the main image.

The return of ‘History’?

In mid-1989, Francis Fukuyama predicted the collapse of the Soviet empire and the fall of the Berlin Wall in his article ‘The End of History?’. But more than that, this (then) neoconservative intellectual claimed that the ideological defeat of Soviet communism—represented by Mikhail Gorbachev’s restructuring under perestroika and glasnost—meant that liberal democracy, as a form of political organisation, had triumphed over all alternative forms of government.[1] Here, a lot of silly people misunderstood precisely what Fukuyama meant by this: he did not mean that historical events would end; or, necessarily, that liberal democracy was a utopian form of government. What Fukuyama did mean, however, was that the idea of liberal democracy could not be improved upon—as such, it represented a political omega point. As he put it:

What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of History as such: that is, the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalisation of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.[2]

Fukuyama expanded his thesis in a later book, entitled The End of History and the Last Man, which was published in 1992, during the height of the post-Cold War euphoria. Here, by invoking the ideas of Georg Wilhelm Hegel, he claimed that History had a progressive tendency; that the double forces of technological development and political innovation pushed people on a course towards greater emancipation from the forces of repression. According to Fukuyama, science unleashes ideas and enhances human power over the natural environment, producing ever-greater economic yields, while evolution in politics relinquished men from their need of recognition through superiority, and thus ended forms of servitude and slavery associated with despotism. The structures of liberal democracy, by providing the optimum solution for the pursuit of wealth and science, and the means to enable individuals to pursue their need for recognition—without recourse to violence—would lead, claimed Fukuyama, to peace, prosperity and untold levels of wealth and technological progress for all those lucky enough to live under such forms of government.

Yet Fukuyama also introduced a caution: He claimed that the forces produced by liberal democratic structures, could, in turn, lead to unforeseen consequences, not least the creation of the ‘Last Men’. He attributed the idea for these pitiful creatures to the thought of Friedrich Nietzsche, who claimed that socialism, democracy and progress could produce individuals so weak-willed and concerned only with their own self-comfort, that they would effectively stagnate and wallow in their own ignorance. John Stuart Mill also conceptualised something similar:

A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.[3]

Fukuyama warned that unless ways could be found to prevent individuals from falling into this dangerous trap, the centuries of struggle for democratic government could be in vain. At which point, what were once solid democracies might return to pre-History, back to an age of suffering, poverty and repression.

The End of History has been criticised heavily, not least by its own author, who has reneged to some extent over the original thesis. In many ways, it may have even been a product of its time, influenced by the collapse of the Iron Curtain and the globalising communications systems during the 1990s, which seemed to be offering a world of hope—which has become increasingly naïve, given the ongoing crises in so many parts of the world. So in his latest tour de force, The Return of History and the End of Dreams, Robert Kagan, another prominent neoconservative intellectual, questions the idea of a progressive History. Or rather, he questions the forces at work in pressing History forward. Kagan takes issue with the idea—prominent among many Europeans, and advocates of so-called ‘soft power’—that liberal democracy is itself an idea so powerful that it is able to diffuse itself entirely of its own accord. In his words:

The great fallacy of our era has been the belief that a liberal international order rests on the triumph of ideas and on the natural unfolding of human progress. It is an immensely attractive notion, deeply rooted in the Enlightenment worldview of which all of us in the liberal world are the product. Our political scientists posit theories of modernisation, with sequential stages of political and economic development that lead upwards to liberalism. Our political philosophers imagine a grand historical dialectic, in which the battle of worldviews over centuries produces, in the end, the correct liberal democratic answer. Naturally, many are inclined to believe that the Cold War ended the way it did simply because the better worldview triumphed, as it had to, and that the international order that exists today is but the next stage forward in humanity’s march from strife and aggression towards a peaceful and prosperous coexistence.[4]

Kagan goes on:

Such illusions are just true enough to be dangerous. Of course there is strength in the liberal democratic idea and in the free market. In the long run, and all things being equal, they should prevail over alternative worldviews, both because of their ability to deliver the material goods and, more important, because of their appeal to the most powerful aspect of human nature, the desire of for personal autonomy, recognition, and freedom of thought and conscience...[But] the focus on the dazzling pageant of progress at the end of the Cold War ignored the wires and beams and the scaffolding that had made such progress possible. It failed to recognise that progress was not inevitable but was contingent on events—battles won or lost, social movements successful or crushed, economic practices implemented or discarded. The spread of democracy was not merely the unfolding of certain ineluctable process of economic and political development. We don’t really know if such an evolutionary process...even exists.[5]

What Kagan is trying to point out here is that while the liberal ideal has enormous traction, it is also nurtured and protected by formidable organised power. Is it that liberal democracy has become dominant because it is liberal democracy, or is it because the world’s greatest political, economic and military powers, not least the United States and the European Union, are protecting and planting its seeds? It is an interesting question, and one that the European strategist, Robert Cooper, and Kagan debate extensively in the latest edition of Prospect Magazine. Kagan’s view—in many ways not so dissimilar from Cooper’s—is that power is important, and it is good that Europeans and Americans hold much of it:

[We]...know...the global shift towards democracy coincided with the historical shift in the balance of power towards those nations and peoples who favoured the liberal democratic idea...The liberal international order that emerged after these two victories [World War II and the Cold War] reflected the new overwhelming global balance of power in favour of liberal forces. But those victories were not inevitable, and they need not be lasting.[6]

While Kagan may have misunderstood Fukuyama in asking whether History has returned again (Fukuyama, after all, did not say that democratisation would not suffer set-backs, stagnation or periods of reversal), he is certainly right to attack not only liberal determinism, but also the delusions and dreams held by many in the field of international relations more generally. Indeed, much like his previous work, Of Paradise and Power, The Return of History and the End of Dreams seems targeted particularly at Europeans, many of whom are in no doubt that History has ended for them: that the world will simply pass them by, that Europe can resign itself from great power competition, from overseas conflict, from Islamist extremism, and other forms of pre-History, while simultaneously remaining secure and safe. Kagan’s answer to such people is succinct and biting:

The world has not been transformed. In most places, the nation-state remains as strong as ever, and so, too, the nationalist ambitions, the passions, and the competition among nations that have shaped history…international competition has returned, with Russia, China, Europe, Japan, India, Iran, the United States, and others vying for regional predominance. Struggles for status and influence in the world have returned as central features of the international scene. The old competition between liberalism and autocracy has also re-emerged, with the world’s great powers increasingly lining up according to the nature of their regimes. And an even older struggle has erupted between radical Islamists and the modern secular cultures and powers that they believe have polluted their Islamic world. As these struggles combine and collide, the promise of a new era of international convergence fades. We have entered and age of divergence.[7]

In short, the idea of an ‘international community’ or anything of the sort is an increasingly a dangerous fiction. As new political projects—from Islamism in the Middle East, to ‘sovereign democracy’ in Russia, and to Chinese autocratic capitalism—capture the imaginations of the citizens of other countries, the democracies of the Euro-Atlantic community will come under sustained and mounting challenge, not only for global influence, but perhaps also for their own domestic legitimacy. If the conflicts of the early twenty-first century seemed extreme, those of the next few decades may make them pale in comparison. Worse, Europeans are sleeping during times of great change and tension. Unlike the other great powers, with their integrated political command chains, Europeans still have nothing of the sort. In the struggles of tomorrow, the hotchpotch of countries like Belgium, Poland, Greece, Spain, Germany, and so on—even France and the United Kingdom—will have insufficient clout to count for much on the global stage, alongside rising, nationalist, and potentially aggressive autocracies like China and Russia. Kagan notes, for example, that Russian resurgence has angered Europeans in recent years, but asks in his normal caustic, but nevertheless, elegant style: ‘But would Europe bring a knife to a knife fight?’[8] For all Europeans, the European Union therefore becomes essential not only as a mechanism for security and protection, but also to project European power in service of Europeans’ collective values and interests. Yet this requires a harder and more assertive European approach.

The biggest question, however, is: can it be realised? Do we—Europeans—have the political vision and will to make it happen? Do we want to remain the shapers of history, or would we rather continue under the delusions so ruefully picked apart by people like Kagan? Indeed, would we be content to drift into the age of the ‘Last Men’, so concerned with our own affairs that we become unable to defend ourselves from the outside world? One day, unless we take sufficient action over the next ten to fifteen years, we may be faced with far worse than disturbing warnings from American scholars. Surely, based on past experiences, it is not too hard to imagine that we may, in the future, be facing a determined aggressor, bent on overturning our liberal European order, and with it, everything we have struggled for since the mid-twentieth century? On the present trajectory, of declining European military budgets; ill-equipped and under-prepared armed forces; poorly crafted foreign and security policies, particularly on the part of European Union Member States like Germany, Italy and Spain, one could be forgiven for thinking that the European Union’s future looks rather bleak. And as Kagan warns us, we need more than hope to prove them wrong...

[1] Francis Fukuyama, angered with many of his neoconservative colleagues’ unquestioning belief in the Iraq war, parted company with them in roughly 2006.
[2] Francis Fukuyama, 1989, ‘The End of History?’.
[3] John Stuart Mill, 1862, The Contest in America.
[4] Robert Kagan, 2008, The Return of History and the End of Dreams, p. 102.
[5] Ibid., pp. 102-104.
[6] Ibid., pp. 104-105.
[7] Ibid., pp. 3-4.
[8] Ibid., p. 23.