The difference was also in the process. The Solana document was preceded by three conferences in Europe. Mogherini’s document derived from 50 conferences in the EU and beyond, plus it took place after the Lisbon Treaty, hence with Mogherini as the vice-president of the EU Commission.
Resilience is a key concept. Assuming changes are difficult, the goal is preserving the good components of society. However, there is an intrinsic danger to this. By pulling in resources to increase the resilience of a country, reactions can be generated from neighbouring countries that might feel threatened. This was the classical security dilemma: actions by a state intended to heighten its security, such as increasing its military strength or making alliances, can lead other states to respond with similar measures, producing increased tensions and generating an escalation which may lead to war. The more resources are pulled in for strengthening resilience, the more the other international actors will pull in resources. An alternative pattern would be to sit and discuss a common solution to the problem, rather than activating resources and generating countermeasures.
Michailof 2015, 17. Michailof, a former World Bank official, refers solely to the Sahel zone, which is on the way to becoming the hotspot of migration to Europe.
So far, only four of NATO’s European members—Britain, Estonia, Greece, and Poland—meet the alliance’s requirement of two percent of GDP spending. See Andersson et al. 2016, 13.
There is also no mention of the dubious role of Saudi Arabia in supporting radical (Salafist) groups or the fact that member states continue to deliver arms to this country.
For this and the ensuing description of other Core Europe concepts, see Veit 2016, 199ff.
See Bahr 2007, 5. Bahr was one of the most influential foreign policy thinkers in Germany, especially known for his concept of “Ostpolitik,” which was put into practice by Chancellor Willy Brandt (SPD) in the 1970s. See also Bahr 2003.
For a detailed analysis of this incident, see the report on the Nato Review website (2016).
See the original article, available online via the Aspen Institute website (2014).
For the text of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, signed 1 August 1975, see the Helsinki Final Act document on the OSCE website (1975).
For a regularly updated overview of the Trump Administration’s attacks on the media, see “The Trump Administration’s War On The Press,” Media Matters (2017).
“From Lisbon to Vladivostok” is generally seen as referring to a project for a free trade zone uniting the European Union and the states of the former Soviet Union. For a recent argument in favour of such a zone, see the Bertelsmann Foundation’s Focus Paper by Christian Bluth, “Free Trade from Lisbon to Vladivostok. A Tool for Peace and Prosperity: The Effects of a Free Trade Area between the EU and the Eurasian Region” (2016).
This chapter deliberately refers to the Ukraine crisis only in passing since relevant Russian-German and Russia-EU relations are complex topics that deserve a separate study. In no way does this diminish the importance of the problem of the Ukraine crisis or the need to resolve it.
The US-EU relationship is illustrated best as a mutually dependent model: The US provided European security in exchange for sovereignty over EU member states in security matters. By agreeing to the military superiority of the US in Europe, EU member states were able to pursue their economic potential within a defence framework. Until 2014, proposals for building defence and security structures in Central Europe to prevent potential Russian aggressions were rare. The US had acknowledged supremacy in the area of defence and security policies, and a central position in NATO. As such, the European Community did not seriously consider building a defence structure of its own.
Kissinger reminds us that regardless of whether the “balance of power between states” was taken as a principle, or was simply practiced, an “equilibrium of some kind was an essential component of any international order.” According to Kissinger, under the threat of nuclear war, Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) became the formula for strategic stability and implicit balance during the Cold War (2015).
Kortunov further states (2017): “the agenda of post-modernism is considered exhausted not only by the fringes of society but also by the middle class and even a large part of the global intellectual elite. Foreign-policy post-modernism has degenerated into a trivial desire to keep the status quo, and this alone made it doomed.” Kortunov’s thesis about the emergence of a neo-modern world, in which national states and traditional forms of external policies reappear and will play a central role in the international system, is supported by Karaganov (2016).
Translated: “the world is in disarray.” He went on, “Eine alte Ordnung ist weggefallen, aber eine neue ist nicht an ihre Stelle getreten. Wir leben in einer Welt auf der Suche nach Ordnung”; translated: “An old order has disappeared, but a new one has not taken its place. We live in a world in search of order.”
Kenneth N Waltz argues that the realist theory of understanding the behavior of states and nations still has its merits, because “nuclear weapons … have not altered the anarchic structure of the international political system”. He argues further that “Changes of the system” could change the theory but not “changes in the system”, because they occur at all times with changes in economics and technology (2000, 5–41).
Brexit undoubtedly makes the creation of a common European Security and Defence Project/EFSP more complex. The UK could regress to a more interest-based foreign and security policy, coordinated with the US to strengthen the special relationship between London and Washington. Such an idea was proposed by British Prime Minister Theresa May during her first visit with Donald Trump in February 2017. Acting alongside Washington would remove restrictions on London’s foreign policy in areas defined as essential for national interest. Although the UK’s role in the EU may evaporate slowly, a withdrawal from NATO is not on the agenda. However, Britain’s withdrawal from the EU may give a push to EFSP, and weaken pro-Atlantic clienteles within the EU that clearly follow anti-Russian policy courses.
Interestingly, Kenneth Waltz (2000, 22) warned against such systemic change nearly two decades ago, stating on the one hand that the militarily expansion of NATO to the East would force Russia “to look to the east rather than to the west”. On the other hand, such extension would enlarge NATO’s responsibilities, and “increases its burden”.
Echoing the ideas of Kissinger and Brzezinski, Karaganov (2017) proposes that the world’s three largest powers, “the big troika”, must come together to create the conditions of peaceful transition to a “more stable world order”.
The Ukrainian conflict is multi-layered. It is not only a military conflict of intervention, separatism, or annexation, but reveals signs of Ukrainian societal crisis. More than two decades into transformation, a modern Ukrainian state, based on lasting economic growth, political stability and legitimacy, checks and balances, the rule of law, and welfare for its people, has not been achieved. The catastrophic consequences of war, secessionist movements, political polarisation, and financial and economic decline have brought to light Ukraine’s lingering systemic crisis. The war has simply deepened and sharpened underlying trends.
Such an option would meet the strongest resistance from Washington, because for all US administrations during and since the end of the Cold War, NATO was “the instrument for maintaining America’s domination of the foreign and military policies of European states”. This is one of the reasons why the US always warned against and blocked EU proposals formulating independent positions on defence. As Kenneth Waltz (2000, 21) correctly argued, “The European pillar was to be contained within NATO, and its policies were to be made in Washington”.
Whereas solid fuels represent more than 60 percent of Estonia’s gross inland energy consumption, more than 50 percent for Poland, and more than 30 percent for Czech Republic and Bulgaria, solid fuels represent less than 5 percent in Cyprus, France, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, and Sweden. Data from Eurostat (2016b) is accessible for further detail.
Whereas oil represents more than 90 percent of gross inland energy consumption for both Malta and Cyprus, the smallest share of oil can be seen in the energy mix of Estonia, where it accounts for less than 20 percent (Ibid).
The 1990–2014 period saw an increase in FEC to a 2006 peak of 10 percent above 1990 levels, before decreasing. Data from Eurostat (2016b) is accessible for further detail.
Renewables accounted for the next largest portion of FEC, at 7.8 percent (Ibid).
The OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) forecast for 2017 predicts that China and India will grow at 6–6.5 percent and 7.3–7.4 percent respectively, and the rest of the world at 2.5–3.1 percent, with a growth in advanced economies of around 2 percent in the US and 1.4–1.7 percent in the Euro area.