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| 1 |
ID:
147915
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| Summary/Abstract |
The process of undertaking, developing and writing a strategic document is akin to a gestation and birthing process. First comes the excitement and enthusiasm of developing a new strategy; then patient and careful planning, consultation and waiting; and finally the difficult but ultimately satisfying process of writing and releasing the new strategy. Congratulations … it’s a bouncing 51-page EU Global Strategy! Sincere congratulations to Nathalie Tocci and the work of many talented individuals who produced the EUGS.
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| 2 |
ID:
147933
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| Summary/Abstract |
A new hydro-political order is emerging in the Nile Basin. Upstream riparian states have improved their bargaining power vis-à-vis downstream countries by adopting a common position in the negotiations over a new framework agreement to govern the utilisation of the Nile waters. Some upstream riparians have unilaterally constructed hydraulic projects that threaten Egypt’s hegemonic position in the basin, the most notable of which is the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). Whether these developments will lead to a more equitable utilisation of water resources and a more cooperative order will depend on the policies of the riparian states, especially in the Eastern Nile. Respect of the Declaration of Principles on the GERD signed between Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan could help build trust between the three countries after years of tensions around the project. Beyond that, a basin-wide plan for the utilisation of water resources would not only maximise the benefits from the river and address the common challenges facing the basin, but also reduce the political costs of tensions on future projects.
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| 3 |
ID:
147925
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| Summary/Abstract |
Within days of a vote on an island off continental Europe that shocked the world, the release of the EU’s Global Strategy reflected a sober assessment of Europe’s position in the world, and provided an integrated vision for its international affairs at a time when the world is both complex and connected.
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| 4 |
ID:
147931
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| Summary/Abstract |
The long-awaited European Union Global Strategy (EUGS) came out at a crucial time of a major geopolitical change: immediately after the Brexit referendum. The Brexit itself, as Nathalie Tocci stated, has hardly affected the content of the EUGS, although it has triggered a profound crisis in the EU. The principles and the positions of the EU at 27 should and shall remain basically the same as at 28. However, no one can deny that the Brexit can fundamentally reduce or change the capacity of the EU in fulfilling its global strategic goals. This was made very clear by Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice President of the Commission, in her speech to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, as well as in the words and lines of the EUGS.
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| 5 |
ID:
147921
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| Summary/Abstract |
Producing a Global Strategy document for the European Union is a pretty complex exercise in multilateral diplomacy. Those who drafted the EUGS undoubtedly found themselves engaged in a consensus-building operation that inevitably results in toning down one version of the document after another until all member states are satisfied. With much sympathy for the authors and for the key coordinator’s efforts in particular, my remarks will be based on the resulting document.
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| 6 |
ID:
147919
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| Summary/Abstract |
Jim Wallis once famously argued that “a budget is a moral document”. Arguably, the same applies to the EU’s Global Strategy which was adopted in June 2016. What is believed to be laudable, necessary and feasible reflects the EU’s collective values as much as its interests. The Global Strategy suggests that “[o]ur interests and values go hand in hand”, confirming Nathalie Tocci’s claim that “the sterile debate on ‘interests versus values’” has been overcome by choosing a strategy of “principled pragmatism”. Those who know the EU and understand what makes it tick, will not be surprised. Its new Global Strategy is dotted with the usual code-words reflecting the EU’s moral worldview based on “international law”, “multilateralism”, a “comprehensive approach”, and (a novelty) “resilience” (a concept which is referred to more than 40 times in this 51-page document). Even when dealing with terrorism, the EU suggests that it “will live up to its values internally and externally: this is the strongest antidote we have against violent extremism” (emphasis added). Moreover, when dealing with the challenges of uncontrolled mass migration, the Global Strategy argues that “[t]he Union cannot pull up a drawbridge to ward off external threats. To promote the security and prosperity of our citizens and to safeguard our democracies, we will manage interdependence”. These statements suggest that the EU firmly stays in its comfort zone, despite Tocci’s assertion that the EU should “observe the world (and ourselves) as it is, not as we would like to see it”.
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| 7 |
ID:
147920
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There is much in this interview that merits comment, but I will stick to four basic issues: Brexit; the 2003 European Security Strategy (ESS) vs the 2016 European Union Global Strategy (EUGS); strategic autonomy; resilience in the neighbourhood.
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| 8 |
ID:
147914
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| Summary/Abstract |
I could limit my comments to Nathalie Tocci’s interview to a single sentence: I subscribe to more or less everything she says. I do want to focus however on what can be read between the lines and render a couple of things more explicit.
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| 9 |
ID:
147923
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| Summary/Abstract |
Brexit came as a surprise to me: I had not expected the British to vote in favour. Having said that, I think the impact of Brexit will be sharper on Britain than the EU, and on both the impact will be primarily domestic or endogamous rather than exogamous. In the short-term, the impact of Brexit will weaken both the EU and Britain economically, but most pundits in India are of the opinion that this will not impact India to a significant extent, despite the fact that our economic relations were primarily bilateral with Britain and continental with the EU.
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| 10 |
ID:
147918
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| Summary/Abstract |
Achieving a European Union Global Strategy (EUGS) and having it endorsed by the European Council is in itself a significant success for the High Representative/Vice President (HR/VP) Federica Mogherini. This effort to develop a new strategic document for EU’s external action was long overdue as the 2003 European Security Strategy (ESS) was clearly outdated.
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| 11 |
ID:
147932
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In many respects the worsening water scarcity in the Middle East and North Africa has become an object-lesson in the water crisis facing the wider world as climate change becomes a reality. Although northern and southern temperate zones are likely to see increases in precipitation, the equatorial region will face increasing desertification as access to water declines in the face of continuing demographic growth. Competition over increasingly scarce resources will have major geopolitical and security implications and the Middle Eastern and North Africa region will act as a paradigm of what happens in a biome of water scarcity.
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| 12 |
ID:
147913
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| Summary/Abstract |
The Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign And Security Policy, “Shared Vision, Common Action: A Stronger Europe”, presented at the European Council on 24 June 2016 by Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice President of the Commission, was drafted by Nathalie Tocci, Deputy Director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) and co-editor of The International Spectator.
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| 13 |
ID:
147917
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| Summary/Abstract |
Since taking office, High Representative and Vice President (HR/VP) Federica Mogherini, together with her perhaps closest aide, Nathalie Tocci, has led a bold and novel stance in this still sometimes misunderstood position created by the Lisbon Treaty.
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| 14 |
ID:
147929
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| Summary/Abstract |
Writing official strategy documents is hard. The United States produces a National Security Strategy and a Quadrennial Defense Review every four years, not to mention several other similar efforts. Many are dull, hit the lowest common denominator, reflect conventional wisdom, and are quickly forgotten. Students of strategy look back on a golden age of strategic planning – especially in the early Cold War – and ask why today’s planners cannot achieve those heights. There are at least two reasons.
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| 15 |
ID:
147922
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| Summary/Abstract |
The European Union Global Strategy belongs to the class of documents that are easy to criticize and hard to defend. It is clearly a fine-tuned compromise between many states, institutions and political views. As a compromise, the EUGS is doomed to be somewhat declaratory, ambivalent and even, at times, inconsistent and shallow. One should recognise the commitment and the courage of Federica Mogherini, who made an uneasy and seemingly counterintuitive decision to release the EUGS right after the Brexit vote in UK. Everybody inside and outside of Brussels would have understood if the release had been postponed by a couple of months; today the EUSG has become the target of many harsh reviews and ironic comments.
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| 16 |
ID:
147928
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| Summary/Abstract |
Having read the interview with Nathalie Tocci who had a lead role in drafting the Global Strategy, there are still a few aspects of the Strategy that beckon a more thorough explanation. Let me highlight three of them.
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| 17 |
ID:
147916
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| Summary/Abstract |
The interview with Nathalie Tocci starts out with the Brexit issue. Here, we fundamentally agree with the argument that it would have been pointless to postpone publication of the Global Strategy. Timing may indeed be particularly relevant to PR exercises and media campaigns, but we expect much more from this particular document than just sending a set of well packaged messages to the public. The Global Strategy – even more than its 2003 predecessor – ought to become the pillar for consensus-building among the member states on a vast array of interconnected risk assessments, tasks and policies. As such, the document is a starting point and a platform for developing more detailed and sectoral policy documents. It is obvious that the Brexit vote (which, we should recall, does not constitute the UK’s instant exit from the Union) cast a new light on the whole edifice of the EU’s foreign and security policy; yet, the rationale for a comprehensive analysis of the EU’s options is clearly there, just as it was before 23 June.
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| 18 |
ID:
147926
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| Summary/Abstract |
The international centre of gravity keeps shifting eastwards towards Asia, while size continues to matter a great deal in global affairs. No individual European country counts for much in the global game – and will count even less in the future because of a combination of demography and economics. At the same time, Europe is surrounded by a wide arc of instability stretching from Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova to the east, down to Syria (and Turkey?), Israel and Palestine, Egypt and Algeria to the south, and Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan further to the east. Much of its neighbourhood has imploded in recent years exporting to Europe ever increasing numbers of refugees, immigrants … and also terrorists, who join forces with home-grown ones. The prospects are not bright, to put it mildly. Europe will have to live with a very difficult and unstable neighbourhood for a long time to come, trying to cope with the instability that spills over its porous borders. Under such conditions, can it continue to rely collectively (and free ride) on the US security umbrella? Or, will Europe be ready at some point for adult life in a rough world that it has wished away for so long?
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| 19 |
ID:
147930
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| Summary/Abstract |
There is no doubt that publication of a new EU foreign policy and security strategy was long overdue. Thirteen years have passed since the publication of the EU Security Strategy, which was adopted by the EU of 15 member states. Since then the EU has grown in size, its membership has almost doubled; its geostrategic centre has shifted towards the centre of the continent and the EU’s External Action Service has been established. It also goes without saying that we are in a manifestly different political reality in the EU and in the world today than we were 13 years ago. It is naturally far from ideal that the European Global Strategy was published a day after the British voters opted in favour of leaving the EU, but no timing is ever ideal and I have no doubt that, whilst the exact format remains to be determined, the UK will remain involved in EU security and foreign policy.
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| 20 |
ID:
147934
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| Summary/Abstract |
The so-called Islamic State (IS) has increasingly used water as a weapon in order to further its political and military aims in Syria and Iraq. In this water-scarce region, IS has retained water and cut off crucial supplies, flooded large areas as well as contaminated resources. The capture of large dams in the Euphrates and Tigris basin has made it possible to deploy the water weapon even more effectively and in a frequent, systematic, consistent and flexible manner. Measures to counter this weaponisation effectively have been limited to military means. However, several internal constraints create a dilemma for IS as its state-building ambitions conflict with the consequences of the weaponisation of water. The rebirth of using the water weapon in Syria and Iraq raises questions about protecting water infrastructures in conflict and post-conflict settings.
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