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THE EUROPEAN FUTURES OBSERVATORY |
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WHY EUROPE WILL RUN THE 21ST CENTURY
Mark Leonard
ISBN 0-00-719531-1
If I were being honest, I would have to admit that I was first attracted to this book by its cover. Then the title struck me as interesting. We are fed a diet of Europe as the ‘basket case’ of global politics and of the EU as most sclerotic of economies. Why, we might ask ourselves, would such an organisation run the 21st Century?
This theme fitted in well with our work in the ‘America 2025’ project, where we had just undertaken a review of the work of Jeremy Rifkin on the European Dream. It seemed to extend the thinking a bit further and to make a case for the European method as a dominant force in the 21st Century.
The book starts with where we are now. Mr Leonard considers what he sees as the basis for American power (the ability to wage war trans-continentally and the ubiquity of American popular culture) and concludes that these factors have reached their natural limits. Against this is compared the European method of influence, which relies heavily on what we now call ‘soft power’. Most interestingly, our attention is called to the European method as the more influential with the developing ‘BRIC’ nations (Brazil, Russia, India, and China). In this way, Mr Leonard suggests, does Europe dominate the 21st Century. Not by force of arms, but by force of ideas.
Ideas can act as an agent that binds nations on areas of commonality. However, they act more potently when the nations agree to act collectively as part of a network of nations, which is how Mr Leonard views the EU. Within the network, each members surrenders part of their individual sovereignty for a greater collective sovereignty. This method of collective action works well for collective problems (e.g. trans-national pollution, the issue of climate change, etc.), but may not work as well for more esoteric problems (e.g. the content of school curricula). Mr Leonard does not suggest how the esoteric problems might be resolved.
The key to the European method is the rule of law – particularly international law. Mr Leonard uses the issue of Iraq to demonstrate many of his points about international law. He make a very good point when he mentions that ‘power as a spectacle’ can destroy bad things, but it cannot build good things. To build good things (democracy, freedom, justice, etc.) you need the law. And this, it is asserted, is the strength of the EU.
The EU uses its legal base as a way of encouraging other nations to behave the way in which it wants them to behave. The sanction against non-compliance is not punitive action, but a refusal to have much to do with those nations who do not comply. As an example, Mr Leonard cites the case of Turkey, which has transformed itself as a nation in the space of a generation, just to be considered as a possible member of the EU. Mr Leonard does not let us forget that it was not the threat of force that brought the Croatian war criminals to justice, but the threat of Croatia not being allowed to join the EU because of it.
This theme is developed further into the doctrine of what Mr Leonard calls ‘passive aggression’. Passive aggression (the doctrine of not dealing with those who do not accept European standards) has become the pattern for EU engagement with the world. Non-EU companies now adopt European standards as the precursor to gaining access to the European market. The European sphere of influence (the ‘Eurosphere’) is starting to extend right across the globe. This has helped to determine the formation of a new ‘European way of war’.
The European dream almost died at Srebrenica. The shame of it still haunts the EU, but has acted to stimulate the EU to develop a ‘European way of war’. European strategic doctrine is very different from that of the US. The EU uses military force to build peace rather than to project power. Force is not at the heart of EU foreign policy. It is seen as the tool that needs to be used to support the system of international law. ‘Humanitarian intervention’ is the doctrine developed to determine when to use force. The idea is to act at the early stages of a conflict rather than when the conflict has spun out of control. This allows the EU to assert itself when its neighbours start to fail as states. The EU now considers the reconstruction as an important part of the military action. This contrasts with the way in which force is viewed in the US. US discussion of EU military strategy centres on the reluctance of the EU to act in the image of the US. However, as Iraq is showing, the European way of war is possibly more suited to modern conditions than the US way of war.
This is likely to become an important factor in world politics as the BRIC nations rise in importance. Already the developing BRIC nations are more interested in the European model of capitalism, which delivers prosperity, security and greater levels of equality to its citizens. The impact of the EU is in the quality of life that it delivers to its citizens. It has managed to deliver respectable levels of economic growth whilst ensuring that these are enjoyed more widely amongst the general population. The success of the economic model is its ability to determine the rules by which the global economy is run. The EU economies are in the process of adapting to the new paradigm of interdependence whilst retaining the core of the social welfare model. This contrasts to the US model where the winner takes all.
One factor that has been subject to much comment is the prospective future rise of China. It is felt that the rise of China might eclipse the transformative power of the EU. However, Mr Leonard argues that as China grows, it is asserting itself on the world stage through the use of ‘soft power’. It is acting more like the EU. ‘Peaceful Rise’ is how Beijing defines its policy of good neighbourliness and global responsibility. China is a great supporter of multilateralism. It sees the US undermining of international institutions as a threat to world stability. China is now projecting into the ASEAN nations to create a community similar to the EU. It may even force the EU to reconsider how it perceives itself.
The rising nations have seen the strength that can be derived from dealing with each other on a regional basis. They are encouraged by the way in which the EU has allowed tiny nations to leverage their influence. Other nations have choice – join the EU or start their own regional association. This is driven by the desire to overcome the ‘unipolar world’. Eventually, the EU may be encouraged to develop a ‘Union of Unions’. The way to start this process is not by devising a constitution, but for leaders to get together to find common solutions to common problems. As this momentum picks up, even the US will see that it is in its interest to be part of the process.
It is in this way, Mr Leonard suggests, that Europe will run the 21st Century. According to his argument, by 2100, the rules of international co-operation will have been developed along lines that are consensual, inclusive, and co-operative. In this way, the Europeans will have written the rules of the game. Only time will tell if Mr Leonard is right.
There were a number of factors that I liked about this book. First and foremost, it is a book about Europe, extolling the virtues of Europe, which is written by a European. Much European output on Europe at the moment is relatively negative. What many forget is that even in the Atlanticist vision of the EU, the EU is still there. There is no discernible movement towards a form of neo-nationalism.
Mr Leonard presents a tightly argued thesis that is internally consistent and makes the political points that he wants to make. There are many who welcome the tinge of anti-Americanism. There are a number of surveys that highlight in Europe the diminishing popularity and approval ratings of the US under the current administration and Mr Leonard manages to capture these misgivings very well. I am not sure that he would convince many Americans of his case, but it would be entertaining to watch him try to do so.
On the other side of the coin, I tended to find the book a bit too optimistic towards the European project. It is right to point to the marked success of European transformative power in nations such as Turkey. But what about Kosovo? Or Albania? How will the EU transform Russia in the coming decades? There are likely to be a good number of trying cases in the years to come to declare the project an unambiguous success.
Equally, the concerns over the European economy are quite real. How will Europe deal with an ageing population? How will Europe raise productivity to be able to compete in world markets? Sadly, Mr Leonard tends to gloss over these issues rather than come to grips with them.
Despite these reservations, I really enjoyed reading this book. Mr Leonard has a style of writing that makes it easy to follow the argument. The book is divided into digestible sections, which makes it easy to put down and pick up again without losing the thread of the argument. This book is well recommended to those who would like to study the case for Europe put by an enthusiastic Europhile. The fact that Mr Leonard is a British Europhile is just an added bonus.
Stephen Aguilar-Millan stephena@eufo.org
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