European Union and the Emerging Great-Power Competition

World War II, and the period of decolonization that followed it, brought to an end the centuries-long global domination of Europe’s great powers. After 1945, neither of the global powers—the United States and the Soviet Union—was European, and a plethora of newly independent nation-states bounded onto the world stage. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the US became the world’s only superpower – and quickly overextended itself. Having achieved victories both in the Pacific and in Europe, only the US was strong enough to provide the still-dominant West with a political and economic order. The unipolar moment ended with the senseless US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and 2003, respectively. But the global order cannot exist in a vacuum, because other powers will always step in to fill the void. Hence, the new emerging power, China, has been rushing to assert itself on the world stage, as has a militarily reinvigorated Russia, the world’s other major nuclear power after the US. The current order is no longer defined by one or two superpowers, nor is it based on multilateralism or on any other framework designed to balance competing interests and contain, prevent, or resolve conflicts.

The election of US President Donald Trump marked the beginning of America’s active renunciation of the global order that it helped build. Under Trump, the US has deliberately tried to destroy post-war institutions such as the World Trade Organization, while openly questioning time-tested international alliances such as NATO. The multilateral Pax Americana of the Cold War era has given way to the return of a world in which individual countries assert their national interests at the expense of other, weaker powers. Sometimes this involves economic or diplomatic pressure; and sometimes, as in the case of Russia’s actions in eastern Ukraine, it involves the use of force.

In this state of affairs, the global power whose future is most uncertain is undoubtedly the European Union. How will Brexit impact the EU’s international identity? How will the re-election of Donald Trump as president of the US affect the future course of transatlantic relations? Will the EU’s postmodern/supranational integration process survive the growing appeal of illiberal populist political movements across the continent? Answering such questions is closely related to how the EU will situate itself in the accelerating geopolitical competition with the US, China and Russia. Depending on the position the EU adopts in the emerging great power confrontation between the United States on the one hand and Russia and China on the other, the EU’s future might unfold in three different ways. The EU might alternatively choose to become an American appendage, a playground or an autonomous player in this context.

American appendage

This role suggests that America’s European allies increase their military capabilities either within NATO or the EU in such a way to help lessen the burden on the shoulders of the US. For the European allies to guarantee the continuation of the American commitment to their security, they should support the US deal with Russia and China more effectively by taking on more security responsibilities in and around Europe.

The prerequisite for Europeans to choose this option is to share two assumptions in common with one another. One is that Europeans still believe that the United States is playing its traditional pacifier role in Europe and Europeans not only feel vulnerable to emerging security challenges in Europe’s neighbourhood but also fear the intentions of each other. The underlying logic here is that the security community in Europe and the achievements of the EU integration process owe their existence to the provision of American security commitment. The second assumption is that Europeans view the emerging international order from a US-friendly perspective. This suggests that, similar to Americans, Europeans also view Russia and China as geopolitical rivals to be reckoned with and, therefore, see their future in strengthening their ties with the United States. Subscribing to this position also suggests that the US and its European allies do still constitute the so-called liberal international order and the points of commonalities between Europeans and Americans far outnumber the points of commonalities that Europeans happen to share with Russians and the Chinese.

Looking from this perspective, Europeans should wait out the Trump administration and continue to prove their relevance to the materialization of American foreign and security policy interests all over the world. Europeans should invest in NATO’s global identity and adopt the American position that NATO’s future hinges on its transformation into a global alliance aiming at containing Russian and Chinese ambitions rather than letting the alliance atrophy.

This role conceptualization suggests that unless European allies increase their military power capabilities and adopt a more geopolitical worldview than before, Americans would not take them seriously. It is the US that has more bargaining power in transatlantic relations and it is up to Europeans to decide whether or not they would take American leadership for granted.

A playground

Many pundits argue that unless the EU develops a strategic actorness with all hard power capabilities required for such a role, it would end up being a playground of the emerging geopolitical competition worldwide. Compared to other global actors, the EU would best be described as a soft power long in civilian and normative capabilities yet short in military competence. The risk here is that the EU, being a herbivorous power, would find it difficult to survive in the “survival of the fittest” game played by rapacious carnivorous powers. For Europeans to survive in the emerging Hobbesian jungle of global politics, they will soon need to accommodate the Kantian principles that have so long underpinned the European vision of international relations which no longer appears as attractive as it used to be in the good old days.

If the EU does not want to become the playground of global geopolitical rivalries, it needs to transform into a credible international actor speaking with one voice in international platforms. Neither member states themselves nor any intra-EU groupings would suffice to weather the storms of intensifying geopolitical competitions.

Assuming that Europeans could protect themselves and their Kantian paradise against outside challenges by pulling up drawbridges does not hold true in today’s world either because Europe has already turned into a theatre of global geopolitical games. Outside global powers have been very much involved in Europe’s internal politics. Europeans do not have the luxury of closing their gates to outsiders.

As of today, it seems that the US, China and Russia try to do their best to sow divisions among EU members by cultivating closer relations with each and every one of them to the detriment of the EU’s international agency. Russia’s efforts to build a gas pipeline to Germany, China’s attempts to forge institutional relations with many Central and Eastern European as well as Balkan and Baltic countries outside the EU framework, and America’s support to nationalist and anti-integrationist parties across the continent are all examples of the time-tested game of divide-and-rule politics being played on European soil. American support to Brexit and Russia’s attempts at circumventing EU-imposed sanctions by developing strategic interactions with European heavyweights like France and Germany, all attest to the outsiders’ efforts to mould the EU to their liking.

Of all the alternative futures EU members could choose, that of being the playground is the least likely to materialize because this would suggest that EU members have already forgotten their past and given up their decades-old aspirations to help transform the dynamics of global politics in line with the constitutive norms of the European security community.

An autonomous neutral actor

The third option that EU members could alternatively choose is to transform the European Union into an autonomous international actor endowed with the will and capability to protect and promote its distinctive values, characteristics and policies across the globe.

The European Union and its member states have profoundly benefited from the liberal international order and they have been in such an international environment that European values have defined the boundaries of appropriate behaviours in different realms. It is not a coincidence that Germany has become one of the most powerful trading states since the early 1950s and that the EU integration process has become the most cherished role model for other states in their efforts to experience long-lasting economic development and social peace.

So long as the European continent has constituted the focal point of global politics and the United States has seen the deepening and widening of the EU in its national interests, the need to down the EU with autonomous actorness was not so high. Yet, those were the days. Today, the American commitment to the European Union peace project cannot be taken for granted and neither Russia nor China sees the continuation of the EU integration process as vital to their interests.

Besides, there are important differences between American and European perspectives on China, Russia, the Middle East and many other global issues of concern. While China has already become the United States’ No. 1 antagonist, the European Union prefers to see China from an economic perspective with China’s spectacular rise offering European countries immense opportunities to tap into. While Washington defines Vladimir Putin’s Russia as an enemy that needs to be contained and rolled back, Brussels and many European capitals are looking for ways to reach a modus vivendi with Moscow so that Europeans could respond to emerging threats in their neighbourhood more effectively. While Trump’s America believes in a transactional and zero-sum mentality in its international relations, European nations do still believe in multilateralism as well as rules-based global governance.

It seems that a growing number of Europeans now realize that the isolationist turn in US foreign policy cannot be easily reverted back even if Trump loses the upcoming presidential elections in November this year. The latest Munich Security Conference held in February 2020 has undoubtedly demonstrated that Republican and Democratic elites alike have come closer to each other in terms of viewing the world through the prisms of realpolitik power competitions and a new Cold War taking shape between the US on the one hand, and Russia and China on the other.

Choosing one of the parties at the expense of the other or simply hoping that everything would be fine as history unfolds could potentially become an option. Yet, the incessant pressure of the Trump administration on Europeans to choose their sides in the new Cold War, let alone Chinese and Russian involvement in European politics, should serve as clarion calls for Europeans to make their mind up sooner rather than later.

Conclusion

The discussion can be summed up in the words of Joschka Fischer, former Foreign Minister of Germany and its Vice Chancellor from 1998-2005 who wrote: “The political transformation that is underway is being forced upon integrationists and inter-governmentalists alike. The challenge now is to transform Europe into a great power before it is ground down by larger technological and geopolitical forces. Europe cannot afford to fall behind technologically or in terms of geopolitical power. It has a responsibility to lead the rest of the world on the issue of climate change, which will require technological as well as regulatory innovation. In a world quickly succumbing to zero-sum rivalries, becoming a climate-policy great power should be Europe’s top priority.”