Drôle de Paix I – Lisbon’s Occident

Portugal is the westernmost European state and it was also the country that brought forth the West’s global primacy. In 1415 Portugal became the first European kingdom to conquer territory outside of Europe and that date marks also the beginning of the Age of Discovery. Carthage, Rome and Byzantium, the Crusades and subsequent Mediterranean powers controlled territories in Africa and Asia but always in a regional pursuit for dominance. The Portuguese were first to bet on a global empire in pursuing their national interest and that mission began in the north-African city of Ceuta, marking its Christian dominance until today.

Portugal was not the first country to adopt a global strategy. Mongolia, China, the Caliphate did it first and Alexander tried it as well but managed only to turn the Hellenic community into Persia’s successor state. Portugal was two thousand years later, Europe’s pioneer in putting the teachings of the Renaissance to use on power projection beyond the ‘known world’.

Robert D. Kaplan calls the Indian Ocean the ‘hub of the twenty-first century world’ but the Indian Ocean rim has long been the best barometer of world power, from the Arab and Gujarati traders’ evangelisation to the Ming dynasty’s diplomatic armadas. The Portuguese though, were the first to export Europe’s technologies and values to a non-contiguous civilisation by establishing their ‘Estado da Índia’.

At the signing of the Treaty of Lisbon, the Portuguese PM referred to the Portuguese capital as a ‘safe haven’ from the EU’s troubles and he’d probably like to replicate just such an allegory with NATO. However just as Lisbon led the West into six centuries of global dominance so too today it seems to lead it to its twilight: the EU’s Treaty of Lisbon and NATO’s Lisbon Summit are the symbols of the Western civilisation’s fall from power. During the Pax Americana of the 90s and early 00s, America and Europe fought paid and nurtured the project of global liberal democracy. NATO’s and the European Union’s recent landmarks though are only meant to manage stagnation. The Treaty of Lisbon was an unambitious version of the aborted ‘Constitutional Treaty’ and even that will have to be amended very soon. Had the EU been less adamant on socially engineering a post-modern utopia, it might just have managed to convert some of its influence into hard-power. The euro-sceptic backlash that a normatively overbearing EU caused may just have pushed away further strategic cooperation and it is anyone’s guess how and when Europe will be rid of this crisis or the economic downturn. NATO in turn adopted Russia and became a more diffuse security mechanism. The missile shield is nice but for all intents and purposes NATO is becoming a more glorified OSCE; what else to call a military alliance that embraces the likeliest state to wage war – Russia – on the likeliest state to next join – Georgia – the organisation?

Lets be frank, the main security issues are not being tackled: border disputes in Europe are ‘crystallised conflicts’ – Cyprus, Gibraltar, Ceuta and Melilla, Olivença, South Tyrol, Kosovo, Belgium, etc – NATO or the EU refuse to touch the frozen conflicts – Karabakh, Georgia, Ukraine – and the hot spots are not working out that well – Iraq is falling under Iranian influence, the Afghan campaign is unsustainable. The only successes are unilateral or bilateral: the sanctions on Iran are the product of bilateral cooperation (5+1) and the missile shield is basically a US initiative with Russian acquiescence.

Then there’s the problem of Turkey, which in this summit seemed to be approached more as a NATO-Turkey Council than as an inner core NATO member. Certainly the Turks have valid reasons to object paying for a security structure which also serves the needs of an organisation (under the Berlin + agreement on burden-sharing) Turkey isn’t part of, i.e. the EU.

As for the EU, if its apologists said that its successes were primarily in terms of soft power and cooperation, the rise of Germany shattered many europhiles’ delusions. This is not about Angela Merkel’s whims nor about a temporary lack of cooperation between the European capitals, this is about the same problem that drove Europe to the Great Wars: the emergence of a new power polity in the continent. This is structural, not cyclical. Russia and America kept Germany in check throughout the XX century in order to safe-keep their interests in a divided Europe. Now though, Russia is weak, America is waning and turning its attentions to Asia, and the traditional European powers have in the meantime been devoid of their colonial critical mass to be able to successfully counter-balance Berlin: Britain France and the western Europeans saw their grip on overseas possessions jointly subverted by the superpowers, Warsaw and Belgrade have been deprived of their Międzymorze and Yugosphere strategic depths and ditto for Vienna’s and Budapest’s Alpine-Carpathian dominions.

The German Empire never relied on Prussia or the eastern agricultural spaces for its strength, it was the industrial machine of the Rhein valley that drove them into hegemony and apart from the loss of Alsace-Lorraine they were allowed to retain it. Consequently the German population was always set to become primary in Europe. German reunification simply sealed the deal but it also destroyed the strategic balance between Germany and France which was at the origin of the European treaties.

It is ironic that after a century of American interventionism in Europe, the old continent will simply return to its old ways. In a way, just as Asia is reacquiring its role in the world, so is Europe falling back to its previous geopolitical configuration.

Now more than ever the US needs regional allies. The white star navy will have to undergo cutbacks and new deployments will have to be made in order to reinforce the 7^th and 5^th fleets in the west Pacific and Indian Ocean respectively. This means that those countries in Europe and the Atlantic which can regionally provide America with reliable help will be preferred but it also means that America is no longer available to aid in the maintenance of balances of power. The West will require realignments and in Europe there are already four major power zones emerging: the continental hegemons Germany Italy and Russia – in a new Molotov-Ribbentrop dynamic – the Mediterranean hegemons Spain Italy and Turkey, the continental middle powers France, Britain and Poland and the Mediterranean middle powers France, Egypt, Israel and Greece. Basically, Europe will be picking up where it left off prior to WWII, with an anti German alliance. In the Mediterranean things may be trickier since the states that control the chokepoints seem to have a lot to gain from cooperating with each other leaving transit states such as France or Greece dependent on them. Russia has already chosen to bow to Turkish dominance of the eastern Med and the odds are not good that the Greece-Cyprus-Israel connection will be able to successfully counter Ankara’s ascendancy.

If the continental hegemons choose to partner with the Mediterranean hegemons though, only an outside power will be able to help London and Paris in keeping alive a balance of power. Will America be able to keep projecting some power into Europe? Will the Atlantic concert resort to new partners such as Brazil?

There is a strong anti-interventionist tendency in America which may be happier dismantling the United States’ global intervention infrastructure and simply relying on regional powers for ad hoc arrangements. The rise of the Tea Party, while not strictly a libertarian movement, may in time vindicate the views of the Paul dynasty. Simultaneously, in Brazil the Labour Party’s foreign policy is strongly third-worldist and seems determined to rally behind Brazil the developing ‘South’. These ‘autonomistas’ are less likely to partner with industrialised powers than the Brazilian right’s ‘institucionalistas pragmáticos’ and little cooperation will be seen between the southern hemisphere and Europe while the Lula legacy is in power, even if not all of the south Atlantic Ocean rim seems to agree with Brazil’s preeminence.

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