Truisms are abundant.
The West is in bad shape. Relations between Europe and the United States are at an all-time low. Russia and the United States are walking away from arms control. The latest casualty came on May 21, 2020, with U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to abandon the Open Skies Treaty. Moscow and Washington blame each other for its imminent demise.
The nuclear nonproliferation regime is almost in tatters, making the world increasingly vulnerable and unsafe. Iran’s and North Korea’s leaders can exploit the global distraction of the new coronavirus to pursue their nuclear program. The global economy will take a long time to recover from the pandemic. In what form is not clear. In the meantime, authoritarian leaders have tried to exploit it to accrue more powers.
Closer to home, the European Union’s two biggest members, France and Germany, are desperately trying to cushion the damage that the coronavirus will have on the bloc’s social, political, and economic cohesion. Berlin, Paris, the European Central Bank, and the European Commission are pouring billions of euros into recovery plans. Without such financial assistance, the EU will be in no position to recover or even survive this virus.
Financial assistance, however, is not enough to prepare Europe for the day after. Already, the institutions that were built after 1945 with immense foresight by the United States are crumbling or fast losing credibility.
From the United Nations and the World Trade Organization to an array of arms control accords, the order that galvanized the West and gave it its authority is being eclipsed. China and Russia need only sit it out—unless Europe acts strategically. This means looking outside in order to build a new, post-coronavirus order based on democracy, shared values, and common aspirations.
The EU is not good at exporting democracy or values. As it is, it can hardly get its own house in order. Several member states pay lip service to the rule of law, upholding an independent judiciary, and combating corruption. The EU’s vulnerability is partly due to its own lack of commitment to protecting its values.
Despite that, Europe remains an attraction for those seeking freedom, democracy, and rule of law. Just read activist Joshua Wong’s interview to Politico Europe. The leader of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong appealed to the EU to slap sanctions on China to preempt Beijing from effectively doing away with the “one country, two systems” principle.
Europe will not go down that path. It is too divided over China—besides lacking the courage. But if Europe does want to protect a way of life embedded in a democratic system, it can pursue a global strategy in a number of ways.
First would be to reach out to like-minded countries. The idea of a community of democracies is not new. But it hasn’t gained traction. Why can’t the EU create a wide grouping—a new kind of Western alliance—to include Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, and several African countries. The rhetoric of values and the rule of law however won’t go far without anchoring them on substantial trade deals.
Such deals need to be very ambitious in scope. They should include a political and economic willingness to protect democracy and urgently cooperate over cutting carbon emissions.
Second would be to revive arms control.
It’s going to require political leadership to do this, and the new democratic alliance cannot do it alone. It needs the United States but also Russia, China, and other nuclear countries to enter a new arena for arms control. It won’t be easy. There is a breakdown of trust and dialogue across the board.
And even though the Trump administration and the Kremlin show little interest in returning to negotiations, that should not stop this new alliance from establishing bipartisan support in the United States to try and find a strategic path back to conventional and nuclear disarmament. The stakes are just too high to allow the current impasse to continue.
Third would be to maintain the momentum for ambitious climate action.
When it comes to climate change, the stakes are also too high. The coronavirus has seen CO2 emissions from electricity in Europe fall by 39 percent. Several European countries, such as France and Spain, are using the pandemic to spur changes in industry and lifestyle, either by reducing internal air travel, speeding up the electric car sector, or setting ambitious goals to cut carbon emissions. That momentum must be maintained.
The European Commission seems determined to continue to push its green agenda, which will have a global impact because of its plans to tax carbon. It is not prepared to allow the deal struck at the 2015 Paris climate change conference to die despite Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of it. That’s all the more reason for the Europeans and their allies to reach out to the other United States, the one outside Washington—to cities, mayors, industry, and tech sector—to put climate high on the public agenda.
Is any of the above achievable? It could be, with political will and leadership that goes beyond elites and includes experts and activists, grassroots groups and the younger generations.
It’s about a West protecting its democracy and the multilateral system. It’s about not sitting out the coronavirus in the belief that things will return to what they once were.
Comments(5)
Great & essential recommendation, but you omitted an essential element to build a significant European defensive military force that is not subject to US command & vetoes. Without such a hard power other major powers have not and will not take Europe seriously especially in arms control negotiation.
Do you wonder, Miss Judy Dempsey, why the European Union cannot create an alliance with Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea? The answer is very simple: Because it is already created! And it collaborates militarily and economically with the United States to confront a dangerous, violent and evil nation like Communist China. Brussels only has to get a little closer and collaborate ... Europe usually does everything backwards ... First it has to formalize and strengthen its alliance with the United States. It is the easiest way to join a democratic club: entering!
I would obviously concur with much set out in your article; both geopolitical issues and possible solutions. But somewhat disappointing to see expressed in your view that the EU should (will?) provide the driving force; the lead for liberal democracies to unite around. You identify a range of nations and identify the need to importantly link around (free) trade deals but omit from the list the UK. An oversight, and perhaps part of the problem? Some within the EU - like Ursula von der Leyen - undoubtedly support this multilateral view, but all? I suspect unfortunately - given its far-ranging internal ‘problems’ laid bare by responses to the economic aspects of the Covid-19 pandemic, and its certain ‘illiberal’ members - it cannot and will not provide the global leadership you outline. It will be down to others.
Judy on the point of why the EU cannot attract a wider grouping, the EU wants to control a wider group of possibly like minded democracies not attract them as a joint group of similar thinking states with a common purpose. The British are finding this out just now by the way the Brexit trade talks are going all control by them. Today the UK , Australia, and Canada issued a joint statement regarding Hong Kong's changing status with China. This is exactly what the EU should be doing with like minded democracies around the globe in order to influence world policy for the good on trade, security, defence and the rule of law. But all the EU does is to navel gaze at its own disunity, the British founded commonwealth of nations might not mean much today, but one important legacy it has is friendly and relative trust among its members this quiet group can be relatively strong together when challenged. Like the pressure put on the aparthied regime in South Africa, Zimbabwe and soft power assistance given to Britain on the Falklands war. The EU is endanger of becoming a type of democratic Soviet union clone with control over its probable former countries once it merges into a larger state, which many theorists of the future EU are trying to engineer. Though personally I cannot see this happening the individual EU countries peoples would reject this due to nationalistic pride and its as simple as that. Denmark wants to be Denmark and so on all the EU countries know this, the people would not go along so the gist of all EU's problems lies within these bounds.
In this article, the world is small. It is the West, China and Russia, rounded to 2.5 billion people, a fraction of the world population now, a smaller fraction in 2100. China is a newcomer, in the last 40 years leapfrogging from nuclear armed minuscule economy state to today superpower. India is waiting. The West has forged a narrative about the average citizen participating in res publica, the democratic way of life referenced in the article. Tuchman describes in her books the world of 1914, when many democratically elected parliaments sent their citizens to storm barbed wired trenches, under machine gun fire. The order of 1945 has its roots in the order of 1918, and appears to follow in its footsteps. Wilson, the idealist, thought that self-determination would fix the world (embraced by Lenin, with subsequent recanting), breaking empires into nations. It isn’t a bad idea, but we still need a couple of centuries to see its consequences. More immediate, the League of Nations, the peace treaties, the mandates (Sykes - Picot), Kellog – Briandand, a long list were soon reversed. 1945, another round of similar agreements followed the second act of the 1914 war, and this time they lasted longer as nuclear weapons made the war unthinkable for a while. As the devastation of the world wars is slowly forgotten, even nuclear was is now considered just a tool like any other, now at hypersonic speed. The Outer Space Treaty, 1967, was insufficiently clear as the technology wasn’t there, but now the Moon is in discussion, while Space Forces are getting recruits. The cold war started over Europe, and returned with a vengeance in Europe. All the treaties cancelled are about Europe, and the last act of the war will start in Europe. Europe doesn’t have a solid track record in respecting treaties, and it is not clear how it could mobilize a far bigger world to abide by the rules drawn now in Brussels. An example is the Brexit insurgency led by Johnson against Brussels bureaucrats banning prawn cocktail crisps (the fact that it wasn’t true, not relevant). Freedom, rule of law, democracy, are human perennial aspirations, and maybe one day the average European citizen will have a say on going to war, outsourcing, taxes, disarmament, climate change. The list of Europe and like-minded countries is still a small fraction of the world population, aging and declining populations, limited military potential, lack of will to go to war. And the trillion in economic stimulus, that is money printing.
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