Michael Singh, Washington, DC The world needs the EU as a global player Europe strategic dependence

Europe has few viable alternatives to strategic dependence on the United States The world needs Europe as a global player

by Michael Singh, Managing Director, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Washington, DC

or delayed a reckoning for European foreign policy. Whatever the successes and failures of European foreign policy, with its preference for international law and institutions over the cultivation of hard power, it seems ill-suited to deal with a revanchist Russia or increasingly ambitious China, and it left Europe poorly equipped to respond to crises on its periphery, like Libya and Syria, in the absence of decisive US leadership. While some European states have in recent years devoted more resources to defense spending and have become more comfortable with military missions overseas, these incremental shifts seem inadequate in response to the more substantial geopolitical changes taking place beyond Europe’s borders. Europe should be realistic and pragmatic Yet Europe has few viable alternatives to strategic dependence on the United States. Certainly there is no other external partner to which Europe can turn to safeguard its security interests. And for all the talk in Europe of “strategic autonomy,” it strains credulity to believe that Europe or any of its constituent states has the political will or can devote the necessary resources to become a strong power in its own right. Far more realistic would be for the states of Europe to strengthen their security capabilities, broadly defined. Steps toward this end would be welcomed by a United States increasingly focused on burden-sharing, and be advantageous for Europe, which would gain a stronger voice in transatlantic debates which currently turn on decisions taken in Washington. It would also represent a recognition by Europe that the institutions and norms it cherishes are unlikely to thrive unless backed by power and the threat of its use. That the US and the West need Europe as a partner in global security should go without saying. The threats the US and Europe face are global, whether they emanate from large states – think Russian election interference or Chinese tech infiltration – or small ones – think North Korean ICBMs or waves of refugees from conflict zones. There can be no opting out, for the US or for Europe. The only question is whether we will face these threats capably, and whether we will do so together. S ixteen years ago, the United States was at the height of its response to the attacks of September 11, 2001; it had decimated the Taliban regime in Afghanistan that had harbored the 9/11 terrorists, and was poised to invade and topple the government of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. It was in this context that Robert Kagan wrote Of Paradise and Power, memorably laying out the stark differences in the ways that Americans and Europeans perceived and utilized power on the international stage. Kagan described differences that were both ideological – Europeans were idealistic, Americans more pragmatic – and material – the United States simply had far more power with which to achieve its ends than did the states of Europe. The result, in his view, was a profound gulf between a United States that believed in the efficacy of military power and was willing to use it, and a Europe that eschewed it. The upshot, in Kagan’s view, was that the United States not only could “prepare for and respond to the strategic challenges around the world without much help from Europe,” but was already doing so. The new geopolitical realities Yet nearly two decades on, the American view of power has changed. Kagan predicted in 2003 that US power would not decline in relative terms, and that the American willingness to use power would not change; neither prediction proved correct. Indeed, American strategy today is shaped significantly by two realities – first, that of the growing power of China, which already rivals the United States in sheer economic size and according to US military leaders may catch or even surpass the US with respect to certain military capabilities; and second, the failure of America’s post-9/11 wars to pay dividends despite tremendous cost. The result is that two US presidents in a row have been highly skeptical about the ambitious use of military power, however starkly their approaches may differ in other respects. Yet this strategic shift in the United States should not be of much comfort to Europe. The outsize role of US-led foreign wars in post-9/11 international relations has arguably prevented Michael Singh

is the Lane-Swig Senior Fellow and managing director at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and a former senior director for Middle East affairs at the White House from 2005 to 2008. Photo: The Washington Institute

MAIN TOPIC Cybersecurity

The ongoing and quickly developing digitalisation of our societies creates high risks for attacks by cyber criminals. How do we protect ourselves, as citizens, but also our infrastructures and industry in Europe from such growing cyber threats? This chapter analyses the evolving cyber threat landscape and highlights the steps undertaken at a political but also an industrial level in the European Union to adapt to the realities of these challenges. The message of our authors is clear: cyber criminals don’t care about borders…