(Photo: Flickr|Jeff Krause, licensed by CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
The past year brought us a series of unexpected developments
culminating in rather shocking surprises. First, Brits decided to embark on the
riskiest geopolitical experiment for generations and voted to exit the European
Union. Less than a half year later, Donald Trump became the 45th President of
the United States of America. Only the history will reveal us the lessons
learned, and so will it eventually judge the general wisdom of the respective
electorates on the both coasts of the Atlantic.
However, this year, the fate of a political Europe could be
decided by parliamentary elections in the Netherlands, France and Germany. The
outcome of the elections could either push the continent towards (at least a
temporary) stabilisation or produce a historical shift towards continuous
disintegration – likely constituting neo-nationalism to be the new ideological
leitmotiv of the political Europe. The former being represented by an
unconventional, but still pro-EU government based on a wide coalition in the
Netherlands, anyone but Marine Le Pen in power in the Élysée Palace and
probably a coalition government of historically established parties in Germany.
The latter being represented by Geert Wilders emulating the success of Jörg
Haider from 2010 (i.e. winning the elections and participating in the
government), Marine Le Pen bringing the Brexit-Trump phenomenon into its third
act and Merkel (and along with her Germany as well) losing its appetite for
being the last bastion of political constructiveness on the ‘old continent’.
In March, i.e. in the very same month as Britain will likely
invoke the Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty and make its first formal step in
the process of historic withdrawal, the 27 remaining EU members will gather in
Rome and will seek to rearticulate the bloc’s raison d'être – ergo its status
of peace guarantor, security provider, prosperity enabler and social cohesion
amplifier. Facing the cumulative societal effects of the rising ideological
nativism, persistent threats of terror, sizeable social exclusion (in essence,
the division of society into the winners and losers of globalization) and
problematic economic performance, the Union is admittedly in worse fix than was
twelve months ago, and if this downward spiral is to be continued, it
understandably will be in a lot worse fix in another year. Of course, one might
hope that the more the problems grow, the more of necessary courage, devotion
and invention we will see from our leaders to stabilize the system before it
crumbles further on.
In May, the G7 Summit (i.e. the political
institutionalisation of the West) will seek to address the key challenge of
global migration, state failure, political violence and societal hopelessness
in the Middle East and North Africa – which will remain to be the most relevant
external determinant of Europe’s stability. Possibly, in just the same time,
NATO Leaders will gather to cast some clarity on the future modus vivendi
between the two sides of the alliance. NATO’s European flank is in desperate
need of reassurance, while the Southern allies need to see the Alliance
contributing to addressing their existential challenges – namely the nexus of
migration-crime-terror. As long as either a deliberate or unintended military
confrontation between the Alliance and Russia remains a realistic (although
still an unlikely) scenario, the West needs to work out a strategic setting
that reassures its most vulnerable members (to possible Russian aggression),
convinces the power elites in the Kremlin to adopt a pragmatic (non-ideological) attitude
vis-à-vis Ukraine (and Georgia) and finally to open the space for strategically
important cooperation against terrorism (and its potential derivations:
transnational organized crime and WMD proliferation). In all of the mentioned
fields, American leadership will presumably prove to be decisive – provided
that there will be one. As President-elect Trump has consistently stated his
determination to significantly revamp the past foreign political axioms of
America, Europe is to lose the most from a potentially inward-oriented US.
A unilateralist, nationalist and confrontational US foreign
policy would not only put America into a political collision course with the
UN, with the EU, (in many matters also) with its key Arab allies and even with
Russia, but such an approach to foreign policy could also undo most of the
volatile record of President Obama administrations’ accomplishments – namely
the Paris climate accord, nuclear agreement with Iran and the support for the
establishment of global norms of conduct in arms trade and nuclear security.
President Trump’s inauguration on the 20th January could be
remembered as the defining moment for the West. As much as in the case of his
predecessors, his presidency will not only impact how capable, respectable and
ambitious America will globally be, but also how secure, stable and united
Europe turns out to be. In 2017, the defining political events within the
political West do not have to be as shocking (and historic) as those from the last
year, however, they might pave the path towards a profoundly new West. One of
the bitter lessons learned from 2016 was that one shall apply a rather modest
ambition towards embracing any form of political forecasting. Another important
lesson to be learned, this time from 2017, could be that understanding the real
strategic implications of momentary shocks might require a significant amount
of patience in (geo)political judgement.
Tomáš A. Nagy
Research Fellow
GLOBSEC Policy Institute
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