Scenarios for the European Supercomplex

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Scenarios for the European Supercomplex
Koli Border Forum V New Borders and Orders the
Future of the EU and European Security 2123
April 2004, Koli, Finland
Ole Wæver
2
Today

• The plot
• The road to a regionalised world (3000BC-2000AD)
• The theory
• EU Europe as a RSC
• The ex-Soviet RSC
• The global analysis and its consequences for
  Europe
• Global tour of regions
• 14, and after?
• Europe and global security

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Regions and Powers

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Regional security complex

• Buzans classical definition
• A group of states whose security problems are
  so closely intertwined that they can not
  meaningfully be understood independently of each
  other
• ? The security of the world falls in chunks

5
Three perspectives acc. to RaP

• Neo-
• realism
• Globali-
• sation
• Regio-
• nalism

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The road to a regionalised world

• 3000 BC - 1500 AD Several independent systems.
  These were not regions, because they were not
  sub-systems of one system. They were worlds.
• Ca 1500 - 1945 European expansion produces one
  global system, but it has no regions. The
  European arena is the fulcrum of world politics.
• 1945-1990 De-colonialisation creates regional
  security complexes, but Europe and North East
  Asia are overlaid. Regionalisation is restrained
  by the Cold War.
• 1990- Regional dynamics are set free.
• (Or not - because of unipolarity and/or
  globalisation?)

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RSC reformulated

• A set of units
• whose major processes of securitisation,
  desecuritisation, or both
• are so interlinked
• that their security problems cannot reasonably be
  analysed or resolved apart from one another.

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Four levels of analysis

• 1. Domestic analysis of states (vulnerabilities)
• 2. State-to-state relations (generate the RSC)
• 3. Inter-regional interaction (neighbouring
  regions)
• 4. The role of global powers in the region (and
  other interplay between global and regional
  security structures)

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Four basic possibilities for a region

• RSC
• 1. Standard (regional powers determine polarity)
• 2. Centred (on a super power, a great power, an
  institution or potentially on a regional power)
• Non-RSC
• 3. Overlay
• 4. Un-structured (low interaction capacity)

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Types of security complexes

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EU-Europe after the Cold War

• external transformations?
• All-European complex or EU-centred plus
  Russia-centred
• Balkans part of or nor?
• North Africa
• internal transformations?
• Balance of power system or centered RSC?

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The three security functions of the EU

• Keep together the core (France-Germany-etc) to
  ensure a centred region, not a balance of power
  system
• Silent disciplining of the near abroad
  pre-empting security issues with
  political-economic means
• Direct inteventions further out in the periphery
  where the non-military, pre-emptive format fails

13
Preferences, EU-Europe

• Internal stabilise own region
• Inter-regional deal with neighbouring regions
  the Middle East first (Maghreb, Israel-Palestine
  via Turkey)
• Global (if we have to!)

14
Ex Soviet RSC after the Cold War

• external transformations?
• All-European complex or EU-centred plus
  Russia-centred
• Southern boundary Central Asia part or not?
• Western boundary Balkans? Moldova? Ukraine?
• internal transformations?
• Centered RSC with legitimate centre or challenged
  unipolarity with attempts at balancing?
• Subcomplexes / theaters
• Baltic states
• Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus
• Caucasus
• Central Asia
• Key question the relationship in Russian
  security between global role, regional role and
  Russian state identity and thereby domestic
  security and order

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Preferences / rank order of levels

• Global
• Russia
• Regional

Identity
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Regional tour ...

• The basic pattern is relatively stable. There are
  a limited number of - therefore significant -
  external changes of RSCs (boundaries).
• Regarding internal order, it is striking that
  quite a lot of RSCs are more or less centred,
  rather than accord with the common expectation of
  balancing systems.
• Crucial developments are not parallel the
  regions become increasingly regional in terms
  of form, i.e. security is about different
  things, have different actors, etc.
• In most regions the analysis point to one or a
  few open questions that will determine their
  future course.
• Charting the total security map has to cover
  three areas global level, regional level,
  global-regional interplay.

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Global power structure

• After bipolarity comes .

Unipolarity?
No, the US is not dominant enough for that to be
the case
Multipolarity?
No, the the US is more equal than the other great
powers
Uni-multipolarity?
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1 4 regions

• Super powers 1 (USA)
• Has global reach and all-round power
• Great powers 4 (China, Russia, EU, Japan?)
• Potential super power.
• Included in considerations about global power
  (possible coalitions).
• Has influence beyond its own region.
• Regions with regional powers currently 11.
• The powers in each region constitutive of
  regional polarity are regional powers.

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Explaining US-European relations

• 1) Global security policy has to be regional. You
  have to understand regions and play with them.
  This includes to play different tunes in
  different regions.
•  
• 2) The tension between the one super power (the
  US) and the four great powers is structural not
  only a reflection of envy, naïvety or
  arrogance.
•  
• 3) The US has a great freedom of choice regarding
  how to approach the rest of the world. This means
  that US policy gets locked in domestically!  
• 4) The US is not a member of other regions than
  North America, but as a swing power it will
  pretend to be. During the Cold War, they were in
  Europe due to overlay.
• 5) Europe is not just a slower part of the West.
  It has a different kind of security problems,
  driven internally and internal/external like all
  other regions. This will continue to disappoint
  the US!

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NATO / EU

• NATO
• is not an alliance (not primarily, at least)
• will increasingly be influenced by the power
  struggles between American anti-regional and
  European anti-unipolarism
• Is useful but not absolutely necessary. Since
  it has political costs, it will be an uphill
  struggle to keep NATO alive.

• EU
• is the centre of its own region
• has as a great power unavoidably effects on
  neighbouring regions in
• terms of power spill-over. Therefore it has
  to decide how to
• administer this not whether to have
  effects.
• has to decide what global role to play. The
  structural preference will
• be for an inter-regional rather than global
  role. The war on terror and
• US policy might change this.

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USAs globale orden

• Amerika har og påtænker at fastholde militær
  styrke udenfor udfordring. Derved gøres
  våbenkapløb formålsløse
• George W. Bush, National Security Strategy, Sept.
  2002.

USA kan ikke være bundet af internationale
aftaler, der begrænser dets magt (landmineforbud,
krigsforbryderdomstol, osv) for USA har et
særligt ansvar for den internationale orden. Den
nødvendige magt kommer fra USA!
Med truslen fra terror og masseødelæggelsesvåben
kan USA ikke vente men må handle i tide.
USAs politik er legitim, fordi den er rigtig
det er ikke afhængig af en velsignelse fra FN.
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The global order and its un-ravelling
1 Unipolarity US principles for organisation
Regions complexity resistance
4 Great powers resistance to unipolarity
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A Super-complex after all?

• EU frustration over lack of voice (Chechnya?) ?
  bargain
• Risk of tensions over boundary Ukraine?
• Global challenges terror and the war on it the
  US

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Explaining US-European relations

• 1) Global security policy has to be regional. You
  have to understand regions and play with them.
  This includes to play different tunes in
  different regions.
•  
• 2) The tension between the one super power (the
  US) and the four great powers is structural not
  only a reflection of envy, naïvety or
  arrogance.
•  
• 3) The US has a great freedom of choice regarding
  how to approach the rest of the world. This means
  that US policy gets locked in domestically!  
• 4) The US is not a member of other regions than
  North America, but as a swing power it will
  pretend to be. During the Cold War, they were in
  Europe due to overlay.
• 5) Europe is not just a slower part of the West.
  It has a different kind of security problems,
  driven internally and internal/external like all
  other regions. This will continue to disappoint
  the US!

25
NATO / EU

• NATO
• is not an alliance (not primarily, at least)
• will increasingly be influenced by the power
  struggles between American anti-regional and
  European anti-unipolarism
• Is useful but not absolutely necessary. Since
  it has political costs, it will be an uphill
  struggle to keep NATO alive.

• EU
• is the centre of its own region
• has as a great power unavoidably effects on
  neighbouring regions in
• terms of power spill-over. Therefore it has
  to decide how to
• administer this not whether to have
  effects.
• has to decide what global role to play. The
  structural preference will
• be for an inter-regional rather than global
  role. The war on terror and
• US policy might change this.

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US agenda

• Protect position as the one super power avoid
  peer competitors 14 seen from the top
• Define a global agenda gt keep the regional ones
  in check gt securitise terror
• BIGGEST NEEDS FOR KNOWLEDGE (before 911)
• When will regional powers turn aggressive?
• How will our power work? Build stable empire? Or?
• Should expect more interest in terror as such,
  its roots.

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Debates / concerns in the US

• Generate empirical knowledge through case studies
  and cumulative, general theory. (The concept of
  security serves only to delineate the field of
  empirical knowledge.)
• Causes of conflicts utility of instruments and
  strategies.
• Understanding and predicting the strategies of
  other major actors.
• Devising US strategy.
• Theory debate on unipolarity meets policy debate
  on unipolarity/empire the sources of order.

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European agenda

• Create Europe and hold it together
• 14 seen from below avoid control by global
  agenda gt wants less securitisation !
• Inter-regional challenges, not global Russia,
  North Africa, Middle East

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Debates / concerns in Europe

• The concept of security as centre of reflection -
  and self-reflection gt the role of the security
  analyst, security as inherently problematic
  practice ...
• Widening or narrowing
• addressing deep causes
• avoiding excessive securitization/militarization
• Security-integration nexus (coming debate?)
• Risk society