THE WEST IN FRAGMENTATIONS - YOUNG SECURITY CONFERENCE Contributions by the YSC alumni

THE WEST IN
FRAGMENTATIONS
   Contributions by the YSC alumni
 YOUNG SECURITY CONFERENCE

About the Young
Security Conference
The Young Security Conference (YSC) is a long-term scientific, policy and
intergenerational project. The YSC connects young innovative thinkers with
experts from policy & research in a dialogue on the future of European
security and defence. It is a unique initiative that stands out for its participatory and
innovative character and combines an annual conference with a strategic
fellowship programme.

The future of the European Union depends on public support, particularly in
security and defence policies. Europe’s diversity, along with its humanistic values,
is at the core of its identity. Now more than ever, it is important to involve this
diversity in the shaping of the EU‘s political design.

For more information please visit our website under
www.young-security-conference.de.

Acknowledgements
The ongoing success of this important initiative would
   not have been possible without strong community
 leadership and the generous support of our partners
  and supporters: BayFrance, the Friedrich-Naumann-
Stiftung für die Freiheit in Munich, the Thomas Dehler
Stiftung, the Franco-German Youth Office, the Franco-
 German University, the Bundeswehr Universität Mün-
chen, the University Clermont-Ferrand, Academia and
  EuropaNova in France, Meia Research, KFIBS and the
                 Amerikahaus Munich.

 The peer-review process depends on the generosity
of the many volunteers who contribute their time and
expertise. It is with sincere appreciation that we thank
  the peer reviewers who completed our YSC policy
                          paper:

   Dr. Raphaela Kitson-Patano, EuropaNova France

         Dr. Marta Barandiy, Promote Ukraine

  Dr. Elise Bernard, Director for Studies, EuropaNova
                         France

Dr. Julien Arnoult, public law and political science tea-
         cher, Université Panthéon-Assas Paris 2

     Dr. Raphaël Boroumand, EuropaNova France

Prof. Frédéric Charillon, Université Clermont Auvergne

  Prof. Stephan Stetter, Universität der Bundeswehr
                      München

       CC Guillaume Belléard, Marine Nationale

SUMMARY
Introductions                                                      5

Chapter I:                                                         7
Moritz Floessler and Amélie Jaques-Apke: How global
dependencies influence/ cause ‘Europeanlessness’? - The EU’s
dilemma with modern risks and crises.

Chapter II:                                                        11
Alberto Cunha: The dismantling of the West? Normative
divisions, transatlantic tensions and the shifting of the global
balance of power

Chapter III:                                                       21
Daniel Gheorge: Trump Administration’s Involvement in the
Israel-Palestine Peace Process and its Consequences for the
Middle East

Chapter IV:                                                        28
Daniela Glatz: ‘Westlessness’ in the Donbas Conflict – A chasm
between rivalling identities and value

Chapter V:                                                         35
Romain Le Quiniou: ‘Westlessness’ at home:
Orbán’s anti-Western rhetoric

Chapter VI:                                                        42
Ambika Varma: What does ‘Westlessness’ mean for the
WPS agenda?

Chapter VII:                                                       49
Tareq Zahw: EU Climate and Energy Policy

Chapter VIII:                                                      58
Sebastian Stölting, Lucas Hellemeier: How to Counter
Europeanlessness in Arms Exports to the Indo-Pacific.

Chapter IX:                                                        69
Rebecca Farulli: Fighting Strategic Insolvency. The Strategic
Compass as a wayfinding in operationalizing capability and
creating a common European security culture

References                                                         74

Introductions
Dr. Anja Optiz: Reform of outdated behavior patterns
In 2020, the security policy debate started with, among other things, the Munich
Security Conference and an intensive debate of the importance of the West in
international relations, which was summarized with the term Westlessness (Mu-
nich Security Report, 2020). Westlessness is the expression of a picture of today's
world that apparently culminates in a “disorder” that neither the international
community nor the European Union are no longer able to regulate or govern. The
question arose as to whether multilateralism was the right answer to the com-
plexity of the current security policy challenges or whether it shows evidence of
its own inability to act. The COVID-19 pandemic is currently challenging this core
question again.

An effective key to fighting infectious diseases is a stable and effective public
health sector. This includes the establishment of universal health care, including
the access to basic public health services. In this respect, all global development
initiatives based on the International Health Regulations are aimed at investing
in and strengthening national health systems. The EU is pursuing this goal in its
own global health policy.

However, in what understanding of inaction concerning global health crises is the
EU's inability to act diagnosed? Shouldn't we rather speak of a “rejection of rea-
lity out of convenience”? A look at the annual Global Risk Report (The Global Risk
Report, 2020) of the World Economic Forum shows the real cause of a "denial of
reality out of convenience": The probability of a pandemic of this magnitude has
been underestimated for years. The Global Health Security Index, published in
2019, also shows that countries were hardly or not at all prepared for major health
events such as an epidemic or pandemic. It is therefore not surprising that the
states of the international community are stuck in their usual national thought
patterns and rob themselves of their own multilateral ability to act in the fight
against the spread of COVID-19.

A lesson learnt from the COVID-19 pandemic will be the common understanding
that epidemics or pandemics do not only affect the African or Asian continent. As
a group of sovereign states, the EU must be able to understand the root causes of
global health crises in order to minimize massive damage for states and societies
- not least in their own regional sense.

Against this background, the first Young Security Conference 2020 can be seen
as a great initiative to offer young professionals and academics from various EU
countries a forum for innovative debates and exchange of ideas in Munich. I wish
the YSC every success and growing popularity in the years to come!

                                     -5-

Dr. Roderick Parkes: History is back, just not as we thought
History is back – or rather the uses and abuses of history for political purposes
are back. The debate about Westlessness is one example. Proponents of the term
often purport to be talking about a lost past – “Westlessness” describes a lost
paradise of cohesive Transatlantic institutions that were given a sense of common
purpose by a shared rival, the Soviet Union. But in fact, this term is much more
about the future. It presents a vision of a vacuum that needs filling – by cohesive
Transatlantic institutions that must find a common sense of purpose in the face
of a shared rival, China.

That is not meant as a criticism of the original report on Westlessness, which
was nuanced, or of the original proponents of the idea, who were quick to ack-
nowledge that even at the height of the Cold War it was unclear what actually
constituted the West. But it is an important message for the participants of the
YSC – a generation which did not experience the Cold War. In Germany and France
a young generation of foreign policy thinkers has emerged to criticise their elders
for embracing the “end of history” thesis in the 1990s. They argue that Berlin in
particular felt that it was on the right side of history, and blindly embraced market
integration and trade on the simplistic assumption that these forces would rat-
chet the world towards peace and prosperity around the European model.

This new generation tends to propose a complete course correction, and have
sympathy for the ideas of creating a more assertive and geopolitical Europe. For
anyone active in policymaking in the 1990s, however, this notion that European
strategists back then fell for the end of history thesis is a nonsense. In the 1990s,
the old ideological grudge match between liberalism and communism had given
way to virulent ethnic and territorial conflicts in the Balkans, Caucasus and Middle
East. If anything, history was back. And the EU of the 1990s embraced market inte-
gration for geopolitical reasons, to create new tools to alter geographic realities
and incentivize belligerents to see what in fact connected them. They did not em-
brace experimental market-building projects like the Eurozone or Schengen out
of naivety. They did so because they saw the limitations of classic tools of trade,
aid and democracy-building.

That kind of playful geopolitics – using markets and regulations to alter geopoliti-
cal realities – has been the hallmark of EU geopolitics since the 1950s. It sits firmly
within a Western cannon of international ordering, but was often distinct from US
thinking and deployed a very different set of tools to deal with conflict than did
Washington. Current calls for the EU to “become” geopolitical or autonomous are
thus as historically ignorant as calls to “regroup the West.” It is therefore hearte-
ning that this collection of essays, created by a new generation of foreign policy
analysts and thinkers, takes a nuanced and historically literate approach to the
West and to European autonomy and geopolitics.

                                         -6-

Chapter I
Global dependencies, an intricate dilemma and
Europe right in the middle - the YSC guide to Eu-
ropean strategic autonomy and sovereignty
Amélie Jaques-Apke and Moritz Flössler
Amélie is a political analyst and scientist, researcher, as well as director-general
and co-founder of EuropaNova Germany. She holds a masters degree in interna-
tional security from Sciences Po Paris and has a plethora of experience in interna-
tional organizations, as well as the public sector, across Europe, the Americas, and
Africa. In her research, Amélie focuses on European affairs, particularly the rise of
radical right populism since the pandemic, European foreign and security policy, as
well as diplomacy.

Moritz is a strategic communication consultant and co-founder of EuropaNova
Germany. He studied political science and international relations in Munich and
Paris, graduating with a masters, and is passionate about global political innova-
tion, as well as the European project. His main area of interest lies in European
foreign and security policy, with a particular focus on cybersecurity.

                                    -7-
                                    -7-

While this young yet turbulent 21st century has already brought severe crises and
entirely new kinds of risks for the people of Europe, it has also opened the doors
for countless opportunities and new chapters in the continuous process of buil-
ding the European Union.

A seemingly new arc of instability, which characterises the post-cold-war-era in
this increasingly globalised world, often weighs heavy on European shoulders.
Particularly the last 14 months have been entirely dominated by the global Co-
vid-19 pandemic that has changed the lives of almost the entirety of the world’s
population like few events before. It has put European sovereignty and autonomy
to a test once again, as both the economic and social life halted and uncertainty
and standstill prevailed.

As the EU found it initially very difficult to come up with a common response, it
seemed to miss a tremendous chance. It is precisely this EU which the President of
the European Council, Charles Michel, describes as an inherently positive, open,
and tolerant force. An ambitious and demanding group of democracies with a
public debate that guarantees the legitimacy of its decisions while being deeply
rooted in caring humanistic values that inspire a project of transformation. Yet,
little of that has been seen during the last year of the crisis.

The COVID-19 pandemic was just the latest in a range of crises in which the EU
found it difficult to respond to significant challenges. Now, the EU sees itself con-
fronted with the new quest of strengthening its own power, to uphold the very
idea it is founded upon. Through the pursuit of strategic autonomy and soverei-
gnty in many sectors and the push for climate neutrality, digital sovereignty, dee-
pened common defence, better cyber policy, and democratic debate, Europeans
are trying to find a new balance of power: less dependency, less naivety and more
influence for a positive impact on the world.

This institutionally new credo, the EU‘s strategic autonomy, describes new tools,
sovereignty, empowerment, and independence for the Union‘s pursuit of stability,
the spread of standards, and the promotion of its values ... a new status quo for
the 21st century?

The European paradox
Since the outbreak of the pandemic, Europe finds itself in an exceptional period
of soul searching as it faces unprecedented external and internal challenges. Exis-
tential questions have also been raised that significantly affect European security.
Within Europe, the exit of Great Britain has left a large gap. In addition, questions
arise regarding Europe‘s eastern borders and the eastern Mediterranean. From
dealing with the migration and refugee crisis to the recent pandemic, the EU has
so far failed to assert itself coherently as an independent power on the world
stage. Recent years have shown that even seemingly natural alliances and econo-
mic cooperations are not set in stone. Allied countries, such as the United States,
have challenged the partnership with Europe as never before.
The debate on the future of Europe and its independence as a great power has

                                        -8-

been very much influenced by the recent Trump presidency: both concepts, strate-
gic autonomy as well as European sovereignty, have (re-)appeared as distinct ap-
proaches to solving the EU‘s quest for independence on the world stage. Whereas
strategic autonomy pursuits the dream of becoming independent from the United
States in terms of security and defence, European sovereignty puts forward the
idea that the EU should also gain independence within the economic field. With
the election of Joseph R. Biden as US president, it appears that the hot topic for
EU member states, namely European sovereignty, lost its urgency at least for the
next four years. As a result, the EU made its choice and chose sovereignty over
autonomy.

However, be it the conflict in eastern Ukraine, the nuclear agreement with Iran,
dealings within the G20 and G7 formats, or the UN Security Council, Europe de-
monstrated the capacity to indeed have a voice in conflict resolution on the world
stage in order to ultimately shape the future at home and abroad. And yet Europe
frequently fails to appear as an independent actor. This “Europeanlessness”, the
lack of articulation of European interests, is a fundamental issue which needs to
be addressed most urgently. In this respect, Europe must achieve a state of self-
determination.

New threats and challenges
Today, Europe is confronted with new forms of threats and crises, both traditional
and hybrid in nature. On the one hand, state actors such as Russia threaten the
global distribution of power directly on the EU‘s eastern flank, while non-state
actors in Europe‘s south-eastern neighbourhood are causing turmoil. More than
that, the nature of some threats is changing as hybrid and cyber threats take ad-
vantage of the increasing hyperconnectivity of Western societies.

And more is yet to come, as China will further extend its economic as well as its
military might and the largest of the planet‘s continents, Africa, is waiting for its
share of the globalised promise of prosperity of the 21st century. The sheer ma-
gnitude of the forthcoming challenges render it neither advisable for Europe to
retreat to national approaches, nor to look across the Atlantic to wait for its Ame-
rican allies to solve domestic or global problems. But what alternatives are there
for Europe and Europeans? What is preventing Europe from conducting its own
problem-solving exercises?

The contributions in this compilation result from findings, impressions, and in-
spiration of the Young Security Conference (YSC) 2020 in Munich. The individual
chapters illustrate the important findings and research avenues of the first YSC
and underpin the theoretical and conceptual framework of its mission: to streng-
then civic engagement in order to prepare Europe‘s future strategic autonomy in
the world.

The first chapter starts with the concept of “Westlessness”, which was the theme
of the Munich Security Conference in 2020. The author, Alberto Cunha, attempts
to explain the term and concept in more detail. In doing so, the author explores

                                        -9-

the question of where the so-called West begins and where it ends. Is it a purely
geographical question or a normative one? The following contribution by Daniel
Gheorge shows where a lack of Western unity might lead to, using the recent de-
velopments in the Israel-Palestine peace process as an example. Here, the author
illustrates what effect a unilateral decision can have on the stability of an entire
region.

The subsequent two chapters illuminate what forms of “Westlessness” play out
within the European Union, by author Romain Le Quiniou, and what it means for
Europe externally, penned by Daniela Glatz. While the former contribution high-
lights the criticism of so-called Western values within the EU and assesses the
efforts to create alternative models of democracy, the latter piece takes a look at
the situation in eastern Ukraine and the role of identity within this conflict.
Ambika Varma then continues by showing what consequences “Westlessness”
might have in areas one least expects it to, or where its only noticeable at a se-
cond glance. The following chapters explore the question of what Europe - in
particular - can do to play a more active role in international relations. The co-
authored piece by Sebastian Stölting and Lucas Hellemeier focuses on European
behaviour towards arms trade in the Indo-Pacific. The authors Rebecca Farulli and
Tareq Zahw round up the compilation with individual contributions on strategic
security policy, and a suitable strategic compass, as well as current trends and re-
cent achievements in the field of climate and energy.

We sincerely hope you, the reader, will enjoy this first edition of the Young Securi-
ty Conference compilation of policy papers and thank you for your interest in our
new initiative. Furthermore, we thank all the authors for their contributions, input,
and assistance in this tremendously fruitful endeavor.

                                       - 10 -

Chapter II
The dismantling of the West? Normative divisi-
ons, transatlantic tensions and the shifting of
the global balance of power
Alberto Cunha
Alberto is an FCT-funded PhD candidate and Graduate Teaching Assistant at the
Department of European and International Studies at King‘s College London, whe-
re he is a member of The European Foreign Policy Research Group and the Centre
for German Transnational Relations. Alberto has an initial background in Econo-
mics and Business Administration (Bachelor and MSc, followed by two stints in
the private sector) and an MSc in International Relations from the University of
Lisbon, before working in Portuguese embassies: six months as an intern in the
Portuguese Representation to the OECD and one year as a Political Analyst in the
Portuguese Embassy to the USA.

Abstract

Keywords: West, United States of America, European Union, NATO,
Transatlantic Relations, Balance of Power
What is the ‘West’? Where are the lines drawn; is it merely a geographical referen-
cehat is the ‘West’? Where are the lines drawn; is it merely a geographical referen-
ce to countries that belong to NATO/EU and Europe? Or does the concept of ‚West‘
extend to any country that accepts and promotes „western values‘‘, such as the
Rule of Law, Human Rights and Democracy and thus becomes a cultural concep-
tion beyond geography? This paper shall address the current understanding of the
concept of ‚West‘, discuss the events of the last decade that led to the emergence
of what is known as ‚Westlessness‘ and outlining two putative scenarios - a best-
and a worst-case - for the future role of the West in the international system. It
should be also noted that, by ‘Westlessness’, one can refer both to the widespread
sense of unease about the declining role of the West in the World and, concur-
rently, to the division in the West that contributes to such declining influence. This
paper shall focus on both dimensions.

                                    - 11 -
                                    - 11 -

The West: a beacon for a democratic and liberal global order?
On the website for the Munich Security Conference of 2020 - where ‘Westlessness‘
was chosen as the main topic -, it is stated that „the West extends beyond North
America and Europe, and countries beyond the traditional West become import-
ant guardians of the ‚Western‘ idea“ (MSC, 2020). It should be also noted that, by
‚Westlessness‘, one can refer both to the widespread sense of unease about the
declining role of the West in the world and, concurrently, to the division in the
West that contributes to such declining influence. This paper shall focus on both
dimensions.

Regardless of whether one adopts a stricter or more open definition of what the
West is, its economic, political and historical centre is bound to both sides of the
Atlantic: the Western Alliance gathered around the USA and underpinned by NATO
and the EU. The mere fact that ‘Westlessness’ was even so central for the agenda
for YSC 2020, reveals the extent to which the events of the previous four years had
damaged the trust in the present and future of Transatlantic Relations and acce-
lerated the decline of the liberal world order (Ibenkerry, 2018) that still defines the
West. A whole body of literature has been inspired by the uncertain future of the
West since the double shock of Brexit (Mead, 2018; Forsyth, 2020) and the election
of former President Trump (see Sloan, 2017; Herszenhorn, 2018; Riddervold & New-
some, 2018; Kanat, 2018; Aggestam & Hyde-Price, 2019).

The divisions inside the West are part of an evolving global geopolitical context
that is both more multipolar and more unstable than what the future seemed to
entail after the fall of the Berlin Wall. With the benefit of hindsight, it seems the
pessimists at the time were also perceptive, with 9/11 and the subsequent ‘War
on Terror’ setting the stage for the aggravation of the ‘clash of civilizations’ (Hun-
tington, 1993, 1996); instead of the victory of the Western values as heralded by
optimists as ‘the end of history (Fukuyama, 1992).

Additionally, we might be in the dawn of an era that will eventually go beyond
Huntington‘s prediction: along with a clash between civilizations, the question
this article seeks to answer is whether a historical phase has begun which is mar-
ked by a further ‚clash‘, now within the West. The last years have certainly given
us some brain food for such a discomforting thought: if anything, the dramatic
events of the 6th of January 2021 in the US Capitol seem to have crystallised the
loss of a certain moral superiority of the American democracy, still an import-
ant beacon of the West. It is likely that the deep socio-political fractures within
the American society - revealed by former President Trump’s mandate (Carothers,
2019; Dimock & Wike, 2020; Lempinen, 2020; Reidm, Borter & Martina, 2020) - will
remain for the foreseeable future. If so, it remains to be seen whether Europe will
be able to take the mantle of leadership of the West, in both its normative and
geopolitical dimensions. Even if the US position as the biggest economy and the
biggest military power in the world remains, it should not be forgotten that the
concept of ‚West‘ itself, historically, was born in Europe, from the Classical Era of
Greek and Roman civilizations.

For years, the US-underpinned Western ‘umbrella’ was simultaneously guaran-
teed, unconditional and permanent, and included a component of military pre-
sence of American troops on European - and crucially, German - soil (Algieri, Bauer

                                       - 12 -

& Brummer, 2006). And for years Europeans have defended such a status quo even
under the rather strained bilateral relationship with Washington under former
President Trump (Erlanger, 2019). However, no matter how much European leaders
might want to avoid difficult questions about its role in the world, the debate on
what should be the role of Europe and the European Union in the XXI century’s
international system will almost certainly be one of the defining features of this
century.

The discomfort with the new unilateralism of „America First“ and the devaluing
of NATO by former President Trump has led to successive public statements by
French and German leaders in favour of a more autonomous European Defence
since the double shock of 2016. Great attention was drawn to EU’s “Strategic auto-
nomy” (European Commission, 2016), the “European army” (Brunsden & Chazan,
2018) and to the fact that “we [Europe] must take destiny into our own hands”
(Mcgee & Parker, 2017); but, as always in Politics, the biggest test was whether the
EU member states were willing to commit beyond lip-service and to accept an
increase in Defence budget costs. Alas, this remains a choice that many EU count-
ries, starting with Germany, seem to be reluctant to take (Sprenger, 2019).
The concrete answer given by the EU to whether „Europe needs a plan B for its
defence in times of an increasingly weakened transatlantic link” is still… mostly
no (Kunz, 2018, p.1), although some measure of timid progress has been made. In
fact, Germany has (finally) attempted to use its leadership to go beyond speeches
and carry out concrete action, namely with PESCO, which promises to shape the
future of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) for at least the next
decade under a Germany-promoted concept of inclusive vision for all members
of the EU (European Council, 2017; Major & Mölling, 2018). If France and Germany
convince the rest of the EU members that they must strengthen their Defence ca-
pacity to gain greater autonomy from Washington, the evolution of the CSDP can
accelerate significantly in the medium term but this has mostly not happened so
far, irrespective of the misgivings of the Trump presidency.

On one hand, it seems unlikely that Europe can continue to avoid all geopolitical
questions under the aforementioned ‘umbrella’: the pandora box of transatlan-
tic tensions, always present to some extent, has been blown open by President
Trump and will take some time to be closed, if ever. On the other, a scenario of a
permanent strategic division of the West and even the end of NATO seems very
unlikely, despite President Macron’s high-profile criticisms (The Economist, 2019).
As seen recently with the ongoing public dispute within Europe about the level of
EU autonomy inside the Atlantic Alliance and towards Washington (Kramp-Kar-
renbauer, 2020; Le Continent, 2020; Erlanger, 2020), the alliance isn’t quite “brain
dead” and the desire for a renewed transatlantic push was rendered very clearly
by the visible ‘relief’ (Biller & Leicester, 2020; Kirschbaum & King, 2020) of many
European and other Western decision-makers following the confirmation of Bi-
den’s US electoral win in early 2021.

The concept of ‘Westlessness’ in the last decade: justifiable or
premature?
As mentioned previously, the mere fact that ‘Westlessness’ has developed as a
concept in recent years, is a testimony of the general evolution of Western poli-

                                     - 13 -

tics since 2016. It is therefore relevant to question to what extent the concept of
‘Westlessness’ is justifiable or premature. In order to do so, the main events lea-
ding to today’s geopolitical context and the recent trajectory of the “West” will be
outlined hereafter.

The year 2016 was a seismic year for the Western World and one whose conse-
quences will very likely impact its population for many years, if not decades. It
was thus quite fitting that ‘Westlessness’ was chosen as the theme for the 2020
Munich Security Conference. Indeed, one can take a look at the past few years in
the West and see the seeds of the process of ‘Westlessness’ blooming everywhere.

Some of its consequences are already either permanent or consist on issues that
will grapple the political disputes within the West for the years to come:

- Brexit was made official in January 2020 (following the referendum results in
2016), meaning that one of three main powers of Western Europe (along with Ger-
many and France) is no longer part of the EU; the first member-state [some ter-
ritories had previously left, such as Greenland] ever to withdraw from what has
been a sui generis integration process that strongly impacts the reality and image
of the „West“. Furthermore, it interrupted what had been, until 2016, a trajectory
of growing horizontal integration and enlargement, even if it can also be seen as
just another one of several of the crises since its inception (Webber, 2019), from
the „chaise vide“ of the 60s to the Eurozone and refugee crises of the 2010s.

- NATO, the security provider for the West, has been called into question directly,
namely when it comes to its until then nearly sacred security guarantee, by for-
mer President Trump (Kaufman, 2017; Kazakoff, 2019), as head of state of the most
powerful country and traditional leader of the West. Hence, the rift has been ope-
ned: after the first international summit with President Trump, Chancellor Mer-
kel, never known for big statements, made clear that “The era in which we could
fully rely on others [clearly referring to the US] is over to some extent” (Paravici-
ni, 2017); furthermore, just two years later, President Macron referred to NATO as
being “brain dead” (The Economist, 2019).

- The last decade has been marked by a plethora of geopolitical events which have
hinted at a growing ‘Westlessness’, marked by divisions and a certain impotence
of the West in the face of several concurring threats. Such examples include:

a) The difficulty in dealing with the so-called ‚Arc of Instability‘ in the Middle East
and Africa, from the blowback of the Iraq war with ISIS, the growing terrorist thre-
ats that have struck increasingly often in Western European cities, to the never-
ending crises of Libya and Syria.

b) Within the EU, internal divisions between the member states exposed during
the Eurozone and Migration crises have led to what some called a process of Euro-
pean ‚disintegration‘ (Webber, 2019). The crises have exposed deep fractures, not
only pitting the „frugal“ North against the „pro-solidarity“ South - again brought
to light by the extremely vivid clashes over what should be a response to the
COVID-caused recession (Boffey, 2020; Financial Times, 2020), which resulted in a
both ‘limited and conditional’ (Schramm, 2020) compromise. Further deep fractu-

                                        - 14 -

res within the EU include those referring to the divisions regarding the immigra-
tion policies and questions of Rule of Law and Democracy, in this case between
West and East, namely countries such as Poland and Hungary.
Furthermore, political disputes over the future of the EU‘s CSDP remain with many
open questions such as: will the CSDP ever be an alternative to NATO? And would
that further the current political divisions between Washington and the EU if that
ever occurred?

c) Turkey, a country with a historically strategic position straddling the borders of
West and East, is shifting away from the West under its current President (Hacaog-
lu, 2020; Karagiannis, 2020); be it on questions of Rule of Law and Democracy that
have since 1945 been the defining hallmark and the glue that binds and characte-
rises the West, and on crucial security issues for Europe and the West in general.
Furthermore, it even had disputes with EU countries over territorial waters (Hers-
zenhorn, Momtaz & Barigazzi, 2020) - all this while remaining a NATO member.
All these events are in some way shaped by the emergence of two main global
trends, developing in different ways since the turn of the century, that explain, in
a broader sense, how we got here. These global trends have indeed been pushed
to the fore by the global crises of the first decade of the XXI century, which have
shaken both our global security and economic/financial systems. Most important-
ly, they reflect deeper structural divisions within the West and the latter’s difficult
positioning in the XXI century International System.

The first global trend concerns the deep normative divisions in the West, cutting
across countries and making both domestic politics and foreign policy more con-
tested and unstable. The division is separating the so-called “nationalist-popu-
list” waves in the West and the multilateralists (or “globalists”), who are often
described as defenders of the Liberal Democracy model, and typically in favor of
combining universal values, namely Human Rights, with some form of an open-
borders capitalist system.

If we consider the biggest political events that marked the history of the past half-
decade in Western countries - i.e: the (in many ways ongoing) “Refugee Crisis”, a
certain (re-)emergence of anti-immigration parties throughout Europe (Davis &
Deole, 2017), Brexit, the election of Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro as well as
growing issues with the Turkish democracy but also EU countries such as Poland
or Hungary - they suggest that the former current is gaining in support throughout
the West. At the very least, even in a post-Trump world, Western political struggles
relating to this trend shall remain highly contentious, both between and within
countries.

Does this mean ‘Westlessness’ is already happening? Not necessarily. It still should
be remembered that despite all its crises that led to its possible ‘disintegration’,
the EU maintained its integration course. Or that it’s two most important count-
ries, France and Germany, while dealing with their respective stronger nationa-
list anti-globalization movements (both on the Right but also Left), have so far
held a pro Europeanist line, with German Chancellor Merkel even being considered
by some, after President Trump’s election, as the “leader of the free world” (Ru-
bin, 2017; Hundal, 2017) - even if some disagree given the sheer weight of the US

                                        - 15 -

and a certain German reluctance to take on the mantle of such global leadership
(Kirschbaum, 2020).

One may even argue that despite all the divisions in the EU, the worst signs ema-
nating from the normative dimension of ‘Westlessness’ have come from the United
States and all the changes it has seen since the triumphant end of the Cold war. As
a result of those changes, its role as the beacon of Human Rights and Democracy
promotion globally was shaken by the post 9/11 „Wars on Terror“ that included
Guantanamo and abuses in the Middle East, deeply affecting Washington’s exter-
nal image amidst its „America first“ approach. Looking further than Europe and
the US, ‘Westlessness‘ has also been revealed through the contrast between the
outright hostility sometimes demonstrated in the rhetoric towards its key western
allies (namely Europeans) when compared to the proximity with „strong men‘‘ lea-
ders of countries which in different degrees seem to be drifting from the Demo-
cratic liberal model, namely Turkey, Russia or even (with more reservation) Brazil.
But, yet again, ‘Westlessness’ has been avoided; NATO remains and the so-called
“deep state” of Washington seems to have held the line, meaning that the Western
alliance is still a concrete reality.

In any case, trust has eroded significantly, which is shown by several opinion polls;
this year’s Pew Research (Fetterolf, Mordecai & Wike; 2020) left no doubts: the US
has never been so unpopular amongst its main allies (matching only, for some
countries, the height of the Iraq War tensions in 2003); the ratings for former Pre-
sident Trump were abysmal throughout his tenure and only positive in European
countries amongst ‘right-wing populist parties’ (ibid, p.6). The most trusted global
leaders are precisely those who have a different, more traditional view, of the
West as a multicultural and multilateral political space: Chancellor Merkel and
President Macron (ibid, p.5).

The second global trend is the decreasing importance of the West vis-à-vis the
other global powers, leading to a change in the global balance of power, whe-
re so-called ‘emerging powers’ have a bigger weight in the international system.
Non-western global powers are watching all these divisions and potentially profi-
ting from them. There are profound consequences for the international system if
countries such as China, Russia or Iran have the possibility, which seems to have
increased since 2016, of dividing the West for their own purposes and taking ad-
vantage of the political widening between both sides of the Atlantic.

This shifting global dynamic is only aided by the fact that the West itself is already
so divided. It still cannot agree on anything resembling a unified approach to the
long-foreseen rise of China, whether between the US and Europe or even amongst
EU countries (Mazumdaru 2018). There can be two main paths on this issue: either
to follow the more “hawkish” US strategy or the more cautious EU one (which also
has, yet again, internal disagreements on this matter). It’s unclear which one will
or shall be followed.

For several decades, China has been pursuing a picture of divide and rule in Wes-
tern countries, namely Europe (Otero-Iglesias et al, 2015) and Latin America (Lum
& Sullivan, 2020) and increasingly in Africa (Shepard 2019), underpinned by mas-
sive investments and the overall framework of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)

                                        - 16 -

aided by the establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) - to
which all major EU member-states subscribed to, and this despite the efforts of
the Obama administration at the time as part of a policy of balancing what was
perceived as a Chinese challenge to its global leadership (Chin, 2016; Pass, 2020;
Thomas & Hutzler, 2015; Tow, 2015). Indeed, over the past decade at least, most
European countries have focused primarily on economic gains from a closer re-
lationship with China, which has often led to pursue closer relations based on
increasing trade and economic dependency to the detriment of pushing for any
Human Right issues, be it Germany (Cunha, 2017), but also Brazil, despite what
the current administration sees as the need to be closer to the US (The Brazilian
Report, 2020).

Moreover, there has been little if any Western unity in solving the problems in the
so-called „arc of instability of the Middle East and Africa“, which has seen major
geopolitical confrontations in this century, from the beginning of the Iraq War in
2003, the Arab Spring and the Libyan civil war (with the consequent Western mi-
litary intervention) in 2011, to the rise of ISIS and the still ongoing major crisis in
Syria. Further north, the Russian military strength is, independently of the Rus-
sian economic shortcomings and domestic issues, a reality against which again
provokes divisions on how to respond amongst the transatlantic alliance and also
within the EU (Emmott, Irish & Rinke, 2019).

The 2014 Crimean intervention, which followed a previous one in Georgia in 2008,
serves as proof that Russia remains a threat to the sovereign rights of its neig-
hbours and a foe to the West in the military if not economic terms. The ongoing
discussion on the effectiveness of sanctions imposed on Russia after 2014 (Veeber
& Markus, 2015; Connolly 2015; amongst many others) and the need to maintain
the dialogue with Moscow should not obscure the fact that, under its current lea-
dership, there does not seem to be a place for Russia as a normative member of
the democratic West.

Where are we going to end up? - Scenarios for the near future

Considering the growing signs of ‘Westlessness‘, threatening the future of the West
and, by extension, the international system itself in its political/economic/mili-
tary but also normative dimensions, two potential putative scenarios should be
considered as they give insight into the future of ‘Westlessness’ within the inter-
national system, which might evolve into a best- and worst-case scenario.
These two scenarios are drawn from questions such as: with a more divided and
less powerful West, will the new leaders in the USA and the EU adapt or fight such
a reality and how (can the EU serve a complement to the US and NATO in under-
pinning the security of the West)? Are we heading into an even more Multipolar
World where ‘Westlessness’ will become permanent and several centres of power
(starting with China) will be able to effectively compete for global supremacy with
the USA, profiting from Transatlantic and NATO tensions and general divisions in
the West? And will such a Multipolar World be a peaceful one or continue the pat-
tern of increasing instability the world has lived in since 2001?

(i) The worst-case scenario for the West would be the spill-over to the Geopo-
litical arena of the already existing normative/political clash between the two

                                        - 17 -

trends mentioned in the previous section. The process of ‘Westlessness’ would be
accelerated and the divisions about the role of the West would increase, on both
sides of the Atlantic but also within Europe and the US. Normative concepts such
as Human Rights and the Rule of Law might lose their primacy in a West eventu-
ally further dominated by nationalism, anti-immigration and anti-globalization
agendas. Despite the defeat of former President Trump in the 2020 elections, se-
veral leaders share his vision and strongly Eurosceptic and even far-right parties
remain popular throughout Europe, both in Eastern and Western countries. Such
a scenario would entail the following:

- The deepening of the fractures within the West, as revealed in the first section.
In this scenario, normative divisions would further reorganize politics along the
lines of globalists vs. nationalists and populists able to maintain/reach power
and make permanent changes to the respective political systems - a process that
has arguably already started in countries such as Hungary (Sadecki 2014; Hopkins
2020). This scenario would see the US political woes remain beyond President
Trump and the progressive fracture of the EU, along the division lines already re-
vealed during the EU’s “crisis decade” (Luo, 2019): North vs. South in the Eurozone
crisis and West vs. East (although not exclusively) during the Refugee crisis.

- Combined with an increased military ambition and resources, China is reaching
a global predominance in economic and technological fields, a development that
is creating an alternative pole of centrality in the International System, one that
does not necessarily play by the rules of the “West”, eventually seeking to weaken
those whenever it suits its interests.

- The role of the UK and Turkey in the „West“ is becoming ever more uncertain: as
of now, Turkey seems to be lost for the West. In fact, the situation might even get
worse, with tensions increasing with European countries (and fellow NATO mem-
bers) this year. Simultaneously, the UK will undergo a painful adaptation process
to its new role (which might even lead to Scottish independence) and which has
already led to its marginalization from European influence, even if its global di-
plomatic, intelligence and military network, its strong ties with Washington and
London’s role as one of the world‘s true global Metropolis remains important as-
sets.

- There could no longer be an automatic guarantee that the White House will
always stand behind NATO (even if its “brain death”, as President Macron proclai-
med, has been avoided for now): as such, this scenario would build on some of the
fractures exposed in the last decade, namely under the Trump presidency. These
fractures go deeper than the rhetorical criticisms of NATO exposed in the first
section of this paper. Traditionally, American leadership within NATO reflected a
trade-off between security and autonomy, which has led Washington to accept co-
vering most military costs and resources in exchange for being able to guide gene-
ral policy within the transatlantic alliance (Cunha, 2020). That might be changing
in the future, and one should not forget the criticism in Washington about what is
perceived as a low commitment to NATO by some EU members, namely Germany,
of not reaching the 2% in defence expenses or the overall underinvestment in
their military capabilities (Deutsche Welle, 2018). This criticism long predates Pre-
sident Trump and will likely continue during future administrations: Robert Gates,

                                       - 18 -

then-Secretary of Defence of President Obama, warned about the gap „between
those willing and able to pay the price and bear the burdens of commitments, and
those who enjoy the benefits of NATO membership but don‘t want to share the
risks and the costs” (Shanker, 2011).

(ii) A realistic best-case scenario for the near future appears to be a continuation
of some degree of divisions within Western countries, which would continue to be
moderated by the need to confront global threats to the West, be it China, Terro-
rism, Russia or Climate Change, with the US returning to the Paris Agreement in
January 2021 (Daventry, 2020). This scenario would entail an increased global role
for the EU, as it is the objective of Van der Leyen’s so-called “geopolitical commis-
sion” (Blockmans, 2020).

When it comes to China, there are signs of recent change with a growing awaren-
ess of the need for a unified European approach, as on the issue of 5G/Huawei
market access (Creulus & Heikkilä, 2020). However, Human Rights abuses continue
to be a very sensitive issue within EU-China relations, especially considering the
sheer economic importance of China‘s trade and investment (Eder, 2020). The EU
also showed the huge potential of its global normative power (Bradford, 2019)
when slowing the ratification of the Free Trade Agreement with Mercosul as a way
to exert pressure on the Brazilian government‘s lack of care for any environmental
rules (Deutsche Welle, 2020; Boffey, 2020), which represents an important aspect
of its national sovereignty; the same claim made by former President Trump re-
garding the Paris Agreement.

The EU, however, must be more than just a normative power if it is to hold any real
sway in today’s multipolar and unstable global system. As Krotz and Maher argued
back in 2011 (Krotz, 2011, p.753), “Today’s European governments face a decision
similar to the one that the United States faced in the 1940s: increase their strate-
gic means to meet their collective foreign policy goals or reduce their ambitions
to adapt them their limited capabilities” (Krotz, 2011, p.573). The EU shall have to
accept that an increasingly important role at a global level, in the current inter-
national situation, potentially entails painful costs and risks, and must determine
which ones can be tolerable and unacceptable.

The need for such an awareness goes beyond the Transatlantic Relation: count-
ries such as India, Japan and Australia, along with the US (Yamaguchi, 2020) have
shown an increasing willingness to cooperate as fellow liberal democratic count-
ries in the Asia Pacific, for instance in the context of the so-called Quadrilateral
Security Dialogue. As such, just as in Europe, the leading role of the US in the West
is simply irreplaceable as of now. The American shift towards Asia will continue
under any president in Washington, implying new troops and investment and fi-
nally rendering the European “autonomy” debates even more relevant.

Concluding remarks
The fears of the end of the West, just as with the proverbial end of Mark Twain,
might be premature. Culturally and normatively (primarily regarding Human Rights
and the importance of Liberal Democracy), the proximity between both sides of
the Atlantic is only matched by the sheer lack of attraction that alternative mo-

                                      - 19 -

dels, such as the Chinese, have within Western countries. This seems to extend to
Latin America, where countries - despite the high sums of Chinese investment in
recent years – that have tried to find an independent way of the West, like Vene-
zuela during the last decade, mostly encountered international isolation, econo-
mical impoverishment and larger internal divisions.

Therefore, the more pessimistic of the two scenarios presented in the previous
section seems, for now, to have been avoided, given the results of the 2020 US
Elections and the increasing common understanding that most of the threats fa-
cing the West have to be confronted together. This understanding has already led
to concrete cases of Western-led cooperation, be it on 5G issues, the Paris Agree-
ment or the current Covid-19 pandemic.

To breach these fractures, to avoid that the pessimists (as those of the 1990s) are
again to be the more perceptive regarding the future evolution of the West, I ar-
gue that both sides of the Atlantic need to change their overall policy orientation
for the next decade:

- for the European Union, it will take political will and the means to project pow-
er in the world. This realisation involves that even the biggest of the 27 member
states are very small in a world of Great Power competition; that EU’s ‘strategic
autonomy’ should not be seen as directed against the USA, but as a way to prac-
tice the “burden-sharing” that successive US administrations have been claiming
from Europe.

- for the United States, it should be ‚back to basics‘ and the dream of an Ame-
rica that was built on a promise of a „shining city on the hill“. More concretely,
this should entail: an effective „leadership-sharing“ with Europe in return for the
demanded „burden-sharing“; a fast domestic rebuilding of the ‚American dream‘
promise, considering that far too many of its citizens continue living without uni-
versal health care and facing declining industry, dim life prospects and continu-
ously growing racial tensions; all these decisive factors for the 2016 election result;
a refraining from further unilateral interventions in the Middle East, which already
led to disastrous consequences (just like European countries such as France and
Germany had predicted in 2003), accepting that Democracy is very rarely promo-
ted effectively by force and instead using, whenever possible, the overwhelming
“soft”/”smart” (instead of “hard”) power of the West (Nye 1990; 2004; 2011; CSIS,
2012) in other regions of the world.

Such a shift in policy for the next decade, in both Europe and the USA, would
be indispensable to maintain the global reach of the normative influence of the
“West” intact, which, despite its many flaws, still upholds a system of freedoms,
rights, values and creation of wealth so far unmatched in the history of the world.
Also, it will probably mean that both sides of the Atlantic will have to do more to
effectively bring on board the voices and the perspectives of all countries aligned
with its values, be it in Latin America, Africa or even Asia. The “West” will only re-
main fully true to its promise when it recognizes that it can only truly be a “way of
life” and a global cooperation that is open to everyone, regardless of nationality
and origins, instead of merely a geographic parameter.

                                       - 20 -

Chapter III
Trump Administration’s Involvement in the Isra-
el-Palestine Peace Process and its Consequences
for the Middle East
Daniel Gheorge
Daniel is a highly trained professional in Foreign Affairs and Government Relations
with a strong interest in Israeli and Russian politics. He currently works as an Ex-
pert Consultant at the “Theodor Herzl” Centre for Israeli Studies, part of the Natio-
nal University of Political Studies and Public Administration (SNSPA) in Bucharest.
After a Master’s degree in Security and Diplomacy at the National University of
Political Studies and Public Administration of Bucharest and a following master’s
degree at the Higher School of Economics of Moscow, Daniel became a PhD student
at SNSPA with a research focused on the EU-Israel relations.
In the past, he worked as an Intern at the Romanian Diplomatic Institute, the Skol-
kovo Foundation and Hill+Knowlton Strategies in Moscow, and at the European
Commission.

Abstract

Keywords: conflict, Israel, Middle East, Peace Plan,
Two-State Solution
The U.S. Plan of Peace for Israel and Palestine, as part of a bigger effort to find a
solution for the conflict between the two, remains largely debated among politici-
ans and academics. The Plan, together with other decisions of the Trump adminis-
tration on Israel, was almost automatically rejected by the Palestinians, and other
states, as unable to deliver a real solution. The creation of the 2019 coalition go-
vernment in Israel as a result of repeated legislative elections is regarded by many
as the beginning of a new, post-Netanyahu era in Israeli politics. In this context,
the research aims at examining the impact of the decisions taken by the Trump ad-
ministration regarding Israel (recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and
the U.S. Plan for Peace, released by the White House in 2020) on the entire Middle
East. To reach this objective, the research will discuss the new dynamics of the re-
lations between the U.S. and different countries in the Middle East as caused by the
political decisions of the Trump administration on Israel.

                                   - 21 -
                                   - 21 -

Introduction
The election of Donald Trump as the president of the United States of America
in 2016 was in many regards perceived as an unexpected event. The already de-
teriorated relations between his country and Israel as a consequence of a few
initiatives of the Obama Administration gave Trump the proper circumstances for
his administration‘s initiatives. Together with other initiatives, probably the most
significant example in this respect is the approach of the Trump administration
towards the nuclear deal with Iran. In connection to this, it is essential to know
that to understand Donald Trump‘s approach towards Israel and the Middle East it
is necessary to ‚point out that Trump was eager to demonstrate he was the ‚non-
Obama‘ just as ‚Obama was eager to demonstrate he was the ‚non-George Bush‘
(Freedman, 2017). Largely criticized by politicians in both the left-wing and the
right-wing political camps in Israel, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on the
Iranian nuclear program, also known as the Iran deal, was rejected by the Trump
administration in 2018 by having the US withdrawing from it.

The starting point for this article is represented by the main initiatives launched
by the Trump administration: the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel,
withdrawal from the Trump Peace Plan, and the Abraham Accords. Although well-
received by the current Israeli government, the initiatives were more or less con-
troversial, especially for some European and Middle East countries. Thus, based
on these initiatives, the article will try to identify their impact on the short- and
medium-term concerning the United States‘ presence in the Middle East, and its
involvement in the Israel-Palestine Peace Process.

The recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was probably the most sym-
bolic initiative of the Trump administration in relation to Israel. From a symbolic
point of view, the recognition was double hatted as it feeds the long historical
and religious attachment of the Jewish diaspora to Jerusalem, and the narratives
of evangelical groups in the United States, the main supporters of Donald Trump‘s
presidency. However, it can be said that there is a third symbolical dimension of
this recognition which is manifested by the message that these initiatives hold
for the Palestinians. The message is that of a more and more tangible one-state
reality. Having the international community becoming comfortable with such a
reality means that the chances for the Palestinians to be able to sit at the table
of negotiations and push their conditions are significantly reduced. As one may
regard it as a ‚chicken or the egg‘ situation, the context in which the Palestinians‘
chances to push their own political objectives is strongly connected to the fact
that ‚the loss of legitimacy of the PA and President Abbas will also further wea-
ken Abbas‘ party, Fatah, thus tilting the internal balance among Palestinians away
from the secular nationalists and toward the Islamists led by Hamas‘ (Feldman &
Shikaki, 2016).

This situation will add to the fact that the nationalist’s ability to maintain public
support will continue to decrease, especially in relation to the increasing influence
of Islamists in the Arab world. In spite of the fact that Trump ‘refrained from spe-
cifically endorsing this Israeli vision of a greater Jerusalem and did not use Israel’s
preferred terminology of an ‘undivided’ or ‘indivisible’ city or capital’ (Eriksson,
2018), the initiative itself comes and reinforces the already existing tendency of

                                        - 22 -