Europe and the rise of the world's lynchpin states

If you believe the commentariat we now live in the "Pacific century", an era where power is shifting from west to east and global affairs will be dominated, especially economically, by the Pacific rim states. As Mark Leonard writes in his book What Does China Think?, particularly the rise of China may be one of the few, once-in-a-lifetime movements, like the creation and later collapse of the Soviet Union. But conventional wisdom can overlook equally important, if slightly less obvious trends. The rise of a second tier of states as power-brokers, policy entrepreneurs and progress-blockers may be one such subterranean but potentially critical development. In fact, the coming years may not be about a big shift, but about a number of smaller shifts.

That was the conclusion drawn by American scholar Parag Khanna who journeyed across what he called the "Second World" to observe these nations up close. Though the countries in this category range in size and population from heavily peopled states like Indonesia to smaller ones such as Malaysia and Chile, this strata of nations - medium-sized states that are smaller than the big emerging powers of China, India, Brazil and Russia - may be united in seeing their role increase. Look at Mexico and South Korea, who have done more to shape the nature of post-Copenhagen climate policy than the EU. Or the role that Qatar has played in Middle East peacemaking. Chile is an increasingly significant player in Latin American multilateral efforts, like the Union of South American Nations. Kazakhstan has just begun chairing the OSCE - the first non-EU member to do so for quite a while - and is a key swing-state between China and Russia inside the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

The power of these "lynchpin states" is both a challenge and an opportunity for the EU. On the one hand, the 27-member bloc struggles to deal with second-tier states because they are neither big nor small. Desperate for the EU to be seen as a global actor, many European governments feel it should focus on links with the US, Russia and China. To strengthen such links, the EU has developed instruments like the "partnership and cooperation agreement" overseen by the European Commission and "strategic partnerships". The EU has or is now negotiating strategic partnerships with states including Brazil, China, India, Japan, Russia and South Africa.

On the other hand, the EU has developed an extensive corpus of doctrine on fragile, failing and weak states as well as a wide variety of policy instruments from quick-reaction funding mechanisms, like the "instrument of stability", to the 23 European Security and Defence Policy missions that have been deployed.  But the EU struggles to engage states that are neither powerful nor weak, but are becoming more influential. That may not come as a surprise; second-tier countries do not necessarily have important commercial ties for the EU or receive any aid - and as such have not merited much attention.

Indonesia is a good example. Nobody tracking foreign policy would deny the increasing role of south-east Asia's largest economy. At the UN, Jakarta has proven quite important; its UN envoy has sided with the US on Darfur, worked with European governments on Lebanon, but cooperated with Russia on Kosovo. Yet Indonesia represents a mere 0.44 percent of total EU exports and receives little foreign aid.  Because of the difference between Indonesia's global importance and its limited commercial and aid relationship with the EU, the Brussels-to-Jakarta flight rarely has senior EU officials on board. So bringing the Indonesian government on board, for example at the UN, will probably be difficult even for EU states like Germany and France.

A related problem for the EU is the fact that these "lynchpin states" are important for different reasons - some are key to get an agreement on climate change, others are important if the EU hopes to satiate its energy demands. In dealing with each problem, a different "solution set" of countries are needed. But the EU does not have a role in all the policy areas where the second-tier states are influential or seek trade-offs from it; some areas remain the preserve of EU member states.

The Lisbon Treaty is meant to bestow upon the EU the instruments to engage other states more comprehensively. An audit of the EU's links with the "lynchpin states", starting with Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Chile, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, Korea and Colombia, would be useful to plot where the Union's diplomatic corps needs to focus more or differently.  Such a study could for example chart which states are important for the EU's aims, particularly on climate policy, migratory patterns and energy, as well as what kind of trade-offs the EU can offer. As Sven Biscop and Thomas Renard note, different types of relationships may emerge: those with which the EU establishes cooperation in a comprehensive range of areas and others with whom cooperation focuses on a more limited number of issues.  If the future of world affairs will be shaped not only by big states, or affected by weak ones, but also influenced by a range of second-tier states, the EU ought to consider how it improve its links with these.

This piece was first published by E!Sharp.