Carnegie Europe has posted a new discussion piece on its ‘Strategic Europe‘ blog, in which Karl-Heinz Kamp, (research director of the NATO Defense College in Rome) says:
NATO needs to follow the US pivot to Asia
As for how, Karl-Heniz has the following ‘big hand, small map’-type suggestions:
“First, NATO has to Continue reading
Priorities for EU Diplomacy in East Asia by David O’Sullivan
Chief Operating Officer of the European External Action Service
12 February 2013 GRIPS Forum, Tokyo
Let me begin by thanking Professor Narushige Michishita for his introduction and the Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) for giving me this opportunity to speak about the priorities for EU diplomacy in East Asia.
1. The new geostrategic context
Before I get into that, I would like to begin by setting out the wider context: how we see trends in and around the region and how these affect our policy options and choices. Continue reading
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Outgoing US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta delivered a speech in London on 18 January, where he called on Europe to join in the US rebalance to Asia: Continue reading
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Prior to the release of France’s new White Paper on Defence and National Security (DWP), the General Secretariat for Defence and Security has released an amuse-gueule: “The International and Strategic Evolutions Faced by France“. What does it have to say about Asia?
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JLF wonders whether NATO will have to consider extending its zone for collective defence (article 5) to the Pacific (Pacific NATO?).
A new report from the EU ISS, “Look East, Act East: transatlantic agendas in the Asia Pacific“ is certainly worth a read. In it Andrew S. Erickson and Austin M. Strange argue that:
“It is essential that the US and its NATO allies do not simply pursue a ‘division of labour’ scenario in which the US handles the Alliance’s Asia-Pacific duties while EU members essentially concentrate resources in regions closer to home. In fact, from an EU perspective it may be desirable to develop a more direct presence in the Asia Pacific to help ensure that the US remains committed to the Alliance’s security interests in other regions that are traditionally perceived as more vital to European security.”
In the same report, Daniel Keohane proposes that Europe should be ‘a partner not a power’ in Asian security Continue reading
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Thanks to Michael Matthiessen, the EU Visiting Fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore for another voice on the European Pivot to Asia (see some related posts from this blog here, here and here)According to a recent study by the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF), which tracked the perception of the EU in seven Asian countries, the EU is close to invisible. Michael Matthiessen explains that Asia is not invisible to the EU and it’s time to address this imbalance.
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Sir Malcom Rifkind, (a former British Foreign Secretary) writes in ‘The Diplomat’ that ‘while the United States’ “pivot” is welcomed by much of Asia, it is causing concern to the nations of Western Europe’. How does he think Europe should react?
He recommends three priorities for Europeans -
Considering his present role (chairman of the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee), these three seem a bit meagre. (1) is old wine in new bottles. The UK has been playing this tune since before the pivot was a twinkle in Obama’s eye. (2) and (3) are lacking punch in security or diplomatic terms.
Could it be a simple matter of that famous UK Conservative party ‘euro-scepticism’? Continue reading
1991: UK Royal Marine Commando Officer
1997: BA Japanese Studies (Sheffield University)
2002: Humanitarian aid (Afghanistan)
2002: MA (Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy)
2004: UN Peacekeeping (Sudan)
2006: PhD (The effects of globalization on security, case study - post Cold War Japan)
2009: UN Integrated Planning officer
2011: Consulting - EU External Action Service (planning) , NATO (SHAPE) intelligence, ASEAN (Peacekeeping)
