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July 28, 2010Strength in Weakness?
Richard Gowen sees the upside of a weakened West:
Containing new crises will be difficult. Instead of Bush-era “coalitions of the willing”, it may be necessary to form “coalitions of the weaklings”: groups of states that can’t handle international problems alone, but have sufficient leverage between them to do something.In June, Germany and Russia proposed a new EU-Russia Security Committee – and said it should find ways to resolve the frozen conflict in Moldova. Less than two years after the EU and Moscow fell out over Kosovo and Georgia, this shows how both sides’ awareness of their weaknesses may boost security cooperation. Similarly, Russia’s sense of vulnerability has arguably helped ease diplomacy over Iran’s nuclear program.
Structuring coalitions to deal with complex issues like Afghanistan is horribly hard. Yet the EU’s leaders need to recognise that weakness isn’t an excuse for inaction – it should be a stimulus for more activist diplomacy to resolve actual and potential crises now.
Certainly countries are going to be more cooperative if they think they're playing a bad hand. But shouldn't we be devoting just as much time seeking to improve that hand, than in learning how to cope?
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