This book about the strategic issues now confronting Europe is a comprehensive source of updated facts, data and useful analysis. The book opens with a dialogue between two prominent strategic analysts, Philippe Esper and Pierre Hassner, that offers valuable insights into Europe’s power in the face of new challenges. It then goes on to explore issues that range from risks and tensions to the rise of Asia and Europe’s lack of response to that.
What makes the book praiseworthy is its unusual combination of expertise and limpid clarity. Instead of simply listing topics with an accompanying short review, much attention has been given to explaining the cross-sectoral links between them. The book’s treatment of energy and commodities is built on a solid economic, ecological and geopolitical framework, and Europe’s own predicament is analysed in a sophisticatedly strategic manner. Its examination of “sovereignty industries” like telecommunications, space, defence, cybernetics and energy is concrete, well-informed and convincing, with Russia, China and Iran brought into the picture to demonstrate conflicting domestic and international interests.
Yet Un Monde sans Europe? is not so much focused on the EU as on France. The book repeatedly returns to “groups of progress” comprised of “willing and capable countries” that are led by the French. The book is nevertheless rather “unFrench” in its lack of grand designs or ambitious blueprints for industrial or defence policies. Its approach is deliberately pragmatic, recommending as it does ad hoc mini ECSCs to cope with specific strategic or economic problems. The result is that the EU is often mentioned, but rarely plays a central role. A two or three-speed Europe, including a ‘subset’ within the eurozone, is considered, but the concept of “willing and capable countries” remains key. Just a few intrusive lobbies can be spotted, but this small criticism is overshadowed by the book’s impressive level of expertise and clarity.