Europe may be safer now than it has ever been as the threat of a new world war recedes, but we continue to face a number of potent threats that could cause major geopolitical disruptions.
Europe may be safer now than it has ever been as the threat of a new world war recedes, but we continue to face a number of potent threats that could cause major geopolitical disruptions.
That was the view expounded at the INREV annual conference in Barcelona on Thursday by Lord George Robertson, former UK Defence Secretary and NATO Secretary General. ‘I understand why the professionals in the real estate sector may worry and wonder about where to invest. It’s difficult to know where the safe havens are.’
While the threat of a European war has receded, the world now faces problems and challenges that have gone global, precisely at a moment that nationalist parties are rising in the polls and becoming a stronger force in many countries, from Greece to the UK. Pointing to the war on terrorism, engineered biological weapons capable of killing millions and waves of fear caused by pandemics, Lord Robertson quoted former US State Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and said there were ‘known knowns, unknown knowns and unknown unknowns’. ‘And,’ he added, ‘the dark side of globalisation is that it can make local problems global within 24 hours.’
Europe may have been spared another major war in the past few decades, but the world has witnessed a number of unexpected events including the invasion by Argentina of the Falklands, the collapse of the Berlin wall and subsequent disintegration of the Soviet Union, the attack on the Twin Towers in New York and the underground in London. Lord Robertson also pointed to the global financial crisis, the eruption of the Icelandic volcano and the tsunami in southeastern Asia as major disruptive events. ‘Even to me it’s remarkable that we are constantly taken by surprise. But there are new surprises that are yet to come.’
Nevertheless, a number of things can and need to be done to make the world less fragile, he argued. ‘Global leadership is essential, but we also need to modernise our global institutions and reform the United Nations and other international organisations like the World Bank and the European Union. The European Union was created by visionary politicians, but it needs to become more relevant. Otherwise we will see more Eurosceptic parties...We need the right capabilities in the world today. There’s a lot that we can’t predict, but we can prepare.’
Grexit scenario
Commenting on the potential scenario of a Greek exit from the Eurozone, Lord Robertson said the short-term problems would be ‘multiplied enormously’ if that were indeed to happen. And asked to comment on Russia, he said nobody knows what is on Putin’s mind. ‘The circle around him is so small, just five or six people, he’s really impenetrable. That is a worry.’
Lord Robertson went on to cite his first meeting with Putin in 2000 and said he had no doubt at the time that Putin was committed to changing and reforming Russia and making it part of the international community. For the past 50 years Russia had been on one side of the argument and in 2002 the western world had an opportunity to embrace the country and allow it to become prosperous, integrated, strong and respected on the world stage. Now things are back to square one, Lord Robertson said: ‘We made a huge mistake by not anchoring Russia in western Europe.’
While a failure to invest in diplomacy could lead to a meltdown in Ukraine or a Russian annexation of the eastern part of the country, Lord Robertson maintained that there are reasons for both optimism and pessimism.
‘A lot of issues that used to dominate our headlines no longer do,’ he said, pointing to the war in the Balkans during the 1990s. ‘We are capable of dealing with all the problems that are there, human ingenuity is still there and we are clever people. If there is genuine leadership and commitment to engagement and sorting out the problems, there is a reason to be optimistic. My pessimism comes from the fact that we don’t have that leadership.’