Threats to peace

‘The return of war in Europe, with Russia’s unjustified and unprovoked aggression against Ukraine, as well as major geopolitical shifts are challenging our ability to promote our vision and defend our interests’. This is the opening phrase of the introduction to the European Union’s Strategic Compass, a document adopted in March 2022, and intended to guide the EU’s security and defence action for the coming years. Notably, the Compass’s stated aim is to achieve ‘a European Union that protects its citizens, values and interests and contributes to international peace and security’.
More than a year into Russia’s war on Ukraine, it has become clear that instability is the new normal. Yet, the war did not emerge from a vacuum. For over a decade it has been common to say that the world is leaving a period of relative stability to enter a profound transformation of the global order. Volatility and disruption have led to continual adaptation and transformation at local, regional and global levels alike – disorder and tension having gradually replaced two decades of relative global stability. Conflicts have steadily risen, with 2022 marking the highest number of violent conflicts since the Second World War. Violent extremism, terrorism and hybrid threats have grown to constitute new sources of major risk to security, peace and stability around the world. Beyond conflict in its traditional form, new forms of threats to security confront humanity. In 2023, the World Economic Forum (WEF) ranked societal risk linked to the cost of living crisis as the top global risk (in terms of severity of impact) in the short term (two years), while a multitude of environmental risks linked to the failure to mitigate the climate crisis ranked first in the longer-term analysis.
The multidimensional nature of the emerging threats necessitates new approaches to peace and security, merging conventional notions of power with new scientific methods, including foresight, to assess the impact of variables such as natural resources, demographics and technology in the formulation of policy. The EU Global Strategy notes, ‘we live in a world of predictable unpredictability’. As early as 2019, the European Strategy and Policy Analysis System report on Global Trends to 2030 suggested that the EU was facing a moment of choice between ‘strategic action’ and ‘strategic inaction’. Beyond the urgent need to address Russia’s aggression strategically, dealing with China’s global role, population movements, disruptive technologies, accelerating climate change, economic and food crises around the world – to name only a few challenges (see Figure 3) – have all brought pressure to bear on the EU to provide for a concrete and targeted EU external response. An understanding of the current global risk landscape necessitates concepts and knowledge going far beyond the traditional interpretations of war and peace. This is why the European Parliament has undertaken to map the structural risks facing the EU regularly, as well as the EU’s capabilities and gaps in its capacity to address these risks. These studies have underlined the need for increased anticipatory governance, structured contingency planning and stress testing of existing and future policies.