Regional Powers

The G20, at least in theory, gathers together the most powerful countries on the planet. But, quite obviously, not all G20 countries are of equal power. If we think about the world as divided into three tiers - global powers, regional powers and minor countries - then the current G20 has one global power, America, and perhaps soon two, or even three, if China, and perhaps the EU, develop the capacity to project their influence into most of the corners of the planet. But the rest of the G20 consists of regional powers, able to assert themselves in their backyards but of lesser import on distant continents. As the very existence of the G20 attests, as American preeminance slowly fades in the 21st century, so the significance of regional powers increases. Turkish President Abdullah Gul reflected in an interview for today's Financial Times:

Of course the US is a superpower, so they have duties, but in this region we are one of the important countries. In this region, from Afghanistan to the Balkans, from energy security to the Middle East, from terrorism to nuclear disarmament, these are issues not only of interest to Turkey but to all of the world.

The visit of the US president to Turkey was not only aiming at strengthening bilateral relations between the two countries but also of great relevance to regional and international issues.

As the power of these regional actors increases so will the respect they demand from those dealing with them. Mr Gul broke into English and interupted his translator to desribe how condescending European complaints about Turkish concerns over the appointment of new NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen were "very dangerous and making us disturbed".

West European powers, meanwhile, face a choice in a three tier world. Having once been firmly top-tier, countries such as the UK and France risk sliding into irrelevance, for while once their authority ran across their former dominions, now on their own they are no more than regional powers; regional powers, moreover, in a continent once at the centre of history, but now at its margins. America, and one day China, will care little about countries whose sway holds only in a region of peace and stability. If the UK, France and Germany want to remain even as influencial as the Turkeys of this world to the global powers in 20 or 30 years time, their only real option is to pool power and push the EU into the top tier to join them.

Vaclav Klaus: Unifier

Poor old Vaclav Klaus, the largely ceremonial President of the Czech Republic and a notorious Eurosceptic. When the centre-right government of Mirek Topolanek collapsed last month halfway through the Czech Republic's sixth-month Presidency of the EU, it looked like Brussels would be in for a bumpy ride for the next few months, with Mr Klaus holding the power to select the make-up of the next government in Prague. But such was the fear that this engendered across the Czech political spectrum, that all the major political parties have united to back a caretaker government to see the country through until the Autumn.

While political discourse is often healthier with outspoken leaders to challenge orthodoxies and cosy agreements, there is always a danger that with Mr Klaus at the helm Czech politics would not be seen as 'serious' - a condescending West European attitude towards many of the governments of the old Communist Bloc. But Czech politics is serious, and while the fall of Mr Topolanek's government was perhaps unfortunate, its political parties have shown an admirable non-partisan attitude in getting themselves out of an embarrassing fix.

America, integrate thyself

Turkish membership of the EU would be good for Turkey, good for the EU and good for stability in a swathe of fragile countries to Turkey's south-east. US President Barack Obama's call to grant the country admission to the political bloc ahead of his trip there in the coming days is thus to be welcomed, even if - despite a week of considerable personal diplomatic successes - expecting his words to inspire a sceptical Europe is optimistic lunacy. Yet of all the issues Mr Obama has addressed this week, pushing for the contentious accession and integration of a populous country on the fringes of a trade bloc is the one where he speaks with the greatest hypocrisy.

As a candidate last year, Mr Obama did his best to sound hostile to the North American Free Trade Agreement, a far loser pact than that of the modern EU. As President, Mr Obama has overseen a sharp deterioration in trade relations between the America and its immediate southern neighbour, abandoning for instance a programme to allow Mexican trucks to use US roads. Yet the case for stronger integration between the two countries is arguably far stronger than for Turkish integration into the EU, with Mexico embroiled in serious drug related violence whose ultimate cause lies in demand within its northern neighbour and whose consequences might also spill north. It would be nice to hear Mr Obama make the case for North American integration as strongly as he makes it for European.

Briefing: The world in concert

Each Sunday this blog briefs the basic background information on a major international event recently in the news. This week: The G20 gathers in London.

The most highly anticipated global summit since the end of the Cold War took place in London on April 2nd, as the G20 - 19 of the world's most powerful countries, plus the EU - gathered to discuss the economic crisis. Following the previous G20 meeting in Washington last November, this week's event cemented the place of the most powerful developing countries, such as China, India, and Brazil, at the top table of global economic governance, and diminished the importance of the G8 - the club of developed democracies (plus Russia) which had hitherto acted as the preeminent forum of the global economy. The leaders at the G20 agreed to a tripling of the resources of the International Monetary Fund, measures against tax havens and strengthened global financial regulation.

On the whole, the summit must be deemed a success. By simply not collapsing in protectionist bickering it gave a certain degree of confidence that the leaders of the world will overcome divisive national interests to promote the measures the world economy needs to recover. The strengthened IMF will be able to lend vital funds to economies in acute need, reducing the likelyhood of a catastrophic series of national bankruptcies. Yet there is a sense that the G20 largely ignored the current crisis in favour of preventing future troubles and pursuing distractions.

An overhaul of financial regulation, whilst clearly necessary to avoid a repeat of the bubble and crunch of the last decade, won't aid the global economy in the short term, whilst tax havens are an annoyance to national exchequers, not an impediment to recovery. Despite facing the worst synchronised global slump since the 1930s, EU leaders blocked US and Japanese pressure for a coordinated fiscal stimulus, which would have seen governments around the world pump more money into their economies in unison. Because of the spillover effects of government spending - increasing demand for other countries' exports as well as domestic production - coordinated stimuli are generally much more effective than each government acting alone, but governments in Europe felt that they had already spent enough and feared the long term effect of further spending on their national debt. Still, with many of the details of the promises already made still to be elaborated, the G20 set the meet again in the autumn, and the economic crisis still far from over, further coordinated government action in the near future on any of these issues should not be ruled out.

The Fogh settles

After the big powers backed him a few weeks ago, the NATO summit in Strasbourg has confirmed Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as the alliance's next Secretary General. The appointment had seemed in doubt until the summit itself, with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan angry over Mr Rasmussen's role in the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy in 2005 - which even gave their Italian counterpart Silvio Berlusconi an excuse to delay the start of the 60th anniversary gathering in an apparent attempt to rescue the situation from his mobile phone.

Whether through Mr Berlusconi's antics or calmer council, Turkey has dropped its concerns and Mr Rasmussen is in. This is to welcomed, and not just because he should make a decent civilian leader of the transatlantic military machine. Mr Erdogan's concession follows a vote in the tarnished United Nations Human Rights Council on March 26th pushing for laws against the 'defamation of religion', backed by many Islamic governments seeking to redefine 'human rights' as defending faiths from criticism rather than individuals from persecution.

For the foremost alliance of the democratic world to have come to prolonged discord over an issue of freedom of expression would have been worrying at any time, but at this particular juncture would have sent a very concerning encouraging signal to those governments who use the law to crush the freedom of others in the name of defending a faith. Mr Erdogan - as the midly Islamist Prime Minister of a strategically vital and populous Muslim-majority state which has traditionally been governed by a secular elite - must always chart a careful course when the river of religion runs into the lake of foreign relations. He has chosen to keep the good-ship Turkey pointed in the same direction as the rest of the NATO fleet, and should be praised for doing so.

Arabian NATO

With the G20 gathering having come to an end, its transatlantic participants now move to Strasbourg to join their NATO partners at the alliance's 60th anniversary summit. The largely symbolic moments will be France's reintegration into the central command and the addition of two new Balkan members: Croatia and Albania. The substance will be the discussion over Afghanistan. President Obama did his best today to scare European audiences into backing a greater commitment from their governments. But NATO's Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer has already made clear that the alliance doesn't expect Europe to suddenly produce significant numbers of troops. Indeed, it doesn't even expect Europe to put forward much more cash to pay for the operation - with an estimated $2bn a year needed to pay and train the Afghan army.

As Mr de Hoop Scheffer said, "it is difficult to see how Nato allies – given the enormous amounts they are spending keeping forces there – can bring in $2bn a year. It’s impossible for them.” Instead, the alliance is turning to countries beyond. A 'big-tent' meeting in the Hague on Tuesday was attended by “the potential major donor states – Japan, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states", as Mr de Hoop Scheffer described them. With their economies in turmoil, it is easy to understand why European governments do not want the added burden of stumping up yet more cash for a seemingly distant war. Yet with oil prices below the break-even point for many Gulf State budgets, and Japanese GDP set to plunge 6.6% this year according to OECD estimates, the 'potential major donors' are hurting just as much as the Europeans, and are just as distant from the action.

That they are nevertheless willing to pay up, suggests that they feel they need to help the Americans, because one day they might need the Americans to help them - a calculation which is no longer valid for European states. Europe doesn't face an assertive Iran, Israel or China - Russia is as yet too weak to seriously threaten the old West. As the world stands, Europe doesn't seem to think it worth taking American requests seriously. How long that attitude lasts may well determine how low Europe's power sinks in the world.

G'bye

The G20 summit in London has come to an end, without any real acrimony and with the ability to claim concrete progress in terms of a much enlarged IMF. The world isn't out of its economic funk yet, but that this summit was no repeat of the infamous London Economic Conference of 1933, which collapsed in bitter protectionist feuding which only further fueled the depression then unfolding, bodes well for future successes in this new order of international diplomacy. A further G20 meeting looks certain by the end of the year, with New York and Tokyo the current front-runners as hosts.

Two questions going forward. Will we see a sense of a community of nations spilling over into both domestic politics and other international organs? And what relevance now for G8, and its meeting in Italy in July on the island of Maddalena in the Strait of Bonifacio - a body of water twixt Sardinia and Corsica which Wikipedia informs us "is notorious among sailors for its weather, currents, shoals, and other obstacles"? As I have argued elsewhere, a tighter knit body of developed democracies such as the G8 (if we quietly ignore the presence of Russia) is more important now than ever. Its fate rests in the attention and effort its country's leaders are prepared to put into it.