EU Defence Ambitions for 2020

international | eu | other press Friday October 16, 2009 06:07 by Citizen X - ¿? citizenx at hush dot com

From the preamble to the document:

"In January 2002 the Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) became an autonomous Paris-based agency of the European Union. Following an EU Council Joint Action of 20 July 2001, modified by the Joint Action of 21 December 2006, it is now an integral part of the new structures that will support the further development of the CFSP/ESDP [common foreign and security policy and european security and defence policy]. The Institute's core mission is to provide analyses and recommendations that can be of use and relevance to the formulation of the European security and defence policy. In carrying out that mission, it also acts as an interface between European experts and decision-makers at all levels."

From the folks at Wikileaks:

This PDF file presents a 175-paged document entitled "What ambitions for Europeans defence in 2020?". It was produced by the EU Institute for Security Studies, an EU policy think-tank. The document covers long term EU security strategy, including the problems of "hierarchical class society", with the "elite" of the world on one side, and the so-called "bottom billion" on the other. To avoid "global systemic collapse", the document suggests that the "full spectrum of high intensity combat" to be used to protect what is called "globalisers" from "localisers". Localisers, making up 80% of the world population, include the "bottom billion", states in the Middle East and the so-called "Alienated Modern States" like North Korea. Globalisers, notably, include not only members of the OECD and "Rapid Transition Societies" like China and Brasil, but also "Transnational Corporations"—the "Fortune Global 1000".
(The globalising security environment and the EU: Tomas Ries)
In that context the paper elaborates on "barrier operations shielding the global rich from the tensions and problems of the poor". It reads that "as the ratio of the world population living in misery and frustration will remain massive, the tensions and spillover between their world and that of the rich will continue to grow. As we are unlikely to have solved this problem at its root by 2020 - i.e. by curing dysfunctional societies we will need to strengthen our barriers. It is a morally distasteful, losing strategy, but will be unavoidable if we cannot solve the problems at their root." "