Relatively speaking, it is often felt that Europe was more stable and much more hassle-free immediately after World War II, but from the 90s onwards hardly a year passed with no crisis of some sort or the other: banking crisis, sovereign debt crisis, political crisis emanating from Russia’s annexation of Crimea and moral crisis resulting from the recent refugee crisis plagued EU. While the leadership is engaged in handling the challenges posed by these crises, intellectuals have often blamed the introduction of the Euro as the primary cause of all the catastrophes, while another segment blamed the enlargement of the EU from the initial 15 to 28 countries for their further flare-up.

Aside the unrelenting tumult that the EU has been facing for the last two decades and the reasons thereof, what is glaringly visible and surprising to the rest of the world is: EU leadership’s constant attempt to push off the day of reckoning farther and farther, that too, knowing fully well that it is not a sustainable solution. Take the case of Greek debt or the problem of maritime refugees, EU’s policies have proved to be disastrously wrong. Although the UN conventions categorically state that refugees are the responsibility of the country in which they turn up, EU has miserably failed in standing up to its proclaimed values. The result is: many refugees have drowned in the waters.

Interestingly, the current issue has two papers that primarily dwell on the problems being confronted by the Europe of today. The first paper, “European Union and the Conflicts of the International System: European Diplomacy in a Globalized World”, examines how the international relations of the EU have changed after the Cold War. In the process, its author, Csilla Varga, argues that after the Cold War, Europe started building up its own system of cooperation—cooperation among member countries of EU in terms of sharing more areas of decision making that changed the very power structure of these countries. Tracing its relations with external world, the author comments that EU’s diplomacy is always characterized by ‘cooperation’ driven by its rationalist paradigm, which mainly believes in: one, “self-interested rational actors are taking part in the international system; two, their interests are given, and three, society is a place where people come together and follow their interests.” The author states that EU is mainly perceived as a “defender of human rights, democracy, development and struggle against poverty, initiator of peace as a progressive and civil actor”. Yet, the author opines that the EU is a small power for it is militarily weak, politically fragmented, and its strategic behavior is dependent upon American leadership. That said, the author also asserts that “it does not necessarily mean that this character cannot change in the future.”

As an extension, in the second paper of the issue, “Europe’s Struggle with Refugee Crisis: An Analysis”, its author, Sheetal Sharma, arguing that Europe, being perceived as a good place for peaceful living, attracting refugees from war-torn regions of Middle East, North Africa and particularly from Syria, analyzes the challenges and the various aspects of the current refugee crisis of Europe. Besides the challenge of managing the cultural conflicts that the current refugee crisis is all set to cause, the author opines that it is also posing challenges to the very unity and strength of the EU itself. For, such influx of migrants caused bitter recriminations between European governments. There is also fear of threat to national security, for the sneaking in of extremists into their national boundaries cannot be ruled out. Tracing the problem of Syrian exodus to its root cause and believing that it is desirable to root it out, the author calls for looking at the Syrian problem beyond the US and Russia’s perspective.

Moving away from Europe to the Indian subcontinent, we have B Ramesh Babu, the author of the third paper, “The Enduring Challenge of Dialogue with Pakistan”, who drawing our attention to the immutable rule of terrorist atrocity in India—like the recent Pathankot attack—following every apparent political breakthrough between Pakistan and India such as the recent visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Lahore to meet his counterpart, Nawaz Sharif and the resulting show of much hugging and bonhomie leading to a proposal to hold “comprehensive bilateral dialogue” soon, states that India and Pakistan being neighbors cannot disengage themselves from one another. No matter how hostile Pakistan’s military and intelligence establishment is, the author goes on to say that India has to learn to keep the dialogue alive with Pakistan’s civilian government. Turning a tad philosophical and observing that in the international relations, one cannot find solutions at once for every problem, the author advises India to learn to live with the enduring challenge of dealing with Pakistan, for a step by step untangling of knotty issues alone can lead to sustainable peace. At the same time, wondering whether Modi’s muscular approach towards Pakistan will work or not, for future alone can unravel it, Ramesh Babu calls for the support of every Indian, including all political establishments to Modi government’s efforts at de-legitimizing pro-Pak leanings in the state of Jammu and Kashmir by pushing the development agenda forward, and also perhaps, to his open-chest approach in engaging Pakistan to try and change the course of history.

To conclude, we have another interesting paper on terrorism, “The Thorny Nature of a Terrorism Definition in International Law”, in which its author, Inez Braber, tracing the divergence in the understanding of terrorism in international plane—terrorism a crime or war; actus reus and mens rea elements of terrorism—observing that the global community of states has not found adequate means of countering terrorists, proposes to internationally codify terrorism as a distinct crime with universal jurisdiction directed to an international tribunal so that it could be assertively combated.

-- GRK Murty
Consulting Editor