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PONARS Eurasia has just published my memo on Russian naval shipbuilding from our September policy conference. I’m reposting it here. Lots of other very interesting memos are available on the PONARS website.

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Russia’s takeover of Crimea in 2014 and subsequent reinforcement of the region’s military forces have been combined with a general increase in naval activity—including aggressive activity vis-à-vis NATO countries’ maritime interests beyond the Black Sea. All this has led to increased international interest in Russian naval modernization plans. Although this modernization effort is going slowly, the Russian Navy’s ability to place effective long-range cruise missiles on relatively small ships means that Russia remains a serious regional maritime power with the capability to threaten not only its neighbors but much of Europe in the event of a conflict.

Russian Naval Construction Plans

Strategic nuclear deterrence will remain the number one mission of the Russian Navy in the coming decades. For this reason, the construction of Russian nuclear submarines has received priority financing and has been largely insulated from budget cuts.

The main new submarine projects include the following:

• Borei-class ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), which will replace the remaining Delta III and Delta IV submarines over the next 15 years. Three are commissioned, 3 are under construction, and 2 more are contracted.
• Yasen-class nuclear-powered submarines (SSNs), which are large and expensive. One is currently commissioned and a total of 8 are planned. Only 2 are likely to be completed by 2020 due to financial constraints on construction.
• New, smaller, and cheaper nuclear submarines. Two versions:  one designed for protecting naval strike groups against attack submarines and the other to be armed with cruise missiles. Construction on these submarines will start in 1-2 years, with a production goal of 16-18 of them in service by 2040.
• Kalina-class diesel submarine with air independent propulsion (AIP). This will serve as the successor to the Lada-class submarine. Although the head of the Navy has said that an AIP design will be complete by the end of 2016, it is unclear how much progress has actually been made.

As for surface ships, the Navy is primarily building small ones at present, while finalizing designs for larger ships for the future. The main projects include:

• Admiral Gorshkov-class frigates (FFG). Construction of these ships has been unusually slow even by the glacial pace of recent Russian shipbuilding. Eight are currently under construction, with the first scheduled to be commissioned this year. At the current rate of construction, the Navy can expect to have 5 ships of this class by 2025, and 9 by 2030.
• Admiral Grigorovich-class frigates (FFG) (updated Soviet design). Six have been ordered to fill the gap left by the slow construction of the Admiral Gorshkov-class frigates. Construction of the last three ships has been suspended due to the end of military cooperation with Ukraine, which produced the gas turbines for these ships.
• Steregushchiy-class corvette (FFC). Four ships are in active service, 7 are under construction, and 9 more are under contract. Eighteen were originally planned to be built by 2020, although delays associated with Western sanctions are likely to reduce this number to 12-14.
• Admiral Bykov-class corvette (FFC). Two are under construction, with 4 more under contract and a total of 12 expected to be built over the next 10-15 years. These ships are expected to have greater range and more self-sufficiency than their predecessors.
• Buyan-M-class missile ships (PFG). These small ships are designed to be used primarily in the Caspian Flotilla and Black Sea Fleet. Three are in service, 2 are in sea trials, and 4 are under construction.
• Lider-class 15,000-ton nuclear destroyers (DDG). Construction is scheduled to begin in 2018-2019, with a goal of 12 in the fleet by 2035. Some analysts argue that financial limitations mean only 3-4 of these ships will be built.
• New large amphibious ships (LHD). These would have at least 14,000-ton displacement and be capable of conducting expeditionary missions. Construction of these ships is likely to start before 2020.

The Feasibility of Russian Shipbuilding Plans

Official statements related to naval shipbuilding give the appearance that the Russian Navy is undergoing a rapid revival. However, the reality is that many of these projects have faced lengthy delays and cost overruns. As a result, some of the most prominent naval procurement projects have been scaled back while others have been postponed for years at a time.

The main reasons for these delays and cost overruns involve a) long-term decline in naval research and development; b) an inability to modernize the shipbuilding industry, which is considered to be particularly outdated and poorly structured as compared to other sectors of the Russian defense industry (and has suffered more than other sectors due to Western sanctions); and c) pre-existing budgetary constraints that have been exacerbated in recent years by Russia’s economic downturn.

Russia’s current shipbuilding industry was primarily formed in the 1960-70s, and its ship design capabilities have changed little since the early 1980s. As a result, Russian naval research and development (R&D) has fallen several decades behind Western and Asian capabilities. Russian leaders recognized this problem in the late 2000s and sought to absorb Western knowledge through joint projects, such as the Russian version of the French Mistral amphibious assault ship. In addition, they organized joint projects with foreign designers such as Saipem, Wartsila, and STX in civilian shipbuilding. However, the freezing of military cooperation with NATO states in 2014 as a result of the Ukraine conflict has largely foreclosed the possibility of catching up by borrowing Western know-how. Russian naval R&D is therefore likely to remain significantly behind when compared to the Western state-of-the-art.

Western sanctions have also resulted in major problems with the production of ship components, particularly in navigation and communication equipment. Most of these components are not produced domestically in Russia, and the industry has long been dependent on imports from Europe for high quality components. Efforts to start domestic production are underway, but prices for domestic variants are relatively high while quality is relatively low.

Although it has improved somewhat in recent years, shipbuilding is one of the more poorly performing sectors of Russia’s defense industry. Russian analysts argue that Russia’s United Shipbuilding Corporation is the least effective of all state corporations in Russia’s defense sector. This results from its excessive size, bloated management structures, and misguided efforts to combine military and civilian shipbuilding under a single corporate roof.

Financial Constraints

The State Armament Program (SAP) for 2011-2020 assigned five trillion rubles—a quarter of its total expenditures—to military shipbuilding. This amount was almost double the amount allocated to the ground forces and airborne forces combined. According to Russian analysts, currently announced naval procurement plans would require the amount of spending on military shipbuilding to increase to six to seven trillion rubles for the next SAP.

That said, funding the existing SAP through 2020 was beyond the means of the Russian government even prior to the budget crisis that began in 2014. While the percentage of Russian GDP devoted to military spending increased from 1.5 percent in 2010 to 3.4 percent in 2014, this higher level of spending was sustainable for the Russian economy at the time. However, 70 percent of the program’s expenditures were scheduled for the second half of the ten-year program. Since Russia’s economic growth was already slowing, fulfilling these plans would have required Russian military spending to increase to unsustainable levels of 6-8 percent of GDP even without the cuts in Russia’s government budget required by the collapse of world oil prices.

Potential Russian Navy Order of Battle, 2020-2030

The following tables are based on the Russian Navy’s announced construction plans, modified by an analysis of the financial and industrial constraints the Navy faces. These show that the Navy will substantially renew its submarines and small ships over the next fifteen years while it will just be starting on construction of a new generation of large surface combat ships.

Table 1. Submarines in the Russian Navy

Class 2020 2025 2030 Delta III 0 0 0 Delta IV 6 5-6 0-2 Borei 6 8-10 10-12 Sierra I & II, Victor III 0 0 0 Oscar 6 6 4-6 Akula 6 6 4-6 Yasen 2-3 6-8 6-8 New class SSGN 0 4-6 6-10 Kilo (project 877) 10-15 5-10 0 Improved Kilo (project 636.3) 6 6 6 Lada (project 677) 3 3 3 Kalina 0 4-6 6-10

The Russian Navy plans to have 12 SSBNs in active service by 2020. The three remaining Delta III SSBNs will be retired by this point, with six Borei-class SSBNs taking their place in the fleet. All six Delta IV SSBNs will most likely be retired in 2025-30. The Navy is planning to overhaul six Oscar-class guided-missile submarines (SSGNs) and six Akula-class SSNs, which will extend their lifespan by 12-15 years. Older classes, such as the Sierra and Victor III, will be retired before 2020. Yasen-class construction will proceed slowly, with no new orders expected after the current set of 6-8 are completed. Instead, the Navy will focus on the new class of nuclear submarines currently being designed. Older Kilo-class diesel submarines will be gradually retired as the Kalina-class begins to enter service in the early 2020s. The recently built improved Kilo-class and Lada-class submarines will serve as a bridge until a sufficient number of the Kalina-class are constructed.

Table 2. Large Combat Ships

Class 2020 2025 2030 Kuznetsov CV 1 1 1 Kirov CGN 1 2-3 2-3 Slava CG 2 3 3 Sovremennyi DDG 0 0 0 Udaloy DDG 8 7 4-5 Lider DDG 0 0-1 4-6 Krivak I & II FFG 0-2 0 0 Neustrashimyi FFG 2 2 1-2 Admiral Grigorovich FFG 3-5 3-6 3-6 Admiral Gorshkov FFG 2-4 4-6 8-10

The Navy is currently refurbishing its cruisers. The program should be complete by 2025, although it is not yet clear whether the Admiral Lazarev Kirov-class cruiser will be modernized or decommissioned. All Sovremennyi-class destroyers will be decommissioned before 2020, while six Udaloy-class destroyers will be modernized to extend their lifespan through the early 2030s. The total number of Admiral Grigorovich frigates to be constructed will depend on the state of defense cooperation with Ukraine. If no agreement can be reached on purchasing gas turbines for these ships, only three will be commissioned.

Table 3. Small combat ships

Class 2020 2025 2030 Grisha  FFC 18-20 8-10 0 Parchim FFC 7 5-7 0-3 Steregushchii FFC 12-14 20-24 20-24 Admiral Bykov FFC 4-6 6-12 12-15 Gepard FFL 2 2 2 Tarantul PFG 13-15 8-10 0-3 Nanuchka PFG 8-10 0-4 0 Bora PFG 2 2 2 Buyan PG 3 3 3 Buyan-M/Sarsar PFG 12-14 20-24 30-32

The overall number of small combat ships is expected to remain fairly steady over the next fifteen years. The older classes of corvettes and missile ships will be gradually retired as new corvettes and missile ships are commissioned. The new Sarsar-class of missile ships that has been announced recently will be a further modification of the Buyan-M-class and will be built in the 2020s.

Table 4. Amphibious ships

Class 2020 2025 2030 Ropucha LST 12-15 8-10 0 Alligator LST 2-4 0 0 Ivan Gren LST 2 2 2 New class LST 0-1 2-3 6-8 New class LHD 0 0 2-3

The overall number of amphibious ships is likely to decrease over the next fifteen years due to the retirement of Ropucha-class tank landing ships (LST). The overall amphibious capability of the Navy will nonetheless increase as the replacement LSTs will be larger and more capable than the ships they are replacing, while the helicopter landing ships (LHD) will add a capability that the Navy has not previously possessed.

Implications

Regardless of what long-term development path the  Russian Navy chooses to pursue, in the near to medium term it will remain almost exclusively a coastal defense and deterrence force. For the foreseeable future, the strength of the Navy will be in its submarines. Under any development scenario, Russian SSBNs will retain an adequate strategic deterrence capability. Meanwhile, Russian SSGNs will be sufficient to protect the SSBNs and deter enemy naval forces from attacks on Russian territory. These forces will be supported by a new generation of small- and medium-sized combat ships, most of which will be equipped with anti-ship and land-attack cruise missiles. These naval forces will be fully sufficient to ensure Russian dominance in neighboring waters.

They will not, however, provide Russia with the forces to make it even a near-peer competitor to the U.S. Navy. Even under the most optimistic projections, the  Russian Navy will not have a serious expeditionary capability for at least 15 years. Planning for large amphibious ships and aircraft carriers is still very much in the early stages.  Whether the Navy should build either type of ship is still highly disputed among both the expert community and military planners. If they are built in the numbers currently being discussed and in the most likely timelines, then the United States may have to be prepared to deal with expeditionary Russian forces in the mid-to-late 2030s. It is far more likely, however, that financial and industrial limitations will lead to the cancellation or significant reduction of plans to develop a naval expeditionary capability.

Furthermore, out-of-area deployment capability is likely to deteriorate in the medium term as legacy Soviet-era large combat ships age and become less reliable. This trajectory will depend to some extent on the ability of the Russian Navy to successfully modernize its existing cruisers and Udaloy-class destroyers. If these programs are all carried out as currently planned, then the Navy will be able to continue to deploy large combat ships in numbers and frequency comparable to present-day rates until the next generation of destroyers are ready in the late 2020s. If these programs are fulfilled only partially or not at all, however, by 2025 the Navy will have few if any large combat ships capable of deploying regularly outside the immediate vicinity of their bases.

Overall, in the next 10-15 years the Russian Navy will most likely be good enough to defend the Russian coastline and ports. It will also be capable of posing a threat to its smaller neighbors and potentially to European NATO member states. The main source of the threat will be Russian ships’ ability to launch land attack cruise missiles from a distance of up to 2500 kilometers away from the target. The launch of cruise missile strikes against targets in Syria from small ships in the Caspian Sea in October 2015 was a demonstration of this capability that was not lost on NATO planners or neighboring states. Ships capable of carrying out similar strikes could be based in the Black or Baltic Sea, where they would be well protected by ship-based and coastal air defenses. The construction of a fairly sizeable fleet of small missile ships and corvettes equipped with land attack cruise missiles, combined with a strong layered coastal air defense capability, obviates to a large extent the need to build a sizeable fleet of large combat ships. Russian missile ships will be able to target most of its smaller neighbors and a large part of Europe without leaving the relative safety of enclosed seas where Russian forces are dominant.

In summary, although the Russian Navy will continue to have problems with its platforms, its offensive capabilities will increasingly not be dependent on the size and range of its ships. The new generation of ships will allow the Navy to mount new generations of long-range cruise missiles in a modular fashion on a variety of platforms. While the Navy will not be able to project power globally or reach the levels of the U.S. Navy, it will be able to target U.S. allies in Europe and states it wants to influence on its borders. Since these countries are likely to be its primary targets in any case, Russia’s naval capabilities will be good enough to achieve Russia’s main maritime military goals in the short to medium term.

Le 25 octobre 2015, quatre militaires du 11e régiment d’artillerie de marine (11e RAMa), engagés à Toulouse dans le cadre de l’opération SENTINELLE, ont participé au marathon en relais organisé par la ville.

Az osztrák-szlovén határ már a schengeni övezeten belül van. Ott elvileg nem akadályozhatják az átkelést.

L’immensité désertique et l’étendue de la zone d’action figurent parmi les contraintes dont doit s’affranchir la force Barkhane. Dans ce contexte, la composante aéromobile occupe un rôle majeur dans la conduite des opérations. Permettant d’accroître la mobilité et d’inverser le principe d’incertitude, elle apporte à la force la capacité de mener, à l’endroit et au moment qu’elle choisit, des actions de feu, de renseignement et de mouvement, en appui et en complément des troupes déployées au sol.

Du 11 au 15 octobre 2015, l’équipage de la frégate anti-aérienne Cassard, déployé dans le golfe Arabo-Persique dans le cadre de l’opération Chammal, a effectué une escale à Koweït. Pendant cette escale, le commandant et une délégation de l’état-major du Cassard ont été reçus par les officiers français insérés au sein du CJTF-OIR, l’état-major opératif qui commande les forces de la coalition de l’Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR).

Près de 80 survols de zones sensibles depuis un an, mais le phénomène est en très forte baisse

A referendum is intended to settle a political debate by offering a straight choice on a controversial issue such as “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union?” But the forthcoming UK referendum will do nothing of the kind. Whatever the outcome, the result will be just one stage in a never-ending process in which the UK drifts further away from mainstream Europe at a time when economic interdependence is drawing most EU member states closer together.

The UK’s referendum is the culmination of a decade of pressure from eurosceptic MPs within the Conservative Party. Prime Minister David Cameron has never been engaged with the EU or understood its politics. His indifference was first demonstrated by forcing Conservative MEPs to withdraw from the European People’s Party. It was spectacularly demonstrated in 2011 when his late-night demands in the name of British interests led to the UK’s self-exclusion from negotiations about how to deal with the consequences of the eurozone crisis. The threat of the mass defection of Conservative voters to anti-EU candidates of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) led him to pledge a referendum on EU membership. Winning an absolute majority in last May’s general election made it impossible for him to wriggle out of that pledge.

To appease both the Tory party’s hard and soft eurosceptic MPs, Cameron has publicly committed himself to returning significant powers from Brussels to the House of Commons in Westminster. This is presented as a zero-sum conflict with the faceless bureaucrats of Brussels. If victory can be claimed, he will endorse a vote in favour of the UK remaining in the European Union. If not, he will recommend withdrawal. Leaked documents indicate that privately he wants Britain to remain in the EU, but the less he secures as concessions the greater will be the split in his own party.

If a member government’s demands are voiced in the name of the national interest, they are usually rejected. The UK’s claim that it should be allowed to opt out of the EU commitment to the free movement of people between member states was a good example of that. By presenting a reduction in regulation by Brussels as in Britain’s national interest rather than everyone’s interest, Cameron has minimised his chances of forging alliances with other reform-minded member governments. The UK’s desire to protect the City of London from the effects of eurozone policies addresses British anxieties about future eurozone policies. Although these anxieties are shared by eurozone member states, they will not allow a non-member state to veto actions they think needed to keep the eurozone intact. The symbolic demand for the UK to opt out of the Treaty of Rome’s commitment to an ever-closer union can only be met authoritatively by a treaty change unlikely to occur until after 2020.

Downing Street believes that a ballot sooner will make a ‘Remain’ vote easier. The Referendum bill requires that a vote be held by the end of 2017, but a vote before Easter of that year is the latest date a referendum could be held without the additional confusion arising from the French and German elections. Britain will, furthermore, be chairing the European Council in the second half of 2017.

Domestically, the Prime Minister has played on Westminster’s ignorance of Europe and EU matters to portray trivial or counter-productive incidents as triumphs. His cordial personal relations with Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel have been exploited as showing that Berlin will ensure Brussels delivers what Cameron wants. A whirlwind series of phone calls and flying visits this year to the other 27 members of the European Council has been portrayed as a successful bid to win influence, even though the only visible gains are favourable headlines in Britain.

Most member states are probably prepared to discuss concessions with the UK, but it is not their only priority. At the mid-year European Council meeting, Cameron was given ten minutes to present his thoughts – one continental leader described this as good for a toilet break. The post-Council communiqué devoted 25 words to his statement and said the issue would be looked at again in December.

Belatedly, Britain’s Prime Minister has realised he cannot achieve substantial concessions from Brussels in time for his self-imposed commitment to an early referendum. To avoid having to admit failure, he has been slow to define the changes that he regards as sufficient to justify a Remain vote. This tactic is designed to enable Cameron to claim for domestic consumption that whatever powers can be reclaimed are what he has wanted all along, however limited they turn out to be.

Cameron is committed to presenting whatever he gains as a triumph, but the anti-EU Conservatives in parliament and the media will define it as falling well short of what they want. Their first line of attack will be that the package contains few actual changes in EU rules and a lot of statements about the intention to consider British concerns in ongoing deliberations about the eurozone, migration and an intergovernmental conference on treaty change. A second line of attack will be the familiar refrain that today’s EU is not the EU that Britain joined in 1973. Since the few fig leaves that Cameron secures will not protect the UK from the EU’s inherent moves toward an ever-closer Union, eurosceptics will argue that the sooner Britain gets out of the EU the better.

The reductionist nature of a ‘Stay or Go’ vote on membership means that the details of negotiation will be less important than the broad political picture. That will be confused by the split in the Conservative Party. A yet to be determined number of Cabinet ministers and MPs will publicly come out for a ‘Leave’ vote, and so will a significant portion of the 37% of the electorate that voted in May for the Conservative government. The Labour Party, itself in the toils of an ideological civil war in which EU membership is increasingly contested, will probably try to avoid official engagement. But trade unions opposed to the eurozone’s austerity policy can put their money behind the Leave campaign. UKIP will campaign for a Leave vote from working-class voters left behind by globalisation.

The most committed advocates of EU membership are business people. Insofar as the British economy is doing better than those of continental EU countries, this will increase their personal authority but will also strengthen the case made by anti-EU businessmen who argue that the UK economy is strong enough to do well or better outside a political union that gives priority to saving the euro. Business leaders may have money but they have little expertise or taste for campaigning. The Scottish National Party is set to be the leading party in the UK that will campaign for a Stay  vote; it wants Scotland to stay in Europe but leave the United Kingdom. The lack of the major parties’ enthusiasm for campaigning will keep the referendum turnout low, and if the uncertainties of withdrawal produce a risk-averse vote for remaining in the EU as the lesser evil, it will be a shallow commitment to membership.

Whatever the outcome, the never-ending debate about Britain’s engagement with the EU will continue. Even if it’s a vote to remain, Conservative MPs will challenge Cameron to harass Brussels to deliver the repatriation of powers he claimed would be forthcoming. And the Prime Minister’s announced decision to leave office before the next general election is already opening an internal competition to succeed him. Contestants divide between those who are vociferously anti-EU and those who express more doubts than commitments about British engagement with Europe. If UKIP can use the referendum campaign to compensate for its lack of seats in the House of Commons, it will exert fresh pressure on Conservative MPs to represent anti-EU voters rather than defend Cameron’s achievements.

This referendum will not be the end of the story. If any EU measure is deemed a transfer of sovereign powers under criteria laid down in the UK’s 2011 European Union Act, this will trigger another referendum about whether the United Kingdom should adopt it. The additional power need not be the result of a treaty change; it can be the result of Qualified Majority Voting in Council or the accidental by-product of legislation.

An increasingly introverted cohort of British political leaders will hope that British economic success can distract attention from the debate about the EU. However, silence has its costs. It means that the British government has no answer to the challenge that former U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson voiced more than half a century ago when he said Britain has lost an empire but it has yet to find a role.

The post The UK referendum is a neverendum appeared first on Europe’s World.

BBVA
Rechtsangleichung
Die Frist für einen Einspruch gegen die Vollstreckung von Hypotheken, die in Spanien zum Zeitpunkt der Durchführung eines Urteils des Gerichtshofs bereits eingeleitet war, ist mit dem Unionsrecht unvereinbar

BBVA
Approximation of laws
The time-limit for challenging mortgage enforcement proceedings in progress when a judgment of the Court of Justice was implemented in Spain is contrary to EU law

BBVA
Jogszabályok közelítése
The time-limit for challenging mortgage enforcement proceedings in progress when a judgment of the Court of Justice was implemented in Spain is contrary to EU law

BBVA
Rapprochement des législations
Le délai d’opposition pour contester les saisies hypothécaires dont l’exécution était en cours au moment de la mise en œuvre d’un arrêt de la Cour en Espagne est contraire au droit de l’Union

There are concerning parallels between pre-1914 Europe and today’s security tensions in maritime Asia. The Asia-Pacific region has been witnessing an emerging bifurcation between a 21st century economic order geared towards integration, and a regional security order with an increasingly sharp, 19th century edge.

Leaders in Asia can nevertheless draw policy lessons from Europe’s recent history. It was, in part, this tragic history of competing nationalisms that led me, as Prime Minister of Australia, to propose an Asia-Pacific Community (APC). When I launched this initiative back in 2008, I stressed that although the great powers of the Asia-Pacific region may live in harmony today, history should remind us not to assume that ‘peace in our time’ can ever be guaranteed. That was seven years ago. And as we all know, security tensions in the region have now become much sharper.

An APC would, of course, be significantly different from the original concepts of European co-operation. The Asia-Pacific region itself is vastly different to Europe. The history of 20th century Asia has primarily been a colonial and post-colonial history. By contrast, Europeans over the same period were the colonisers. Europe has evolved the notion of the nation-state steadily since the 15th century, whereas this was less formal across Asia. Further, despite its division into often competing nation-states, and despite the wars of religion, Europe evolved from a common Judeo-Christian and Greco-Roman culture, whereas that is not the case with the vastly different civilisational trajectories of Asia.

“The challenge for Asia-Pacific leaders is to square the circle by recognising the uniqueness of Asian regionalism, while avoiding Europe’s mistakes by drawing pertinent lessons from its history”

We can, however, see the need in both Europe and Asia for the evolution of a common political and security architecture to manage regional tensions. The same idea of a long-term Asia-Pacific Community comes from this premise. An APC would foster deeper inter-dependence over time, together with new habits of transparency, trust and co-operative norms. Such mechanisms could help Asia cope with crises by managing them peacefully and reducing the strategic polarisation we are beginning to see emerge between Washington and Beijing. The concept of an APC could begin with basic confidence and security-building measures between regional states.

I did not think then, nor do I think now, that it would be easy to create an APC overnight. It would take years of consensus building. Back in 2008, I nominated 2020 as a realistic objective for the establishment of an APC with the membership, mandate and institutional muscle to make a difference to regional security.

The long menu of traditional and non-traditional security challenges confronting Asia has not changed fundamentally since I first proposed the Asia-Pacific Community seven years ago. What has changed is the way these challenges have become more salient and more urgent. The great power harmony we seemed to enjoy in 2008 now resembles the halcyon days of a distant past.

The Asia-Pacific security order is under significant strain from rising strategic frictions among great powers and regional states, driven in large part by a series of unresolved territorial disputes. Asia’s economic order, long built on the back of trade liberalisation, also shows signs of bifurcation between trading blocs that seek to exclude one another.

Watching these trends unfold, the intellectual and political leaders of the Asia-Pacific region face a clear-cut choice. The first is to look on aghast as events shape our future. The second is to accept that our future “is not in our stars, but in ourselves”. If we lean towards the second school of thought, as I believe all national leaders in Asia do, then the next question to ask is: What can we do to steer the course of events away from these rocky shoals?

Building an APC by 2020 is one possible objective for Asia. Throughout 2009, I outlined my vision of an APC to senior officials and heads of state at the Shangri-La Dialogue, the East Asia Summit and at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. In an effort to open a regional discussion, the Australian government hosted a conference on the APC that year, and appointed a senior official to travel to 21 countries to consult with more than 300 officials, 30 ministers and eight national leaders. Five points of consensus emerged. Back then, there was:

• A high level of regional interest in the APC proposal;
• A recognition that existing institutions could not adequately manage the region’s full range of economic, security and political challenges;
• A limited appetite for the creation of new institutions in addition to existing ones;
• An agreement that ASEAN must be at the core of any future APC;
• There was strong interest in giving more substance to the APC proposal.

The Asia Society Policy Institute in New York, which I joined as inaugural President last year, has launched a Policy Commission to consider the future of Asia-Pacific regional architecture, including the possibility of an APC. Our ongoing work aims to advance consensus on the reform of regional architecture, and to elaborate the details of what an Asia-Pacific Community might look like in practice.

An early critique of the APC proposal concerned whether an EU-type institution was an appropriate model for the Asia-Pacific region. The EU is by no means a one-size-fits-all model which Asian leaders should simply impose on the region. As noted above, our history, security challenges and strategic context are starkly different, so any Asia-Pacific Community should be built on a foundation of common regional norms and foreign policy realities. We cannot understand Asia’s history and future needs solely through “Western spectacles… by imitating the tinsel of the West,” as Gandhi said in 1947. It is for good historical reasons that Asian regionalism is and will be different to that of Europe.

When building the EU on the ashes of World War 2, exhausted European empires slowly contracted and withdrew from Asia. Asian states simultaneously rediscovered national sovereignties and political independence that all except Thailand had lost for a century. Whereas Europe sought innovative ways to dilute national sovereignty – which the EU’s founders blamed for the war – Asian states sought to preserve and protect their hard-earned sovereignty. This is the reason that Asian regionalism is based on the principle of non-interference and a stronger state-centric regional order than that which prevails in modern Europe.

“The EU is by no means a one-size-fits-all model which Asian leaders should simply impose on the region. Our history, security challenges and strategic context are starkly different”

At the 1947 Asian Relations Conference in New Delhi, one of the earliest attempts at Asian regionalism, delegates resisted setting up a permanent regional body. The 1955 regional conference at Bandung in Indonesia again decided not to bureaucratise Asian regionalism. It was not until 1967 that we saw the founding of ASEAN, then APEC in 1989, the ASEAN Regional Forum in 1994, and the East Asia Summit in 2005.

The differences between Asian and European regionalism shouldn’t blind us to the fact that even though history doesn’t repeat itself, it often rhymes. I stand by what I said in 2008: what we can learn from Europe is that it is necessary to take the first step. In the 1950s, sceptics saw European integration as unrealistic. But most people would now agree that, despite current difficulties in the European economy and the unfolding refugee crisis, Europe’s visionaries have succeeded in evolving a European Union where the thought of one member state going to war again against another is simply unthinkable. That was simply not the case for the Europe of the previous 500 years. It is this spirit we need to capture in the Asia-Pacific.

European history is also a sobering reminder never to take peace for granted. Had a nascent pan-European security institution existed in July 1914, it might have made a decisive difference in leaders’ assumptions and the fateful choices that they made. Without a robust security institution, or even a mature security dialogue, there was no political “shock-absorber” between contending nationalisms. And we should never forget that Europe’s advanced state of economic inter-dependence at the dawn of the 20th century was not enough to prevent war.

Not only has Europe’s integration reduced historical security tensions in Europe. Other institutions have also played a role. For example, without the military transparency and confidence-building measures of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE/OSCE), the Cold War frictions of those times might well have escalated to war. The CSCE didn’t resolve the Cold War and couldn’t prevent crises, but it was often able to create breathing space for pragmatic leaders on both sides to negotiate the keystones of international security – such as the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe.

The challenge for Asia-Pacific leaders is to square the circle by recognising the uniqueness of Asia’s regionalism, without mindlessly repeating centuries of European mistakes. We in Asia need to draw pertinent lessons from Europe’s history.

A possible roadmap towards a future Asia-Pacific Community is as follows:

• Transforming the East Asia Summit into an APC by 2020 based on the existing Kuala Lumpur declaration of the EAS in 2005;
• Bringing the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ meeting under the umbrella of the EAS/APC;
• Establishing a permanent EAS/APC secretariat in an ASEAN capital – Singapore, Kuala Lumpur or Jakarta being the most likely candidates. In time, the region will need its own equivalent of a Brussels-type institution, although without the European model’s pooling of sovereignty;
• Annual meetings at Heads of state and government level to ensure high-level political direction and buy-in. This should be held in the first half of the year as a stand-alone summit, not as a “tack on” to other regional summits like APEC;
• Its first task should be to elaborate a comprehensive set of regional confidence and security-building measures, including military hotlines, transparency measures and pan-regional protocols to handle military incidents at sea and in the air;
• As a second priority is developing a fully integrated natural disaster response mechanism across the region, under an integrated virtual command, in the event of a major environmental, climatological or other incident of regional scale;

None of the above will happen magically in an Asia that is now the subject of increasing polarisation. Setting the region on autopilot would steer us along a certain path – but not necessarily a path of our long-term choosing. Building an Asia Pacific Community must begin today so that we may one day declare, as Jean Monnet wrote to Robert Schuman in 1948, that “we have moved on from preparing for war, and we are now preparing to prevent war.” The EU’s founding fathers disagreed on the practical limitations, the means and the final goal of the European project, but their achievements are undeniable. Speaking of the EU as a potential example for Asia may appear misplaced at a time when a potential Brexit, eurozone growth difficulties and an unresolved refugee crises continue to dominate international news. Nonetheless, the European community succeeded in its historic mission of eliminating centuries-old security dilemmas between France and Germany, and making a modern war at the heart of Europe unthinkable, if not impossible. Ours should be a similar aspiration for Asia.

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