In many professions specialisation is regarded as a virtue. In a hospital the surgeon, the anaesthetist and the nurse have specialised skills. Together they engage in teamwork to cure patients. Yet, when it comes to defence, specialisation has a negative connotation. Contrary to the hospital’s operating theatre, dependency on each other’s armed forces is regarded as a serious, if not unacceptable risk, as a country has to be able to defend itself without relying on capabilities to be provided by other states. In reality, however, interdependence is a fact: European countries have relied on the nuclear deterrent of the United States since the 1950s and with regard to conventional forces, no single European country can provide all necessary capabilities. The question is how European interdependence can be made more effective. The answer must partly lie in specialisation.

This policy brief addresses specialisation in security and defence from the perspective of the ‘Team Europe’ approach of distributing tasks and operating with varying coalitions of European countries in order to make the EU (and in this case also NATO) more effective. It presents a model of structuring European armed forces in specialised groups – an idea that has been proposed in a Clingendael report published earlier this year. First, the Policy Brief lays out the playing field by explaining the model of European capability groups. Next, several options for European capability groups will be proposed. It concludes with listing the implications for the Netherlands.

Authors

Dick Zandee, Head of the Security Unit and Senior Research Fellow at the Clingendael Institute

Towards a European Multistakeholder Approach to Counter Disinformation

Disinformation continues to exacerbate existing political polarizations with effects ranging from discrediting measures against the COVID-19 pandemic to inciting mass violence against the very institutions of democracy itself.

Governments, industry and civil society are struggling to find effective ways to respond to this challenge. Disinformation is a field that lacks consensus for a common unilateral solution due to its enormously complex nature, the wide range of actors involved, and the dilemmas it presents across many issues, such as security and human rights.

Nonetheless, ‘rules of the road’ are needed. Given the relative success that cyber norms have had in establishing a common standard of acceptable behavior, this report asks what kind of international norms can be developed to counter disinformation. And finally, how can these norms be advanced?

This report addresses these questions by proposing:

• a government-to-government “big N Norm” proposal based on noninterference and covert election interference
• a European industry charter of “small n norms” or standards for social media platforms
• a European coregulation model to guide the development of these standards from formulation to implementation
• a Disinformation Sharing and Analysis Center (DISINFO-ISAC) at the European level to operationalize the coregulation model and facilitate threat information sharing and capacity building among social media platforms, and with governments and civil society.

These proposals come at a time when the European self-regulatory approach towards social media companies’ responsibility is shifting towards coregulation. They would therefore inform and strengthen the European Democracy Action Plan and contribute towards a much-needed community of trust in countering disinformation.

The research for and production of this report has been conducted within the PROGRESS research framework agreement. Responsibility for the contents and for the opinions expressed, rests solely with the authors and does not constitute, nor should it be construed as, an endorsement by the Netherlands Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense.

Cover image adapted from 7CO’s “Kundgebung (3) Protest against corona measures” and licensed under CS BY 2.0. Some rights reserved.
 

Authors

• Louk Faesen, Strategic Analyst at the Cyber Policy and Resilience Program of The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies (HCSS)
• Alexander Klimburg, Director of the Cyber Policy and Resilience Program at The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies (HCSS) and director of the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace Initiative and Secretariat
• Simon van Hoeve, Assistant Analyst at The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies (HCSS)
• Tim Sweijs, Director of Research at The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies (HCSS)

As recognition of the economic, military, and strategic relevance of access to and control over the distribution of modern technologies has grown, so, too, has the prevalence of the sentiment that a nation’s technological innovation and capabilities are directly linked to its national security, economic prosperity, and social stability.

This is creating incentives for states to treat access to sensitive technologies as a zero-sum game and to pursue policies to expand national control over and international influence through sensitive technologies. The “geopoliticization” of sensitive technologies – even those which, on first sight, appear banal and/or consumer-focused in nature – are on clear display in debates surrounding European telecom providers’ use of Huawei technologies within their 5G networks, fresh discussions regarding Johnson & Johnson’s purchase of Crucell, and the United Kingdom’s (UK’s) response to NVIDIA’s proposed acquisition of ARM.

Sensitive technologies are, in other words, growing to be more and more closely associated with “European strategic autonomy,” the notion that European Member States should be able to make consequential decisions without being constrained by their relationships with countries like the US or China.

But how do techno-nationalists operate, what can the Netherlands do to protect its sizeable R&D infrastructure from their advances, and to what degree should The Hague look to Brussels for guidance and support?

In collaboration with the Egmont Institute’s Tobias Gehrke, Hugo van Manen, Jack Thompson, and Tim Sweijs outline a policy agenda for countering techno-nationalism in HCSS’ most recent publication; Taming Techno-Nationalism: A Policy Agenda, commissioned by the Dutch Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense. The high-level recommendations are as follows:

• Strengthen critical infrastructure protections.
• Make strategic use of public spending.
• Incentivize increased private spending.
• Develop a more comprehensive deterrence posture.
• Recognize the relevance of EU-level cooperation.

Authors

Hugo van Manen, Strategic Analyst at The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies (HCSS)
Tobias Gehrke, Research Fellow in the Europe in the World Programme at the Egmont Institute
Jack Thompson, Senior Strategic Analyst at The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies (HCSS)
Tim Sweijs, Director of Research at The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies (HCSS)

Contributors

Rob de Wijk, Founder of The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies (HCSS)
Benedetta Girardi, Assistant Analyst at The Hague Center for Strategic Studies (HCSS)
Sneha Mahapatra, Assistant Analyst at The Hague Center for Strategic Studies (HCSS)

Sharing the burden, sharing the secrets

This report discusses the opportunities for enhanced European intelligence cooperation in light of the key challenges facing Europe over the next ten years, as were identified in the Strategic Monitor 2020-2021, Geopolitical Genesis: Dutch Foreign and Security Policy in a Post-COVID World. In light of these challenges and the need to realise European strategic autonomy and deliver on the goals of the EU Strategic Compass for security and defence, closer intelligence and security cooperation by Europe is required.

However, intelligence activities lie at the very heart of national sovereignty, and can perhaps be considered to be the hardest hurdle to cross. Nevertheless, over the years the EU has developed several institutions to facilitate intelligence sharing between its member states and several agencies have been established that collect, analyse and operationalise intelligence in view of the key security challenges.

Within this institutional context, this report assesses the opportunities for enhanced European intelligence cooperation. It argues that there is ample opportunity to increase both the scope and depth of European intelligence cooperation in the years to come. Moreover, the Netherlands can and indeed should play an active role in the development of enhanced intelligence cooperation in and of Europe by making effective use of the presence of three important factors that can help drive European cooperation further: internal demand, external pressure and cooperative momentum.

Authors

Danny Pronk, Senior Research Fellow at the Clingendael Institute
Claire Korteweg, former research intern at the Clingendael Institute

Global partnerships for regional resilience

This report has previously been published by Perth USAsia Centre and Konrad Adenauer Foundation. Senior Research Fellow Maaike Okano-Heijmans has contributed chapter 4 on the Dutch approach to the Indo-Pacific. 

The Indo-Pacific’s centrality to 21st century geopolitics has long been recognised by those in the region. However, as the Indo-Pacific evolves economically and strategically, its importance is increasingly recognised by those outside the region, whose desires for global prosperity and security demand closer engagement with Indo-Pacific dynamics. Foremost amongst these are European governments.

Understanding how European and Indo-Pacific actors will interact with the region is vital to all concerned. There is a need for increased knowledge of where European and Indo-Pacific interests are best-placed to cooperate with one another, on which issues, and through which channels.

This report seeks to locate Europe within the 21st Century Indo-Pacific, analysing how European governments can most effectively engage with Indo-Pacific partners. It highlights the Indo-Pacific approaches of five European powers: the EU, France, Germany, Netherlands and the UK, and how these approaches intersect with those of Japan, Australia, India, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and the United States.

Download report.

Authors

Maaike Okano-Heijmans, Senior Research Fellow at the Clingendael Institute

The case for digital development cooperation

This paper has previously been published by Elsevier.

A focus on digital development cooperation as a cornerstone in Europe’s digital connectivity agenda offers opportunities to act on long-term challenges and addresses several key priorities identified by the European Commission in third countries. This article develops an argument for strengthening Europe’s agenda on digital development cooperation, specifically in the Indo-Pacific region. After first conceptualizing digital development cooperation, we argue that the key reasons for the EU to step up its digital development efforts in the Indo-Pacific region are the societal impact of disruptive technologies; the power shift towards the Indo-Pacific; the expanding clout of the Chinese Digital Silk Road; and the implications of the US-China tech conflict. The EU’s 2030 Digital Compass provides an ideal framework to envision the digital development cooperation initiatives of European and Asian players. The EU can benefit from cooperation and coordination with like-minded partners in the Indo-Pacific.

Read full article here.

Authors 

Maaike Okano-Heijmans, Senior Research Fellow at the Clingendael Institute

Naar duurzame partnerschappen

Migratie is de belangrijkste bron van bevolkingsgroei in Nederland. De Nederlandse bevolking groeide door immigratie met ruim 67.000 mensen in 2020. De meesten van hen kwamen uit andere Europese landen. Door de pandemie is het aantal immigranten overigens fors minder dan in 2019. Maar ondanks corona zal bevolkingsgroei door immigratie weer toenemen, verwacht het CBS.

Uitdaging voor het nieuwe kabinet

Immigratie staat hoog op de agenda in de politiek, maar ook in de samenleving speelt het onderwerp. Migratiedruk op Europese buitengrenzen vanuit het Midden-Oosten en Afrika vinden Nederlanders de grootste bron van zorg voor de veiligheid van Europa, stelde Clingendael vast in een representatief opinieonderzoek afgelopen januari. Tegelijkertijd wordt er, als gevolg van de coronapandemie, rekening gehouden met een economische crisis in Afrika, met nieuwe grote aantallen illegale migranten als gevolg.

Om meer controle te krijgen over migratie heeft Nederland belang bij goede migratiesamenwerking met landen van herkomst en transit. Zij spelen een cruciale rol in het tegengaan van illegale migratie en bij terugkeer van uitgeprocedeerde asielzoekers.

Circulaire migratie kan aan zo’n migratiepartnerschap bijdragen. Het concept: mensen verlaten voor een tijdelijke periode het land van herkomst, om in een ander land te gaan werken (of studeren) in sectoren waar arbeidstekorten zijn. Migranten verwerven inkomen en nieuwe kennis, die ze na een bepaalde periode weer mee terug naar het thuisland nemen. Zo blijft de herkomstlanden brain drain bespaard.

De komst van circulaire migranten kan werkgevers met vacatures in het ontvangende land uit de brand helpen. In sectoren met arbeidsmarkttekorten kunnen meerjarige relaties ontstaan tussen werkgever en migrant. De migrant komt dan elk jaar een periode bij die werkgever werken. Dat is ook in het belang van de migrant: een meerjarig perspectief op werk. Soms kan dit in de tussentijd worden gecombineerd met werkzaamheden voor de Nederlandse werkgever vanuit het herkomstland. Bijvoorbeeld met werken op afstand in de ICT-sector.

Clingendael-directeur Monika Sie:

“Nederland vraagt aan een land als Tunesië om illegale migratie tegen te houden. Dan helpt het wel als de Tunesische regering tegen haar bevolking kan zeggen dat het weliswaar meewerkt aan de Europese agenda van Fort Europa, maar in ruil daarvoor een poort voor legale migratie heeft gerealiseerd”.

Doordat het land van herkomst de uitvalsbasis blijft bij circulaire migratie biedt het voor Nederland ook een antwoord op zorgen over bevolkingsgroei en de gevolgen hiervan voor het Nederlandse woningentekort en het draagvermogen van de verzorgingsstaat.

Kansen voor de glastuinbouw en de ICT-sector

Tegen deze achtergrond deed Clingendael onderzoek naar de mogelijkheden voor circulaire migratie tussen Nederland en Ethiopië, Nigeria en Tunesië, in de glastuinbouw en ICT-sector. Sectoren waarin in Nederland, ondanks de gevolgen van de coronacrisis, arbeidstekorten zijn en die opkomend zijn in deze Afrikaanse landen. Dit rapport gaat over nut, mogelijkheden en moeilijkheden, en voorwaarden voor effectieve legale circulaire migratieprogramma’s vanuit derde landen in Afrika naar Nederland.

Lees rapport.

Bekijk de video explainer met Monika Sie Dhian Ho.

Auteurs

Monika Sie Dhian Ho (algemeen directeur, Instituut Clingendael)

Nienke van Heukelingen (onderzoeker, Instituut Clingendael)

Nadia van de Weem (stagiair, Instituut Clingendael)

Anne van Mulligen (oud-onderzoeker bij Instituut Clingendael en onderzoeker bij Centre for the Politics of Transnational Law (CePTL) VU University & Amsterdam Centre for International Law (ACIL), University of Amsterdam)

Romain Lepla (oud-stagiair, Instituut Clingendael)

The European Union (EU) is developing a Strategic Compass for security and defence, to be ready by March 2022. The first semester of 2021 is the phase of the ‘strategic dialogue’ with the member states and institutions of the EU, including the involvement of think tanks and other stakeholders. Commissioned by the Ministries of Defence and Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, the Clingendael Institute delivers its contribution to the strategic dialogue on the Strategic Compass by focussing on defining more precisely the military level of ambition of the EU and what it implies for capability development and the relationship with NATO.

The EU faces a wider set of challenges and threats than ever before. In the global power rivalry between China, Russia and the United States, it is ‘Europe’ that runs the danger of becoming irrelevant and the object of great power actions rather than being a global actor. The arc of instability around Europe is unlikely to turn into an arc of stability. The challenges posed by state and non-state actors – the latter in particular in the southern neighbourhood – require the EU to respond to external conflicts and crises, to support partners to provide security for their own population and to protect the Union and its citizens – the three strategic priorities for the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) as defined five years ago in the Implementation Plan on Security and Defence. While the EU has made progress in many areas – trade policies, partnerships, civilian crisis management – its military tools have remained weak as a result of a lack of political will and the absence of adequate military means.

The Strategic Compass offers the opportunity to close the gap between ‘too much rhetoric’ and ‘too little action’ that have characterised the EU’s security and defence efforts so far. In recent years, new instruments have been created to improve European defence cooperation – such as the Coordinated Annual Review on Defence (CARD), Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) and the European Defence Fund (EDF) – but these are what they are: without strategic direction instruments tend to become bureaucratic tools rather than the rails on which the train travels to its destination. In the Strategic Compass the EU has to define more precisely its military level of ambition and what it implies for capability development and partnerships. In short, the report tries to answer two questions: (1) what should the EU be able to do, and (2) what is needed to get there? The relationship with NATO has to be taken into account in answering these key questions.

Download report.

Watch our video explainer. 

Authors 

Dick Zandee (Head of Security Unit and Senior Research Fellow, the Clingendael Institute)

Bob Deen (Senior Research Fellow, Coordinator Russia & Eastern Europe Centre, the Clingendael Institute)

Adája Stoetman (Junior Researcher, the Clingendael Institute)

The world is entering a new and highly consequential phase of the Space Age.

This brings with it many threats and opportunities. The Netherlands boasts a productive and innovative space industry. Globally, launch costs have been reduced dramatically. Yet this democratization of space access also brings with it many challenges. Increased access means increased congestion, risk of collisions, space debris and a growing dependence by the Netherlands on space-based infrastructure.

The extra-terrestrial realm contains vast quantities of raw materials which bring the prospect of enormous economic gains. The increasing number of actors operating in space raises the scope for geopolitical competition. This in turn has led major powers to begin militarizing and weaponizing space in support of terrestrial warfighting capabilities on Earth, while moving towards the establishment of extra-terrestrial footholds.

Our new Strategic Alert delves into the challenges and opportunities of the Space Age and how the Netherlands, and the world, should deal with them.

Authors: Hugo van Manen, Tim Sweijs, Patrick Bolder, with contributions from Jens Emmers and Benedetta Girardi.

An essay on European global narrative strategy

A more strategic European narrative is called for. That is, European leaders should more actively engage with the stories they tell and are being told about Europe’s place in the world. This essay problematises the EU global narrative in order to define ways it can be made more competitive in today’s geopolitical discursive arena. It juxtaposes aspects of the European narrative with the discursive moves of China, in order to synthesise elements of a new global narrative for Europe that provides a common sense of purpose with third countries, and that is both competitive and timely. It answers three distinct questions:

• How does the European global narrative currently function?
• Which aspects of the European global narrative are put under pressure by its discursive competition with China?
• And how can EU institutions and European member states contribute to a stronger global narrative strategy?

This essay argues that European leaders should embrace the language of particularism, letting go of universalist value narratives. The European Way of Life is a potentially powerful but underused narrative, through which European leaders can more forcefully explain the existential worth of human rights, democracy and rule of law to Europe. It must dare to speak the language of history, using the ancient civilisational roots of European society as a treasured resource for projecting powerful stories. This means casting as our hero ‘Europe’ the ancient civilisation, rather than the EU as a young political project. The costs of strategic autonomy ought to be explained as the collective sacrifices needed to protect European values. It would be wise to recognise that European society itself is a hero forged out of hegemonic struggle in order to overcome it. It has little need of enemies, but must emphasise time and again the costs of giving in to our own vices.

Read the full essay (longread). 

Authors

Ties Dams (Research Fellow, the Clingendael Institute)

Monika Sie Dhian Ho (General Director, the Clingendael Institute)