Article written by Jonathan Fellous, a third-year student in the Master in management (PGE), Geopolitics Track for Managers, and Frédéric Munier, professor of geopolitics and director of SKEMA School of Geopolitics for Managers.
On 20 January, SKEMA Business School welcomed Natacha Polony, the editorial director of Marianne, and Franck Dedieu, the deputy editorial director, to an exceptional event co-organised by SKEMA Professors Claude Revel and Frédéric Munier as part of Professor Amaury Goguel's geopolitics course. Natacha Polony and Franck Dedieu discussed their vision of the geopolitical landscape in 2024 with students from the MPP Masters course directed by Desmond McGetrick.
As a prelude, and to set the scene for the discussions, Claude Revel returned to the increasingly frequent use of the term 'war' in public debate, even leading some politicians to glorify it, thereby erasing its darker reality: death. Recalling Paul Valéry's phrase "War is the massacre of people who don't know each other, for the benefit of people who know each other and don't massacre each other," Claude Revel recalled the tragic nature of war and how it causes millions of deaths.
Almost half the world at war
Franck Dedieu recalled Laurent Fabius' hope the day after the fall of the Berlin Wall, "We are going to reap the dividends of peace." After more than forty years of cold war, this statement summed up the dream of an entire generation. Today, "we've had a rude awakening," insisted Marianne's deputy editor. Military budgets are at record levels - higher than during the Cold War - and conflicts are multiplying across the globe.
While Franck Dedieu was keen to point out that war has never disappeared since the end of the 1980s, he insisted that it has never been seen before. Indeed, the world is witnessing "the emergence of multiple forms of conflict". For the first time, "inter-state, hybrid, covert and civil wars are taking place simultaneously".
Taking all these conflicts together, 48% of the world's population is directly or indirectly involved in a war. In the end, reaping the "dividends of peace" was nothing more than a pipe dream, said Franck Dedieu. Failing that, Europe inherited economic crises, the inexorable consequence of war. This raises a number of questions: "How can Europe emerge from this situation? What role can the European Union play?"
Back-to-back worlds
Natacha Polony, the editorial director of Marianne, took issue with the proliferation of the war rhetoric that is sometimes presented with a messianic overtone. Indeed, the lexical field of war has become commonplace in our vocabulary. To explain the return of war, the Western narrative is unambiguous, "Bellicose dictatorships are trying to destabilise democracies." However, she pointed out that this view is not necessarily followed outside the West. It is even being challenged by the world order revisionist powers embodied by the BRICS+ (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia and Iran). It is for this reason that Natacha Polony spoke of a "de-Westernisation" of the world, with the global balance of power shifting in the background.
In her view, however, the upheaval of geopolitical tectonic plates should come as no surprise. Its origins lie in the very moment when Fukuyama announced the end of history. After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, the West largely focused on Russia's "forced liberalisation". This obsession with Russia blinded Western leaders to "the awakening of political Islam and the Empires".
Natacha Polony pointed out that relations between the West and Russia have not developed favourably. At a time when the European Union is endeavouring to strengthen its ties with Moscow, certain warning signs point to a change in Russia's behaviour towards the West. According to the weekly's managing editor, the Khodorkovsky affair is an emblematic example. Oligarch and oil tycoon Mikhail Borissovich Khodorkovsky showed his political inclinations in the early 2000s. The Russian businessman drew closer to the United States and planned to sell a stake in Lukos, a Russian oil company, to American companies, notably ExxonMobil.
However, the Kremlin had not given its approval. For Natacha Polony, this affair is seen by Russian President Vladimir Putin as an attempt by the United States to interfere and destabilise Russia. Since then, Vladimir Putin's paranoia towards the West has continued to grow, and their relations have deteriorated. A series of events contributed to widening the gap: the war in South Ossetia in 2008, Barack Obama's desire to integrate Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, which Russia considered a Casus Belli.
"The West did not consider these imperialisms to be dangerous"
According to Natacha Polony, the current period is the result of twenty years of rising imperialism. Was the West blind or looking the other way? Obsessed by the gains of world trade, "the West did not see these imperialisms as dangerous", or at least it thought that "pacifying globalisation would win the day".
In this multipolar chaos, what about European defence?
Natacha Polony described the European Union as a "geopolitical dwarf". In her view, it is the very way it operates that is not suited to a Europe of defence. Indeed, the European Union has made competition its absolute dogma, which prevents it from promoting and encouraging large industrial groups, which are essential to its defence industry. It also highlights ideological differences and conflicting interests. In Eastern Europe, the European Union countries prefer to rely on the American umbrella, while France wants to maintain an "almost non-aligned" position.