Geopolitics

“War,” said the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus, is the “father of all things.” In view of the bloody – indeed barbaric – events in the Middle East (and in Iraq and Syria in particular), one might be tempted to agree, even though such ideas no longer seem to have a place in the postmodern worldview of today’s Europe.

Major global conflicts are not resolved in the Dutch Parliament. Nor is The Hague the centre of the world. The Netherlands’ influence is determined by the extent to which it collaborates with other countries. GroenLinks therefore needs to look across the border when defining its position on military intervention. The opinions of our allies should be taken into account.

There is no shortage of material with which to criticise American policy. But what exactly is the aim of this criticism – decoupling from America, or the renewal of the West?

Today, we witness an anachronistic pattern of foreign policy: incoherent, homocentric, far removed from the reality of people, and dominated by economic and political interests (the neoliberal system).

Traditional theoretical approaches to conflicts are inoperative.

The use of military force is a sensitive issue for the Dutch Greens.

After the end of the Cold War and the renaissance of nationalism and of the concomitant abuses of human rights of the worst kind, the pacifism that had been one of the German Greens’ founding principles came into increasing conflict with its active defence of human rights.

Although Greens tend to agree on most issues, they don’t always think alike. Politicians from France, the UK and Germany discuss their stances and those of their national parties on the military industry, drones, Afghanistan, the legacy of Joschka Fischer, among other thorny issues…

While the spectrum of ideas defining a Green foreign policy remains wide, several overarching tenets have emerged over the past decades.

Beset by the crises occurring internally and in its immediate neighbourhood, the EU has neglected its relations with South East Asia. This is a major shortcoming, since that region is becoming the epicentre of global relations and will play an increasingly important role for international security.