Contenu du sommaire : La morale, nouveau facteur de puissance internationale ?

The international community is debating about the possible independence of Kosovo. In this context Jacques Roger-Machart advocates for an important involvement of the European Union (EU) in the future of this region. In the past European actions were based on the EU adhesion project of the Balkans states or on the role of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). These actions have been rather put aside because of the disreputability of Europe, due to its lack of institutional readability and refusal to assume its responsibility in Kosovo's instability. Working together with the United States, Europe must reaffirm its role, without forgetting Kosovo's own characteristics and its strong points, humanly and politically speaking.

Chosen to succeed to John Paul II in spring 2005, Joseph Ratzinger is sometimes presented as a mere transition Pope after the extremely significant pontificate of Karol Wojtyla. Certainly, the geopolitical reading of the two first years of Benedict XVI at the head of the Catholic Church shows that the new Supreme Pontiff has followed some lines that had already been drawn by John Paul II. On that point Benedict XVI is truly the follow-up to his predecessor. Nevertheless, the German Pope is also putting his personal mark on Vatican geopolitics. Indeed, if Joseph Ratzinger keeps working on the scale of the universal Church, his apostolic and theological mission will be targeted first on a very specific continent : Europe.

Faced with the complex phenomenon of international migrations, the European Union has defined a “global” approach which aim is to establish partnerships with departure and transit countries of migrants, taking into account their development. Not only the organisations of human rights criticize the implementation of this new approach, because of the pressure on developing countries and the fight against illegal immigration, but also the EU states can hardly handle a common strategy concerning legal immigration. This imbalance in the implementation of a global approach leads to an ambiguous and widely bad-perceived European message about migrations.

In the Maghreb, where Islamic fundamentalist attacks are more and more frequent, the growing popularity of Salafism, which has three tendencies (revolutionary, missionary, and political), is worrying. The revolutionary movement advocates radical action as the only means of social change, the missionary tendency is apolitical and calls for a comeback of the original Islam, and the political trend defends activism in order to convince Muslims that establishing an Islamic society is necessary. These three tendencies, even if they are distinct, are all against the West, which is accused of dragging Islam into decline. The success of Salafism can be explained by the failure of re-Islamization movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood ; these are blamed by the Salafists for their concessions on Koranic references, political conciliation, and the instrumentalisation of Islam in a partisan logic.

For the past ten years there has been a real convergence of the need to diversify power supplies with the increase of renewable energies and the urgency of acting against global warming. On one hand the tensions on the energy market are more and more present and favour renewable energies. On the other hand emissions of greenhouse gas, especially due to an increasing use of fossil resources, are more and more alarming for the climate. Faced with these challenges, several mechanisms have been set up, among others the mechanism of clean development (MCD), which comes within the framework of the still emerging carbon market. While international negotiations have been opened concerning the future of the Kyoto Protocol, the MCD already seems promising.

Given that some crimes concern the very essence of humanity, international penal jurisdictions raise the moral standard of international relationships. Their intervention as a last resort incites national courts to carry out their competence. Criticized for their cost and slowness, international jurisdictions are also slowed down by the principle of respect of national sovereignty. Moreover, while states have to cooperate with UN courts, they are torn between the will to prove to the public that they are acting, and the necessity not to involve themselves too much in the political scene. It is all the more difficult to try major criminals, as they often keep their status of international spokesmen in the solving of conflicts.

Nicolas Sarkozy's coming at the head of the French State in May 2007 introduces a new diplomatic governance and begs the question of the finality of foreign policy : must it be guided by ethical preoccupations or only protect France's interests ? The introduction of ethics in foreign policy, in other words of normative considerations beyond mere interests in arbitrations of the decisional process, is faced with doctrinal or concrete hindrances. The beginning of an ethical foreign policy, if it must be prepared with thoroughness, clearness and determination, has however to accept the political duty and the transparent development of its values.

Realpolitik was put forward by Ludwig von Tochau in the 19th century and embodied by Bismarck and, later, by Henry Kissinger ; the main idea is to manipulate the “political thing” in order to frighten other powers and to extend spheres of influence. As the handling of current international issues (UN function, national diplomacies, environmental policies, fight against terrorism...) will illustrate, Realpolitik seems to become more important than ideologies because states want above all to defend their national, military and strategic interests. Nowadays diplomacy is widely influenced by a pragmatism which is motivated by an obligation of immediate results. In this context the role of the media is in order to discover the insinuations in official speeches.

A strong tension can currently be noticed between the main unifying tendencies of globalization and its fragmenting factors. In this context the universalist rhetoric of human rights, which distinguishes the supposed particularism of non-Western cultures from the values of Western culture, would deny the autonomy of the former. When Western cosmopolitism is criticized, the West sees it as a form of justification for authoritarianism, or as the expression of a voluntary servitude to oppressive traditions. As a matter of fact the war in Iraq has durably de-legitimized the prescriptive message concerning universal human rights, showing clearly that “humanitarian wars” are a kind of neo-imperialism.

Confronted with drifts, the sector of humanitarian action could no longer evade the question of responsibility by considering that doing good would be enough to be legitimate : it has had to concern itself with the prevention of corruption. But this has complicated upstream procedures, increased demands of results, and the players have begun to compete with each other because of goals defined by financial bankers. In other respects, the responsibility of states is sometimes suspected, if an intervention has happened too late or worsened the situation. Moreover, states do not guarantee, as they should, the protection and the assistance of people in case of an armed conflict ; other players have to then take over (Red Cross, NGOs, UN-agencies with humanitarian mandate, private firms...).

Among other texts, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has created norms which are not always put into practice but nonetheless act a benchmark. However operations of international police, for instance in Iraq, have used the rhetoric of human rights and interference duty in a context of Western military intervention. But you cannot bomb in the name of democracy without risking seeing democracy identified with bombing. However, less spectacular interventions (Liberia, Sierra Leone, Albania) were met with more success. It can be believed that humanitarian interference occurs only among the weakest states. Astray in the favor of hunger of power, morale must all the same not be forgotten in international life.

Since the end of the cold war and with the apparition of a globalised terrorism, international relationships cannot only please themselves conceiving the security in terms of state and military power. The threats, which are now environmental, economical, and sanitary issues, can indeed come from everyone without link with any state. The mere realism, which did not take into consideration any morality, is evolving towards a realism which is aware of the pacifying virtues of foreign aid for developing countries and of the democratisation. Therefore, in order to be effective, the Realpolitik seems in fact to be linked with morality, which is however underlied by a quite more self-interested process than “pure”.

Traditionally, China excludes any form of interference in the domestic policy of countries that accept its aid. However, under the pressure of the international community, the country is re-examining this position based on its long history, even though it is not ready to completely substitute its principle of non-interference with the tendency of cosmopolite moralization. The fact that China has evolved from an oil-exporting country to an oil-importing one partially explains why Chinese people are beginning to have a new vision of the world : they now need foreign countries.