"Multilateralising Multipolarity"

Sometimes I feel as if I don't exist at all except as a blip or a statistic in someone's in-tray, to be dealt with when they've finished their tea & biscuits, but this leaked document from the EUISS makes it clear that it's up close and personal:

'What Ambitions for European Defence in 2020?'

From the foreword:

"Let it be stressed again that the distinctiveness of the European Union greatly depends on its sustained preference for soft power instruments, for persuasion rather than force. Deviation from this rule, in particular when confronting non-military, non-security challenges of a ‘societal’ nature, be they social, economic, energy or environment-related, would kill European distinctiveness altogether. Reliance on hard power to meet ‘soft’ challenges – a rough equivalent of ‘disproportionate response’ – would not only be inconsistent with the lessons learnt from the European experience, but a sure recipe for alienating partners and pushing the goal of global governance well out of reach."

 This leaked 175-page .pdf was produced by the EU Institute for Security Studies, an EU policy think-tank. It covers long term EU security strategy, including the problems of hierarchical class society, with the elite of the world on one side, and the so-called 'bottom billion' on the other.

To avoid "global systemic collapse", the document suggests that the "full spectrum of high intensity combat" be used to protect what is called "globalisers" from "localisers". Localisers, (making up 80% of the world population) include the "bottom billion", states in the Middle East and the so-called "Alienated Modern States" like North Korea. Globalisers include not only members of the OECD and "Rapid Transition Societies" like China and Brazil, but also "Transnational Corporations"—the "Fortune Global 1000".

The paper discusses "barrier operations shielding the global rich from the tensions and problems of the poor". "As the ratio of the world population living in misery and frustration will remain massive, the tensions and spillover between their world and that of the rich will continue to grow. As we are unlikely to have solved this problem at its root by 2020 - i.e. by curing dysfunctional societies, we will need to strengthen our barriers. It is a morally distasteful, losing strategy, but will be unavoidable if we cannot solve the problems at their root."

Excuse me while I pinch myself to see if I'm really here. Two things seem certain in all this: (1) our views, our votes, don't count, and (2) the past 13yrs of Labour's authoritarian legislation are merely stepping stones.
Cross-posted, with edits, from Calling England

"Multilateralising Multipolarity"