Managing the Balance of Dependence: The Rise of Geoeconomics and Europe's Quest for Autonomy

As fears of a New Cold War are intensifying, geopolitical analysis is staging a comeback. Yet, this paper argues that orthodox geopolitics is ill equipped for understanding the new power politics. In its overly focus on military force and territorial security, it overlooks geoeconomic power politics and the way it may provide a more acute threat to state autonomy. This paper looks at the rise of geoeconomics, arguing that as a strategic practice it can be divided into four different forms: disruption, binding, wedging and hedging. It draws examples from the geoeconomic practices of China, Russia and the United States vis-à-vis Europe. At stake in this new power politics is not so much traditional state sovereignty and territorial security, but state autonomy and economic security. The analysis shows how, in addition to the balance of power, managing the balance of dependence thus becomes an important consideration for states in order to be able to defend their own autonomy. The paper marks an effort to conceptualize geoeconomics and looks at how managing the balancing of dependence is playing out in current great power relations, especially from the perspective of Europe amidst the COVID-19 crisis.