Hcss report

HCSS REPORT
Our findings do point to some broader trends (as well as concrete facts and events) 
that challenge that delicate balance. Last year both China and Russia have been willing 
to push their brinkmanship further than at any time since the end of the Cold War. 
Over the past few years increased levels of assertiveness (including military ones) 
may have increased the conflict and escalation potential for – once again – direct 
armed conflict. The danger of a 
Cuban Missile Crisis
-type event may very well be 
increasing again, which could lead to unmanageable escalation. 
One intrinsic danger of assertiveness lies in the informational fog that such cycles of 
inflammatory rhetoric can trigger. In this fog of assertiveness, it becomes ever harder 
to discern the hard facts and to put events in perspective. This greatly increases the 
contribution that evidence-based datasets can make to international security as they 
allow all observers (both the stakeholders themselves and the public at large) to 
maintain some perspective.
But beyond the rhetoric, there is also growing factual assertiveness on the part of 
both China and Russia. Assertiveness in the military realm is manifested not only in 
increased expenditures but also in various types of new arms races in particular 
domains, such as cyberspace. Such forms of factual assertiveness raise questions for 
Europe in general, and for smaller and medium-sized countries in particular. What can 
be done about precisely the type of great power assertiveness that European 
countries have tried to bridle in themselves for the past seventy years? Will these 
forms of assertiveness remain contained and eventually blow over or will they become 
the new normal? Does this mean that Europe has to start beefing up its more 
traditional ‘power’ resources to secure its seat at the ‘Great Power’ table? Or should 
European countries start (re)building ties with China and Russia and can we play a 
special role in putting things in perspective thereby letting cooler heads prevail? And if 
so, what would be required for that?
Study II – The Role of Pivot States in Regional and Global Security
Contemporary international relations are shaped by an intricate and to a certain extent 
uneasily co-existing mixture of liberal and realist logics. On the one hand, there are 
many signs pointing towards inexorably growing interdependencies between states 
that pave the way to prosperity and peace. On the other hand, there are similar signs 
that states seem not be able to escape realist logic: they persist in pursuing power. 
Moreover, states are increasingly drawing lines again, lines with respect to whom 
they talk to, whom they trade with, and whom they defend against.