Welcome

François Heisbourg

The End of West Publication date : January 20, 2005

The threat of a world conflict is greater today than it has been since the major crises of the cold war years, and Europe is especially poorly prepared for what may lie ahead. This threat is the outcome of the convergence of two distinct sets of events. The first is the relentless development of insecurity linked to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and to their acquisition by groups that are outside state control. The second concerns changes in U.S. foreign policy and security procedures, which have created the conditions for a huntingtonian “clash of civilisations”.
The coming together of these two trends has greatly increased the dangers inherent in each one: on one hand, there is terrorism of destruction and, on the other, the violent rejection of the West by large sectors of the population in Arab and Muslim countries. This convergence of threats unfolds as the transatlantic relationship
is unravelling.
François Heisbourg argues that Europe should develop a strong policy to fight against these threats - if possible within the framework of a redefined European-American relationship. This is a brilliant synthesis of a world marked by the “end of the West” by one of the leading international experts on geopolitical and strategic issues.

François Heisbourg is the director of the Fondation pour la Recherche Strat_gique and the chairmanof the International Institute for Strategic Studies and of Geneva's Centre de Politique de S_curit_ He is the author of Hyperterrorisme (2001) and the editor of the yearly Annuaire stratégique et militaire ( 2002, 2003, 2004), published by Editions Odile Jacob.