In August I pointed our readers to a number of essays written by Dutch military analyst Ingo Piepers.

Ingo Piepers has now contacted AFOE to bring to our attention a new thought-provoking paper entitled Social Expansion versus Social Fragmentation, Don’t take Europe for granted (pdf). One quote:

Typically, the discussions about Europe’s future consist of the exchange of qualitative arguments, and are often only superficial. Problematic is that historical facts – as far as they are known and properly understood – are often selectively interpreted. Local interests of decision makers and their inability to understand what is at stake, make this often unavoidable. These biases often hinder decision-makers in Brussels and the capitals of the EU’s member states. In order to speed up Europe’s unification, these discussions should – if possible – be objectified. The unification of Europe is important – as I will explain in this paper – because Europe – as the rest of the world – will unavoidably be confronted with global and regional problems that require intense cooperation, in order to avoid ‘devastating’ consequences of these developments. In this paper I will show that complexity science can contribute to a more objective approach of these European challenges. I will show that the development of Europe towards a social cohesive ‘unit’ can be quantified: Europe is not a virtual reality or an artificial entity, but a hard ‘fact’.

I invite our readers to go and have a look at this paper and to share their thoughts on it.