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The issue points to the United Kingdom's grand strategy. Despite an alliance with the United States, the United Kingdom is essentially a European power, and it cannot afford to be excluded from Continental affairs.

Both negotiations will force the Netherlands to define its position in Europe. As a country that traditionally relies on trade, the Netherlands will support any measure that protects the European free trade agreements -- which means that The Hague will not opt out of the European Union.

Berlin’s goal is pretty clear, so clear that a key architect of the Greek bailout — Christian Democratic Union lawmaker Michael Meister — has emphatically noted that not only is an Irish bailout inevitable, but one condition for it will be the alteration of Ireland’s corporate tax structure to something more in line with European norms.

What STRATFOR finds the most interesting about this is that Ireland is no longer alone in resisting Germany’s rising strength: There are now glimmers of recognition across Europe that the Germans are attempting to use their dominant economic position to rewire the European Union more to their liking.

The post-Cold War world had two phases. The first lasted from Dec. 31, 1991, until Sept. 11, 2001. The second lasted from 9/11 until now.

The initial phase of the post-Cold War world was built on two assumptions.

But as the creditor of last resort, Germany also wants to control the economic behavior of the EU nation-states.

In such an environment, sovereignty becomes sanctuary.

Instead, Beijing is maintaining growth by slashing profit margins on exports.

They believed this because they both thought they had entered a period of permanent prosperity.

And the United States has emerged from the post-Cold War period with one towering lesson: However attractive military intervention is, it always looks easier at the beginning than at the end.

But it has emerged far more mature and cautious than it entered the period. There are new phases in history, but not new world orders.

Eras unfold in strange ways until you suddenly realize they are over.

But already there are several defining characteristics to this era we can identify.

It was said that the post-Cold War world was America's time of dominance. I would argue that it was the preface of U.S. dominance.

As a result, EU leaders decided to postpone the insurance mechanism's implementation.

From the Roman Empire to Nazi Germany, all the attempts to unify Europe meant war and conquest. It took World War II to convince the Europeans that the future of the Continent depended on overcoming age-old antagonisms and building a lasting political settlement to boost trade and prevent another war.

The European Economic Community, the institutional heart of the emerging continental unity, had three main objectives.

Six decades later, many of these goals have been achieved.

The Commission, the Parliament and the Court of Justice today have powers that notably exceed those designed in the 1950s. More impressively, the European Union currently has 28 members, 17 of whom share the same currency. In 1945, with Europe in ashes and occupied by foreign powers, it was unimaginable to think that six decades later France and Germany would share the leadership of a continental alliance stretching from Portugal to Finland and Cyprus.

Despite its remarkable evolution, the European Union is still a contract. And contracts could be modified or even canceled if they stop being beneficial for their signatories.

Because of the pervasiveness of the nation-state, the future of the European Union will not be in the hands of the EU institutions, but in those of the same actors of 1951: France and Germany. Since the beginning of the economic crisis, Paris and Berlin have reiterated their commitment to the European Union, but as the economic downturn moves to the core of Europe, the differences between them become more obvious.

The idea that economics rule the decisions of nations is insufficient for explaining their behavior.

The key was binding Germany to the rest of Europe militarily and economically.

After World War II, West Germany's strategy was threefold.

There were two possible solutions in the broadest sense.

If you accept the German view, which is that the debt crisis was the result of reckless spending, then Germany's proposal is reasonable. If you accept the view of southern Europe, which is that the crisis was the result of the European Union's design, then what Germany is proposing is the imposition of German power via economics.

Normally, France and Russia have opposed Germany, but in this case, it is certainly possible to have a continuation of the Franco-German alliance or a Russo-French alliance. Indeed, a three-way alliance might be possible as well.

But nobody — starting with Germany and France — stuck to the rules laid out by the Stability and Growth Pact

It is likely that it will give in to the more established group — the workers and middle classes — since they have shown with their tactics that they have the ability to seriously threaten the French state’s efforts to function by targeting its energy infrastructure. Simply moving forward with a policy that three-quarters of the population rejects is unsustainable. At the point when Paris gives in to one side, however, France may cease to be at conflict with itself and instead come into conflict with Germany.

Furthermore, if the euro were to fragment or disintegrate, the EU would essentially end as a serious political force. Currencies are only as stable as the political systems that underpin them.

Three complications exist,

The current geopolitical shift in Europe will engender a crisis by the middle of the decade.

But the overall balance between the United States and Russia in Central Europe will depend on another country: Germany. The question at this point will be the extent to which Germany is willing to see the Intermarium draw in a U.S. military presence.

To be clear, the United States is not looking for a pretext to intervene militarily in Syria. On the contrary, the United States will make every effort possible to avoid another military campaign in the Islamic world this year.

Egypt's consuming political transition will leave opportunities for flare-ups in the Sinai Peninsula and in Gaza, but we do not expect a significant breach between Israel and Egypt this year.

 These actions, which helped to keep the eurozone afloat in 2012, will remain effective in 2013, making it very likely that the eurozone will survive another year. But these tools do not solve three fundamental aspects of the European crisis. 

In 2012, Russia began shifting away from its aggressive stance on energy -- particularly its high prices -- to strike long-term deals that will maintain Russia's market share with its primary strategic customers, such as Germany, Italy and Turkey. Russia will continue this strategy in 2013 as it continues to build new infrastructure to directly link its supplies to Europe.

The most important issue facing Mexico in 2013 will be energy policy.

As the recurrent protests in Spain, Greece and Portugal show, there is a growing dissatisfaction in many of the EU member states with the austerity measures proposed by the European Union and applied by national governments.

The combination of economic, social and political crises growing in Europe concerns Brussels for a number of reasons.

With several years of practice, sailors from international missions such as the U.S.-backed Combined Task Force 151 and the EU-backed Atalanta mission as well as from the unilateral missions of China, Russia, Iran and others have had time to study pirate activity and become more efficient at stopping attacks.

The armed guards and naval patrols have not eliminated piracy, but they have increased the costs of attacking and seizing a commercial ship. Because pirates are motivated more by profit than by any ideology, a decrease in profitability will deter them from engaging in the practice.

That means that about 13,000-23,000 ships are paying for armed guards to accompany them through the vulnerable areas, a roughly 10-day trip, at a cost of approximately $60,000 each time. Based on those figures, the total annual cost for shipping companies merely to deploy armed guards on their ships through the Gulf of Aden is between about $800 million and $1.4 billion. The total cost of piracy to the world in 2011, according to the One Earth Future Foundation's estimates, was between $6.6 billion and $6.9 billion. This estimate included $160 million for ransom payments; other preventative measures, such as rerouting ships or using more fuel to maintain higher speeds, made up the rest of the costs. In other words, the cost of preventing piracy off the coast of Somalia is substantially higher than the costs piracy inflicts.

Although Mogadishu is unable to control much of its territory, the new government doesn't want regional governments accumulating too much strength. In the end, a strong Puntland may be more of a risk to Mogadishu than pirates. 

The Carpathian Mountains define Romania, but in an odd way. Rather than serving as the border of the country, protecting it, the Carpathians are an arc that divides the country into three parts.

Romania is one nation divided by its geography. None of the three parts is easy to defend.

Some of us experience geopolitics as an opportunity. Most of humanity experiences it as a catastrophe.

I raised two strategic alternatives with Romanian officials and the media.

For all of the Visegrad countries, any sense of a growing German alienation from Europe and of a growing German-Russian economic relationship generates warning bells.

In the past, the Visegrad countries would have been loath to undertake anything that felt like a unilateral defense policy. Therefore, the decision to do this is significant in and of itself.

Poland is the largest of these countries by far and in the least advantageous geographical position. The Poles are trapped between the Germans and the Russians. Historically, when Germany gets close to Russia, Poland tends to suffer. It is not at that extreme point yet, but the Poles do understand the possibilities.

the decision of the V4 to even propose a battle group commanded by Poles is one of those small events that I think will be regarded as a significant turning point. However we might try to trivialize it and place it in a familiar context, it doesn’t fit. It represents a new level of concern over an evolving reality — the power of Russia, the weakness of Europe and the fragmentation of NATO. This is the last thing the Visegrad countries wanted to do, but they have now done the last thing they wanted to do. That is what is significant.