Annual Report 2021
This annual report provides an overview of our activities and is intended to encourage reading of our publications. Our publications are available online here on our website. If you would like to receive regular updates on CSS publications, you can sign up for our monthly newsletter here www.css.ethz.ch/en/center/css-newsletter.html, or follow us on Twitter (@CSS_Zurich), Facebook (@css.zurich) or LinkedIn.
As in the previous year, the Corona pandemic was the focus of international public interest in 2021. Authoritarian states used the pandemic to further narrow the scope for opposition groups and minorities. But democratic societies also struggled to walk the tightrope between enforcing effective measures and respecting personal freedoms.
At the same time, the struggle of the great powers for regional spheres of interest and global influence intensified in international politics. To counter China’s growing military influence in the region, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States entered into a trilateral security pact (AUKUS). Russia, in turn, massed well over 100,000 troops on its border with Ukraine. Shortly before the end of the year, Moscow published draft contracts for future agreements on so-called security guarantees with the United States and NATO. It became apparent to all that Russian and Western ideas about the future of the European security order were incompatible. In this respect, the crisis-like escalation of mutual relations could surprise no one.
An important focus of our work last year was on the security policy implications of the Corona crisis. On the one hand, the focus was on the international crisis management of the World Health Organization and the European Union as the two most important cooperation mechanisms with which Switzerland works in the fight against epidemics. On the other hand, we continued to deal with the reappraisal of national crisis management at the federal level and prepared a report evaluating the processes of cantonal crisis management in Graubünden.
The accelerating competition among major powers in the context of the coronavirus pandemic was the focus of the authors of the publication series Strategic Trends 2021. The five articles in the volume analyzed the changes in international security orders in the Euro-Atlantic region, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific region. The intensifying competition among the great powers provoked dangerous crises that threatened to escalate in all regions of the world. This was the troubling bottom line on the state of world politics.
In contrast, the Bulletin 2021 on Swiss Security Policy focused on the consequences of multilateralism in transition for Switzerland’s commitment within the OSCE and Switzerland’s candidacy for a seat as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council. Other chapters dealt with the current debate on the introduction of a general service obligation and discussed the challenges of Switzerland’s commitment to an open and rules-based digital space.