The concept of a Unique Selling Proposition, most commonly associated with the business world, is that inimitable quality which allows a product or service on offer to stand out and differentiate itself from its competitors.
Having a USP, and ensuring you can properly communicate it, is also critical in the sphere of diplomacy. It is, essentially, the response to the pragmatic question of “what do you bring to the table? ” With the degradation of the rules-based international order, and the well-documented hard turn into a more transactional diplomatic approach, finding an answer to this question becomes increasingly pressing.
There are two main reasons why this is important.
Firstly, a USP can grant a country leverage on the international stage. There is no better example of this than Taiwan and its control of the global chip and semiconductor industry. The island, primarily through the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), produces more than 90% of the world’s most cutting-edge chips and semiconductors, critical for commercial electronics, the defense industry, and even the automotive industry.
In essence, if China attempts a blockade the island in order to coerce it into unification, Taiwan has the ability to lean on its global dominance of the semiconductor industry to force countries to intervene or risk further economic shocks and widespread shortages to key goods, including smartphones and computers.
The second advantage provided by having a USP is the ability to be proactive. To have something to offer to a possible partner, something they cannot secure elsewhere. This is particularly important when you are in a bidding war with a rival over regional partners.
The recent quadrilateral between Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia should be of great concern to Greece. Two of the four, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, have been close Greek partners for several years. However, the foundation of that relationship was ultimately something reactive, namely common distrust of Turkey’s regional ambitions and its embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood.
However, in a post-October 7 world, the calculations have changed. Diplomatic reactivity benefits Turkey, not Greece. It is the one that can, whether justified or not, point to a regional player upsetting the status quo and look to build relationships with other parties. Which begs the question, what can Greece offer Egypt and Saudi Arabia that Turkey cannot?
Admittedly, the requirements of the two countries are wildly different. Egypt faces significant domestic problems, faced with the repercussions of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (which threatened its food security), October 7 (both through wider regional instability and through a decrease in the flow of Israeli energy) and now the Iran crisis (impacting both energy and food security).
Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, is seeking partners to help the kingdom in its Gulf Cooperation Council power struggle with the United Arab Emirates. The rivalry, which before the decision of the UAE to leave Saudi-dominated OPEC manifested itself as proxy conflicts in Sudan and Yemen, is also complicated by the UAE’s close alignment with Israel.
However, in both cases, it is hard to see what Greece can bring to the table that Turkey cannot. It can match neither the financial investment nor the military presence that Turkey can contribute to its partners. This is something that becomes abundantly clear in Libya.
Unless the country can define and communicate exactly what it can offer its partners, it risks remaining reactive when forging its foreign policy and vulnerable to major regional and international shocks.
The main answer to this conundrum, short of a radical technological or economic upheaval, has to be the European Union. But for this potential to be realized, the European countries of the Mediterranean must present a united front and not be allowed to be divided by external actors.
Greece’s decision to purchase the four FREMM class frigates from Italy should not be seen as a one-off transaction but should be utilized to forge a wider consensus between the two countries, which often find themselves at odds in the region.
Once the two main European countries bordering the Eastern Mediterranean are aligned, they can begin to sow the seeds of European economic, regulatory, and security power projection into the region.
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