Ends of year are usually dedicated to overall assessments. What could be perceived as the strategic outcome of year 2007? Has it been beneficial for the world and for peace ? Or, to the contrary, have we witnessed an aggravation of existing conflicts and an overall deterioration of the strategic situation?

2007 has not been such a good year, but by comparison with the previous ones, since the beginning of the 21st century, it has been quite wonderful, and even probably the best one. Three good news came at the end of the year to give hope to the international community.

The most important refers to the Korean peninsula. The inter Korean agreement in which North Korea pledged to give up its nuclear military weapons program shows that the struggle against proliferation of weapons of mass destruction cannot be only reach with military options. This also shows that it should be useful to discuss with rogue regimes in order to render them harmless. The climate of trust created by the South Korean “sunshine policy” has done more for peace than military threats.

The second good new is the “National Intelligence Estimate” produced by the sixteen U.S intelligence agencies. They estimate that Iran has ceased to work on military aspects of its nuclear program since 2003. According to U.S. intelligence agencies, even if Teheran wanted to resume its nuclear military program, it could not be able to make an atomic bomb before 2015. That clearly means that there is no rationality for a rushing into war against Iran in order to prevent it from accessing a nuclear technology, contrary to President Bush former declarations. Whereas we feared that George W. Bush would be tempted, before the end of his presidency, to launch a war against Iran, now such and –foolish operation seems much more difficult and even politically quite impossible.

The third good new has come from the Annapolis Summit which has draw back to the agenda the principle of negotiation for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which has been set aside since 2000. However, the continuing colonization of Palestinian territories, the Israelis leaders’ declarations about a likely no mandatory deadline in 2008 for an agreement and, above all, the absence of any clarification on hottest issues (boundaries colonies, status of Jerusalem refugees) must prevent to be optimistic on the outcome of this process. It would be a real surprise to reach a fair peace agreement soon. And it is unlikely that the United States and the international community would be able or eager to exert any pressure on the Israeli government. In the absence of such pressures, one could not except Tel-Aviv from being inclined to be more respectful of international law.

Meanwhile the whole world is highly concerned with environmental protection (the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore is one of the example of the strategic relevance of this challenge), the international community has been unable to reach an agreement on a common objective for the battle against climate change during the Bali Conference. Once again, Washington has been the bad pupil of the classroom. In Iraq and in Afghanistan, the situation is far from being stabilized and civil war is destroying those two countries. The time of triumphalism for the US and its allies is far away. Terrorism has hit again. It remains a real threat. It cannot be denied nor overestimated to turn it into the paramount of strategic issues. It must be fought not only by military tools but also by political measures. With the so called "mini treaty ", the European union is back on its feet. It could resume its journey. But if Europe is increasing its ability from an institutional point of view, on the strategic level it is still a work in progress. A lot still need to be done. Europe is still shy and seems unwilling to take into consideration its strategic potential, which is underestimated. The potential of hope that Europe could evolve once it would add hard power to its already important soft power is also underestimated.

China and Russia are still on the rise, as well as, to a less extent, Brazil, India and South Africa.

The African continent is no longer the forgotten continent. It comes back under the spot and arouse many envy abroad. Africa is fully integrated the globalization. And is no longer beleaguered as it was during the 90’s.But its has to give heed not to be looted one more time.