SYRISA AND EUROPEAN BRINKMANSHIP

Brinkmanship is defined as the art or practice of pressing a dangerous situation to the limit of safety and peace in order to win an advantage from a threatening or tenacious foe.

The landslide victory of SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical Left) in Greece's national elections is likely to have important consequences at the national and European level. The way this development is treated by European leaders will be influential on the future of the European Union.

How radical will SYRIZA turn out to be? Much will depend on internal dynamics within a party that is really more of a movement, composed of everything from modest populists to the radical left. Tsipras will certainly need to deliver on his principle goal of scrapping the country financial deal with the country's creditors, restructuring the Greek debt, and rolling back the severe austerity measures of recent years.

EU leaders will face a near term challenge, as much political and geopolitical as economic. The current debt and reform deal with Greece is widely seen as unsustainable. The troika of the International Monetary Fund, European Commission and European Central Bank, and above all Germany, will need to decide very quickly whether Europe is willing to subsidize a softer path for Greece in the interest of stability within the eurozone and the viablity of the European project, or whether Greece needs to be held to account, even at the risk of default, and exit from the euro, or both. In this atmosphere of brinkmanship, it is likely, but not certain, that EU leaders will opt for compromise. Certainly, Tsipras will be betting on this outcome.

The SYRIZA victory could also have wider implications for Europe. Like-minded anti-austerity parties of the left, such as Podemos in Spain, will be buoyed by the result. A broader set of victories of this kind will place in stark relief the tension between austerity and stimulus and the critical question of whether the EU will continue to evolve as a transfer union, even perhaps especially, under conditions of slow or no growth within the Union.

Little has been said about the foreign policy implications of a SYRIZA win. Foreign and security policy issues have not figured prominently in the election discourse, and much that can be said is the realm of speculation. Initial impressions suggest that Tsipras and his advisors are not inclined to take a nationalist line on relations with Turkey or Balkan neighbours, and their external priorities will probably resemble those of the centre-left in Italy and elsewhere, non-confrontational on Russia, activist on climate diplomacy, human rights and human ecurity, etc.

The SYRIZA line on austerity versus stimulus is more in line with Washington and Paris than Berlin and the party has been supportive of the most recent counter-terrorism measures in Greece and elsewhere. With critical and durable challenges in the Eastern Mediterranean, the evolution of Greece's foreign policy under a SYRIZA-led government will matter in geopolitical terms.