Convergence towards a European strategic culture? A constructivist framework for explaining changing norms.

The article contributes to the debate about the emergence of a European strategic culture to underpin a European Security and Defence Policy. Noting both conceptual and empirical weaknesses in the literature, the article disaggregates the concept of strategic culture and focuses on four types of norms concerning the means and ends for the use of force. The study argues that national strategic cultures are less resistant to change than commonly thought and that they have been subject to three types of learning pressures since 1989: changing threat perceptions, institutional socialization, and mediatized crisis learning. The combined effect of these mechanisms would be a process of convergence with regard to strategic norms prevalent in current EU countries. If the outlined hypotheses can be substantiated by further research the implications for ESDP are positive, especially if the EU acts cautiously in those cases which involve norms that are not yet sufficiently shared across countries

Europe: A Time for Strategy. Egmont Paper No. 27, Jan. 2009

[From the Introduction] The idea to review the 2003 European Security Strategy (ESS), put forward notably by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, did not meet with universal enthusiasm. While not everybody was convinced that the ESS was already in need of updating, some also feared that too divisive debates would be provoked, particularly on Russia, and that the EU would end up with a worse rather than a better document. Hence the somewhat cautiously expressed – and grammatically slightly awkward – mandate given to High Representative Javier Solana by the December 2007 European Council: “to examine the implementation of the Strategy with a view to proposing elements on how to improve the implementation and, as appropriate, elements to complement it”. Just like in 2003, when the draft of the original ESS was discussed, the EU Institute for Security Studies organized a series of seminars, in Rome, Natolin, Helsinki and Paris, in June-October 2008, to debate the implementation of the ESS with academics and policy-makers. All three of us were involved in one or more of these seminars, and in Helsinki we constituted one of the panels, chaired by Daniel Keohane of the EUISS. Our thanks go to the EUISS for inviting us to participate in this exciting exercise

European military capabilities and future conflict. Egmont Commentary, 8 March 2016

In this second article in a five-part series on the place of defence in the future EU Global Strategy, Bastian Giegerich looks at European military capability development and future conflict

After Libya: time to bury the EU’s foreign and security policy?

Europe’s reaction to the recent upheavals in North Africa clearly exposed one thing: The EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), including its Security and Defence branch (CSDP), were steamrolled by a multitude of overtly national policies. The resulting cacophony of views made a mockery of the aspiration to present a united European position to external players. It also thwarts the claim of the EU being a more credible security actor in the wake of the Lisbon Treaty reforms. While commentators have moaned about a CFSP and CSDP ‘fatigue’ for quite some time now, the likelihood that what used to be the most dynamic EU policy field of the last decade will enter a period of prolonged hibernation never seemed as high..

Whose War on Terror Are We Talking About? A Response to Alistair Shepherd

This article critically assesses Alistair Shepherd's conclusion that ESDP is of limited utility in the post-9/11 world. We argue that this view is flawed for three reasons: first, Shepherd's analysis rests on an American-centric interpretation of the `war on terror', neglecting the fact that the European perspective of the current security environment, and how to deal with it, is quite different from the American one. Second, we contend that Shepherd neglects ESDP's development as a tool for both military and civilian crisis management, which leads him to, third, underestimate a variety of activities of the EU and member states aimed at addressing threats of terrorism and WMD proliferation. Building on this criticism, it is suggested that the issue of ESDP's `relevance' should not, indeed cannot be measured by assessing its usefulness for an American-defined war on terror. Rather than asking what the EU can do for the US, we propose that the more substantial question is how the EU is equipped to address the threats of terrorism and WMD proliferation as they appear to European

From NATO to ESDP: A Social Constructivist Analysis of German Strategic Adjustment after the End of the Cold War

This article addresses the question why Germany invested in what became the European Union’s Security and Defense Policy (ESDP), a potential competitor to NATO. In addition to highlighting Germany’s role in the development of ESDP, it offers a social constructivist explanation for this investment based on the concepts of friendship, estrangement, and emancipation. It develops the argument that (1) states gain ontological security by investing in international institutions to negotiate and pursue ideas of order with friends; (2) deep and enduring dissonance between friends signifies a process of estrangement and poses a threat to ontological security; and (3) if states cannot restore resonance with the old friend-institution configuration, they choose a strategy of emancipation by investing in an alternative. Applied to an analysis of German strategic adjustments between 1990 and 2009 in the context of U.S.-led interventions in Iraq, the Balkans, and Afghanistan, the article suggests that Germany invested in ESDP to offset enduring dissonance with the United States and NATO about appropriate mandate, missions, and means, with France and ESDP emerging as a suitable alternative. With this, the article offers valuable insights into the parameters guiding German security policy and the structure of transatlantic relations and also provides a theoretical alternative to the realist balancing proposition

La coopération franco-allemande en matière de sécurité et de défense : tremplin ou pierre d’achoppement pour l’autonomie stratégique européenne ?

International audienc

La coopération franco-allemande en matière de sécurité et de défense : tremplin ou pierre d’achoppement pour l’autonomie stratégique européenne ?

International audienc