European Union Military Operations

A Collective Action Perspective

Niklas I. M. Nováky

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780367593384
• eBook ISBN: 9781351590846
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Europäische Geschichte

This book offers an in-depth study on the deployment of military operations in the framework of the European Union's Common Security and Defence Policy (ESDP/CSDP).

While existing studies of the subject are either descriptive or focused on a single level of analysis, this book incorporates factors from three different levels of analysis to explain the deployment of ESDP military operations. First, the international level, where the emergence of events that threaten certain values held dear by EU member states, catalyses the process leading to an operation; second, the national level, where the member states formulate their initial national preferences towards a prospective deployment based on national utility expectations; and third, the EU level, where the member states come to negotiate and seek compromises to accommodate their different national preferences towards a deployment. The strength of this multi-level collective action approach is demonstrated by four in-depth military case studies, which analyse the preference formation of France, Germany, and the UK towards the deployments of Operation Althea in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Operation Artemis and EUFOR RD Congo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Operation Atalanta off the coast of Somalia, respectively. The author draws on a wealth of primary sources, including over 50 semi-structured interviews conducted with national and EU officials during 2011-15, and provides an up-to-date overview and critique of the existing theoretical literature on the deployment of ESDP/CSDP military operations.

This book will be of much interest to students of European security, EU politics, military and strategic studies, and International Relations in general.

1 New frontier

The deployment of European Union military operations

The European Union has turned into a military power – of a sort.

The Economist, 3 April 2003

On 31 March 2003, the European Union (EU) launched Operation Concordia, the first-ever military operation in the framework of its European (now Common) Security and Defence Policy (ESDP/CSDP).¹ Its mission was to contribute to the realisation of a safe and secure environment in Macedonia, which had been ravaged by ethnic conflict in 2001.² In the 14 years that have passed since Concordia’s launch, the EU has deployed 12 military operations in Europe and Africa. The most recent is EUTM RCA, a training mission launched in 2016 to contribute to defence sector reform in the Central African Republic (CAR). Although the EU’s entry into the business of military crisis management sparked a lively academic debate over whether it was something that an actor that had traditionally seen itself as a ‘civilian’ or ‘normative power’ should do (Manners 2006), military operations have become a surprisingly uncontroversial addition to the Union’s foreign policy toolbox. As one official from European External Action Service (EEAS) noted in 2014, it is nowadays more likely that the EU would have to justify the inaction of CSDP rather than action whenever a crisis erupts (Interview with EEAS official in Brussels, 5 May 2014).

For almost half a century, the conventional wisdom in International Relations (IR) held that the ‘high politics’ of security and defence was too sensitive to be dealt at the European level and at odds with the EU’s ‘civilian power’ self-image (Hoffmann 1966; Duchêne 1972). Given that the creation of the ESDP and the launch of operations in its framework represented a break from this view, they have understandably received a high amount of academic attention. Thus, there already exists a relatively large body of literature on them, which will only grow further as the EU continues to launch new operations (e.g. Merlingen and Ostraukaite 2008; Grevi, Helly, and Keohane 2009; Dijkstra 2013; Engberg 2014; Pohl 2014; Rodt 2014). Although this literature has improved our understanding of the factors that drive the deployment of EU military operations, most of it is descriptive and prescriptive rather than theoretical. Yet, over the past years, there has been a welcome increase in theory-driven studies on the subject. Pohl (2014) and Dijkstra (2013), for example, have published books that analyse the deployment of EU operations from liberal and institutionalist perspectives respectively. However, both books draw their conclusions from a mixture of civilian and military operations. This means that there are still few studies that focus exclusively on EU military operations. The only such study available is Engberg’s (2014) book on the circumstances under which the EU undertakes military operations, which uses a descriptive Analytical Tool to identify a set of factors that either drive or inhibit their deployment. Engberg found that the EU tends to undertake military operations when a conflict can be identified as an opportunity, where individual member states or the Union as a whole have intervened before, when the consent of influential local actors are secured, when resources are available, and when the operation would complement the work of other actors (Engberg 2014: 182–4). Although knowing that these factors play a role in the deployment of EU military operations helps us understand the logic behind them, it is difficult to evaluate their relative importance without IR theory.

This book develops a multi-level collective action approach for explaining the deployment of EU military operations in 2003–08. It draws from collective action theory, which has so far been underutilised by EU security policy scholars, to answer the research question: why are EU military operations deployed? The book argues that EU military operations were deployed in 2003–08 because the member states expected them to facilitate the production various benefits. More specifically, operations launched in this period were expected communicate to the world that the EU had become a credible autonomous actor in international security. Before presenting the multi-level collective action approach in Chapter 2, this chapter will introduce the reader to EU security policy and the deployment of EU military operations. It is divided into six sections: the first provides an overview of European efforts to create an autonomous framework for security and defence cooperation since the 1950s, the second provides an overview of EU military operations launched in 2003–17, the third explains why the deployment of those operation is a subject worth studying, the fourth reviews the existing literature on the subject, the fifth lays out the book’s argument, and the sixth outlines the structure of the book. The conclusion summarises the main points of the chapter.

Development of an EU military intervention capability

During the Cold War, tensions between the United States of America (USA) and the Soviet Union constrained Europeans’ willingness to create a more robust institutional framework for autonomous foreign and security policy cooperation than the European Political Cooperation (EPC) [Merlingen 2012: 31–2]. The reason for this was that most of them did not want to do anything that would make it appear they were decreasing their commitment to the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), which was the cornerstone of their security and defence. Although there had been ambitious proposals for an autonomous European framework for security and defence cooperation, such as the 1950 Pleven Plan, which would have created a supranational European Defence Community (EDC), they had collapsed due to a lack of consensus.

However, after the Cold War, the room for manoeuvre was increased for those who wanted deeper European foreign and security policy cooperation. Furthermore, the Yugoslav Wars, which began after Slovenia’s secession from Yugoslavia in 1991, reinforced these states’ conviction that they needed new institutional structures to deal with post-Cold War security challenges more effectively. Thus, France and Germany worked hard to convince their partners in the then European Economic Community (EEC) of the necessity of creating a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) for the EU (Merlingen 2012: 32). In the end, the CFSP became one of the three pillars of the EU, which was created by the 1992 Maastricht Treaty. Although CFSP inherited the EPC’s intergovernmental structure, it included ‘all questions related to the security of the Union, including the eventual framing of a common defence policy, which might in time lead to a common defence’ (Hill and Smith 2000: 155). Furthermore, the Maastricht Treaty also stated that the EU requests the Western European Union (WEU) to ‘elaborate and implement decisions and actions of the Union which have defence implication’ (Hill and Smith 2000: 155).

When negotiating the Maastricht Treaty, EEC countries agreed to examine and possibly revise certain sections of it in 1996 (Hill and Smith 2000: 168). One of these sections was CFSP because the policy’s structures had proven unsatisfactory. Following a difficult negotiation process, EU member states agreed to the Amsterdam Treaty in 1997. Although it was expected to improve CFSP’s functioning, it ultimately failed to do so due to a lack of political will among the member states. However, the treaty introduced several reforms, which proved to be significant for the EU’s ambition to become an autonomous actor in international security. First, it created the office of the High Representative for the CFSP, who would ‘assist the Council in matters coming within the scope of’ CFSP, ‘in particular through contributing to the formulation, preparation and implementation of policy decisions, and, when appropriate and acting on behalf of the Council at the request of the Presidency, through conducting political dialogue with third parties’ (Hill and Smith 2000: 178). Second, the member states also agreed to incorporate the so-called Petersberg Tasks, which were originally adopted by the WEU in 1992, into the Treaty on European Union (TEU). At the time, these included ‘humanitarian and rescue tasks, peacekeeping tasks and tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peacemaking’ (Hill and Smith 2000: 174).

The most important development, however, took place in 1998. In December, France and the United Kingdom (UK) held their annual bilateral meeting in Saint-Malo, France. During this meeting, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac agreed to a joint declaration on European defence, which called for the development of a robust security and defence policy for the EU. The Saint-Malo Declaration stated that the EU ‘needs to be in a position to play its full role on the international stage’ (Rutten 2001: 8). To this end, it saw that the EU ‘must have the capacity for autonomous action, backed up by credible military forces, the means to decide to use them, and a readiness to do so, in order to respond to international crises’ (Rutten 2001: 8). It also emphasised that the EU would take military action only ‘where the Alliance as a whole is not engaged’ (Rutten 2001: 8). However, they emphasised that the EU

must be given appropriate structures and a capacity for analysis of situations, sources of intelligence, and a capability for relevant strategic planning, without unnecessary duplication, taking account of the existing assets of the WEU and the evolution of its relations with the EU.

(Rutten 2001: 8–9)

In this regard, France and the UK saw that the EU ‘will also need to have recourse to suitable military means (European capabilities pre-designated within NATO’s European pillar or national or multinational European means outside the NATO framework)’ (Rutten 2001: 9).

The ESDP was set up quickly following the Saint-Malo Declaration. During the German EU Council Presidency in spring 1999, many important issues relating to the policy’s creation were advanced. This debate culminated at the Cologne European Council on 3–4 June, where EU heads of state and government discussed the ESDP’s institutional framework and possible deployment scenarios for future operations. With regards to the institutional framework, they agreed that conducting EU operations ‘may require’ regular or ad hoc meetings of the General Affairs Council, a Political and Security Committee (PCS) consisting of national representatives with experience from political and military affairs, an EU Military Committee (EUMC) consisting of national military representatives making recommendations to the PSC, an EU Military Staff (EUMS) including a Situation Centre, and other institutions, such a Satellite Centre and an Institute for Security Studies (Rutten 2001: 44). With regards to deployment scenarios, it was agreed that the EU would deploy two types of military operations: (1) ‘EU-led operations using NATO assets and capabilities’ or (2) ‘EU-led operations without recourse to NATO assets and capabilities’ – that is, autonomous EU operations (Rutten 2001: 44).

The ESDP was created formally at the 10–11 December 1999 Helsinki European Council. During this meeting, EU heads of state and government agreed ‘to develop an autonomous capacity to take decisions and, where NATO as a whole is not engaged, to launch and conduct EU-led military operations in response to international crises’ (Rutten 2001: 82). Due to concerns that this process would lead to the EU’s militarisation and US warnings against duplicating existing NATO assets and capabilities, it was emphasised that the ‘process will avoid unnecessary duplication and does not imply the creation of a European army’ (Rutten 2001: 82). Furthermore, the Helsinki European Council agreed the so-called Helsinki Headline Goal (HHG), which was to become the centrepiece of the new ESDP. The purpose of the HHG was to facilitate the ESDP’s development so that EU member states would ‘be able, by 2003, to deploy within 60 days and sustain for at least one year military forces of up to 50,000–60,000 persons capable of the full range of Petersberg tasks’ (Rutten 2001: 82). More specifically, these were to be ‘militarily self-sustaining with the necessary command, control and intelligence capabilities, logistics, other combat support services and additionally, as appropriate, air and naval elements’ (Rutten 2001: 85). In addition, the Helsinki European Council agreed that the institutional framework proposed by the Cologne European Council would be established.

To prepare the EU for the 2004 ‘big bang’ enlargement to Central and Eastern Europe, which increased its membership from 15 to 25 states, the European Council approved the Nice Treaty in December 2000. With regards to the CFSP/ESDP, the treaty made some small adjustments by codifying what had already been agreed. It was decided that the EU would assume the crisis management functions of the WEU, thus effectively incorporating the organisation into the Union (Rutten 2001: 173). In addition, the Nice Treaty extended the procedure known as ‘enhanced cooperation’ to CFSP. This meant that a subgroup of a minimum of eight EU member states could implement CFSP decisions and use EU institutions and funds towards this end. However, it should be noted that the Nice Treaty stated explicitly that the process of enhanced cooperation ‘shall not relate to matters having military or defence implications’ (Rutten 2001: 210). In other words, it would not be possible for a subgroup of EU member states to undertake military operations. Furthermore, the treaty also incorporated the ESDP related institutional structures that were created after the Helsinki European Council (PSC, EUMC, EUMS) formally into the TEU.

After the ESDP was created, the EU needed to set strategic priorities for it. The need for such priorities became clear in 2003 during the transatlantic rift over the Iraq War, which caused bitter divisions among EU member states. It was therefore hoped that a European Security Strategy (ESS) would enhance the EU’s cohesion and prevent similar divisions from emerging in the future. Thus, in December 2003, the European Council adopted the ESS. Although only 14 pages long, the document identified five key threats that the EU would focus on countering through its CFSP/ESDP. These were terrorism, the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), regional conflicts, state failure, and organised crime. Although it was meant to be a strategy that would guide the ESDP, the ESS did not specify the circumstances in which the EU would use military force. In fact, it downplayed the utility of military force in addressing contemporary security challenges in general by emphasising that ‘none of the new threats is purely military; nor can any be tackled by purely military means’ (CEU 2003: 7). The ESS saw that dealing with terrorism ‘may require a mixture of intelligence, police, judicial, military and other means’. With regards to failed states, it stated that ‘military instruments may be needed to restore order’. Furthermore, the ESS saw that military assets ‘may be needed in the post conflict phase’ of regional conflicts (CEU 2003: 7).

Like the ESS, the 2004 Battlegroup Concept was also meant to increase the ESDP’s effectiveness. Following Operation Artemis, the first EU military operation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), France and the UK proposed in November 2003 that the EU ‘should be capable and willing’ to deploy ‘coherent and credible battle-group sized forces, each around 1,500 troops offered by a single nation or through a multinational or framework nation force package’ (Missiroli 2003: 281). This proposal was elaborated in the February 2004 Franco-British-German ‘food for thought paper’, which outlined a ‘battle-group concept’. They saw that the EU should develop approximately 1,500-strong force packages that could be deployed to a crisis area with 15 days’ notice. Once they would arrive in the crisis area, the battlegroups could be sustained for 30 days without rotations and up to 120 days with rotations. In May, the Council approved the Headline Goal 2010 in which the Union’s ability ‘to deploy force packages at high readiness as a response to a crisis either as a standalone force or as part of a larger operation enabling follow-on phases’ was ‘a key element’ (CEU 2004: 7). Furthermore, the European Council endorsed the Headline Goal 2010 in June. Although the Battlegroup Concept has been operational since 2005, no battlegroups have so far been deployed. Thus, many member states have become frustrated with the battlegroups and would like to see them reformed (Interviews with national officials in Brussels, January–May 2014).

Although the Nice Treaty made some adjustments to the CFSP/ESDP, the 2009 Lisbon Treaty introduced more significant reforms. It was largely based on the 2004 Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe (TEC), which collapsed after French and Dutch voters rejected it in 2005. The Lisbon Treaty abolished the EU’s pillar structure, which had been in place since the Maastricht Treaty’s entry into force in 1993. It also granted th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright page
• Table of Contents
• List of tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• 1 New frontier: the deployment of European Union military operations
• 2 Revelations: a multi-level collective action approach
• 3 Out of the shadows: Operation Althea in Bosnia and Herzegovina
• 4 To tame a land: Operation Artemis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
• 5 Déjà-vu: EUFOR RD Congo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
• 6 Gangland: Operation Atalanta off the coast of Somalia
• 7 The aftermath: conclusions and final thoughts
• Index