EU Global Strategy and Human Security

Rethinking Approaches to Conflict

Mary Kaldor, Iavor Rangelov, Sabine Selchow

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138098961
• eBook ISBN: 9781351597487
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

This volume examines the EU's Global Strategy in relation to human security approaches to conflict.

Contemporary conflicts are best understood as a social condition in which armed groups mobilise sectarian and fundamentalist sentiments and construct a predatory economy through which they enrich themselves at the expense of ordinary citizens. This volume provides a timely contribution to debates over the role of the EU on the global stage and its contribution to peace and security, at a time when these discussions are reinvigorated by the adoption of the EU Global Strategy. It discusses the significance of the Strategic Review and the Global Strategy for the re-articulation of EU conflict prevention, crisis management, peacebuilding, and development policies in the next few years. It also addresses the key issues facing EU security in the 21st century, including the conflicts in Ukraine, Libya and Syria, border security, cyber-security and the role of the private security sector. The book concludes by proposing that the EU adopts a second-generation human security approach to conflicts, as an alternative to geopolitics or the 'War on Terror', taking forward the principles of human security and adapting them to 21st-century realities.

This book will be of interest to students of human security, European foreign and security policy, peace and conflict studies, global governance and IR in general.

Part I

Background

1 Assessing Mogherini’s ‘The European Union in a Changing Global Environment’ from within a ‘reflexive modern’ world

Sabine Selchow

Introduction

In June 2015, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (HR) Federica Mogherini published the document ‘The European Union in a changing global environment: A more connected, contested and complex world’ (EU 2015). This document assesses the EU’s security environment. In the process of the development of the EU Global Strategy (EUGS), the document served two purposes. First, it constituted the basis on which the European Council gave Mogherini the mandate to develop the new EU Global Strategy (European Council 2015). Second, it served as the point of reference for those who were to contribute to the development of the EUGS in the consultative process that Mogherini initiated. But the document did not lose its relevance after the publication of the EUGS; it remains the central official assessment of the security environment. This is because, in contrast to other security strategies, the document of the EUGS does not provide its own assessment of the EU’s strategic environment. It is ‘The European Union in a changing global environment’ that keeps serving this purpose.

Strategic assessments of security environments, such as ‘The European Union in a changing global environment’, are more than texts. They are part of the symbolic negotiation of the world, that is, they are part of the negotiation of what is thinkable and doable (see further Selchow 2016a; also, Kaldor and Selchow in this volume’s conclusion). Guided by an understanding of the contemporary world as being ‘reflexive modern’, and grounded in a systematic analysis of the web of meanings ‘European security’ that is produced through the document, this chapter argues that there is something remarkable about Mogherini’s strategic assessment: it holds radical openings towards ‘European security’ beyond modern premises, i.e. it holds openings for a future EU that is fit for ‘reflexive modern’ times.¹

European security in a ‘reflexive modern’ world

In 2013, the European Council invited the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy to assess “the impact of changes in the global environment, and to report to the Council in the course of 2015 on the challenges and opportunities arising for the Union, following consultations with the Member States” (European Council 2013, p. 5). In June 2015, HR Mogherini presented her assessment, entitled ‘The European Union in a changing global environment: A more connected, contested and complex world’ (EU 2015). On the basis of this assessment, the European Council concluded the HR would “continue the process of strategic reflection with a view to preparing an EU global strategy on foreign and security policy in close cooperation with Member States” (European Council 2015, p. 5). The EU Global Strategy (EUGS) was published in June 2016.

The development of the strategic assessment ‘The European Union in a changing global environment’ was a collaborative exercise that took place over the first six months of 2015. At its heart was “an informal working group, including representatives from the European External Action Service, the European Commission, the Council Secretariat and the European Council” (Tocci 2015, p. 119). The strategic document was not only to serve as the ground, on which the European Council asked Mogherini to prepare the EU Global Strategy, but also as a key point of reference in the development of the EUGS. The EUGS, too, was to be developed through a consultative process that was to stretch “beyond the circles of the foreign policy community and get everybody involved” (Mogherini 2015b). “I want a strategy that responds to the ideas, the fears, and even the dreams of the European citizens, the young and the older generations”, explained Mogherini (ibid.) when she launched the process. An important motivation for this consultative process was the understanding that the development of the EUGS is:

not only about foreign policy, it is not only about our role in the World, but it can be and must be very much about us, about Europe, about who we are, how we work together, what as Europeans we share in terms on common foreign and security policy. It is about making a European public opinion on foreign policy and security policy emerge.

(Ibid.)

As one of Mogherini’s advisors put it, “the primary purpose of an ‘external’ strategy is actually internal” (Tocci 2015, p. 116). With this, Mogherini and her team aptly captured the nature of documents like the EUGS as well as ‘The European Union in a changing global environment’. These are not just texts that describe a reality that exists outside themselves but are part of the construction of this world. They make the world meaningful. They “systematically form the objects of which they speak” (Foucault 1972, p. 49). As such, texts, such as the EUGS as well as Mogherini’s initial strategic assessment of the EU’s security environment, are part of the social negotiation of the world. More precisely, they produce and reproduce “interpretive dispositions” (Doty 1993, p. 298) that make some things imaginable, thinkable and doable and others not (see further Selchow 2016a; Selchow 2017; also, Kaldor and Selchow in this volume’s conclusion).

Two points make Mogherini’s strategic assessment ‘The European Union in a changing global environment’ a particularly interesting document. First, due to its distinct institutionalised character and the outstanding relevance that the web of meaning ‘security’ plays in the construction of the world it is a particularly influential text; the document plays a relatively powerful role in the symbolic negotiation of the world, and, as such, deserves scholarly attention. Second, the current negotiation of European security and, with that, the construction of the EU collective self through an assessment of the security environment, such as Mogherini’s 2015 document, takes place in a distinct historical moment, which makes such exercise particularly sensitive. This is a moment, in which the global consequences of modernisation, in other words, the ‘reflexive nature’ of modernisation is more apparent than ever. Whether or not it is explicitly acknowledged, European security today is European security in a ‘reflexive modern’ world.

The notion of ‘reflexive modernisation’ is prominently developed in the work of sociologist Ulrich Beck (especially 1991, 1994, 2006, 2009; also, Beck and Grande 2007). As discussed in more detail elsewhere (Selchow 2016c, 2017), Beck’s various writings and ideas can be brought together, digested and interpreted in a way that brings out a picture of social reality according to which it is subject to and shaped by the interplay of the reflexive ‘backfiring’ of modernisation, on the one side, and the prevalence of the tradition of the ‘national perspective’, on the other side. The term reflexive ‘backfiring’ of modernisation refers to a process, in which societies and their institutions are confronted with the side effects of the process of modernisation (such as climate change and global terrorism (Beck 2003)). What is crucial for such an understanding of the world is that these side-effects are not to be understood as the dark side of modernisation but as its very success. Beck (e.g. 2009) uses the term ‘global risk’ to capture these side effects, these unintended consequences of decisions that are/were grounded in modern institutions (such as the nation-state, the market etc.) and basic modern principles (such as freedom, market dependence, rationality, progress, statehood, the obligation to give reasons, etc). As elaborated elsewhere in more detail (Selchow 2014, 2017), the concept ‘global risk’ captures that the unintended consequences of decisions are to be imagined as potentially being ‘socially delimited in space and time’ (see Beck and Grande 2007, p. 418). Furthermore, it captures that – as just mentioned – they are to be seen as the very success of modernisation, progress and advancements in scientific knowledge production. Finally, the concept ‘global risk’ captures that these potential side effects are to be seen as potentially producing non-knowledge (Nichtwissen) (Beck 2009; see also Wehling 2010). This means that decisions can no longer be grounded in an assessment of their potential unintended consequences that is shaped by a national container-thinking, and that is based on the (optimistic) modern belief in progress through scientific knowledge production. On the contrary, these potential unintended consequences, i.e. “global risks”, need to be understood as “a result of more knowledge” (Beck 2009, p. 5; emphasis added), as opposed to something that could be “tamed ” and dealt with through more (modern scientific) knowledge. In this sense, as Beck and Grande (2007, p. 417) put it, ‘global risks’ produce a distinct contemporary social reality because it brings along a ‘borderless’ necessity to cooperate (Kooperationszwang), as well as an interrelation of responsibility (Verantwortungszusammenhang). At the same time, they bring along an ‘inherent uncertainty’ because established modern institutions and modern principles do no longer hold the potential of addressing them (without producing ‘global risks’).² This is what it means to say that modernisation radicalises itself and reflexively ‘backfires’. It does not only overturn its own institutions but also its own modern principles. “Modernity in this sense is a sub-political ‘revolutionary system’ without a revolutionary program or goal”, explains Beck (1991, p. 41).

The ‘reflexive backfiring’ of modernisation fundamentally challenges traditional perspectives on contemporary social reality, its modern (national) institutions and the (modern) grounds, on which decisions are made and legitimised. It challenges what is the second aspect that shapes contemporary social reality, namely the prevalence of the tradition of the ‘national perspective’ (especially Beck 2006). The ‘national perspective’ is a way of looking at the world that is blind to the above-sketched reality of the reflexive ‘backfiring’ of modernisation that is manifest in ‘global risks’; the adjective ‘national’ is used here in a relatively broad sense, referring more to ‘modern’ than narrowly to ‘national’. What Beck calls ‘national perspective’ is a view at social reality that is grounded in the narrative of modernity with its above-mentioned belief in progress, optimistic scientific knowledge production (see further Selchow 2016c; also, Selchow 2017),³ and, not least, a (national) container-thinking that is the foundation of the international system (especially Beck 2006, pp. 24 and 48). With that, the ‘national perspective’ produces an ideational layer that brings out and ‘naturalises’ institutions that are not only ‘inadequate’ in the face of a social reality, which is shaped by nothing less than the ‘backfiring’ of modernisation itself and the very principles which brought them out, but that actually produces ‘global risks’, as well as, concepts that “are historically obsolete but that nonetheless continue to govern our thinking and acting” (Beck 2003, p. 255), and institutions, which Beck (in Grefe 2000) calls ‘zombie institutions’ in that they appear to be ‘alive’ in an imagined modern world but are actually ‘dead’ in a reflexive modern reality.

Understanding social reality as being subject to ‘reflexive modernisation’ has profound implications for how to assess the state of the world and strategies to deal with contemporary challenges, such as the security of the EU and its member states. A ‘reflexive modern’ reality is a reality that requires institutions that are not based in and reproduce modern premises as these bring out ‘global risks’, but institutions and premises that are different in kind to a ‘national perspective’. So, does Mogherini’s strategic assessment hold pathways towards such a future? Does it hold openings that allow imagining a world beyond modern institutions and premises?

‘European Security’ in Mogherini’s ‘The European Union in a changing global environment’

Mogherini’s strategic assessment ‘The European Union in a changing global environment’ brings out a fascinating and complex world.⁴ The first noteworthy aspect of this world is its historical positioning; it constitutes, both, continuity and a radical break with the past. A sense of historical continuity is constructed in the text through the use of the word more. The world that is symbolically reproduced in and through ‘The European Union in a changing global environment’ is “more connected”, “more complex”, “more contested” (EU 2015, emphasis added). The word more indicates ‘difference in degree’ from the past, rather than ‘difference in kind’. It links the now with the past, indicating meaningful change but not a radical break with the past. At the same time, however, there is a radical and explicit break with the past, namely with the world that has been constructed in the 2003-EU Security Strategy (ESS 2003). This break is made at the beginning of Mogherini’s strategic assessment. Its first sentence is: “Since the 2003 Security Strategy, the EU’s strategic environment has changed radically” (EU 2015, p. 123). The world of ‘The European Union in a changing global environment’ is no longer “a post-Cold War environment” but a world of “21st century realities” (EU 2015, p. 145). This break with the world of the ESS 2003 is remarkable because, in a different world, the status of historical knowledge and ‘lessons learned’ is precarious. In a world that is ‘different in kind’, historical knowledge loses legitimacy (see further Selchow 2013) – in the case of Mogherini’s ‘The European Union in a changing global environment’ this is the knowledge and ‘lessons learned’ around the ESS 2003. In this sense, ‘The European Union in a changing global environment’ symbolically establishes a new beginning and a clear demarcation to the world of the ESS 2003.

A second noteworthy aspect of the world of Mogherini’s strategic assessment is that it is “complex”; it is a world of “21st century realities” (EU 2015, p. 145) that are “complex” realities. In the 2003 Security Strategy (ESS 2003), the adjective complex plays only a marginal role; here, “problems” and “causes” are “complex”. In the world of Mogherini’s strategic assessment, however, it is nothing less but the “world” and the “environment” that are “complex”. In other words, ‘complexity’ is the state of the world. This implies four things. First, established institutions are not able to deal with the new realities.

While the UN remains the principal guarantor of the sovereign equality among states, the composition of its Security Council and the distribution of voting rights in the International Financial Institutions no longer reflect current realities. The World Trade Organisation has grown in membership (and thus legitimacy) but not in ability to achieve consensus or advance multilateral trade liberalisation. The G20 has emerged as a major informal forum, reflecting global power realignments. But while it played a key role in short-term crisis management during the 2008 financial crisis, it has failed so far to tackle structural global challenges in economic growth, financial markets and development. No effective global institutions are in place to confront […] pressing challenges such as migration, cyber security, arms control or natural resource management.

(EU 2015, p. 138)

Second, there are shortcomings, if not failures in existing concepts, such as ‘border’ or ‘polarity’. These concepts might have worked in the “post-Cold War era” but fall short in the new reality. “The world system is no longer bipolar, unipolar or even multipolar, the very notion of ‘polarity’ is in question” (ibid., p. 136). The complexity of the world also implies the irrelevance of the clear distinction between ‘internal’ and ‘external’....

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Fm
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Notes on contributors
• Introduction
• PART I: Background
• PART II: Conflicts
• PART III: Policy arenas
• Conclusion: the EU Global Strategy and contemporary conflicts – how much second-generation human security is possible?
• Appendix: from hybrid peace to human security – rethinking EU strategy towards conflict
• Index