The Making of European Security Policy

Between Institutional Dynamics and Global Challenges

Roberta Haar, Thomas Christiansen, Sabina Lange, Sophie Vanhoonacker, Roberta Haar, Thomas Christiansen, Sabina Lange, Sophie Vanhoonacker

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000385243
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: National Security
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This volume addresses how and in what capacity the European Union and its member states are able to respond to fundamental shifts occurring in global politics and remain relevant for the future.

The changing nature of the international system is subject to considerable contestation among scholars, with many claiming that the fundamentals of the post-war international system are being rewritten. This volume brings together prominent scholars in the field of European security to address a range of pertinent issues related to Europe's role in the context of evolving global challenges. The first section focuses on whether the EU is an actor with a strategic nature and the means to act on a global security strategy. The second section considers the institutional dynamics and the approaches at the EU's disposal to fulfil its possible intended global roles. The third section addresses Europe's most important strategic relationship—the partnership it has with the United States. This section considers the recalibration of the transatlantic relationship in light of the changing international system and the reorientation of U.S. foreign policy.

This book will be of much interest to students of European Union policy, European Security policy, European Foreign policy and International Relations in general.

1 Introduction

Global challenges and institutional dynamics in the making of European security policy

Thomas Christiansen and Roberta N. Haar

The changing global context for European security policy

When Federica Mogherini, the then European Union (EU) High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, unveiled a new EU Global Strategy (EUGS) in June 2016, it demonstrated the significant transformation that global politics had undergone since the previous EU security strategy had been adopted in 2003. Confronted with an arc of instability along its southern and eastern borders, riven by a series of internal crises and, beyond Europe, faced with fractures in the institutions of global governance, the emphasis in the EUGS was on the importance of resilience, on strategic autonomy and a pragmatic promotion of both values and interests.

Four years on, the global context for European security policy has changed even more, and largely for the worse in terms of the EU’s foreign policy objectives. Prime among these changes is the further deterioration of global governance regimes, chiefly because of the attacks on these by the Trump administration. Starting right after his inauguration in January 2017, President Donald J. Trump acted on his election promise to put “America First” by removing the United States from international agreements, commitments and institutions. The list is long and well known, including both regional and global arrangements. An “America First” policy spelt the end of US participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Paris Agreement to combat climate change, UNESCO, the WHO, disarmament treaties with Russia and the Iran nuclear deal – to name just the more prominent examples. There were also threats to leave the World Trade Organization (WTO), which was in any case hobbled by the US failure to appoint judges to its appellate body, thus causing the WTO dispute settle mechanism to stop functioning.

Occurring against the background of other global powers having already developed a growing attitude of violating agreements and ignoring international law more generally—as Russia has done in Ukraine and China in Hong Kong and the South China Sea—this American assault further weakened the established norms and institutions of global governance. It also helped to discredit the notion that “the West” is the champion of a rules-based international system. It is an ironic set of circumstances considering that it had been the United States that drove the establishment of the Bretton Woods institutions and the so-called International Liberal Order in the aftermath of the Second World War.

The current era is marked by a revival of great power politics, geoeconomics and strategic rivalry. While the lasting consequences of Trump’s US foreign policy are difficult to assess, the erosion of the International Liberal Order has arguably made it more difficult to contain security threats, both traditional, such as nuclear proliferation in North Korea and Iran, and non-traditional, most prominently climate change and global pandemics. It also further complicates the resolutions of conflicts and indeed threatens to escalate proxy wars and disputes, such as those in the Eastern Mediterranean, Libya and the Horn of Africa.

The trajectory of these developments is of deep concern to the EU, where foreign policy is based on support for international norms, global governance and ‘effective multilateralism’. The shift in US foreign policy towards “America First” (meaning in many cases America alone) and its scepticism towards, if not outright withdrawal from, multilateral institutions meant that the EU (as well as Japan and South Korea) were left to conduct their foreign and security policy more autonomously. This not only limited the influence the EU and individual European states had on the global stage; it also raised questions about the continued presence of “the West” as a force in global politics. Trump’s description of the EU as an “enemy” in terms of trade relations and the imposition of punitive tariffs by the US on a range of European exports on the grounds of “national security” further demonstrated fissures in the transatlantic alliance.

With regard to European security more narrowly, one of the more serious developments has been Trump’s scepticism towards the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), his attacks on European partners for their alleged free-riding on US security commitments and his announcement of withdrawing US troops from Germany. Question marks about the continued relevance (if not existence) of NATO have been exacerbated by the criticism of others (with French President Emmanuel Macron’s statement that NATO was “brain-dead” among the most prominent) and deep-seated conflicts among its members. With regard to the latter, the 2020 confrontations between Turkish naval vessels on the one side, and Greek and French on the other, drive home the impression that a NATO challenged by internal conflicts is losing credibility in its ability to confront external threats.

The erosion of the International Liberal Order, the fissures in the transatlantic alliance and the question marks over the future of NATO constitute serious challenges to European security. These developments not only undermine long-standing principles of European foreign policy, such as the support for multilateralism and the promotion of the rule of law, but also threaten to remove the foundations on which European states and the EU as a whole have conducted their foreign and security policy in the post-1945 era. The 2016 EUGS indicated a shift in response to these developments but did not, and could not anticipate the seriousness of the challenge.

The publication of the EUGS in June 2016 also coincided with the British vote to leave the EU (a departure of one of the largest member states and its most potent military power). Brexit has implications for the EU’s international reputation, its weight in global politics and its capacity to mobilise military assets in support of its security policy. While the damage done by Brexit will affect the UK more, as has Simon Duke argued, it will nonetheless affect the EU, even if the precise nature of the Brexit effect will depend on the kind of future relationship that Britain and the EU negotiate (Duke 2019). These negotiations are still ongoing at the time of this book going to press, yet the trend towards the more pessimistic end of the scenarios proposed by Duke was evident in the context of a rapid deterioration in the relations between the two sides. Indeed, the conclusion of only a minimal deal, or indeed the absence of any agreement at all between the EU and the UK was a distinct possibility in the final weeks and months of the negotiations, given the express willingness of Prime Minister Boris Johnson to legislate against the previously signed and ratified Withdrawal Agreement.

At the beginning of the 2020s, the risk of a rupture that Brexit and its aftermath might constitute for European security became apparent. More broadly, the growing gulf between Trump’s America and Johnson’s Britain, on the one hand, and the EU (which to some extent has become unified in the context of Brexit negotiations) demonstrates how the long-standing pillars of European security policy are falling away, and how the security architecture for the continent needs to be re-thought and reimagined for this new era.

The contributions to this volume address these challenges by investigating specific aspects of the changing landscape of European security policy across three broad areas: first, the nature of the EU as a security actor, involving contributions that analyse the strategic outlook, its normative orientation and its commitment to conflict resolution and crisis management; second, the dynamics resulting from the presence of a common institutional framework containing both supranational and intergovernmental logics; and, third, the recalibration of transatlantic relations in the context of changing global politics. The following section outlines how the various chapters address these critical aspects of European security policy.

The making of European security in challenging times: The research agenda

The nature of the EU as a security actor

The fundamental shifts at the global level not only pose serious tests for the EU, but also heighten the importance of a comprehensive analysis of the EU as a foreign, security and even defence actor. The EU has been articulating the possibility that it provides the wherewithal for its own security and defence since the end of the Cold War when events in Southern and Eastern Europe brought issues of security and defence to the top of policy agendas. The EU’s early momentum towards becoming a foreign, security and defence actor was harnessed in the Common Security and Defence Policy in 1999 and the Berlin Plus agreement in 2002, which gave the EU recourse to NATO assets.

Despite these measures, the EU’s ability to achieve genuine strategic autonomy as an actor or to manage relevant crises remained questionable, especially after the 2004 EU enlargement, when the Berlin Plus agreement became unusable due to the political stalemate surrounding the division of Cyprus. More recently, the EU’s handling of a series of emergencies points to a global actor in trouble. Recent tests that the EU has not handled particularly well include a sovereign debt crisis, a refugee crisis, a resurgence in nationalism (which added to underlying pressures leading to Brexit) and the backsliding of democratic practices by some EU member states.

In the light of the wider transformation of the international system and the EU’s inability to handle these recent crises, the question what sort of foreign, security and defence actor the EU aspires to remain crucial. Moreover, one could legitimately ask a number of complementary questions, such as, whether the EU is actually a global actor or merely an important regional one. And, beyond this, what is the character of the EU as an international actor?

The first section of this volume focuses on these issues, with Nathalie Tocci addressing the questions whether the EU is an actor with a strategic nature and the wherewithal to act on a global security strategy. Further than security, could the EU become a proper defence actor? For example, rather ambitiously, the Council of the European Union launched PESCO (Permanent Structured Cooperation on security and defence) in December 2017. PESCO is a series of cooperation projects to develop defence capabilities. Goals for the 17 PESCO projects are impressive, with then EU High Representative Mogherini (2017) stating that the possibilities to make European defence more efficient with higher levels of output “are immense”.

In a reality check, Simon Duke (2018) pointed out that the EU still has several impediments to becoming a defence actor. For instance, since PESCO takes an “opt-in” approach exactly how “common” will the permanent framework be? Might PESCO discover the same free rider, burden-sharing conundrum that NATO currently experiences? Additionally, how will the sovereignty-linked mindset of the members be overcome? The reality of 27 different armies points to hardwired attitudes that defence is the core of what it means to be a nation-state. This obstacle must be set alongside the equally thwarting viewpoint by some member states, like Austria, Finland, Ireland, Malta and Sweden, that taking part in defence cooperation goes against their ideals of being neutral and non-aligned. Add to this that any truly autonomous defence must include a credible nuclear deterrent under an EU command, a perhaps insurmountable factor that France’s force de frappe looks unable to provide.

Rather than pursue actorness in the areas of security and defence, perhaps the EU will continue more profitably with a foreign policy that stresses its soft power. Mai’a K. Davis Cross explores in her chapter the EU’s continued emphasis on its normative nature, with the power to wield cultural diplomacy that emphasises its attractiveness as a world leader. Davis Cross asks the question whether the EU’s cultural diplomacy strategy is effective in helping to counter current threats, such as cyber propaganda that is attacking democratic societies in the world. Davis Cross further asks what role could the EU play going forward given the current weaknesses of the liberal world order, as discussed above.

The threats that Davis Cross identifies are certainly evident in the EU’s regional context, especially in its eastern neighbourhood, where the EU’s aspirations to be a global actor, as well as a normative power, collide with Russia’s vision of itself and its own models of political governance. Gergana Noutcheva argues that this rivalry over the future of the neighbourhood between Russia and the EU has come to be the defining feature of their relationship but also the key to understanding the domestic struggle for good governance in the countries of the EU’s eastern neighbourhood.

More globally, the EU’s normative goals and character may still prompt it to develop itself further as a conflict manager that acts in cooperation with other global actors. Development of the EU as a conflict manager came with the first civilian missions and military operations that deployed in 2003 in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Currently, the EU has a European Union Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina (EUFOR), also known as Operation Althea (from 2004 to present), which took over from NATO’s operation IFOR (Implementation) and SFOR (Stabilization). It also has a European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX) (from 2008 to June 2020), which provides the civilian and rule of law dimension to complement NATO’s Kosovo Force (KFOR). These successes allowed the EU to fulfil civilian crisis management tasks that NATO did not.

However, Andrew Sherriff argues that despite the EU’s significant financial and energy investment in conflict prevention and peacebuilding, its mixed methods have resulted in mixed results. Sherriff’s chapter explores some of the predicaments associated with the EU’s multidimensional methods to conflict prevention and peacebuilding and their less than satisfying outcomes.

Institutional dynamics in the making of European security policy

One key factor in the making of European security policy, already highlighted in the earlier discussion, is the presence of a remarkably dense and complex set of institutions devoted to regional security. Three aspects here deserve particular attention and are being addressed in the respective chapters in this part of the book: first, the tensions between intergovernmental and supranational dynamics within the EU’s foreign and security policymaking machinery; second, the co-existence of the EU and NATO as providers of security on the European continent, cooperating in various ways but also distinguished by fundamentally different institutional logics, decision-making modes and understandings of security policy; and, third, the manner in which European security policy has tended to involve both traditional and non-traditional approaches to security.

The evolving cooperation between the EU and NATO is the focus of two chapters, namely the ones authored by Hanna Ojanen and by Raphael Bossong and Mark Rhinard, respectively. Both contributions demonstrate the extent to which cooperation between these institutions has increased in the post-Cold War era and discuss some of the effects of this development. Ojanen, in her chapter, shows how the growing interaction between the EU and NATO has helped to make both similar to one another. In the process of regular dialogue, cooperation at the institutional level and joint action each adapted with the result that a degree of approximation emerged along with their increasingly entrenched collaboration.

At the same time, such cooperation between these different kinds of organisations emphasised their distinctive characteristics. Ojanen highlights the supranational elements, which have become more prominent in the context of the EU, especially as the European Commission increasingly becomes a player in foreign, defence and security policy, whereas NATO staunchly relies on an intergovernmental logic in its decision-making processes. A distinction is, if anything, bound to become starker as the pressure to introduce elements of the (supranational) Community method, such as majority voting and Commission initiative, increase in the future.

Bossong and Rhinard, in their contribution, focus on the substantive changes occurring in both NATO and EU security policy. Their chapter focuses upon the manner in which European security policy crossed the traditional divide between internal and external security as well as the impact of an emerging “nexus” of internal and external security policymaking. Having charted the mechanisms through which the boundary between internal and external security has become blurred in recent years, the chapter then discusses the normative implications of this trend for the EU in particular. Bossong and Rhinard argue that the emergence of an integrated security executive in Europe raises far-reaching questions about the operation of constitutional norms in the EU, about conceptions of accountability and indeed about the very raison d...