European Security Policy and Strategic Culture

by Peter Schmidt (Editor), Benjamin Zyla (Editor)

Overview

With the Lisbon Treaty in place and the European Union increasingly involved in international crisis management and stabilization operations in places near and far, this volume revisits the trajectory of a European strategic culture. Specifically, it studies the usefulness of its application in a variety of circumstances, including the EU’s operations in Africa and the Balkans as well as joint operations with NATO and the United Nations.

The contributors find that strategic culture is a useful tool to explain and understand the EU's civilian and military operations, not in the sense of a ‘cause’, but as a European normative framework of preferences and constraints. Accordingly, classical notions of strategic culture in the field of international security must be adapted to highlight the specific character of Europe's strategic culture, especially by taking the interaction with the United Nations and NATO into account. Though at variance over the extent to which security and defence missions have demonstrated or promoted a shared strategic culture in Europe, the authors reveal a growing sense that a cohesive strategic culture is critical in the EU’s ambition of being a global actor. Should Europe fail to nurture a shared strategic culture, its actions will be based much more on flexibility than on cohesion.

This book was published as a special issue of Contemporary Security Policy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781138944305
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	07/18/2015
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Peter Schmidt is Honorary Professor at the University of Mannheim and a former senior fellow of the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik in Berlin. He organizes regular international crisis management simulation with Queen's University and has published widely on issues of European security, transatlantic relations, regional crisis management, and sustainability questions of the armed forces.

Benjamin Zyla joined the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa as an Assistant Professor in July 2011. He holds a PhD from the Royal Military College of Canada, an MA from Carleton University, and bachelor degrees from Uppsala University and the University of Göttingen. His research interests include international security, international organizations & global governance, and foreign policy analysis.

Table of Contents

1. European Security Policy: Strategic Culture in Operation? Peter Schmidt and Benjamin Zyla EUROPEAN STRATEGIC CULTURE 2. ‘Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off’? Security Culture as Strategic Culture David G. Haglund 3. EU Strategic Culture: When the Means Becomes the End Per M. Norheim-Martinsen 4. Strategic Culture and the Common Security and Defense Policy: A Classical Realist Assessment and Critique Sten Rynning TESTING STRATEGIC CULTURE: MILITARY OPERATIONS 5. From Words to Deeds: Strategic Culure and the European Union’s Balkan Military Missions Charles C. Pentland 6. EU’s Military Involvement in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Security Culture, Interests and Games Peter Schmidt 7. The Failure of a European Strategic Culture: EUFOR CHAD: The Last of its kind? Jean Yves Haine TESTING STRATEGIC CULTURE: CIVILIAN OPERATIONS 8. In Search of aTtrademark: EU Civilian Operations in Africa Reinhardt Rummel 9. Putting Ideas into Action: EU Civilian Crisis Management in the Western Balkans Arnold H. Kammel CONNECTING: THE EU, UN AND NATO 10. Strategic Culture and Multilateralism: The interplay of the EU and the UN in conflict and crisis management Ingo Peters 11. Overlap or Opposition? EU and NATO’s Strategic (Sub-)Culture Benjamin Zyla