The European Union as a Small Power: After the Post-Cold War

by A. Toje

Overview

The post-Cold War period is coming to an end. After a decade of foreign policy integration Europe faces multipolarity internally divided and externally weak. Toje argues that due to the lack of a workable decision-making mechanism the EU is destined to play the limited but distinct role of a small power in global politics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780230243965
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	06/30/2010
Series:	Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics , #14629
Edition description:	2010
Pages:	250
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

ASLE TOJE is Research Fellow at the Norwegian Nobel Institute, Norway. He is the author of America, the EU and Strategic Culture (2008) and editor of Neoclassical Realism in Europe (2009).

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations viii

List of Abbreviations ix

Preface xi

Introduction and Basic Arguments 1

Ten roles of the EU 5

Rationale and outline 10

1 The Anatomy of EU Security 13

Institutions, capabilities and consensus 14

What Lisbon changed 20

Power and powers in international politics 23

Small power politics 27

2 The European Union as a Historical Phenomenon 32

Christian universalism and balance of power 33

Concerted power and collective security 40

External primacy and peace through integration 45

American Interlude 49

After the post-Cold War 52

3 European Defence: The State of the Union 55

It all began at Saint-Malo 56

Demands for more, not less, EU security policies 58

The altered role of Europe in American foreign policy 59

NATO's transformation challenge 62

Towards a stronger Europe 64

Facilitating EU-NATO cooperation 64

Strengthening the CSDP 67

More and better European military capabilities 70

A compromise creature 73

4 The European Security Strategy Revisited 76

Introduction 76

Five years and a world of change 77

Security and strategy 80

From strategic culture to human security 82

From war on terror to terror as crime 85

Preventive engagement and hedging 87

Effective multilateralism and normative power 89

Europe hedging its bets? 91

5 Lessons from the Field 95

Operationalizing the Petersberg Tasks 96

Many missions, many reasons 99

Crisis in the Sudan 102

The handling of the Darfur crisis 104

Attention turns to Chad 107

The handling of the Chad Mission 110

The EU as a crisis manager 111

6 A Question of Political Will 115

Capability development and implementation 116

The capability-expectations gap 119

Common foreign policy in theory and in practice 121

The lack of political will 123

Consensus policy-making 127

Consequences of consensus-expectations gap 129

Overburdened and underfinanced 133

7 The Making of a Small Power 136

Powers great and small 137

Identity and strategy: The European example 140

History: The thorny legacy of hard power 141

Capabilities: What means, what ends? 142

Geopolitics: Failing to pull together 144

Values: Doctrinal idealism 145

The EU as a power 147

Less than the sum of its parts 151

8 The EU under Multipolarity 156

The rise and fall of the American Empire 157

What the Iraq war changed 160

Power and polarity 163

Interpolarity, non-polarity or a return of history? 166

From unipolarity to multipolarity 169

What will multipolarity hold for Europe? 172

Conclusion: The Purpose of European Power 177

The European Union as a small power 181

Europe's masterly inactivity 183

Notes 188

References 222

Index 245

Editorial Reviews

'A striking analysis of foreign and security policy during the opening decade of the century' Philip Stephens, Financial Times.

Recommended holiday reading, The Economist

'A fascinating tale of great ambitions and limited capacity to met them. The great strength of Asle Toje's absorbing, detailed and much-needed study is to show what role the European Union might be expected to play under multipolarity. If the fate of the EU has been bound up with the evolution of Europe, then the history of the foreign policy he reveals has been closely shaped by the lack of a workable decision-making mechanism - and by a shared national interest. At last a study that sets contemporary European security and the European Union in its broader international context.' - Robert Kagan, author of The Return of History and Paradise and Power

'Now that the Lisbon Treaty has entered into force and appointments to the three top jobs have been made, the European Union can no longerhide behind its own bureaucratic inertia as an excuse for inactivity in a dangerous world. Asle Toje, with his characteristically hard-headed approach to the EU's aspirations to become a global player, asks the really tough questions which cannot be obfuscated. Whether one agrees with him or not, this is a book which should be read by all those who seek to understand the reality behind Europe's emerging role as a global actor.' - Jolyon Howorth, Professor of Political Science, Yale University, USA

'Clearly written, drawing on a huge range of empirical sources, and theoretically sophisticated, this book is a must for all those interested in Europe's role in the emerging world order. The argument presented that, for all its size and wealth, the European Union is emerging as the equivalent of a 'small state' on the international scene is both ingenious and extremely important.' - Professor Anand Menon, Director of the European Research Institute and Professor of West European Politics, University of Birmingham, UK

'Whereas many publications discuss the adjective of power - is the EU a normative, transformative, civilian power, etc - while implicitly assuming that the EU is a global actor, Asle Toje poses the fundamental question of whether the EU will be a great power at all. A provocative yet highly necessary debate in the age of multipolarity, to which this book is an indispensable contribution.' - Professor. Dr. Sven Biscop, Director of the Security and Global Governance Programme, Royal Institute of International Relations, Belgium

'Toje's book, which is based on exhaustive interviews with decision-makers in Brussels and national capitals and an impressive mastery of the literature, is a closely argued, ruthless vivisection of Europe's shortcomings as a military actor.' - Hanns W. Maull, Survival

From the Publisher