Defending the Fortress? Assessing the European Union’s Response to Trafficking

In the early 1990s, the European Union (EU) initiated two strategies, one deepening integration, the other widening it, to combat the increasingly important soft security agenda. This article seeks to assess the effectiveness of the EU’s response to the new security environment and speculates as to whether the completion of one process makes the achievement of the other more difficult, if not impossible. One focus will be on the development of border management on the EU’s periphery. Are the applicant states sufficiently prepared for the task of acting as the EU’s external frontier guard? The reactions of existing member states is also put under the spotlight. Arguably, their failure to promote a more equitable burden sharing arrangement, coupled with the decision to maintain internal frontier controls with applicant states for a transitional period after accession, has made the task of securing a strong external frontier more difficult. The European Police Office (Europol) forms the centerpiece of analysis in relation to the deepening of integration. Its efficacy as a means of information exchange is examined, and the impact of enlargement is considered.     

Science,security and spies

Abstract

The national research and development (R&D) base has in the post-cold war era gained increased importance in order to fill new security demands. There is a broadening of the search for security relevant science and technology involving more organizations and interests, scientific disciplines and nations. The question discussed in this article is if the premises of international, free and open R&D will be(come) compromised? Will we see more scientists, in their normal scientific activities, being accused of spying? The article suggests that such risks are not unrealistic to expect. Spy cases in less democratic countries could have consequences for scientists also in other countries. Outcomes depend on, among other things, the relative strengths of academic freedom and a political Identification Friend and Foe (IFF) component. United Nations and European Union resolutions restricting science education for students from Iran and North Korea in an attempt to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons illustrate a strong IFF component. Difficulties with regard to the implementation of these resolutions and other findings are presented in the final section of the article.     

From revolution to reform and back: EU-Security sector reform in Ukraine

ABSTRACT

Security Sector Reform (SSR) is an important element of the EU’s external intervention toolkit. In an increasingly uncertain global security environment, the EU has currently stepped up its SSR endeavours. However, success of these efforts largely depends on the EU’s capabilities in navigating complex context-specific challenges. In particular the EU needs to be able to simultaneously address the functional and normative-societal imperatives that underpin SSR. This article considers the case of the EU’s ongoing SSR mission to Ukraine – the European Union Advisory Mission (EUAM). It asks, what are the unique context-specific challenges faced by EUAM in Ukraine? How do these challenges influence the EU’s ability to satisfy both the normative-societal imperative of SSR through the EUAM? This article mainly relies on secondary data, and applies a “Whole of Society” approach to conflict prevention and peacebuilding (WOS). Amidst a situation of ongoing multiple armed conflicts and EU-Russian relations of mutual dependence, a key finding is that the mandate of the mission has become more narrow and exclusive by sacrificing vertical coherence and the normative-societal imperative. We recommend EUAM adopt a more “revolutionary” approach to SSR, by adhering to key SSR normative principles so that the mission can overcome the challenges of the unique reform environment of Ukriane. This will also make it able to contribute more meaningfully to the wider reform process in an effective and sustainable manner.     

Balancing against threats or bandwagoning with power? Europe and the transatlantic relationship after the Cold War

The United States has played an important role in European security since the early 20^th century. From the time of the end of the Cold War, this role has changed as a consequence of the lack of a common territorial threat and the overwhelming power of the United States relative to Europe. How have European states responded to the challenges of the American world order? Are they adapting their security policies to match the challenges of US security policy and the American world order? What are the implications of the European response for the transatlantic relationship? This article seeks to describe and explain European security behaviour in the American world through the prism of two realist theories: balance of power realism and balance of threat realism. Despite sharing a common starting point in realist assumptions, each theory allows us to tell a different story about Europe's position in the American world order as well as the opportunities and challenges it faces.     

Russia as a ‘virtual great power’: Implications for its declining role in European and Eurasian security

Instead of analyzing just some recent developments of Russia's domestic, foreign and security policies, this article focuses in particular on mid‐ and long‐term strategic trends and the consequences of Russia's decline for European and Eurasian Security. It argues that Russia is still in a long‐term socio‐economic decline and it is unrealistic to expect that Moscow will regain its former status as a Great Power or even Superpower in the mid‐term future even of its economy and military power improve rapidly and substantially. Against this background, two other powers of the Eurasian landmass, the EU and China will surpass Russia in international standing and secure great power status in the coming decades with far‐reaching consequences for the international system and Russia's security as well as for its role in Europe and Central as well a East Asia. In this light, the article analyzes strategic trends in domestic, foreign and security policies, including the impact of often overlooked factors such as demographic trends and the health crisis, of decentralization, regionalization and fragmentation within the Russian Federation, the future of Russia's military reform policies (including Russia's draft military doctrine of October 1999 and its nuclear illusions) and their implications for Russia's future foreign and security policies.     

New threats – different response: EU and NATO and Somali piracy

When the European Union (EU) launched its first military naval mission, EU NAVFOR Somalia, Atalanta, the states who are members of both the EU and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) made a political choice: to prioritize the EU over NATO in their multilateral military efforts to fight piracy and its consequences. Thereby, Atalanta challenges the conventional assumption that EU security cooperation will remain limited. It also challenges the widely held belief that the European states will chose to act through NATO if dealing multilaterally with international security issues. How can we explain this decision? This analysis suggests that it can be explained in two phases where different mechanisms were at work. In the first phase, which can be accounted for from a neo-realist perspective, France, who held the Presidency, used particular favorable geopolitical conditions to put an autonomous EU operation on the agenda. However, agreement on the EU option cannot be explained as a result of strategic bargaining. Instead, in a second phase and in line with an alternative hypothesis building on the theory of communicative action, the EU member states came to support the French suggestion due to legitimacy considerations regarding the legal framework of the two operations.     

The Rationalities of European Border Security

Abstract

Any account of European security that ignores border security is incomplete, and any account of border security that disregards functional issues is unfinished. Border security is an empirical manifestation of a state's adaptation to its political environment, so a comprehensive analysis of European security requires that both the empirical and conceptual parameters of border management should be identified. However, this is problematic. Not only is functional security benignly neglected by the academy, but also border management is based on competing political imperatives, operational necessities, and social realities, rather than a coherent theoretical framework. Although the rationalities of European border security have yet to be systematically analysed, the Schengen accord is unlikely to provide the foundations needed for a comprehensive paradigm of European (border) security. This article focuses on the empirical and practical—rather than theoretical—dimensions of border security in order to rebalance the debate.     

Understanding EU crisis diplomacy in the European neighbourhood: strategic narratives and perceptions of the EU in Ukraine,Israel and Palestine

ABSTRACT

This Special Issue seeks to better understand the role of communication and perception in EU crisis diplomacy. In a recent Special Issue in this journal, Catarina Kinnvall, Ian Manners and Jennifer Mitzen argue that, “?…?the greatest security challenge facing people across Europe is not physical, despite the threats of Putin and ISIS, but is a sense of fear and anxiety over their daily lives” [2018. Introduction to 2018 Special Issue of European Security: “Ontological (in)security in the European Union”. European security, 27 (3), 249–265]. We take an interdisciplinary approach to widen the scope of studies on European security and offer new avenues for further research into how citizens in the EU’s neighbourhood understand the security challenges they face and the role the EU plays in addressing these. Through this, we aim to bring theoretical and methodological innovation to understanding the role of the EU as an external actor.     

Transatlantic burden sharing: suggesting a new research agenda

ABSTRACT

Current studies on NATO burden sharing are only able to show some weak statistical trends between selective variables; they are unable to explain and show why this trend exists and why it occurred at particular times (or not). This is due to the dominant deductive and hypothesis testing research designs that prevent researchers to produce richer causal explanations or intersubjective understandings of how states, for example, construct and assign meaning to burdens or what forms of social representation, values, norms and ideals influence the making of (national) burden sharing decisions. Thus, we charge, the literature needs to adopt an eclecticist approach to studying NATO burden sharing – that is to combine rationalist with sociological approaches and methodologies highlighting the importance of intersubjective meanings and the role of social forces, norms, beliefs, and values. The article lays out what such a research programme might look like and how one could operationalise it.     

European internal security as a public good

Abstract

This introduction argues for a new research agenda on European internal security cooperation from the perspective of public goods. We set out our case in three parts. First, we identify new empirical puzzles and demonstrate significant explanatory gaps in the existing internal security literature which public goods theory could help address. Second, we outline the building blocks of a public goods approach and provide an overview of its application, both existing and potentially, in various areas of regional security and European integration. Third, we present three complementary ways of using public goods theory to analyse internal security in the European Union, with the aim of spurring new research questions while accepting some limitations of this theoretical approach.     

The advantages of complementarity: US and European policies towards the middle east peace process

Russia-related problems remain prominent in the European security debate. While a minimalist goal would be to reduce mutual antagonism in the Russia--European security area, a more ambitious mission would be to make Europe part of the eventual solution of Russia's problems, and vice versa. Moscow's draft of a European security treaty was not met with overwhelming enthusiasm. But engaging in a serious re-thinking and re-building of the Euro--Atlantic security architecture seems to be increasingly perceived as a worthy endeavour. What is needed is an entire network of instruments for governance and joint actions, both in “traditional” security areas and in new ones. Some of these tools could appear within the framework of existing multilateral institutions or in conjunction with them, others could emerge from their reform (or, conversely, stimulate it), while certain structures would require a new basis. Within such an agenda, Russia's involvement in the Euro--Atlantic area as a respectable and responsible actor would be an essential factor in promoting security in it.     

Eastern Enlargements and EU Defence Ambitions

ABSTRACT

Despite their common history, Central Europeans have never had a coordinated or consistent position on the issue of European defence and are now, in fact, drifting further apart. Today, some states consider themselves exposed to a threat from Russia while others do not have the same perception and are even moving towards closer cooperation with Moscow. However, the most important factor shaping the positions of Central Europeans is the current, still very loose state of the European Union’s defence policy. As long as the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) remains focused on providing security and stability to other parts of the world and weak on defending the EU area, Central Europeans will refrain from truly committing to it.     

Norway and the ESDP: Explaining Norwegian Participation in the EU's Security Policy

Abstract

This article aims to contribute to a better understanding of why various Norwegian governments of recent years have been willing to contribute to European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) operations and integrate into the ESDP structures despite their country's increasingly limited access to the decision-making and/or decision-shaping process in this policy area. Norway participates in most of the ESDP structures in one way or the other—it contributes with troops and personnel to ESDP operations, participates in a battle group and has an association agreement with the European Defence Agency. The result of Norway's will to integrate is that, as a non-member, it has become more integrated into the ESDP structures than members such as Denmark, who have chosen to opt out from this policy area. How can this be explained? Does the Norwegian government decide to participate because that is seen as the best way of pursuing Norwegian national interests, or are there other institutional or normative explanations for this policy choice?     

EU power and armed humanitarianism in Africa: evaluating ESDP in Chad

This article analyses the European Union's (EU's) largest European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) military mission outside Europe to date; Eufor Tchad/RCA was a 3700-strong force involving personnel from 23 states, deployed to Chad and the Central African Republic for 12 months from March 2008. Far from this mission achieving EU ‘supremacy’ or projecting an ‘imperial’ reach, an evaluation of its objectives and achievements reveals acute limitations in the EU's ability to project power. The article analyses the context in which Eufor was conceived and deployed. It notes that the mission's weaknesses, like those of the United Nations mission to whom the EU transferred its security role in 2009, reflected its convoluted origins and objectives. Finally, the article examines whether the EU as a unitary actor has the desire or the ability to ‘replace’ individual European nations—in this case France—in their post-colonial military and ‘humanitarian’ roles in sub-Saharan Africa.     

Power,contribution and dependence in NATO burden sharing

This article offers three new types of variables for computation of the share that NATO countries should contribute to the common defence. I use Uppsala conflict data (UCDP) on conflict participation to reveal how the asymmetry in power that allows the US to define most of the framings on which NATO’s utility calculations are based, compensates for the greater material contribution made to NATO by the US. Then I follow Ringsmose’s model of NATO burden sharing and create two types of variables crucial to the calculation of burden sharing. One reveals the share of US military protection aimed at protecting its NATO allies. The other measures how much US global security efforts against tyranny and terror are dependent on NATO allies. These two variables are developed by means of computer-assisted discourse analysis of US Presidential Papers. The three new variables contribute to a more complex mathematical model on fair burden sharing, indicating at the same time that the imbalance between US and allied contributions is declining. If European allies have ever exploited the United States in the past, then at least the relationship has become more even during the past two decades.     

EU police and judicial cooperation before the Treaty of Lisbon: strengthening of the weakest link?

Abstract

Three key questions arise from the encroachment of the European Union (EU) on national prerogatives in the administration of justice: What factors contribute to the weakest link collective action problem attending police and judicial cooperation within the EU? What were the substantive and institutional goals of the EU in this policy domain? What accounts for the rising level of police and judicial cooperation despite the persistence of barriers to cooperation and incentives to defect? This article first establishes the fundamental incentives and obstacles to cooperation in matters of transnational security threats in post-Westphalian Europe. It then proceeds to explore the evolution of police and judicial cooperation in Justice and Home Affairs between 1999 and 2009, to assess national contributions to police and judicial cooperation, and to consider the potential impact that the changes introduced by the Lisbon Treaty, Stockholm Programme and European Investigation Order. A final question is considered in the conclusion: Did the level and extent of police and judicial cooperation that emerged between 1999 and 2009 give rise to a community of practice that in turn fostered a nascent community of identity resilient enough to mitigate the weakest link technology of public goods production endemic to this policy domain?     

European diplomatic practices: contemporary challenges and innovative approaches

Abstract

As the aim of this special issue is to show practice approaches at work in the case of European diplomacy, this introduction provides readers with a hands-on sense of where the conversation about practices and European diplomacy currently stands. By introducing the key terms and overviewing the literature, the article contextualises the guiding questions of the special issue. It starts by reviewing how practice approaches have evolved in IR debates. It then describes European diplomacy’s nuts and bolts in a post-Lisbon setting. It continues by focusing on specific practices and analytical mechanisms that contribute to understand European diplomacy’s transformations and the role of security. While the debate about practices goes beyond the case of diplomacy, the latter has become a showcase for the former and this special issue continues the debate on practices and diplomacy by zooming in on the European Union.     

Russia and NATO expansion: The uneasy basis of the founding act

Much of the debate since the formation of the Common Foreign and Security Policy has focused on the political will, or lack thereof, as the principal obstacle to a successful European security policy. However, even if a cohesive will to develop a clear and operational foreign and security policy exists, the lack of military capabilities within the EU would make the implementation of that policy difficult, if not impossible, for the foreseeable future. The emerging political will to develop a CFSP needs to be paralleled by significant improvements in the force projection capabilities of the EU member states in order for a CFSP and future Common Defence Policy to be credible.     

Unpacking the ‘Coalition of the Willing’: A Comparative Analysis of Norms in British and Polish Press Debates on the Iraq Invasion

Abstract

The study focuses on collective norms concerning the use of force to inform the analysis of national and European security and defence policy. In particular, it aims to shed some light on the question of why members of the US-led ‘coalition of the willing’ in Iraq subsequently supported further steps towards an autonomous and effective European Security and Defence Policy. We analyse collective defence norms in Britain and Poland by means of a qualitative analysis of press debates before, during and after the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Our findings indicate that the salience and vigour of the debates varied strongly and so did the areas of normative contention. In the British press, debates centred on normative conflicts surrounding the relationship with the US, international authorisation, and the legitimacy of regime change as a goal for the use of force. In Poland, debates were far less intense and centred on the need to show solidarity with a trusted ally in need. We conclude that strategic norms, in particular revolving around the attachment to the US as a security partner, have become less of a problem for the evolution of ESDP but for different reasons in each case.     

European security as practice: EU–NATO communities of practice in the making?

ABSTRACT

European security is at a critical juncture and many have called for a more coherent and efficient response, involving both the EU and NATO. However, the primary tool for EU–NATO cooperation, “Berlin Plus”, has been stuck in a political quagmire since the mid-2000s, making a lot of scholars to conclude that this cooperation is obsolete and outdated. This article is challenging this view by analysing a range of informal but regular interaction patterns that have emerged. Using practice theory, it sheds new light on and explores how EU and NATO staff at all levels engage in informal practices on various sites in headquarters in Brussels and in field operations. A study of EU–NATO cooperation as practice focuses on the everyday, patterned production of security as well as what makes action possible, such as (tacit) practical knowledge and shared “background” knowledge (education, training, and experience). The article also discusses the extent to which shared repertoires of practice may evolve into loose communities of practice that cut across organisational and professional boundaries.