Military operations and the EU’s identity as an international security actor

Abstract

For long, its lack of military means served to single the European Union out as a "civilian" or "normative power". However, since 2003 twelve EU military operations have been launched. On the basis of a comprehensive analysis of all EU military mission so far, this article seeks to establish how these missions have evolved over time and how they have affected the character of the EU as an international actor. For this purpose, the article outlines four ideal-typical conceptions of the EU's international identity and operationalises them along two underlying dimensions: justification (the purpose of military operations) and policy-embeddedness (the coordination between military means and other foreign policy instruments). Analysing the military operations along these two axes, the article suggests that the EU has been evolving towards a "Liberal Power" identity, as is reflected in a shift from value-based to utility-based justifications, while military operations have at the same time become more embedded in the EU's overall foreign policies.

AVRUPA ORDUSU ve NATO İKİLEMİ

“…Böylece, AB-NATO ilişkileri her iki taraf için de vazgeçilmez bir bağlılık yaratmaktaydı. Ancak zamanla, NATO vasıtasıyla Avrupa'da barış ve istikrarın korunması ABD'ye daha fazla yük getirirken, Avrupa devletlerinin güvenlik sorumluluklarını "bedavaya" sağladıkları yönünde eleştiriler ABD'li siyasiler tarafından dile getirilmekteydi (Palm, 2019). ABD Başkanlık seçim kampanyasında Donald Trump'ın, AB üyesi devletlerin askeri bütçeleriyle ilgili NATO'ya yapmış oldukları taahhütlerini yerine getirmemekte ısrarları halinde, ABD'nin ittifaktan çekileceği yönündeki sözleri AB üzerinde tam bir şok etkisi yaratmıştır (Barnes ve Cooper, 2019).…”

EU Aid Policy in the Middle East and North Africa: Politicization and its Limits

“…The humanitarian‐development nexus has widened to include resilience building, with political, development and humanitarian actors working in tandem with each other (Anholt and Sinatti, 2020, p. 318). This approach to security is one that has commended relatively wide support from different actors within the EU (Riddervold, 2018; Palm and Crum, 2019). Even as they differed on many other questions in the region, member states, the EEAS and different parts of the Commission agreed that this kind of fusion would be central to the EU's ‘comprehensive approach’ to conflict resolution (Dany, 2015).…”

EU peacebuilding’s new khaki: Exceptionalist militarism in the trading of good governed for military-capable states

“…Interviews 1, 2, and 3). Indeed, as Palm and Crum (2019: 527) also note, ‘value-based considerations’ are still relevant for justifying military missions, but ‘utility-based considerations have become critical’ (2019: 517–518). Yet whereas for these authors this change produces ‘no militarisation’, the fact that military missions are now directed to military training reflects a certain type of militarism and not absence of it.…”