Asian Views on Venus: Perceptions of the EU in Security Policy Fields

Abstract

Security policy provides a striking example of the European Union’s (EU’s) ‘capability—expectations gap’. On the one hand, there is a much discussed gap between the EU’s ambition to become a powerful global actor and the EU’s actual effectiveness. Here, the EU is often unfavourably compared with nation states, such as the USA. On the other hand, there is also a gap between the high aspirations of the EU held by the EU’s external partners (including its strategic partners around the world) and visions of the EU failing to live up to its potential. The perceived weakness of the EU, struggling to cope with its Eurozone sovereign debt crisis, has further shaken the belief among external observers that the EU will ever become the global actor that it aspires to be. Chapters 1 and 2 discuss the changing perceptions of the EU’s international leadership globally. In contrast, this chapter focuses on the images of the EU’s role in a particular area — security policy — and in just one region: Asia-Pacific. Borzel and Risse have argued that ‘the further we move away from Europe, the fewer incentives the EU has on offer to promote its policies and institutions and the more it has to rely on mechanisms of persuasion and of communication to make its case’ (Borzel and Risse, 2012). The EU has only limited means in the field of security policy, particularly so the more distant from its borders (such as Asia-Pacific): among these constraints are restrained capabilities for force projections, no (military) presence in the region and — given the specific nature of the defence market — only a limited role for incentivized ‘market access’ (conditionality).