Common European Security And Defence Policy Research Articles

Keep Calm and Carry On (Differently): NATO and CSDP after Brexit

AbstractThis article investigates the impact that Brexit could have on the relationship between NATO and the Common European Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). The relationship between NATO and CSDP has historically not been straightforward and Brexit seems to have intervened as an aggravating factor. In fact, the EU has launched a series of military initiatives and it has now renewed its ambition to create separate military headquarters from NATO. The UK will join countries such as Norway and Turkey in being a member of NATO but not of the EU, affording greater importance to NATO to the detriment of cooperation with its European allies. This article provides an analytical framework to analyse the possible effects of Brexit upon the EU–NATO relationship. In so doing, it lays out three distinct levels of analysis. These are the state level, the inter‐organisational level and, finally, the personnel level. The levels of analysis allow us to generate empirical observations, which then lead us to suggest three scenarios for the development of the EU–NATO relationship beyond Brexit.

Europe’s Defence Dilemma

Fifteen years ago, the European Union (EU) launched a Common European Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). Since then, the CSDP has been the focus of a growing body of political and scholarly evaluations. While most commentators have acknowledged shortfalls in European military capabilities, many remain cautiously optimistic about the CSDP’s future. This article uses economic alliance theory to explain why EU member states have failed, so far, to create a potent common defence policy and to evaluate the policy’s future prospects. It demonstrates, through theoretical, case study-based and statistical analysis, that CSDP is more prone to collective action problems than relevant institutional alternatives, and concludes that the best option for Europeans is to refocus attention fully on cooperation within a NATO framework.

THE DEMAND FOR MILITARY EXPENDITURE: EVIDENCE FROM THE EU15 (1961–2005)

In recent years, there has been a growing number of studies that investigate the economic effects of military spending using a variety of estimation methods and focusing either on individual countries or on groups of relatively homogeneous countries. The situation is not the same as far as the demand for military expenditure is concerned, where less attention has been given and the majority of empirical studies have focused on individual countries, with only a few focusing on groups of countries and employing cross‐sectional or panel data approaches. A region that has not attracted any research interest regarding the determinants of military expenditure is the European Union (EU) with the exception of individual country studies (mainly for the UK, Greece, France, Spain, Portugal). This paper argues that understanding the determinants of military spending in these countries is very important, especially given the discussions in recent years towards the development of a Common European Security and Defence Policy (CESDP). It then follows Dunne et al. (2003) and employs the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach to cointegration to estimate a general model of aggregate defence spending for each of the 15 core EU countries over the period 1961–2005. The findings indicate that there is very little uniformity in the factors that determine each country’s demand for military expenditure, something that needs to be borne in mind by policy makers when burden‐sharing issues are considered in the development of the CESDP.

REVISITING THE NEXUS BETWEEN MILITARY SPENDING AND GROWTH IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

This paper focuses on the influence of military spending on European economic growth. The estimated regressions are based on Barro’s (1991) growth model, which controls for economic institutional variation across countries. The cross‐section and panel data analyses cover the period 1960–2000. The empirical findings indicate that military spending has an overall net negative influence on economic growth. Furthermore, the magnitude of this negative impact tends to increase over time, as cross‐section regression results indicate. Given the development of a Common European Security and Defence Policy (CESDP), these findings suggest that enhanced defence spending may hinder European economic growth.

A PANEL DATA ANALYSIS OF THE NEXUS BETWEEN DEFENCE SPENDING AND GROWTH IN THE EUROPEAN UNION: A COMMENT

In a recent paper of this journal (Vol. 18(1), 2007, pp. 75–85)], Kollias, Mylonidis, and Paleologou (henceforth KMP) examined the relationship between the GDP growth rate (denoted as gdp) and military expenditure as a share of GDP (denoted as milex) using panel data from the 15 countries of the European Union (EU15), 1961–2000 (T=40 annual observations from each country). Given that a Common European Security and Defence Policy (CESDP) is under consideration in the EU15 group, this is an interesting paper. My comments relate to its econometrics and are organized according to the standard three stages of econometric analysis: specification, estimation, and diagnostic checking.

A PANEL DATA ANALYSIS OF THE NEXUS BETWEEN DEFENCE SPENDING AND GROWTH IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

The nexus between economic growth and military expenditure has attracted considerable attention and has been the subject of extensive theoretical and empirical work. Given the move towards the development of a Common European Security and Defence Policy (CESDP), this paper, using panel data analysis, addresses the causal ordering issue between growth and defence spending in the case of the European Union (EU15). Results reported herein suggest the presence of a positive feedback between growth and military expenditure in the long run and a positive impact of the latter on growth in the short run.

Defence expenditure and economic growth in the European Union: A causality analysis

This paper examines the relationship between military expenditure and growth among the EU15 members using co-integration and causality tests for the period 1961–2000. Although the results reported herein do not reveal a uniformity among the 15 countries, the apparent prevalence of the direction of causality from growth to military expenditure as well as the absence of the reverse causal ordering may be an indication that an important number of governments in the European Union (EU) make defence spending policy decisions based on the state of their economy with the concomitant implications for the objective of a Common European Security and Defence Policy (CESDP).

The framing of European foreign and security policy: towards a post-modern policy framework?

This article explores the evolution of the common foreign and security policy (CFSP) and the common European security and defence policy (CESDP), taken to represent European foreign and security policy, with an emphasis on the continuous reframing of policy within a changing "foreign policy space'. Having identified the key phases in the evolution of this European foreign policy space, the article then pursues two general aims: first, to establish how far this evolution reflects the interaction of ideas, institutions and policies; second, to assess the significance of a number of key "drivers' common to many areas of policy within the EU - the search for legitimacy, the preferences of member states and the desire for environmental stabilization. On the basis of this exploration, the article argues that it is possible to discern the emergence of a "post-modern' or " extra-national' foreign policy in the EU, which has significant echoes of policy- making in other areas of EU activity.

The french and british change in position in the CESDP : a security community and historical -institutionalist perspective

The Helsinki European Council conclusions of December 1999 aimed at strengthening the Common European Security and Defence Policy (CESDP). The EU Member States decided that the EU should be able to assume its responsibilities for the full range of conflict prevention and crisis management tasks required to deal with crises such as the Balkan crisis. They are currently looking at the degree of the autonomous capacity of the EU to take decisions, and where NATO as a whole is not engaged, to conduct EU-led military operations in response to international crises. This paper argues that France and the United Kingdom reached a more than “Lowest Common Denominator” (LCD) agreements when they negotiated the creation of the CESDP: they changed their initial positions, and the UK changed its preference. These EU Member States were mainly motivated by the way the United States dealt with the Balkans’ crises. They were then constrained in their action by the US and the EU’s institutions. Realism, the conventional theory which is expected to explain high politics decision-making processes does not seem appropriate here to explain the change in the British and French position: the security community concept and historical institutionalism might be more useful here. This paper is divided into two main parts. The first one analyses the creation and substance of the CESDP, while the second one focuses on the evolution of the French and British change in position and looks at the possible explanations for this.

The common European security and defence policy and the ‘third‐country’ issue

The Common European Security and Defence Policy (CESDP) of the European Union (EU) was launched in 1999 and has been perceived as a landmark step toward European security cooperation, particularly in the field of crisis management. Still in its early stages, some difficult issues have become apparent. Of these, the so‐called ‘third‐country’ issue may prove to be among the most significant. This problem refers to the necessity of associating states outside the EU with CESDP. In this regard, three states stand out — the United States, Turkey and Russia — and this article considers their concerns and the European response in detail. This is prefaced by a general overview of how the third‐country problem emerged and what the EU has done to address it. It concludes by suggesting that third‐country considerations could well determine where and how EU‐led missions operating under the auspices of CESDP are deployed.

European Defence and the Changing Politics of the European Union: Hanging Together or Hanging Separately?

This article assesses the implications of the common European security and defence policy (CESDP) for shifts in both the politics and the policy‐making procedures of the European Union. It analyses the emerging dynamics of the new institutional structures of CESDP launched in 2000 (COPS, EUMC, EUMS, HR‐CFSP) and in particular the tensions between national capitals and the process of ‘Brusselization’ in the definition and formulation of European foreign and security policy. It argues that, in the field of crisis management, the requirements of rapid decision‐making and efficient implementation will increasingly favour Brussels as the locus of policy formulation. This process will be enhanced by the growing role in CESDP of military officials and of defence ministries, which will take primary responsibility for the shape and remit of the nascent European Rapid Reaction Force (ERRF). The article also assesses the problems facing EU governments in selling CESDP to their publics. This involves the construction of a discourse which, both cognitively and normatively, can persuade electorates coming from very different security cultures of the necessity and appropriateness of the project. It also requires governments, sooner or later, to make the case for increased defence spending.

Recasting the security bargains: Germany, European security policy and the transatlantic relationship

This article analyses recent developments in European Union (EU) security policy and their implications for Germany's bilateral relations with France, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. It contends that the development of a greater EU security capability has significantly affected Germany's bilateral relations with the USA and Germany's main European partners. This has resulted in a recasting of the previous transatlantic security bargains of the Cold War period. Greater expectations on behalf of France and the UK concerning German involvement in military security within the Common European Security and Defence Policy (CESDP) have also affected Germany's approach to security policy-making.

Recasting the security bargains: Germany, European security policy and the transatlantic relationship

This article analyses recent developments in European Union (EU) security policy and their implications for Germany's bilateral relations with France, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. It contends that the development of a greater EU security capability has significantly affected Germany's bilateral relations with the USA and Germany's main European partners. This has resulted in a recasting of the previous transatlantic security bargains of the Cold War period. Greater expectations on behalf of France and the UK concerning German involvement in military security within the Common European Security and Defence Policy (CESDP) have also affected Germany's approach to security policy-making.

Transformations in Security and Identity after the Cold War

INTRODUCTIONTurkey's relationship with the European Union (EU) is a particularly difficult one. The 1990s witnessed the transformation of the European Community into the EU and its subsequent enlargement. When Turkey was not included in the enlargement process, even though the EU opened accession negotiations with all the countries of central and eastern Europe and with Malta and Cyprus, Turkey's relations with the EU deteriorated. The situation was unsettling for Turkey, which wanted to be part of Europe and a member of the EU. At its Helsinki summit in December 1999, the Council of the European Union elevated Turkey's status from that of an applicant to that of a candidate. Nevertheless, Turkey remained the only candidate country with which the EU did not open accession negotiations.It is our contention that the ambivalence in Turkey's relations with the EU is a result of transformations in European security and identity since the end of the cold war, a transition period in which the changing systemic parameters challenged Turkey's position in Europe and when centuries-old questions about Turkey's 'Europeanness' resurfaced.This article attempts to answer the following questions: what impact does the reformulation of European security have on Turkey? Is European identity being redefined in such a way that Turkey is excluded? Do reformulations of security and identity in Europe further complicate the difficult relationship between Turkey and the EU?Our approach is, of course, only one way of looking at Turkish-EU relations. One could argue that Turkey's inclusion in the EU is problematic not only because of the factors analyzed in this article, but also because of Turkey's economic problems, its shortcomings in upholding democratic principles, the Kurdish issue, the Cyprus problem, or the size of its population. These factors all pose serious obstacles to Turkey's integration into the EU. However, since some of the other countries with which the EU is currently negotiating have serious economic and political problems of their own, one must conclude that there is another variable in the equation in the case of Turkey. Because Turkey is not even in the same basket as Romania or Bulgaria, it is our contention that that variable is the reformulation of European identity in the post-cold war era. We acknowledge that the EU may have taken other factors into consideration in its expansion talks, such as stabilizing the fragile political environment in the prospective member countries and the fact that it is easier to absorb some of them because of their size. Nonetheless, we believe that the perspective in this article sheds new light on Turkey's relations with the EU.Post-cold war Europe has witnessed two parallel developments in security and identity. The first is the transformation in European security that is the result of a re-projection of the 'Western security community' inherited from the cold war. A cold war collective defence system has been transformed into a system of collective security. But the tools used to build this new structure - a European Security Architecture(1) - come from the old cold war institutions. Collective security is carried out by this new structure through the wider promotion of the Western values of democracy and free markets in the belief that the spread of these values and the acceptance of the institutions that guard them will yield stability in Europe's peripheral regions.During the cold war, Turkey belonged to the 'Western security community.' Thus, its identity as part of Europe in that period centred on the issue of security. In the post-cold war era, Turkey is still considered a component of the European Security Architecture. At the same time, its Europeanness is increasingly questioned. Indeed, it is the only country within the European Security Architecture that is challenged on this issue. The paradox is that, although Turkey fully participates in the European Security Architecture, even here it encounters problems because it is excluded from the EU's evolving defence arm - CESDP (Common European Security and Defence Policy) - which is part of this architecture. …