Strategy by Stealth? The Development of EU Internal and External Security Strategies

Abstract

Despite lively debates about the institutional development of the European security architecture, the larger question of the strategic aims it should serve has received less attention. This chapter serves to mitigate this lack. It asks how the EU developed its strategic choices in the security field. Comparing the emergence of both internal and external security strategies, the chapter argues that the process has been capability-driven and not strategy-led, resulting in a ‘capability–strategy’ mismatch. As a result of this strategic void at the heart of the European security project, actors within several policy arenas in the complex EU architecture have been able to develop different – and sometimes conflicting – strategic ends: counter-terrorism, human security, common defence, crime-fighting and stability. Particularly in areas where the EU's Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) and Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) agendas overlap, the chapter finds that EU actors follow diverging strategic ends. The chapter finally assesses the effects of this strategy-building process ‘by stealth’ rather than ‘by design’, and concludes that the incremental development of EU security strategies has led to the emergence of fault lines in the EU's security policies.

Key Words:

• Grand Strategy
• external security
• internal security
• EU Security Strategy
• internal–external security nexus

Notes

¹ An earlier version of this article was presented at the Final Conference of the UACES Research Group on European Conflict Prevention and Crisis Management Policies in Brussels, July 2007. I thank David Law, Jolyon Howorth and the conveners and participants of the conference for their valuable discussion and insightful comments. The author gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Volkswagen Foundation in the European Foreign and Security Policy Studies Programme.

² Crisis management generally refers to all activities that attempt to ‘respond to immediate crisis situations in order to prevent the use of violence or, at least, to prevent further escalation, either in a vertical (deepening of the conflict) or horizontal way (spreading of the conflict to other regions)’ (Schneckener, 2002, p. 3).

³ For an updated list, see www.consilium.europa.eu/cms3_fo/showPage.asp?id=268&lang=de.

⁴ As the main threats facing the European Union, it lists terrorism, proliferation of WMD, regional conflicts, state failure and organized crime.

⁵ Adding to the defence dimension, the Lisbon Treaty includes a mutual defence provision in Article 27 that commits member states to an ‘obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power’ if a member state is the victim of armed aggression on its territory.

⁶ See Lavenex (2006) for a discussion of how immigration ministers pushed for the externalization of domestic migration agendas.

⁷ One example is the mandate of the EUFOR Althea mission in Bosnia: outside its main mandate of providing deterrence and continued compliance with the Dayton Agreement, one of its key supporting tasks is to provide the security environment in which the police can act against organized criminal networks.

⁸ The Battlegroup (BG) is a specific form of the EU's rapid response elements. It is a rapidly deployable, coherent and multinational battalion-sized force (±1500 troops), capable of stand-alone operations, or for the initial phase of larger operations.

⁹ The second, refocused, EU Police Mission (EUPM) in Bosnia and Herzegovina, deployed since 2006, supports the Bosnian police reform process and specifically focuses on consolidating local capacity and regional cooperation in the fight against major and organized crime.