European Security and Defence: Lessons from the Last decade (original) (raw)
The last decade has provided policy-makers, analysts and experts of international and European security and defence with some difficult lessons. The attack on the US in 2001 served as a reminder that even the most powerful state in the international system is not impervious to emerging threats. In its reaction, the US led two military interventions, which still provoke significant debate in Europe and beyond. The enemy has been an amorphous one – global terrorism. However towards the end of the decade the Russian-Georgian war reminded Europeans of the existence of more traditional territorial conflicts and the prominence of Russia in European Security. In this new decade European security and defence is yet again at a crossroads. On the one hand, Bin Laden’s death and the Arab Spring seem to suggest a move towards a world that is becoming a safer and more stable place. On the other hand, the crises in Libya and Syria seem to indicate that the question of military intervention will remain a pressing one. Libya in particular demonstrated that Europe has not developed a common approach to its role as a collective military actor. To complicate things further, European security and defence has faced the pressing needs of unprecedented austerity, as the deep economic crisis has hit many European Union (EU) states hard. The 21st century seems to be witnessing a transformation of the international system. New centres f power are emerging, pushing the system away from a predominantly unipolar period towards a new multipolar phase. This new international order seems to promise increased levels of uncertainty in all spheres, and especially security and defence. Understanding the emerging poles will be a crucial process for Europeans and their allies in order to attain security in this new order. The fifth workshop of the European Security and Defence Forum addressed these crucial issues for Europe and brought together a distinguished array of participants from policy, industry and academia to evaluate the last decade, with a view to better inform and guide future policy. A considerable part of the discussion focused on the lessons that it was felt had not been learnt, some of the recurring themes in European foreign policy including terrorism, power shifts, strategy and Afghanistan. The discussants analysed these in order to put forward proposals geared at maximizing the efficiency and effectiveness of interventions, improving counterterrorism strategies, as well as evaluating new strategies for the UK, Europe and its security institutions.
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European security: new threats - old responses?
2001
The end of the Cold War allowed mankind to progress in a normal way, without fear of perishing in the flame of a nuclear conflict caused by ideological confrontation. However, the removal of the global threat and, along with it, of the total control of information, movement of people, capital, technologies and arms inherent in inter-bloc confrontation led to other threats — ethnic and religious conflicts, terrorism, illegal migration, international crime, arms and drug trafficking, environmental (natural and manmade) accidents — coming to the forefront.
Introduction: Developments in European Security
Journal of Contemporary European Research, 2011
IN THE EUROPEAN UNION (EU), THE IDEAS UNDERPINNING THE CONCEPT OF “SECURITY” are quite diverse and involve a number of different actors. Before the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, security provisions used to be found in all three of the EU pillars and covered a wide range of topics, including border security, defence policy, police cooperation and counter-terrorism. The pillar structure has now been abolished and both the ‘Area of Freedom, Security and Justice’ and the common foreign, security and defence policies have become policy areas of ‘shared competence’. This growing involvement of the EU in security matters is all the more remarkable since it was viewed as highly improbable for a long time given the closeness of some of these policy issues to national sovereignty. Interestingly, it also coincides with broader theoretical developments in the study of security. In the last twenty years, the discipline of security studies has experienced crucial changes. As emphasised b...
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