BEPA monthly brief, Issue 69, November 2013 (original) (raw)
Related papers
Csiki_Tamas_Nemeth_Bence_Perspectives_of_Central_European_Multinational_Defence_Cooperation.pdf
The financial crisis triggered the impression among European states that the negative effects of the further decreasing defence budgets could be tackled by tighter defence cooperation especially on capability development. New initiatives have emerged both within NATO and the European Union in this regard, but interestingly, new parallel defence co-operations have also been created and old ones have been revitalized on the sub-regional level. In Central Europe, two frameworks have recently evolved in this field: on the one hand, the Visegrad Countries (V4) – the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia – have been cooperating on various issues since the 1990s, though the first element of their defence cooperation was born only in 2011 by initiating a V4 EU Battlegroup. On the other hand, Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia have begun collaborating within the framework of the Central European Defence Initiative (CEDI) in the fields of training, operations and capability development since 2011. By 2013 we can already observe the first projects to yield in practice, underpinning the viability of this cooperative framework. The article maps up these frameworks of defence cooperation and compares how they function and how successful they are in delivering viable defence cooperation programs, also comparing them to the best practices of an existing successful model of cooperation, the Nordic Defence Cooperation. The authors argue that such flexible, un-institutionalized forms of defence cooperation as CEDI would serve better for incubating and nurturing new projects and giving timely answers to current capability shortfalls than more institutionalized, thus less flexible frameworks, such as the V4 Defence Cooperation.
EU Permanent Structured Cooperation for a common defense
Good governance, effective democratic control and civilian supervision of the security system, including the military, as well as conformity with human rights and the rule of law principles are necessary attributes of a well-functioning State in any context. The EU by now has the means at its disposal to find a way from the current patchwork of bilateral and multilateral military cooperation to more efficient forms of defence integration. Article 42(6) of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) provides the opportunity for a group of like-minded Member States to take European defence to the next level : a potential game changer for European defence that until now only exists on paper. European defence integration is no longer just a political option but a strategic and economic need. With violent conflicts at the EU's doorstep, Europe's growing exposure to hybrid warfare, cyber terrorism, foreign fighters and the distorting distinction between external and internal threats, the European security landscape is increasingly complex to navigate. Permanent Structured Cooperation-PESCO should benefit from effective Union support, in full respect of Member States' competences in defence. A proper Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) funding should be provided from the Union budget. Participation in all Union agencies and bodies falling under the Common Security and Defence Policy of the European Union (EU), including the European Security and Defence College (ESDC), should be made a requirement under PESCO. EU Battle Group System too, has to be brought under PESCO and made eligible for EU funding as far as possible. The rules-based international order and the values defended by liberal democracies, and the peace, prosperity and freedoms which this order guarantees and which represents the foundations on which the European Union is built, are facing unparalleled challenges. It's execrable the fact that terrorist and criminal organizations are propagating and instability is spreading in the South, as fragile and disintegrating states generate large ungoverned spaces. Hybrid tactics, including cyberterrorism and information warfare, are undermining the Eastern Partnership countries and the western Balkans, as well as affecting Western democracies and increasing tensions within them.
MA Thesis, University of Manitoba, 2016
One of the major analytical shortcomings regularly made by EU and NATO experts today lies with exclusively seeing the European defence project as a post-World War II (WWII) phenomenon and the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) as mainly a post-Cold War product. No analyst has so far seriously explored the idea of European defence predating WWII and the 20th century. Instead, since 1999 one frequently reads and hears about the ‘anomalous,’ ‘elusive’ CSDP suddenly complicating transatlantic relations. But the CSDP is hardly an oddity or aberration, and it is certainly not as mysterious as some might suggest. Drawing extensively from primary sources and predicated on an overarching evolutionist approach, this thesis shows that the present CSDP is an ephemeral security and defence concept, only the latest of its kind and full of potential. Drawing its deepest ideational roots from the (pre-)Enlightenment era, the CSDP leads to a pan-European defence almost irreversibly. A common defence for Europe is quite possible and, due to the growing impact of the exogenous (multipolar) momentum, can be realized sooner rather than later even without a full-fledged European federation.
Towards A European Army? The Rationale for a European Defense Policy
« Etudes Européennes », 2005
Entre les théories interprétatives des intergouvernementalistes et celles des néofonctionnalistes, cette contribution a pour objet d’explorer un cadre analytique alternatif permettant de cerner les contours d’une défense européenne en construction. Ce papier devrait permettre de comprendre pourquoi ce secteur d’intervention s’est davantage imposé la dernière décennies que pendant les 40 dernières années. Les raisons expliquant l’émergence d’une force d’action rapide et une vision intégrée des industries de défense européennes trouvent leur source dans le contexte et les enjeux issus de la guerre froide. On relèvera, notamment, l’impératif de stabilisation géostratégique en Europe de l’Est et dans les Balkans, d’une part, et la nécessité de rétablir la compétitivité des industries de défense nationale, d’autre part. Dans ces deux domaines au moins, on note une convergence des intérêts nationaux portés par différents pays européens dans le domaine de la sécurité, permettant à l’intégration de progresser.
A s of 2014, the post-Cold War illusion of a more secure world has long given way to a gloomy perception of both the present and the future. It has never been so clear as in the past few years that challenges to international security emerge from several different fields (environmental, political, social, economic, etc), touch simultaneously on a wide range of geographic areas and involve different types of actors -from states to transnational and national terrorism, from organized crime to other non-state actors). The transformation of security was a topic studied and understood by several authors already at the beginning of the 1990s. The specialized literature has captured such a change by reflecting both on how security has come to become a multi-faced issue, and on the extent to which (in)security is not only an objective data but the result of a process of social construction which involves the elites, the general public and the media. The literature has equally acknowledged that challenges to security have become ever more complex because of the range of issues they touch upon, the number and variety of actors involved, as well as the type of instruments they require to be handled.
THE UNTENABLE SIMPLICITY OF THE EUROPEAN DEFENCE EQUATION
IRIS ANALYSIS, 2022
The Europe, Strategy, Security programme aims at deciphering the changes in Europe and its regional environment at the political and strategic levels. Recognized for its expertise both nationally and internationally, IRIS is a partner and coordinator of international projects with main research centers in Europe, which allow the Institute to build strong links with decision makers. The fields of intervention of this program are multiple: animation of the strategic debate; realization of studies, reports and notes of consultancy; organization of conferences, colloquiums, seminars; training on measure. IRIS-Institut de relations internationales et stratégiques @InstitutIRIS institut_iris IRIS