Lunds Universitet

STV003

Statsvetenskapliga Institutionen

ht 2005

Handledare: MJ

A Civilian power Europe?

A discussion on how Europe as an international actor can be

understood.

Madeleine Dölling

2

Abstract

EU’s foreign policy operational endeavours of the last decade have given tangible

evidence of a change in foreign policy from a civilian power to a military power.

However commentators are still holding fast to the idea that despite these shifts

toward a military power, the EU can still be called civilian.

This paper researches the discourse surrounding the civilian power concept to find

common denominators with which to create a civilian power “yardstick” that can

be applied to the EU’s foreign policy operations in the former Yugoslavia and the

Democratic Republic of Congo.

The observations that can be made are that the EU is neither a civilian

power, because of the growing acquirement of military means but nor is it a

military power due to consensus and identity problems.

The EU is at a cross road where it has a possibility to choose from a whole

panoply of capabilities, both civilian and military to solve international issues.

Nyckelord: military power, civilian power, EU foreign policy, means, ends,

former Yugoslavia, the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Table of contents

1. INTRODUCTION

5

2. AIM AND RESEARCH PROBLEM

7

3. METHOD AND MATERIAL

8

4.1 Method

8

4.2 Material

8

4. A CIVILIAN POWER

10

4.1 Means

11

4.2 Ends

12

4.2.1 A Semi-civilian power?

12

4.3 Smith’s four elements

14

4.3.1 Persuasion

15

4.3.2 Democratic control

15

4.4 The “Ideal-type” power

16

4.5 Summary

18

5. CASE STUDY: A LOOK AT THE EU’S FOREIGN OPERATIONS

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5.1 Former Yugoslavia

19

5.2 The Democratic Republic of Congo

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6. PLACING THE EU ON THE CIVILIAN/MILITARY POWER

SPECTRUM

23

6.1 Case 1: Former Yugoslavia

23

6.1.1 Means

23

6.1.2 Ends

24

6.1.3 Persuasion

25

6.1.4 Democratic control

26

6.2 Case 2: The Democratic Republic of Congo

27

6.2.1 Means

27

6.2.2 Ends

27

6.2.3 Persuasion

27

6.2.4 Democratic control

28

4

7. THE EU: A CIVILIAN OR MILITARY POWER?

29

7.1 The civilian power zeal

30

7.1.1 Summary

32

7.2 If not civilian, then military?

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7.2.1 The problem of identity

33

7.2.2 The problem with general consensus

34

7.2.3 Summary

35

8. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

36

9. REFERENCES

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10. APPENDIX 1 ARTICLE J4 IN

THE MAASTRICHT TREATY OF THE EU

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5

1. Introduction

For a brief moment in time the European Union (EU)

offered an alternative

vision of international relations. It was a vision of a community that rose

above the self-interested sovereign states, promoting peace under the rule of

law and not by the point of a riffle.

Already in the 1960’s and 1970’s some saw the European integration

project as evolving into a significant international actor of a different type than

the two “superpowers” of the cold war, one whose power was based on

“civilian forms of influence and action” constructive presence and the force of

persuasion.

Europe as a whole could well become the first example in history of a

major centre of the balance of power becoming in the era of its decline

not a colonised victim but an exemplar of a new stage in political

civilization. The European Community in particular would have a chance

to demonstrate the influence which can be wielded by a large political

co-operative formed to exert essentially civilian forms of power.

(Duchêne in Kohnstamm & Hager (eds.) s. 19)

There was a strong call for the EU to be a civilian power. And why not? The

founding treaty had had no direct mention of a common foreign policy or a

collective defence policy and a coordinated engagement with the outside world

was a secondary motivation for the founding states. Furthermore, most of the

threats facing the member states in the post-cold war era did not lend

themselves to a military response.

The key contribution to European security was the socio-economic

provisions and extension of stability through democratization and the

liberalization of the market. (Treatcher 2004:51)

However, the end of the cold war and the demise of the bipolar structure

of the international system left something of a policy vacuum for the member

countries of the EU and so a consensus was developed for strengthening the

Union’s foreign policy-making mechanisms. This was further spurred when

the United States (US) began to downsize its military presence on the

European continent and it became clear that the EU would have to assume

more responsibility for its own security.

There was now an opportunity for the Union to open the way for a

security and defence to be included in the integration agenda. (Treatcher

1

For simplicity’s sake the term EU is used to represent the Union, even before the Maastricht Treaty of 1992

that formally created the European Union.

6

2004:52)

This opportunity was ceased in the Maastricht Treaty on European Union

(TEU) of 1992 which made unprecedented but demonstrably ambiguous

references to a common foreign and security policy (CFSP). (See appendix A)

The CFSP in the TEU equipped the EU with the means to act coherently

in world politics, improving the effectiveness and coherence of the EU’s

external capabilities was a key motivation behind the Maastricht Treaty.

By formally linking the EU’s capabilities in trade and other external

economic affairs to those of the second pillar – the CFSP, the TEU represented

an important step toward realizing this goal. In particular, the Treaty

established a single institutional framework to govern all of the EU’s policies,

internal and external. (Stone Sweet et al. (eds.) 2001:171)

This event, however, does not necessarily represent a major shift from

civilian to military power. The member states still accepted the supremacy of

NATO in security issues. Furthermore, in an attempt to cater to all the member

states’ needs, so that they would all accept the final document, it resulted in a

vague and ambiguous document. (Treacher 2004:54) Thus, a common defence

policy was long in coming. But eventually the EU made firmer Treaty

commitments to security cooperation and stronger references to defence, first

in Amsterdam (1997) and especially in Nice. In particular the so called

Petersburg tasks made humanitarian and rescue missions, peacekeeping, and

crisis management, including “peacemaking” basic EU foreign policy goals.

These defence and common foreign policy doctrines and the rather recent

foreign political activities such as the involvement in the Balkan wars,

conflicts in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Iraq, along

with the creation of an EU Rapid Reaction Force in 2002, and initiated talks on

a common defence budget, would lead one to think that the EU is taking a

more pronounced international role; a role that is looking less and less like a

civilian power role and more like a military power role.

This has raised the question whether the EU has shifted from the civilian

power ideals that were so embraced in the 1960’s to take on a more assertive

military power role in international politics.

Former NATO secretary general Javier Solana stated that the EU, as a union of

25 states with over 450 million people producing a quarter of the worlds Gross

National Product (GNP), is, like it or not, a global actor and it should be ready

to share in the responsibility for global security. (Javier Solana in Strömvik

2005: 231).

The question is what sort of an international actor?

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2. Aim and research problem

Despite the growing ambitions toward creating a common foreign and security

policy and a common defence for the EU, there is still tension within the EU

between those parties who think that the integration should move toward a

defence dimension and those who prefer the EU to remain civilian; for

ideological reasons such as neutrality or because a military branch in the EU

would undermine NATO.

The pro-civilian group was stronger up until the 1990’s and has therefore

been able to build a civilian international identity in the EU. Numerous actors

within the EU, for example the Commission, the Parliament and some member

states have made much of this fact. (Smith 2005:6)

However in the EU’s foreign policy operational endeavours of the last

decade, such as the Gulf War and Yugoslavia, and more recent ones, such as

Iraq, one has to question the compatibility of European foreign policy and the

civilian power idea. Is the EU moving toward becoming a military power as

some scholars are saying?

What makes the question so interesting is that the EU’s common foreign

policy is so open-ended. In contrast to the EU’s economic first pillar there is

no specific and detailed plan or goals for a European common defence. The

EU’s evolution as an international actor is hitherto untrodden ground.

The aim of this thesis is to try to understand what sort of international

actor the EU is – has the EU made a move to become an active military power

or can it still be considered a civilian power? And if the EU is no longer a

civilian power, why do commentators still claim that it is?

This paper is a discussion of the EU as an international actor and how its

actorness can be understood.

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3. Method and material

3.1 Method

In order to answer the question whether the EU is still a civilian power or

moving toward a military power one needs to obtain basic knowledge of what

these two ideas (civilian and military power) entail and how they should be

defined.

Since some commentators still regard the EU as a civilian power despite

growing acquirements of military tools one must assume that there are plenty

of versions of how to define the concepts civilian and military power.

Therefore I will firstly conduct a research on what defines a civilian and

military power and attempt to weed out a common denominator amongst the

different discourses. The common denominators will hopefully provide as a

“yardstick”, or analytical tool, for which to measure the EU’s foreign

operations. This will allow for a more definite answer to what sort of “power-

type” the EU is.

It is important to make clear here that the definitions of civilian and

military powers, put forward by these scholars, do not necessarily mean that

the scholars believe the EU is a civilian power at present. It is strictly their

definition of what a civilian power is or should be and not whether the EU

should/does comply with it or not.

As for the empirical cases on which to apply my “yardstick”, it would

probably have given a more credible result if I had included all of the EU’s

foreign operations and not just former Yugoslavia (also referred to as the

Balkan wars) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

I have tried to choose empirical study objects that would give a fair view

of how the EU’s foreign policy has changed between the two events.

Yugoslavia was selected because the conflict broke out just as the TEU,

with the first mention of a common foreign policy, was being signed. It would

be the first conflict where the EU as a collective entity would reach a plan of

action, and a chance for the EU, which Duchêne had been talking about, to use

its civilian tools as an approach to solve problems on the international arena.

However, the war in the Balkans cannot be the sole empirical case in this

study, mainly because the CFSP was so young and hitherto untried. Therefore

there arises a need to study an event where the EU again uses its tools derived

from the TEU in an international crisis but with a seemingly more militarized

attempt than the civilian power operation in Yugoslavia, namely the DRC.

3.2 Material

The discourse of a civilian power concept for the EU has gone on since its

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birth and it has therefore had time to evolve and be re-evaluated in synch with

the evolvement of the EU. Thus, there is a wealth of information to be had on

the EU as an international actor and more specifically the ideas of civilian and

military power.

Although the rich supply of information can make the research process

slow at times it has helped to portray a nuanced picture of the differences

between a civilian and military power.

This paper is based primarily on secondary sources, such as printed

sources and essays, and to a lesser extent, the internet.

The first section, chapter 4, will work on finding common denominators

in the civilian power discourse between two groups with slightly different

views on what a civilian power is; one who believes that a civilian power

excludes all association with military tools and another group that argues that a

civilian power is still civilian despite military aspects, as long as the military

means are used for civilian aims.

The aim of this chapter is to weed out a civilian power definition that can

be applied to the EU.

Chapter 5 will describe the circumstances surrounding the conflicts in my

selected foreign policy operations: Yugoslavia and the DRC, and the EU’s role

in the both conflicts

Chapter 6 will use the civilian definition as a tool to analyze what sort of

an international actor the EU really is, a civilian power or a military power.

The results will be discussed in chapter 7 and concluded in chapter 8.

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4. A Civilian power

The two great wars of the 20th century came to ruin Europe's traditional

military and political power. The immense exposure to the atrocities of the war

resulted in the most resolutely non-military populations in the world.

In the proceeding nuclear and super-power stalement (and under the

protection of the United States) Europe had a chance to “catch its breath” and

start rebuilding its nations.

In light of this cold war détant there were proclamations being made,

famously by the scholar Françoise Duchêne, that interpretations on power

based on military strength were being subsumed by civilian power as the

principal channel to influence in contemporary international relations.

(Kohnstamm & Hager (eds.) 1973:19)

Duchêne believed that the strength of the EU lay in its ability to act as a

“civilian power” and in its ability to promote and encourage stability through

the use of economic and political instruments. (Peterson & Sjursen (eds.)

1998:98)

Duchêne called on the European Union to use its newly created example

of a political civilization era and demonstrate the influence which can be

wielded by a large political co-operative formed to exert essentially civilian

forms of power.

Two elements were important to Duchêne's definition of a civilian power:

means and ends.

According to Duchêne, the EU’s raison d’etre was to domesticate

relations between states within its boarders and beyond. This meant treating

abroad as home, trying to bring a sense of common responsibility to

international problems.

He argues that the only way to make the most of its opportunities is to stay

true to its inner characteristics, namely civilian ends and means and a built in

sense of collective action which in turn express social values of equality,

justice and tolerance. (Kohnstamm & Hager (eds.) 1973:20)

For Karen E. Smith a civilian actor is also an actor, able to influence other

international actors through diplomatic, economic and legal means in order to

reach civilian ends. She stresses the importance of a civilian power that is

entirely without any military dimension. (Smith 2005:1)

The complexity of the term civilian power is artfully portrayed by scholar

Kalypso Nicolaidis:

“It is both descriptive and – valid as a goal even if not yet attained. It can

refer alternatively to means or ends – civilian as civil means (eg non-

military) and as civilizing objectives (eg diffusing habits of peaceful

change). Thus, even if the alleged ‘sea-change in the sources of power’

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from military to economic was in doubt (as it is today), Europe’s power

would be sustained by its message itself.” (Nicolaidis, 2003:6)

4.1 Means

The three scholars mentioned above all characterize a civilian power as using

civilian means and ends in reaching their goals in international relations.

Although means and ends are primary to Duchêne and Smith’s definition

of a civilian power, neither one provides a very thorough description of what

means are. Whereas Duchêne refers to means as primarily economic

instruments in creating international stability, and Smith with the total absence

of military instruments, Nicolaidis goes deeper into the meaning of means for

a civilian power.

Nicolaidis describes the importance for the EU to consistently follow four

guiding principals when acting beyond its borders. These guiding principals,

which can be translated into civilian tools are defines as integration,

prevention, mediation and persuasion.

The negotiated integration through free trade has been the tool of choice

for the EU, but by the spill-over affect it has resulted in other types of

integration, for example, between political parties, trade unions and civil

societies. Integration has also meant giving structural aid to poorer regions to

compensate for the pains of adjustment to a common market. The EU has

similarly structured its external relations. Its growing aid budget, technical

assistance and nation-building programs reflect the expectation that the state

should fulfill a range of socio-economical and political functions, abroad as

well as at home.

Like the UN the EU was invented as a conflict prevention mechanism.

Externally it works with developing civilian capacities capable of preventing

conflicts and manages the aftermath using diplomatic and economic tools to

avert crisis.

The EU’s reputation as a civilian rather than military power makes it a

mediator of choice for many external actors. The EU is often seen as a more

impartial mediator given that the European states often took different sides of

a conflict on historical grounds and have been seen to both incorporate and

transcend these differences.

Finally, with its culture of compromise and debate (to the point of

indecision) the EU is bent on action through persuasion. Internally it works

with increasingly with publicity and emulation rather than mandatory law.

Even externally persuasion is at the heart of constructive engagement, using its

financial muscle to give a voice to transnational civil society. (Nicolaidis

2003:10f)

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4. 2 Ends

While means are clearly defined by Nicolaidis, ends are still fuzzily defined.

The civilian ends cited by Duchêne are international cooperation, solidarity,

domestication of international relations (or strengthening the rule of law in

international relations), responsibility for the global environment and the

distribution of equality, justice and tolerance.

According to Karen E. Smith, in her book “European Union Foreign

Policy in a Changing World”, Duchêne's theories of civilian power could be

categorized as examples of strategies called "milieu goals".

Milieu goals aim to change and shape the environment in which the state

(in this case EU) operates in, in contrast to possessive goals that aim to further

national interests.

Milieu goals are usually associated to goals that transcend the national

interest and are widely shared between nations. One would think that these

ends would fit nicely in the civilian power framework but milieu goals may

also be means of achieving possession goals. (Smith, 2003:14)

4. 2. 1 A Semi-civilian power?

Although most scholars believe that means and ends are crucial in the

definition of a civilian and military power not all have the same perception of

what means and ends pertain.

Hanns Maull presents a classical definition of civilian power, also

referring to means and to some extend, ends. For Maull being a civil power

implies:

a) the acknowledgement of the necessity to cooperate with others in the

pursuit of international objectives.

b) the concentration on non-military, primarily economic, means to secure

national goals, with military power left as a residual instrument serving

essentially to safeguard other means of international interaction.

c) a willingness to develop supranational structures to address critical

issues of international management. (Maull 1990: 92)

Maull's definition emphasizes primarily civilian means and an inclination to

cooperate with others, which are more or less cases of how the means are used

rather than what they are used for, (he only mentions national goals above).

He does not specify what sort of objectives a civilian power pursues other

than to point out that transferring sovereignty allows the development of the

rule of law in international relations, which pushes forward a process of

"civilizing" international politics.

The most interesting aspect of Maull’s definition, however, is article b,

referring to military power as an instrument to safeguard other means of

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international interaction.

This has given rise to a group of analysts who contradict Duchêne and

Smith as well as other “pure civil powerists” and who argue that a civilian

power is not completely devoid of military dimensions.

This group argues that the civilian means are irrelevant and that an actor

can use military instruments and still be a civilian power. What counts most is

that the EU is pursuing civilian goals.

Richard Whitman, for example, states that the development and

strengthening of military instruments is not enough to validate or invalidate

the notion of civilian power Europe. EU military power is developing as an

extra instrument to maintain other means of international interaction.

(Whitman in Smith 2005:8)

Stelios Stavridis takes Whitmans’s arguments up a notch by proclaiming

that not only does the EU’s acquired military means not invalidate the concept

of a civilian power, it must have military means in order to be a civilian power.

Only by exercising military power can civilian ends be pursued. (Stravridis in

Smith 2005: 8f)

In this sense, force can be a necessary instrument to achieve promotion of

human rights and democratic principals, and according to Stravridis, the EU

shouldn’t be afraid to use it for those purposes.

Although one could agree that military force would be a potent utility in

pursuing civilian ends Smith argues that an acceptance of a military dimension

in a civilian power definition will muddy the line between civilian and military

power.

The problem with Maull, Whitman and Stravridis including a military

dimension in a civilian power definition is that nearly all NATO countries

could apply to it.

According to Maull’s definition member states could claim to have

behaved in a civilian manner in their engagement in the DRC, their attitudes

and policies toward the DRC were driven out of concern for the civilians and

the atrocities that took place there. They also led diplomatic efforts to find

ways to stabilize the war-torn areas and find alternatives to the war and

searched for political alternatives to war. Looking at EU’s role from Maulls

point of view the EU would therefore still be considered a civilian power even

if its primary tools in reaching stability in the region were military tools.

By defining civilian power solely to ends, and having a lenient view on

the use of military instruments if they justify the ends, we are left with a

definition that excludes few states in the Europe and beyond. Should one then

consider the US to be a civilian power if it used military means for civilian

ends?

Another problem with condoning military force as an exclusive

instrument to increase the international community’s capacity to pursue

civilian ends, as “a means of last resort” is locating the “last resort” threshold,

and who decides when that last resort threshold is reached? The question asked

would be “had all other means been exhausted?” Also the decision of last

resort is in danger of being used by geopolitical or economic self-interest.

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Without the means element there arises a nebulous interpretation on where

to draw the line on what is civil and what is military, for example whether

forces for peacekeeping and humanitarian intervention count as military means

or not.

Smith, argues that peacekeepers are de facto military personnel and that

missions may start out with civilian intentions but can end as a war-fighting

mission, as was the case in Somalia. (Smith, 2005:9)

Smith’s main argument here is that peacekeepers are also trained to kill.

However, she doesn’t dispute the fact that force in a peacekeeping mission can

be needed to ensure the mission’s success, but it hinders one to determine

where a mission passes from “civilian” to “military”.

Thus, Smith’s conclusion is that we define peacekeepers as military

instruments and an actor in possession of such instruments is not a purely

civilian power.

Yet another problem with justifying military means for reaching civilian

ends is that even as the EU expands its foreign policy to include defence, for

example, in the form of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and

the Petersberg tasks, analysts still think of and refer to the EU as a civilian

power, because military instruments are only one of several instruments the

EU could use. With this definition one is not able to distinguish when the EU,

or other actors for that matter, goes from being a civilian power to a military

power. Similarly this means that most states could claim to be civilian powers,

including the US, because they also use civilian instruments. (Smith, 2005:9)

Thus, saying that acquiring or using a bit of military means still qualifies

an actor as a civilian power leads to the question of how much military: where

is the cut-off point? It is easier and more coherent to keep up a distinction

between purely civilian means and military means.

Smith and Duchêne have an obvious point in strictly keeping military

instruments out of a civilian power definition. This way one can compare

“reality” with the two power types so that one can distinguish between actors

and identify changes in an actor’s foreign policy orientation. Either one has

military instrument or one doesn’t, the distinction gives a clear break where

clear breaks are few. (Smith, 2005:1)

4. 3 Smith’s four elements

Dissatisfied with limiting the civilian and military power definition to solely

means and ends Smith enhances the civilian power definition of means and

ends with two additional elements.

Smith argues that being a civilian power has been most frequently defined

to entail not just the means that an actor uses but also the ends that it pursues.

However, this is not enough. In order to define if a state is a civilian power one

also has to look at the way those means are used, and the process by which

foreign policy is made.

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Thus, Smith presents four elements to being a civilian power: means;

ends; use of persuasion; and civilian control over foreign (and defence) policy-

making.

Having already defined the difference between civil and military means

and ends above, this section will continue by defining each of the two

elements: persuasion and civilian control.

4.3.1 Persuasion

An important element in being a civilian power is the way in which the actor

uses its means in order to reach its ends. This relates to the third of Smith's

elements in being a civilian power.

She talks about six ways in which an international actor can influence

other international actors: using persuasion (carrots), offering rewards,

granting rewards, threatening punishment, inflicting non-violent punishment

or using force (sticks). (K.J Holsti in Smith, 2003: 22)

These methods are similar to Robert Nye's conception of "soft power"

where the strategy is to sway people rather than to coerce them. According to

Nye this works as a power of attraction where a country might obtain the

results it seeks in world politics because other countries who admire its values

and strive to emulate its examples want to follow it. It is a blatantly different

strategy than coercion which Nye refers to as command power. (Smith,

2005:4)

Smith’s foreign policy instruments can be used in different ways. A stick

is not just military, nor is the carrot always economic. Economic instruments

encompass the promise of aid, sanctions, and military instruments range from

the actual use of force to compel or deter an enemy to training aiding militaries

in other countries to ensuring defence of national territory against a military

invasion. So theoretically, just because an actor has only civilian instruments,

does not mean that it will only use those instruments to sway other actors,

civilian instruments can be used quite coercively.

Can therefore a civilian power use coercion even if only with civilian means?

Christopher Hill argues that civilian models rely on persuasion and

negotiation in dealing with third countries and international issues in

comparison to power blocs which use coercion. In the case of the EU this

would mean that it uses its economic and diplomatic strength to reach its

objectives.

Hence, Hill specifies that civilian power relies on soft power, persuasion

and attraction rather than coercion or carrots and sticks. (Hill in Smith 2005:4)

4.3.2 Democratic control

The final element of the definition of civilian power is rarely discussed in the

literature but according to Smith it is equally as important as the other three. It

16

refers to a civilian model as an open diplomatic community that allows more

public discussion regarding foreign policy matters.

The EU is seen to have a more ethical foreign policy precisely because it

is so transparent and observed by the member states, their parliaments, the

European Parliament and public opinion. It hinders the EU from engaging in

what one could call bad foreign policy today, namely realpolitik. (Smith,

2005:5)

What democratic control really means is, again, hard to establish. For

example, who shall have veto over EU foreign policy initiatives? The

European Parliament? The nation states? And how should meetings be

conducted for them to be seen as “open”?

This is not clearly specified in Smith’s paper, but she does argue that “that

a spectrum from open to secretive decision-making processes can be

envisaged, as can the extent to which such processes are subject to civilian,

democratic control or not.” (Smith 2005:5)

4.4 The “ideal-type” power

With a combination of the elements discussed above, one can create an ideal

civilian-type power: a civilian power is an actor which uses civilian means for

persuasion, to pursue civilian ends, and whose foreign policy-making process

is subjected to democratic control or public scrutiny. All elements are

important to Smith’s ideal-type of a civilian power.

Smith also contrasts the civilian ideal type with an opposite ideal type, a

military power. This would be an actor which uses military means

(exclusively, which in practice is difficult to envisage) to reach its objectives,

relies on coercion to influence other actors, pursues military ends, (goals such

as territorial conquest and acquisition of more military power) and whose

foreign policy-making process is not democratic.

The two contrasting ideal type powers described above portray a spectrum of

powers in international relations, with civilian power on one and military

power on the other. (Smith, 2005:6)

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Civilian power ◄---------------------------► Military Power

civilian means

military means

civilian ends

military ends

persuasion/soft power

coercion/hard power

democratic control

no democratic control

Figure 1. Smith’s ideal type power model

With its four elements, Smith’s classification of an ideal-type civilian and

military power can help us to characterize the EU, and help us form a general

view of the EU as an international actor. It makes it possible to form an

opinion as to which extend a certain actor is a civilian power and in what

ways.

Smith talks about the spectrum being able to, besides characterizing

international actors, characterize specific foreign policies as well. Take the

EU’s enlargement policy for example. Enlargement could reasonably be

placed close to the civilian ideal side, since it seems to be a milieu policy and

relies on the EU’s power of attraction. Member states are not forced to enter

the EU, but do so willingly, whether for political or economical gains.

However it is not completely a civilian policy since there are traces of self-

interested possession goals present as well. Furthermore the EU uses

membership conditionality – quite coercively at times – to influence aspirant

states, as in the case of Turkey.

Hence, the enlargement is still not an ideal-type civilian power policy.

(Smith 2003:7)

With the ideal-type power spectrum there are not many nations or power

blocs that could be located at either ends. There are some international actors

that could arguably be close to ideal-type military powers such as North

Korea, Hitler’s Germany and Saddam’s Iraq.

Purely civilian ideal-type powers are harder to locate although Europe’s

neutral countries, such as Austria, Finland, Sweden, Ireland and Switzerland,

do come the closest to the civilian power end on the power scale. Closest in

the sense that those countries do have military forces and they have

participated in UN operations around the world. They are not purely civilian

powers because they have military forces and, more importantly, four of the

five neutrals participate in the development of the EU’s security and defence

policy. (Smith 2005:6)

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4.5 Summary

Ever since scholars started analysing the emergence of the EU as an

international actor the concept of civilian power has been present. Scholar

after scholar have defined, redefined and stretched the concept in order to get a

sense of the EU’s compatibility with it.

Within the civilian power discourse one can make out two “camps”, one group

drawing a clear line between civilian and military by excluding anything

military from a civilian definition. (Duchêne, Smith and Hill).

Another group takes a more realist approach arguing that it is impossible

to carry out civilian ends without military means and that the object of

reaching civilian ends justifies the use of military means. (Maull, Whitman,

Nicolaidis and Stravridis)

The purpose of the extensive research in the definition of a civilian power

was to find a pattern or a common denominator of defining civilian and

military power.

Most civilian power scholars look at an actor’s means and ends to define

its power type. However, to avoid the vagueness that plagues most definitions

in regard to the break between civilian and military power, discussed above, it

becomes important to find a cut and dry definition. Therefore Maull, Whitman,

Nicolaidis and Stavridis’ definition of a civilian power with military means is

excluded from the definition of a civilian power.

We can now draw the conclusions that a civilian power pertains to

influencing other international actors through diplomatic, economic and legal

means in order to reach civilian ends.

Smith’s ideal-type power spectrum with the additional two elements,

persuasion and democratic control creates the yardstick or analytical tool

needed to distinguish and define the EU as an international actor. By having

ideal-types it makes the break between civilian and military power less fuzzy.

The rest of this thesis will be dedicated to researching the EU’s

international operations. When applying Smith’s spectrum on the EU we

might be able to distinguish if the EU is still a civilian actor and working for a

civilian power or if it is moving toward the right end of the spectrum toward a

strong military power.

19

5. CASE STUDY:

A look at the EU’s foreign operations

5. 1 Former Yugoslavia

Having played a largely secondary role (if that) in the Gulf War, the breakup

of former Yugoslavia presented a golden opportunity for the EU and its

members to improve upon their dismal performance and prove themselves

collectively as a major player.

With two member states sharing borders with Yugoslavia, the threat to

national security and territorial stability was of particular concern to the EU

because of the danger of ethno-nationalist problems spreading to the Eastern

and Central Europe. (White 2001: 107)

The leaders of the EU saw themselves as ideally suited for the project as

the Union was becoming a major economic player in central and Eastern

Europe (more than 50 percent of former Yugoslavian trade was with the EU.)

(Treacher, 2004:56)

On the same note, Brian White writes about a certain mood of confidence

in the Union at that time, partly due to the accelerated integration since the

1980’s enhanced by the commitments taken in Maastricht. (White, 2001:107f)

There was a general determination to respond to the crisis as promptly and

effectively as possible but precisely what to do and how to do it were

complicated by the hot debates about the outlines of the CFSP that were being

discussed in the TEU. Acting collectively was unprecedented territory for the

EU.

Despite of the Gulf War, there were many outside of the Union who

believed that the Union’s status as a “civilian power” in a new post-cold-war

world “made it perfectly suitable to take the lead in an environment where

military force now suddenly seemed irrelevant.” (Hill in Peterson & Sjursen

(eds.) 1998:21)

It was not so surprising then that in the climate of expectations, created

within and outside of the EU, the EU believed that it could deploy an

appropriate blend of political and economic instruments to resolve the Balkan

crisis. It did seem like the most natural choice of mediator, Yugoslavia being

the EU’s backyard.

Initially the Union was a successful mediator and successful in utilizing

these “civilian” instruments to secure a ceasefire. The Serbian government was

warned that financial credits and other assistance as well as negotiations

toward a privileged so called Association Agreement were threatened by the

ongoing absence of a cease fire. (Treacher 2004:56)

20

However, by 1991 the situation in the Balkans had escalated to the point

of discussions of action beyond the hitherto used diplomatic mediation. One

major event that had sparked the escalation was Germany’s “diplomatic

recognition” of the breakaway republics, Slovenia and Croatia. Largely due to

domestic political reasons Germany took the lead in trying to persuade other

member states to recognize the republics and eventually sidestepped the Union

and unilaterally recognized both republics. The consensus among the member

states was hastily repaired and they all agreed to recognition, but at great cost.

First of all German policy greatly undermined the whole CFSP project that

had just been commenced. The “bulldozer” tactics of Germany were not what

most commentators would call a common foreign and security policy.

Secondly, German unilateralism undermined the ongoing mediation effort

and with the proceeding recognition of Bosnia in 1992 made a considerable

contribution the intensification of the Balkan crisis.

Several international mediation efforts, led by the EU and the United

Nations, were put into effect the following years, without any success. (White

2001:108f)

The Union was forced to face the fact that its shortcomings were to be

exposed by an inability to broker anything approaching a permanent peace on

the ground and the general lack of decisive decision-making and consensus

among its members.

The final collapse in the EU’s united sense of purpose took the shape of

the Contact Group of 1994. This was an extra-institutional body comprised of

Britain, France, Germany, Russia and the USA. Together the Contact Group

made itself the key policy-making organ for the West. (Treacher 2004:56)

The Contact Group resulted in certain EU members becoming more “high-

profile” than others in the intervention, and the interests of those EU members,

rather than the collective policy, were magnified. At this point the Union had

ceased to act as a single entity in the crisis.

The failure to pacify the Balkans and the inability to play a pivotal role

shows procedural problems created by the perceived need to maintain a

consensus at all costs and the propensity of individual member states to pursue

their own interests rather than a common policy on this issue. (White 2001:

109)

It is quite obvious that the EU failed fundamentally to equip itself to meet

the outside world’s expectations, which were raised by the outcome of the

TEU which said that member states would “support the Union’s external and

security policy activity actively and unreservedly” and that the CFSP would

“strengthen the security of the Union and its member states in all ways”. The

gap between the EU’s capabilities and the rest of the world’s expectations is

partly a consequence of the EU’s lack of capacity for leadership. (Peterson &

Sjursen 1998: 6)

21

5.2 The Democratic Republic of Congo

In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) a civil war was being fought

between the minority Hema tribe and the majority Lendu tribe in a north-

eastern region of DRC, called Ituri.

Since the outbreak of war in 1999, 50, 000 lives have been claimed and by

spring of 2003, the situation was rapidly intensifying.

The UN mission forces (MONUC) were already on location in Bunia, a

particularly war torn area in the region, but were unable – due to limited

mandate and weaponry - to respond to increasing violence.

It fell upon Secretary General Kofi Annan to ask the international

community for supplementation in addressing the situation before the situation

deteriorated.

The French were more than willing to send French troops to Bunia and

surprisingly positive responses were found in the Union’s smaller member

states. Greece strongly supported the EU involvement and Swedish Foreign

Affairs Minister replied to not exclude Swedish participation. She argued that

it was important for other parties, not just France with its colonial past, to

participate in the peacekeeping.

Among the larger EU counties the calls for action were not as strong. The

United Kingdom had no immediate official comments and Germany was

openly against an EU operation to DRC claiming it was too far away and too

much of a military challenge.

However, the plausibility of a successful intervention was presented

before the Political and Security Committee (PSC).

Most assumed that an actual EU action would take months in organizing,

but the EU’s multilateral slowness seen in the former Yugoslavia was proved

wrong when the EU, only one month after Annan’s request for international

aid, the PSC approved the plans and launched a military operation, code-

named ARTEMIS. (Strömvik 2005: 223f)

Operation Artemis, led by France, included 1, 800 troops contributed by

France, German, Belgium, Greece, Sweden, United Kingdom, South Africa,

Brazil and Canada. (Internet 1)

The European military force worked in close co-ordination with the UN,

aiming to prevent a large-scale humanitarian and civil crisis and contribute to

the stabilization of the security conditions, ensuring the safety of the civilian

population, UN personnel and the wider humanitarian presence; and

maintaining the peace between the government and the rebels. (Internet 2)

At the same time intense diplomatic work was being carried out in the

DRC and in the neighboring countries. The EU knew that a rapid reaction

mission would also depend on a rapid plan on how to handle other parties with

interests in the outcome. Both carrots and sticks were being carried out,

particularly towards neighboring Uganda and Rwanda. The message was that

there would be a price to pay for those who did not help keep paramilitaries in

22

eastern DRC at bay, while cooperation would be rewarded. (Strömvik 2005:

228)

The operation would be a landmark in EU history and it is remarkable in

three aspects: It was the first time the EU would deploy troops outside-of-area,

the first time on a UN Chapter VII mandate and the first autonomous EU

mission without relying on NATO assistance. (Strömvik 2005: 229)

In September of 2003 the operation was officially ended and the last EU

troops left the DRC, making a hand-over to a now more robust UN. (Internet

3)

In Bunia a “no visable weapons in town” law was imposed by the EU

forces. A measure of peace had been restored and thousands of people could

return to their homes. (Strömvik 2005: 235)

23

6. Placing the EU on the civilian/

military power spectrum

Smith’s ideal-type spectrum that was presented earlier in chapter 4.4 can be

used to characterize the EU and help form a general view of the EU as an

international actor.

Thus, with the spectrum acting as our tool we can attempt to measure to

which extent the EU acts as a civilian power and in what ways.

6.1 Case 1: Former Yugoslavia

6.1.1 Means

In the EU’s attempt to intervene in the Balkan crisis the military and civilian

means came to overlap one another.

On the very outset of the crisis there was a consensus among the member

states to approach the issue with largely civilian instruments. Here was their

chance to show the world the strength of a collective body combating a crisis

with civilian instruments.

Initially, diplomatic tools, such as mediation, worked rather well in

negotiating a ceasefire and the EU’s financial muscle was being exercised

when comprehensive economical sanctions, specially targeted toward Serbia

and Montenegro, were being carried out. The utilizing of civilian tools, such as

mediation and sanctions, in this instance would place the EU well to the right

at the civilian idea-type.

However the success of these attempts was miniscule as sanctions caused

both efficiency and credibility problems for the EU. The EU’s credibility

suffered when the threats of tightened sanctions were not backed up by

implementation. And in the short term, when crisis situations become more

embedded, sanctions lack effectiveness.

In an attempt to make the blockade more effective the EU set out to police

these sanctions. To do so the EU deployed naval forces under the backing of

the Western European Union (WEU)

. As a result this mission helped to blur

the lines between civilian and military instruments, placing the EU farther to

the military power end. (White 2001: 114)

An interesting point here is that with the TEU, just having been ratified by

2

Western European Union is a security and defence alliance involving states throughout Europe.

24

the member states, the EU could have requested the WEU to organize a

military response under Article J. 4 (see appendix A).

This could mean that the EU was taking its civilian approach seriously,

which ultimately means moving the EU towards the left of the power

spectrum. On the other hand, on a more realist note and as White concluded:

the EU might have thought about using the WEU, but requested NATO to step

in instead, as it realised that “ultimately only NATO had the infrastructure, the

resources and the instruments to deliver on the significant use of military

force.” (White 2001: 113) For civilian “powerists” like Duchêne and Smith

this would be perceived as a military power action.

Even if the inability to reach consensus between the member states caused

many problems for the EU, the Union did make substantial contribution in

numerous areas from alleviating suffering to preparing the path to the eventual

accord reached at Dayton.

Dayton did not, however, bring the crisis in the Balkans to an end as

further instability in Kosovo and Albania clearly shows.

This would lead one to the conclusion that a successful intervention needs

more than civilian means.

6.1.2 Ends

Looking at how states pursue goals is a crucial part of analysing what a state

does in international relations.

The justification for continuing to call the EU a civilian power (discussed

in chapter 4.2.1) is that it is pursuing civilian ends; therefore it is a civilian

power, regardless of using military tools.

The problem here, according to Smith, is that there really are no clear

definitions on what civilian ends are. Milieu goals and possessive goals is, as

described earlier, one definition but it only goes so deep.

The civilian ends in domesticating international politics or furthering the

international rule of law creates an example of how hard it is to define civilian

ends when one gets down to the gritty details. Does international law include

non-intervention in the domestic jurisdiction of other states? If so, how does it

correspond with recent ends of promoting human right and democratic

principals? And what sort of human rights and democratic principals should be

promoted?

The point is that it is not clear what civilian ends are and until that is more

specifically defined we cannot state that the EU is actually pursuing civilian

ends and is therefore a civilian power. (Smith, 2005:10)

One could look at what civilian ends should be, how far those goals are

actually achieved rather than what was intended to be achieved. One could

then attempt to see to what extend these ends were pursued.

Dunne and Wheeler suggest using the term “good international

citizenship” to help define ends.

A “good international citizen” constrains self-interest and promotes

25

democratic values and principals.

In international relations a “good international citizen” will pursue the

following goals: strengthen international support for human rights standards,

comply with international rules, and act multilaterally and with UN

authorization whenever possible. (Smith 2005: 13)

So, how much of a good citizen was the EU in regards to the Balkan

crisis?

On the Balkan issue the EU was very keen on keeping an open dialogue and

cooperating with other international entities. However, despite good intentions,

this interlocking of multiple institutions, wielding effective veto power over

each other in the absence of any clear hierarchy, eventually came to be a

problem in solving the crisis.

There were no real material gains for the EU to engage in war. Although

the proximity of Yugoslavia was a clear threat to EU territory and it was in

their interest to see the ethnic-nationalist problem solved before those

problems spread to the EU.

Even though the EU failed miserably in the Balkans, it seems as if its

intentions to approach the crisis in a civilian manner were well meant.

Whether for self protection or genuine concern for the people of the Balkans

there was a conscious step taken by the EU to domesticate the problems, take

on the responsibility for a global concern and spread equality, justice and

tolerance.

Even though it is difficult to establish exactly what civilian ends are, the

attempts above will show that the EU most definitely pursued these civilian

goals to the best of their ability.

6.1.3 Persuasion

Christopher Hill differentiated between a civilian model and a power block

when talking about persuasion and coercion.

In a civilian model the EU relies primarily on persuasion and negotiation

in dealing with third counties and international issues. Persuasion in this sense

means cooperating with other actors to try to induce desired internal or

external policy changes.

In contrast a power block’s mannerisms would involve the actor to use its

diplomatic and economic instruments to pursue self-interested objectives.

(Smith, 2003:22)

From my empirical material on the EU’s foreign policy one can see how

the EU more and more has begun to utilize, what Nye called, command power,

i.e. to induce or coerce third counties to do certain things, or more specifically

use conditionality to achieve goals.

When speaking of conditionality one differs between positive and

negative conditionality. Positive conditionality entails the promise of benefits

to a state if it fulfils the conditions. Negative conditionality involves reducing,

suspending or terminating those benefits if the state in question violates the

26

conditions. (Smith 2003:57)

One can see a continued use of both positive and negative conditionality

in the EU’s dealings with third counties.

For example the suspension of financial credits and other financial

assistance to the Balkans was hoped to bring on an absent cease fire or the

European Council’s delays in Turkish accession until certain human rights and

democratic principals were met.

However, the EU’s use of conditionality has not been effective in reaching

their set out goals. The problem lies in having a hard time applying negative

conditionality, due to doubts amongst the member states about the right of

using negative conditionality. Because of the member states’ difficulty in

agreeing to take on a hard approach toward violators of EU conditions there

arises an inconsistency where some get punished and others do not.

Without the power of implementation the EU will never have the power to

persuade other actors to bend to its will.

So this voluntary and non-voluntary use of negative conditionality would

most assuredly place the EU more towards the military power end.

6.1.4 Democratic control

As for the last element of civilian power, we must ask how democratic the

EU’s foreign policy-making process is.

Generally it is pretty easy to find out what is going on, as I would soon

find out after my enquiries on EU foreign policy. But when it comes to

parliamentary control in the CFSP for example, it is not as guaranteed. And

European and national parliamentary input as well as public debate over use of

armed forces by the EU and by the member states is minimal. (Smith,

2005:11)

Furthermore the development of the European Security and Defence

Policy (ESDP) was underway without much public discussion or knowledge

for that matter. Similarly when the ESDP was under discussion in each of the

Union’s member states, Ireland tried to vote against the Nice Treaty and the

ESDP clause a second referendum was held to erase those doubts.

Therefore one has reason to question whether there is adequate democratic

control over EU foreign policy. (Smith, 2005:11)

In the Balkan intervention, the resolution to intervene was a process that

went through many levels of decision-making and intergovernmental

discussions. The process was rather transparent and the EU has neither the

power nor the influence to implement decisions that are not approved by

NATO.

Although there are definitely areas where there is democratic deficit one

would have to agree with Smith that even if there is no clear definition of what

democratic control is a “that a spectrum from open to secretive decision-

making processes can be envisaged, as can the extent to which such processes

are subject to civilian, democratic control or not.” (Smith 2005:5)

27

6.2 Case 2. The Democratic Republic of Congo

6.2.1 Means

In stark contrast to the Balkans intervention, the EU had no specific

discussions of approaching the conflict in the DRC with civilian instruments.

The UN secretary general made a plea for the international community to step

in and aid the UN in preventing the conflict from deteriorating, and the EU did

so by rather rapidly, deploying troops to the war torn areas of north-eastern

DRC.

I mention above that there was diplomatic work being executed during the

intervention. Even if diplomatic mediation is a civilian tool the actual EU

intervention was not conducted with civilian means because the diplomatic

mediation was not the primary tool used by the EU and neither was military

means the last resort after all other civilian means had been tried. The response

to the UN: s call for help was first and foremost military, making the EU

anything but a civilian power entity.

6.2.2 Ends

In the Congo case it is, again, hard to establish exactly what the ends were for

the EU. The Union did enter a close co-operation with the UN and it was not

on an EU initiative.

Therefore it appears that the EU was pursuing milieu goals and one can

not really see how the EU would gain from this experience. There was no

threat to EU security as in the Balkan case.

Outwardly it seems like the EU joined forces with the UN to take

responsibility for the global environment and work for a lasting peace in a

troubled area. If there are possession goals to be found one would have to look

at the member states individually and ask what motives they had to offer their

troops in the name of EU, which is a field I will not delve into in this paper.

One would have to assume that the nations that did participate in the

intervention did so in the name of peacekeeping, to stabilize the region and

protect the civilian population and that the EU as a collective entity worked in

reaching civilian goals, namely to bring peace to Congo and its people.

6.2.3 Persuasion

Soon after the EU’s rapid response to aid the UN and the troubles in the DRC

with the deployment of EU troops, heavy diplomatic work was being

conducted at the negotiating tables. One important step in avoiding escalation

of the conflict was controlling other parties, both in the DRC and particularly

in the neighboring counties Uganda and Rwanda, who would have interests in

28

the outcome of the crisis. This was effectively done by offering carrots and

sticks, also referred to above as negative and positive conditionality aimed at

rewarding those who cooperated with the EU and UN peacekeeping mission

and penalizing those parties who did not help in the restraint of paramilitaries.

The use of these methods, coercion and conditionality is a direct step away

from the civilian power methods of persuasion.

6.2.4 Democratic Control

Like the build up to the intervention in the Balkans, the initial process before

the decision to deploy aiding troops to the DRC was an open debate between

the member states and the PSC.

Like the Balkan operation there was no decision process that went through

different levels of decision-making and there was no higher authority that took

a collective decision, the EU was asked by the UN to intervene and the

decision to join was up to each of the nation-states, with an available option to

“opt out” of the operation.

As for as this author can tell, the EU’s operation in the DRC was initiated

and conducted without openly tarnishing the element of democratic control.

29

7. The EU: a civilian or military

power?

With the help from Smith’s spectrum of ideal-type powers it is possible to see

where the EU’s actions in international affairs have landed it on the scale

between civilian and military power-types.

By comparing the EU’s actions in the Balkans with the ones issued in the

Democratic Republic of Congo, it is rather notable that the EU indeed, has

taken a definite leap from the civilian approach that was widely spoken for in

the initial negotiations that preluded the Balkan war.

As was noted earlier, the EU made an earnest effort to use the civilian

powers it had, even though they failed.

The Balkan crisis served as the first serious test to EU’s just recently

finished CFSP and it was soon apparent that it would test the most sensitive

aspect of the CFSP, the ability of member states to agree on the use of military

force.

The crisis came to expose the most serious and divergent interests of

member states and in the end required the support of a growing list of other

international actors including the UN, NATO, United States and Russia.

The EU had civilian tools at hand and was ready to supply them, but it

was soon discovered that were not sufficient enough to solve the issue at hand.

The problem was that the EU didn’t have a force to back up and implement its

demands.

In contrast, civilian tools were not primary tools, if at all, in the crisis

management in the DRC.

Whether as a reaction from its failure in the Balkans or conscious step toward a

more forceful an militarized foreign policy, Operation Artemis in Congo

represents tangible evidence of the development of the EU’s defence policy in

its contribution to the international community’s efforts to promote stability

and security. Although the operation was very limited in scope and time the

engagements were the first-on manifestation of the EU’s security and defence

dimension.

This is not to say that just because the EU was successful in Africa means

that it has a fully equipped military power. Far from it. Resent indecisiveness

in the Iraq issue shows that the Union is no nearer genuine consensus in

foreign policy questions as it was in the Balkans a decade earlier.

30

The EU’s actions in the Balkans = X

The EU’s actions in the DRC = O

Means

Civilian power -- --x-- -- -- -- -- --o-- -- Military power

Ends

Civilian power --ox-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Military power

Persuasion

Civilian power -- -- -- --x-- -- -- --o-- -- Military power

Democratic control

Civilian power -- --xo-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Military power

Figure 2. Placing the EU on the Civilian/Military ideal-type spectrum

It is certain though, that when faced with a crisis, the EU now has at its

disposal the whole range of tools – economic, diplomatic and military.

Subsequently, for scholars like Smith, this means that the EU no longer is a

civilian power, since a civilian power in their definition excludes all forms of

military tools.

To hark back to Maull and his posse the EU has started to move more

toward the military end of the spectrum – but only where it counts. Ends and

democratic control are still conducted in a civilian ways whereas means and

tactics have become more militarized. And according to this group this does

not make the EU a military power. It is argued that when an actor has

exhausted civilian means in an international action it is very legitimate to

resort to military means and strategies as long the tools are used to secure

civilian goals.

After looking at two different cases where the EU has acted in

international affairs and analyzing its actions by using the Smith ideal-type

spectrum I have come to the conclusion that the EU, based on its increasing

use of military instruments in its handling with foreign affairs, is not a civilian

power anymore.

So with all these tell-tale signs of the EU inching its way toward being a

more military power, why do scholars still insist on calling the EU a civilian

power?

7.1 The Civilian Power Zeal

After the world wars the member states didn’t need the use of military

instruments to deal with one another. The “new union” replaced the old

balance-of-power logic and created a security community, a group of peoples

and states so integrated that they derive their security to each other. The idea

with the Union was to create a “togetherness” and interdependence that would

eliminate the need for arms between the members.

31

Now a new vision has arisen in which the ever expanding territory that is

the EU must have military instruments to deal with others. Ironically, it is

when Europe is freed from their internal security dilemma that they seem to

want to learn anew to project power externally to Europe’s periphery and

beyond. (Nicolaidis, 2003:4)

The EU seems torn between asserting a rather distinctive international

identity – civilian, and acquiring state-like attributes such as the capacity to

use military force. As we have seen from EU foreign operations the EU is no

longer a civilian power, since it does have military capabilities and is not

afraid to use it.

Smith and her group seem to think that the strengths of the EU civilian

model were powerful and revolutionary in the long run. Law should replace

power politics, thus transforming the practice of international relations.

Nicolaidis, however, questions the EU’s civilian power visions in the

small period after the world wars, and whether it was out of choice or if it was

simply making a virtue out of a weakness. (Nicolaidis, 2003:1) Having lost

power and its craving for war and unable to muster the political will to rebuild

a credible military capacity, the European leaders presented their meek civilian

power as the ideal instead of the default option it really was. (Nicolaidis,

2003:1) Nicolaidis’ statement would lead one to believe that not only is the EU

no longer a civilian power, but that in fact it never was.

So why do Maull and scholars like him keep up the pretence that the EU is

still civilian?

As we have seen from my study of the different definitions of a civilian

power scholars have re-evaluated and stretched the definition of civilian power

as time has passed and especially as the EU has evolved more and more into a

military actor.

Europeans have and still are, revisiting and reinventing their own

collective view on power. They care about it but are unable (individually) or

reluctant (collectively) to project it openly. (Nicolaidis, 2003:5) This

ambivalence is explained by many commentators with the label civilian power.

It would appear that it is a desperate attempt to hold on to the more

“prestigious” civilian concept, even if, the EU, in reality, is not anymore.

Indeed, Nicolaidis defines a civilian power to be “valid as a goal even if not

yet attained”, emphasizing the superiority of a civilian power to a military

power. (Nicolaidis, 2003:6)

Even if one could agree that negotiation is to be preferred over war

declarations and it is desirable for a international organization such as the EU

to utilize its civilian tools over its military ones, the prestigious zeal of being

or claiming to be a civilian power will be in the way of ever making a decision

in a collective foreign policy.

This wish to be civilian doesn't coincide with the changes being made

regarding foreign and security policy. Considering the events since the war in

the Balkans and the EU’s move towards being a more militarized entity it is

unrealistic to keep fusing the label of “civilian power” to the EU when in fact

the label of “civilian power”, that the EU tried to achieve at before the Balkan

32

wars, ceased to exist when the EU started making common defence plans in

the TEU.

The civilian power days were over with Yugoslavia and most definitely in

the case of the DRC and thoughts of returning to a civilian power, if it ever

was one, will only serve to halt the EU.

Whether “civilian-power Europe” was only a transition period for the

Union and if it is in fact, as Smith bluntly says: dead, doesn’t mean that the EU

should wipe its hands off civilian power tools all together.

I feel the need to emphasize here that scholars of Smith’s theory of

civilian power do not necessary feel that the EU should not be a civilian

power, the case is that according to their measuring stick and definitions of

what a civilian power is the EU does not fit the mold. A similarity between the

two groups is that they both speak of an entire panoply of tools that should be

utilized by the EU in international relations, both military and civilian. The

difference is that, whereas one group thinks that the EU is not a civilian power

anymore for using military tools along with civilian ones, the other believes

that it can still be called a civilian power.

7.1.1 Summary

When measuring the EU’s international actions with the help of the civilian

power yardstick, there has proven to be various instances that have indicated a

change in international policies from a civilian to a military power i.e.

dispatching peacekeeping forces to the DRC, creating a EU Rapid Reaction

Force, establishing a defence doctrine and the recent initiated talks of a

common defence budget, to name a few. Yet there are still scholars who

adamantly oppose the idea that the EU no longer is a civilian power actor,

whether for the sake of shrouding a weakness with a cloak of new found

strength called civilian power or for the noble zeal which comes from dealing

with the international community with civilian means.

The ambiguity of the EU’s foreign policy, being torn between defending a

distinctive international identity – civilian, and acquiring state-like attributes

such as the capacity to use military force, has led “pro-civilian powerist” to

concept-stretch the civilian definition to keep the EU within the framework of

a civilian power.

This chapter has sought to give a brief explanation to the inconsistency

between desires to hold on to the prestigious civilian power concept while in

reality the EU is showing more and more military power tendencies.

So if the EU no longer can be called a civilian power, does that make it a

military power?

7.2 If not civilian, then military?

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Michael E. Smith, in Stone Sweet et all's "The Institutionalization of Europe"

mentions a few factors that came to push for a more coherent foreign and

security policy; the fall of the Berlin wall, the unification of Germany,

democratic change in the former Soviet bloc, the Persian Gulf War, and the

first signs of disintegration in the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.

Faced with these problems and fearing that they might disrupt other

important goals such as the single European market and the monetary union

many states clearly felt that they needed to improve their external capabilities

and the cooperation between the member states. (Stone Sweet, et al (eds.),

2001:172f)

The development of the second pillar and a Common Foreign and Security

Policy has developed more slowly due to the sensitive nature of defence, the

central role of NATO in these areas and the different foreign policy histories

and colonial legacies of the EU member states. (Bomberg & Stubb (eds.),

2003: 130)

In our previous discussion on EU and where it stands on the civilian-

military power-ideal spectrum we came to the conclusion that the EU is no

longer a civilian power, but does that automatically entail that the EU is on its

way on becoming a strong military power?

An ambition to call the EU a military power has not taken into account the

diverse set of aims and concrete possibilities of the member states of the

enlarged European community for many years to come. A European military

power would need to be more independent of the controls of American

hegemony. It would require a European force and a European Federation with

a president able to press the button for the whole community. A fundamental

problem for the EU is that it has never given an answer to Henry Kissinger

question “what telephone number do I call when I want to speak to Europe?”

(Bomberg & Stubb (eds.), 2004: 197) A single number to Europe is still a very

remote prospect.

In relation to this issue there are certain problems that the EU will have to

come to terms with if they are planning on changing positions from a civilian

power to a military power. These are shared identity and general consensus,

which in a sense go hand in hand.

7.2.1 The problem of identity

An effective foreign policy relies largely upon a shared sense of national

identity, a feeling for a nation-state’s place in the world, its friends and foes

and its interests and objectives. (Hill (eds.), 1996:8)

With the expanding union it is more crucial than ever to directly consider

who they are, and it is proving to be difficult.

History and geography make conflicting responses to external issues, for

instance: stability in Poland is of more importance to Germany than to Spain,

34

and stability in Northern Africa is more pressing matters for Spain than for

Germany. A joint engagement in those contradictory cases would require a

coherence which is not self-evident to the people of the nation-states of the

EU.

Participation in the EU and further integration, however, does promote a sense

of shared identity. If the plan for a foreign policy EU is to act as one voice,

they need to start finding a united stance in international interactions. (Hill

(eds.), 1996:9)

7.2.2 The problem with general consensus

This next problem regarding EU’s difficulty in becoming a military power is

the question of general consensus, which goes hand in hand with identity.

Adrian Treacher, in his essay “From civilian power to military actor: the

EU’s resistible transformation”, differentiates between military actor and

military power. He argues that the EU may have materialistic capabilities but

there are serious doubts whether the Union's leaders ever could achieve even a

rough consensus on key foreign policy issues. The diplomatic gaps between

the member states regarding the Iraqi crisis in 2003 is just one illustration of

the lack of an encompassing foreign consensus for the Union. (Treacher,

2004:1)

The political capacity and will of the Unions leaders to actually deploy the

military instruments at the Union’s disposal in response to crisis is dubious, as

is their willpower to further a deeper integration in this area.

The problem is reaching consensus among the member states, without that

the EU will never function as a strong partner in foreign policy operations.

Reaching an agreement on economical collaboration and power is easy,

but as long as member states are sovereign nation-states in an

intergovernmental system where the nation’s parliament still has power one

can forget a common military power. There are no rules of collaboration and

no penalties for not accommodating foreign policy projects, which makes it

very hard to agree on how to use their foreign policy resources. The capability

needs to move from a intergovernmental to a supranational level in order for it

to have a chance to work.

The difficulties of bringing 25 disparate counties together in a cohesive

group may need some collective emotional force, (identity) which could well

be generated in reaction against some third party, most probably one of the

super-powers or else a threat to the EU from an outside force.

To some extent you could see this development of an opposition to the

super-powers at the end of the cold war. When the fear of Soviet Union

military domination of Europe disappeared and there was less certainty about

the American commitment to the defence of West European interests in the

face of the Soviet Union, more plainly put: less need but also less expectation

of protection, the idea of a European military power equipped with the whole

panoply of civilian and military tools could be a natural development. At the

35

end of the cold war and the fall of the Soviet Union, the EU was indeed

expected to contribute their own defence. But so far there hasn't been a threat

to the EU that would spur a similar raise of arms. There has to be an outer

threat to Europe that would show the member states that they do indeed need a

collective defence. As of now, there is no cohesive military power as there is

no major threat to the Union, although there has been stronger sense of

solidarity in the face of terrorism that has not been seen before.

The policies which are in place today are not sufficient enough to make

the Union act collectively, with one voice, in international affairs. Without a

shared identity, an institution, a commander in chief and concrete rules the

members states’ diverging international objectives will hinder any success in

reaching a common defense and security policy for the people of Europe.

7.2.3 Summary

As we have seen earlier the EU is not a civilian power anymore and from the

empirical material we have concluded that the EU has adapted clear signs of

moving toward the military power end of the ideal power-type spectrum. Even

if the EU is showing clear signs of a military power, certain problems are

inhibiting the growth of an EU as an emerging military actor.

General consensus and identity problems stemming from inconsistent and

weak institutions and the absence of rules, a distinct authority and an outside

threat instigating the need solidarity, are hinders that need to be breached in

order to assemble one voice in foreign politics.

Still to this day the EU does not have these capabilities to be a

determining military actor in the international arena.

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8. Summary & Conclusions

The EU was initially a consequence of the devastating world wars, established

to minimize the threat of war within Western Europe by transforming the

anarchic international relationship between sovereign states into a framework

resembling domestic politics.

This experiment translated into a civilian foreign policy.

Many scholars opted for the EU to conduct a civilian approach when dealing

with international issues. Whether due to integration spill-over or a reaction to

international relations the EU soon started to experiment with tools other than

those promoted by a civilian power model.

Ever since the war in the Balkans in the early 90’s, after what seemed like

a failure in solving a conflict with civilian tools, the EU has dabbled more in

military power activities. The peacekeeping force sent to Congo, the creation

of an EU Rapid Reaction Force, doctrines on a common defense policy and

talks on a common defense budget, to name but a few, would lead one to think

that the EU has left its civilian power approach, that was so idealized after the

world wars, to take its place as a military actor to be reckoned with. However,

despite the military dimension that has been emerging since the Maastricht

Treaty of the European Union of 1992 there are still a rather large group of

commentators that claim that the EU is still a civilian power.

These circumstances have set the stage for my term paper.

Considering the fact that there is such a split version of what the EU is, in

terms of its international role, there has to be more than one definition of what

a civilian power is.

The first part of the paper is dedicated to finding common denominators

between the two different groups, those who believe that a civilian power

excludes all forms of military tools and those who argue for a wider definition

of a civilian power that includes military means if they are used to promote

civilian ends.

With the common denominators: means, ends, persuasion and democratic

control one has to agree with Karen Smith that in order to be able to apply

civilian and military power theories to actual foreign policy events one has to

make a cut and dry definition, subsequently excluding any military relations in

a civilian power practice. With the four elements of a civilian power one can

work out a yardstick with which to apply to the EU’s international dealings.

When analyzing the EU’s actions in foreign affairs by applying the

civilian power yardstick to two cases, the Balkan war and the conflict in the

Democratic Republic of Congo, one can clearly see that the civilian approach,

that was widely opted for in the initial engagements with the war in the

Balkans, had lost its momentum after the EU’s miserable failure to reach

stability in the region. And, maybe as a result, a civilian approach was not at

the forefront at the negotiating tables preceding the peacekeeping deployment

of EU troops to the DRC.

37

The most notable changes in the EU’s foreign policy, in regards to the

civilian power spectrum, are in means and persuasion/coercion, (see figure 2),

where the EU, in the case of the DRC intervention, deemed it necessary to use

military means and strategies in order to pursue the civilian goals of peace,

stability and safety for the people.

Maull and his group would argue that the EU is still a civilian power after

its exploits in the DRC, but to stay true to the civilian power yardstick one

must draw the conclusion that based on increasing use of military instruments

in its handling with foreign affairs the EU can no longer claim to be a civilian

power actor. And whether for prestigious reasons or in an attempt to cover up a

weakness with a label called civilian power, one needs to stop calling it a

civilian power and see it for what it is.

The problem is that it is hard to see what that is exactly. It is not a purely

civilian actor but based on its capabilities, identity and consensus problems, it

most assuredly is not strictly a military power either.

The EU’s actorness on the international arena can be explained as neither

civilian nor military. Rather it finds itself at a cross-road between the two,

where on the one side the Union has taken too many measures, policy wise,

toward a military power to go back, and it does not have the military capacity

or the consensus of all the member states to go forward toward a more

militarized future.

Furthermore the EU is an extraordinary complex with a foreign policy that

is still a work in progress where there are no guidelines or models to emulate.

This is unprecedented territory and there are no specific goals, no identified

“end-station”, which makes it hard to see where the EU is headed in regards to

foreign policy and international interference. Even if the foreign and security

policies are slowly making a more obvious lean toward a military power, there

is still a long road of consensus and identity building to go.

It is therefore difficult to pinpoint and name the sort of international actor

the EU is. Since the EU is a constantly evolving and unprecedented

experiment it may be foolish to try to name the phenomenon before it is been

fully established. Until then one can only speculate and try to decipher where

the EU is headed in terms of international relations.

Whether or not there is a rise of a full fledged military dimension, the

Union became and remains a significantly influential international actor, in

different international forums, the reconstruction of the former Yugoslavia, in

tackling underdevelopment, in the promotion of a liberal market reform and

democratic reform and practice in central and Eastern Europe.

Judging from the results of my study, one can see that it is important that

the EU uses this whole panoply of its capabilities, both civilian and the

military capabilities to solve international issues.

This is demonstrated in the Balkan wars where although the EU failed to

reach consensus among the member states they did make substantial

contribution in numerous areas with civilian means.

The peace treaty did not, however, bring the crisis in the Balkans to a

definite end.

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Similarly the successful military intervention in the DRC demonstrates that

practicing military means can be an effective in reaching a lasting solution in

conflicts.

This proves that there are limitations as well as strengths to both civilian

and military approaches in producing a lasting political settlement and that

conflict resolution needs a variety of different instruments, both civilian and

military.

The EU may never acquire the collective military strength to act alone and

efficiently in international relations but it has shown, in the Balkans and in the

DRC that even if it looses its label as a civilian power it can make a

contribution with its existing civilian power capabilities.

39

9. References

Bomberg, Elizabeth – Stubb, Alexander, (eds.), 2003. The European Union:

How does it work? New York:Oxford University Press Inc.

Bretherton, Charlotte – Vogler, John, 1999. The European Union as a Global

Actor. London: Routledge.

Hill, Christopher (eds.), 1996. The actors in Europe’s Foreign Policy. London:

Routledge.

Kohnstam, Max – Hager, Wolfgang, (eds.), 1973. A Nation Writ Large?

Foreign-Policy Problems before the European Community. London:

Macmillan.

Maull, Hanns, W., 1990. “Germany and Japan: The New Civilian Powers”

Foreign Affairs, vol. 69, no. 5, p. 91-106.

Nicolaidis, Kalypso, 2003. EU-topia or the Power of the Superpower-less.

(http://www.jeanmonnetprogram.org/) 15 November 2005. p. 1-19

Peterson, John – Sjursen, Helene, (eds.), 1998. A Common Foreign Policy for

Europe? London: Routledge

Smith, Karen, E., 2003. European Union Foreign Policy in a Changing

World. Cambridge: Policy Press.

Smith, Karen, E., 2005. “Still ‘Civilian Power EU?’”, European Foreign

Policy Unit Working Paper. (http://www.lse.ac.uk/) 15 November 2005 p. 1-19.

Stone Sweet, Alec – Sandholtz, Wayne – Fligstein, Neil, (eds.), 2001. The

Institutionalization of Europe. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc.

Strömvik, Maria, 2005. To Act as a Union: Explaining the development of the

EU’s collective foreign policy. Lund: ISSN

Treacher, Adrian, 2004. “From Civilian Power to Military Actor: The EU’s

Resistable Transformation”, European Foreign Affairs Review, vol. 9,

p. 49-66.

White, Brian, 2001. Understanding European Foreign Policy. New York:

Palgrave

Internet sources

Internet 1:

Internet 2: news.bbc.uk (article submitted 2001.11.22) downloaded 2006.01.01

Internet 3: http://www.ue.eu.int/downloaded 2005.12.23

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APPENDIX 1

Article J4 as written in the Maastricht Treaty on the European Union: (italics,

my own)

Article J.4

1. The common foreign and security policy shall include all questions related to the security of the Union,

including the eventual framing of a common defence policy, which might in time lead to a common defence.

2. The Union requests the Western European Union (WEU), which is an integral part of the development of the

Union, to elaborate and implement decisions and actions of the Union which have defence implications. The

Council shall, in agreement with the institutions of the WEU, adopt the necessary practical arrangements.

3. Issues having defence implications dealt with under this Article shall not be subject to the procedures set out

in Article J.3.

4. The policy of the Union in accordance with this Article shall not prejudice the specific character of the

security and defence policy of certain Member States and shall respect the obligations of certain Member States

under the North Atlantic Treaty and be compatible with the common security and defence policy established

within that framework.

5. The provisions of this Article shall not prevent the development of closer cooperation between two or more

Member States on a bilateral level, in the framework of the WEU and the Atlantic Alliance, provided such

cooperation does not run counter to or impede that provided for in this Title.

6. With a view to furthering the objective of this Treaty, and having in view the date of 1998 in the context of

Article XII of the Brussels Treaty, the provisions of this Article may be revised as provided for in Article N(2)

on the basis of a report to be presented in 1996 by the Council to the European Council, which shall include an

evaluation of the progress made and the experience gained until then.

41