CIAO DATE: 10/2013
June 2011
EGMONT – The Royal Institute for International Relations
Why does Europe develop the military and civilian capabilities that it does? Why does it undertake the military and civilian operations that it does? And why in other cases does it refrain from action? The answers to these questions would amount to a civilian-military strategy for the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). Starting from the EU’s vital interests, an analysis of the threats and challenges to these interests, and the EU’s foreign policy priorities, a CSDP strategy would outline the priority regions and issues for CSDP and, in function of the long-term political objectives and the appropriate political roadmap for those regions and issues, scenarios in which launching an operation could be appropriate. Without strategy, we can never be sure that the operations that we do are actually the most relevant and important that we could undertake. We cannot direct the operations that we do undertake to achieve the desired strategic effect. And we cannot focus capability development if we do not know our strategic priorities. Many of the building-blocks of a CSDP strategy already exist. What remains to be done is to connect the dots and render explicit: (1) for which priority regions and issues we must plan and prepare, (2) for which possible scenarios that may require a CSDP operation, and (3) identify the implications for our capabilities and a roadmap to meet those requirements.
Resource link: Europe deploys towards a civil-military strategy for CSDP [PDF] - 521K