The Emergence of a European 'Strategic Personality'

Is the sound of banging we hear the mending of fences between Europe and the United States or the nailing closed of doors? As has been widely acknowledged on both sides of the Atlantic, the rift between the allies over Iraq has been significant and worrying.1 The crisis has highlighted a key strategic dispute concerning the imminence of threats posed by weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and the wider issue of the adequacy of arms control regimes and diplomacy to deal preventively with these threats. Yet, as serious as these quarrels are, they only scratch the surface of the profound and growing differences between the emerging “strategic personality” of the European Union (EU) and that of the United States.

Over the last few years, the EU has developed its own strategic personality, or a specifically European way of viewing, interpreting, and acting on perceived threats and diplomatic opportunities. This is particularly the case in dealing with threats caused by WMD proliferation. Although the United Kingdom, Italy, and Spain supported the invasion of Iraq, despite the opposition of most other EU member states, there is now a growing European-wide consensus on these concerns. Member states have agreed on policies to deal with WMD proliferation that point to the realization of a common approach to this issue, an approach that emphasizes multilateral, carrot-based diplomacy. This codification of European policy puts the EU increasingly and overtly at odds with the U.S. inclination for coercive, stick-based diplomacy in the form of military force or economic sanctions.

Developments in Europe

The EU has been working to build a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and the institutions to implement that policy since the signing of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. Ironically, the institutional developments within the EU were the original catalyst for serious thinking about common approaches to dealing with security problems (rather than the reverse).2 Yet, for a long time, there was little more than a rhetorical commitment to reaching common positions on international issues, with the debate over what a European defense entity should do masked by “constructive ambiguity.”3 It was only recently that international events stripped away the mask and forced Europe to be more explicit about what its CFSP would be and the types of security issues it would address.4 As late as 2001, the EU had not directly and systematically addressed the major strategic challenges in the international system, including that of WMD proliferation.5

In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the EU began to consider wider strategic issues. Developing responses to terrorist threats and WMD proliferation were given priority. While these internal deliberations went on, however, international events, particularly Iraq, caused very public schisms between EU members, such as France and Germany, opposed to the Bush administration’s strategy and wartime allies such as the United Kingdom. The crisis over Iraq may have initially stymied the EU, but it has subsequently energized it. In April 2003, Sweden put forward the idea of developing a common position on WMD proliferation, which was accepted by EU member states. More dramatically, Javier Solana, high representative for the CFSP, presented the draft of the first security strategy in the EU’s history to EU leaders at the Thessaloniki summit in June 2003.

In A Secure Europe in a Better World, Solana outlined the three pillars of the common strategy, making clear that the nature of today’s threats means that the EU can no longer limit its attention to its immediate region.6 First, he called for extending the security zone around Europe by bringing stability to areas on the periphery. Second, he urged that the United Nations be reaffirmed as the fundamental framework of international relations, while acknowledging that the institution might have to be defended pre-emptively. Third, the EU security strategy called for new policies to respond to the twin threats of terrorism and WMD proliferation—polices that reflected Europe’s strategic personality.

The Evolving European Strategic Personality

Explaining the notion of a strategic personality, Caroline Ziemke, a pioneer of this approach, wrote:

A state’s historical experience
shapes how it sees itself, how it
views the outside world, and how
it makes its strategic decisions. To
make use of their historical
experience, nations tend to focus
most on those aspects of their
history that have the most
meaning and tell them the most
about who they are and what they
aspire to be.7

The outline of a European strategic personality has emerged through the process of developing institutions for the CFSP and formulating European policy preferences, as well as through interactions with international events and key states. This personality is informed by a wider understanding of European history and the region’s place in the system.

Europe’s historical and cultural proclivities in dealing with threats and diplomatic problems; the issues it pays most attention to; and the way it prioritizes and interprets international events, evolving military planning, and the public statements of EU leaders all provide evidence of “personality traits.” In the case of the EU, we are dealing with a more diverse entity than a state, with a short, intense history. A number of key EU personality facets can nevertheless be identified:

· The sweep of European history is seen as providing evidence that there are better ways to resolve differences than by resorting to force.
· Through the EU’s short history, member states have developed a positive sense of the benefits of international cooperation, multilateralism, and confidence-building measures as the means for addressing potential threats.
· The EU is an entity borne out of a positive experience of multilateral treaties. Even in key areas of potential insecurity such as nuclear programs, the Europeans created a multilateral confidence-building institution, EURATOM, which allowed them to overcome these fears gradually.8
· The EU personality is also informed by a tradition of compromise, of using diplomacy to solve problems. The EU has a habit of seeking agreement, and the search for consensus is the mode of operation in most areas of EU work.9
· There is also particular respect for the rule of law, the institutions that enforce it, and a desire to build global norms to expand international law. As Solana explained, “The development of a stronger international society, well-functioning international institutions, and a rule-based international order should be our objectives.”10
· The EU is a proponent of soft power, of providing economic and political incentives to ensure good behavior, of considering issues holistically, and of progress in one area spilling over into progress in others. Political and economic engagement is favored over confrontation.
· The strategy emphasizes measures to achieve peace and security without the use of force. However, the EU on occasion has endorsed the use of force in protection of core values, often focused on the protection of international institutions or upholding the rule of law.
· The EU adopts a root-causes approach to understanding conflicts and uses a variety of policy tools to try and deal with base problems.

As the EU has been developing, the United States has been moving toward a different position, which leverages its current structural dominance to forsake the international compromises required of those with insufficient power. To be sure, as Robert Kagan has pointed out, the emergence of this new U.S. strategic personality has been an important element in pushing the EU to define itself and abandon constructive ambiguity. In playing to an American audience, however, Kagan understates the extent to which the EU has become more intentionally European through positive choices and not just weakness.11 What we are witnessing is the process of the EU developing a distinct strategic personality.

On the issue of proliferation, the gap in transatlantic relations has widened since the end of the Cold War. Cleavages have opened up resulting from different attitudes toward the use of force and the ability of regimes to solve WMD problems. These divisions were first exposed by the Clinton administration’s announcement of a Defense Counterproliferation Policy (which explicitly mentioned pre-emption) and the European hostility to that short-lived initiative.12 There was also disquiet in the EU over the U.S. refusal to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel landmines.

Yet, those concerns were somewhat muffled under the Clinton administration and have only become full-throated cries with the Bush team. The Europeans perceived the ending of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty as undermining strategic stability, and they have expressed a similarly negative view of U.S. plans to deploy some form of ballistic missile defenses, which are seen as more destabilizing than the original problem. President George W. Bush’s lack of support for burgeoning regimes designed to deal with biological weapons threats and small arms and light weapons problems have all added to EU concerns about U.S. behavior. More fundamentally, the Bush administration’s 2002 National Security Strategy compounded many of the fears of those in Europe about the changing strategic personality of the United States and the consequences of that on the rules and norms of the international system.

The EU’s WMD Proliferation Policies

Yet, at first blush, the EU appears to have closed ranks with the United States. Its recently released “Basic Principles for an EU Strategy Against Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction” moves beyond traditional European approaches to the problem of WMD proliferation by acknowledging for the first time that there may be occasions when it is necessary to resort to force. By itself, this apparent philosophical shift should have pleased Bush administration policymakers, who could tout the change as evidence that their views are winning converts on the Continent.

Any pleasure would likely be short lived, however, given the details of the policy in terms of when and how decisions to use force should be taken. The document makes it clear that the Europeans continue to view force as a last resort, following various gradations of coercive action. Additionally, the EU clarifies what it considers to be the only acceptable route for such action:

When these measures (including
political dialogue and diplomatic
pressure) have failed, coercive
measures under Chapter VII of
the UN Charter and international
law (sanctions, selective or global,
interceptions of shipments and,
as appropriate, the use of force)
could be envisioned. The UN
Security Council should play a
central role.13

Thus, the EU reaffirms its commitment to “effective multilateralism” and seeks to ensure that a European veto remains possible over the use of force against a WMD threat. Solana has subsequently been quite explicit that the EU would not undertake any U.S.-style strategy of pre-emptive military action.14 By contrast, the EU espouses pre-emptive engagement, to stop the problem before it becomes acute.

Despite their very public differences over Iraq, in the Basic Principles all the EU members have accepted a number of policies that are more than the “lowest common denominator,” indeed, they explicitly sought to move beyond that. Moreover, they have shown a clear intent for moving beyond rhetoric, approving an associated Action Plan that sets out what the EU is going to do, a timetable for actions, and the associated costs.15

The Basic Principles document declares that WMD proliferation “constitutes a threat to international peace and security,” immediately putting the issue into the language of the UN and international law. It further stresses multilateral action, baldly stating, “The EU is committed to the multilateral system. We will pursue the implementation and universalisation of the existing disarmament and non-proliferation norms.”16 Indeed, the EU specifically recommends the strengthening of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) through working to ensure “concrete outcomes” from the work of the expert groups.17 This is in direct contrast to the Bush administration’s stance on that treaty. One of the means by which the EU intends to increase the credibility of existing regimes is by preventing cheating through effective verification by “enhancing the detectability of significant violations and strengthening the enforcement of the norms established by this treaty regime.”18 This is an attempt to head off potential U.S. criticisms of the EU’s continued attachment to regimes.

One of the most important advances is a commitment to developing common European threat assessments rather than national or NATO analyses. In the past, the EU gave the idea of establishing such common assessments short shrift, partly to avoid explicitly contradicting NATO—where the United States has a heavy input into policy— and also to avoid the internal arguments that would arise between EU members in very different geostrategic situations. So glaring was this absence that a number of institutions and individuals had jumped into the fray, offering their own assessments.19 Several U.S. commentators also urged the EU to develop its own intelligence and threat assessment capabilities on the assumption that EU judgments would vindicate U.S. threat assessments.20

The EU now has a Situation Center to prepare and continuously update threat assessments.21 Moreover, the plan is also to have a Monitoring Center on WMD Disarmament and Non-Proliferation to ensure that the Action Plan is implemented, collate information and intelligence, liaise with international bodies, and propose measures to prevent and combat WMD proliferation.22 Thus, at least in principle, the EU should soon have a common threat assessment methodology as the basis for forming policies to deal with specific threats as they arise.

The Basic Principles and the Action Plan also show the intention of “mainstreaming non-proliferation policies into the EU’s wider relations with third countries,” including the use of cooperation agreements and assistance programs. The EU will use conditionality via the “carrots” of improving trade, aid, and economic relations with third countries. This is more evidence of the EU preference for soft-power tools and recognition of the role of such tools in addressing the root causes of proliferation problems.

Many of the elements of the new EU policies on WMD proliferation are familiar. For example, the Action Plan also makes much of strengthening export controls. The EU “will take the lead in efforts to strengthen regulations on trade with material that can be used for the production of biological weapons.”23 Although this is a codification of existing EU policies and builds on the efforts of the BWC and Australia Group, it does mark an increased commitment to such approaches.

According to a senior European diplomat, “Essentially, the [United States] and Europeans do not differ about the ends, we differ over the means. We have now set out a credible alternative, anchored on the multilateral system to stop WMD proliferation.”24 What the new documents do is to make more explicit European approaches to the issues. This is important as a coherent statement of EU approaches also gives them a solidity that they have previously lacked. It also marks a more explicit commitment to these policies. They have become the policies that the EU member states and those seeking to join the union—maybe even other states in the system—will coalesce around.

The EU policy on WMD proliferation is informed by its own developing strategic personality and in reaction to and defense against the U.S. abandonment of more traditional approaches to solving the proliferation problem. As the Financial Times noted, this “is the first time the EU has spelt out a systematic alternative to U.S. policy on WMD.”25

Are the EU WMD Policies Taken Seriously?

This is really the million-dollar (or million-euro) question. WMD policies were borne out of the EU’s disagreements over Iraq and were an attempt to ensure that such divisions did not happen again. Are they likely to succeed? As yet, the policies are untested, but some important bits of evidence can be identified.

As the EU moves to tackle the most difficult aspects of the Basic Principles and the Action Plan, the challenge will be keeping together the disparate member states, with nuclear states such as France and the United Kingdom trying to protect their own arsenals while more pacifist states such as Sweden and Ireland are keen to pursue a WMD disarmament agenda. One of the most ambitious aspects of the policy is the intention to re-invigorate the nonproliferation regimes (in the face of U.S. skepticism). A potential first test of this is coming up soon, at the 2005 nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference in Ireland. The Irish are reportedly keen to show progress on the issue and concerned that it will be difficult to carry the whole of the EU with them.

There are, however, indications that member states are seriously committed. First, the new approach to dealing with WMD proliferation is intended to be the first of a number of action plans to tackle key security problems. Therefore, this policy cannot be allowed to fail. Second, the issue is being driven forward at the ambassadorial level in Brussels. This high-level attention is keeping the issue at the top of member states agendas and maintaining its political momentum. Third, the responsible desk officers in the EU offices of the Commission, Council Secretariat, and Military Staff have a “relatively civilized relationship and an understood division of labor,” so the issue is being constructively handled.26 Fourth, we are already witnessing the implementation of some elements of the policy: the EU is sponsoring an Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Cooperative Threat Reduction in Russia, the EU Presidency is currently circulating a draft document on challenge inspections (which apparently draws on previous British work for the Chemical Weapons Convention), and the EU is cooperating with the Proliferation Security Initiative. Finally, the next two states to hold the EU Presidency, Ireland and the Netherlands, are both pro-arms control and the Irish in particular are keen to have positive outcomes from their tenure.

Another intriguing “straw in the wind” concerns the issue of Iran. The ability of foreign ministers Jack Straw of the United Kingdom, Dominique de Villepin of France, and Joschka Fischer of Germany to strike a deal with Tehran surely marked a signal day in Europe’s arms control efforts, whether or not it is ultimately successful in halting Iran’s nuclear program. As De Villepin remarked to reporters to conclude, “[I]t is an important day for Europe because we are dealing with a major issue.”27

Less noted, but potentially more important for the long-term, is the position that the United Kingdom is playing in that crisis, which is in very stark contrast to the position it took over Iraq’s WMD program. During the Iraq crisis, Prime Minister Tony Blair was criticized for “freelancing,” failing to discuss issues with his European partners before flying to Washington to agree on strategies. Ultimately, to the chagrin of several states in Europe, the United Kingdom sided with the United States rather than with the key players in the EU.

In dealing with Iran, however, the United Kingdom is very much the loyal European player, stating that it will not contemplate the use of force against the state and backing the EU strategy of engagement rather than the policy of isolation that the United States has been prosecuting.28 Blair stated that his government is in harmony with the European approach to the issue: “It has always been, and continues to be, the policy of this government to seek to resolve issues of this nature through dialogue.”29 Moreover, in the last month, the British have significantly changed their position on a European Defense Policy, bringing them much closer to France and Germany and healing some of the wounds of the Iraq crisis.30

Iran had been a difficult case for the EU because of the close ties of some member states to the Iranian government. Nevertheless, over the last few months, the EU stance toward Iran hardened, emphasizing compliance with tough International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) standards. This was not, however, the first outcome from the EU’s own threat assessment procedure (which is hardly up and running) but was based on the assessments of the IAEA, which is increasingly concerned about Iranian behavior.

In its policies toward Iran, the EU has already been applying its Basic Principles, emphasizing the role of politics and economics in dealing with proliferation threats. Thus, the EU General Affairs Council concluded that “progress in these [WMD proliferation] matters and strengthening dialogue and cooperation are interdependent, essential and mutually reinforcing elements of EU-Iran relations.”31 The commitment to engagement is clear, but engagement itself now is conditional. As a European diplomat acknowledged, “If we want to be serious when it comes to Iran’s noncompliance with its nonproliferation treaty obligations, we have to show we have carrots and sticks at our disposal.”32

The EU is actively using both these tools. The EU threatened Iran in July that it might halt political and economic talks if it failed to cooperate with the IAEA. Subsequently, the EU deferred a review of relations with Iran (which was to consider new economic and political agreements) for a month in order to gauge how Tehran responded to the IAEA deadline set for the end of October. In parallel to the “sticks,” the United Kingdom, France, and Germany offered a number of incentives to Iran if it gave up its nuclear program.33 These were followed up by the October visit of the foreign ministers to Tehran to press the case for abiding by IAEA demands. The mission seems to be a success, with Iran pledging “full cooperation” with the IAEA and halting its enriching and reprocessing of uranium as a confidence-building measure.

It is worth noting that it was not the EU’s high representative who flew to Tehran, but its national ministers, indicating that the EU has still got some way to go in terms of institutional clout. Nevertheless, their collective action signals that the EU policies on WMD proliferation may hold the union together when faced with anything less than extreme threats.

Implications for the Transatlantic Relationship

Iran is unlikely to be a unique phenomenon. Rather, it signals the blossoming of a new European assertiveness in picking and choosing how and when the EU will cooperate with U.S. nonproliferation policies. In some cases, such as Iran, the United States and Europe will diverge on means even if they agree on goals. In other cases, such as European support for last year’s establishment of a Code of Conduct to supplement the existing Missile Technology Control Regime and their participation in the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative, there is still room for cooperation with the United States tactically and strategically.34

The Iran example seems to indicate a satisfactory division of labor available here, with the United States as the “bad cop” and the EU as the “good cop.” However, this has been suggested in the past only to be met by U.S. criticisms that this arrangement allows Europe to do too little and undermines a concerted approach to WMD proliferators. Depending on how the United States wants to tackle a particular proliferation problem, this division of labor and EU preference for soft-power solutions will either be seen as help or hindrance. In the case of Iraq, the approach of some EU states was seen as problematic, but Bush described EU initiatives with Iran as “an effective approach.”35

The most fundamental difference between the two continents in coming years will be in how they perceive the value of multinational institutions and regimes in preserving global security and the need for alternative strategies such as pre-emption. The premise of the Bush administration’s policies is that most institutions and regimes are not guaranteeing global security, which is why the administration is advocating proactive policies such as pre-emption. The White House has adopted a policy of neglect toward most of the regimes and institutions and is only currently expending energy and resources on those it considers useful, such as the IAEA. EU member states, on the other hand, view these institutions and regimes as guarantors of stability and security and believe the new EU policies may provide a rallying point for defense of the regimes from those within the United States disturbed by the current thrust of administration counterproliferation polices and from other states and civil society groups looking for alternative leadership on this issue. This is certainly not an outcome that would be welcomed by the Bush team.

In particular, debates over the pre-emptive use of force are likely to continue to divide the allies. In the future, however, especially as the EU grows to include the candidate countries of central and eastern Europe, the debate is less likely to pit “old Europe” against “New Europe” than Europeans against Americans. The EU has put down a marker that it will not contemplate pre-emption in the way that is embodied in current U.S. policy. So, although the development of a coherent policy has healed some of the internal rifts of the EU, transatlantic harmony is unlikely to be the outcome. The European hope may be that the United States recognizes that there is another major player in the ring and steps back to let them operate, but this seems an unlikely outcome to this European.

How U.S. and EU National Security Strategies Differ

Excerpts taken from Basic Principles for An EU Strategy Against Proliferation of
Weapons of Mass Destruction (June 2003), National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass
Destruction (December 2002), and National Security Strategy (September 2002).

NOTES
1. Philip H. Gordon, “Bridging the Atlantic Divide,” Foreign Affairs 82, no. 1 (January/February 2003).
2. Ian Black, “First Bridgehead for EU Military Staff—Their Own HQ,” The Guardian, May 10, 2001, available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4183972,00.html.
3. See Francoise Heisbourg, “Europe’s Strategic Ambitions: The Limits of Ambiguity,” Survival 42, no. 2 (Summer 2000).
4. Paul Cornish and Geoffrey Edwards, “Beyond the EU/NATO Dichotomy: The Beginnings of a European Strategic Culture,” International Affairs 77, no. 3 (July 2001), pp. 587-603.
5. The EU had, however, undertaken a number of Joint Actions designed to shore up the regimes and arms control agreements designed to prevent WMD proliferation.
6. For a very insightful comparison of EU and U.S. strategic concepts, see Alyson Bailes, “EU and U.S. Strategic Concepts: Facing New International Realities,” International Spectator (forthcoming) (Journal of the Instituto Affari Internazionali, Rome).
7. Caroline F. Ziemke, “The National Myth and Strategic Personality of Iran: A Counterproliferation Perspective,” in The Coming Crisis: Nuclear Proliferation, U.S. Interests, and World Order, ed. Victor A. Utgoff (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000), p. 88.
8. Darryl A. Howlett, Euratom and Nuclear Safeguards (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1990).
9. Helen Wallace, “Making Multilateral Negotiations Work,” in The Dynamics of European Integration, ed. Helen Wallace (London: Royal Institute for International Affairs/Pinter, 1991).
10. Javier Solana, A Secure Europe in a Better World, European Council, Thessaloniki, June 20, 2003, p. 8.
11. Robert Kagan, Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003).
12. Joanna Spear, “A European View of Non-Proliferation Policy,” in United States Non-Proliferation Policy, eds. Bernard Finel and Jan Nolan (New York: Century Foundation, forthcoming).
13. “Basic Principles for an EU Strategy Against Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction” (Doc. 10352/03 PESC 315 CONOP 18 CODUN 13 COTER 24), para. 4 (hereinafter Basic Principles).
14. Gerrard Quille, “Making Multilateralism Matter: The EU Security Strategy,” European Security Review no. 18 (July 2003), p. 2.
15. Basic Principles; “Action Plan for the Implementation of the Basic Principles for an EU Strategy Against the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction” (Doc. 10352/03 PESC 316 CONOP 19 CODUN 14 COTER 25).
16. Basic Principles, para. 5.
17. Action Plan, para. 17.
18. Basic Principles, para. 6.
19. See Harald Müller, Terrorism, Proliferation: A European Threat Assessment, Chaillot Paper No. 58 (Paris: Institute for Security Studies, March 2003); Gustav Lindström and Burkhard Schmitt, Towards a European Non-Proliferation Strategy, Institute Note, May 23, 2003 (Paris: Institute for Security Studies, 2003).
20. Kori N. Schake and Jeffrey Simon, “Europe” in Strategic Challenges for the Bush Administration: Perspectives from the Institute for National Strategic Studies (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 2001), p. 17.
21. Basic Principles, para. 3.
22. Action Plan, para. 14.
23. Action Plan, para. 17.
24. Judy Dempsey, “EU Foreign Ministers Agree WMDJ Policy,” Financial Times, June 17, 2003, p. 9.
25. Ibid.
26. Interview with author, October 22, 2003.
27. Glenn Frankel, “Iran Vows to Curb Nuclear Activities,” The Washington Post, October 22, 2003.
28. Marc Champion and Scott Miller, “Europe Learns Lessons From Failures Over Iraq,” Wall Street Journal, June 19, 2003.
29. House of Commons, Hansard, Written Answers, Prime Minister, June 23, 2003, col. 615W (written response of Prime Minister Tony Blair to a question from Llew Smith MP).
30. Ian Black and Patrick Wintour, “UK Backs Down on European Defence,” The Guardian, September 23, 2003.
31. House of Commons, Hansard, Written Answers, Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, June 24, 2003, col. 702W (written response by Minister of State Mr. Rammell to a question from Mr. Soames MP).
32. Dempsey, “EU Foreign Ministers Agree WMD Policy,” p. 9.
33. Paul Taylor and Louis Charbonneau, “Defying U.S., European Nations Engage Iran on Nuclear Program,” The Washington Post, September 20, 2003.
34. The Proliferation Security Initiative seeks to block the transfer of missile technologies abroad by states outside of the Missile Technology Control Regime. See Wade Boese, “U.S. Pushes Initiative to Block Shipments of WMD, Missiles,” Arms Control Today 33, no. 6 (July/August 2003), p. 26; “U.S.: Interdiction Effort May Affect North Korea,” The Washington Post, August 19, 2003, p. A5.
35. Joby Warrick, “Iran Still Has Nuclear Deadline, U.S. Says,” The Washington Post, October 23, 2003.