A Liberal Grand Strategy in a Realist World Power, Purpose, and the EU’s Changing Global Role

A Liberal Grand Strategy in a Realist World? Power, Purpose, and the EU’s Changing Global Role Michael E Smith The EU is one of the most unusual global political actors, and it inspires numerous scholarly debates about its power and purpose One of the most important such debates involves the role of material versus non-material/ideational power resources – or hard versus soft power – in understanding the EU’s ‘actorness’ Given the increasingly wide range of EU policy competencies, and the increasingly complex demands placed on the EU, this article embeds this debate in the larger context of grand strategy It first argues that the EU’s efforts as a global actor conform to three basic components of grand strategy: physical security, economic prosperity, and value projection Second, it analyzes the content of the EU’s grand strategic goals at three levels of analysis: intra-EU, regional (or neighbourhood), and global Finally, it analyzes the EU’s implementation of its (largely liberal) strategic goals, particularly in terms of how they might compete with those of other global actors, such as the US Key words: CFSP/ESDP, enlargement, European Neighbourhood Policy, grand strategy, liberalism, normative power How should we conceptualize the EU as a global actor? One prominent strand of thinking involves the EU’s ‘roles’ or ‘identity’ in world politics (Whitman 1998; Aggestam 2004; Elgström and Smith 2006), while others debate whether the EU is best considered as a ‘normative’ power (Manners 2002) or as a ‘normal’ strategic actor (Youngs 2004; Hyde-Price 2006) These dimensions are linked, as the EU cannot play any significant global role unless it possesses a certain amount of power, yet studies of how the EU actually uses its power are inconclusive: ‘normative power Europe’ scholars can find examples of how the EU supports certain global ethical standards, while others have shown that that the EU actually co-mingles various types of power in its foreign policies, and/or shows inconsistent support for global norms involving human rights, democracy, self-determination, and other values (Scheipers and Sicurelli 2008; Noutcheva 2009) The problem here is two-fold First, the EU possesses and exercises multiple types of power, and these efforts are not necessarily mutually exclusive; in other words, it is possible to act both ‘strategically’ and ‘normatively.’ Second, these studies confuse the EU’s justification of how its uses power with the reception or interpretation of that power by two types of actors: those internal to the EU (i.e., the citizens supposedly served by EU policy), and those external to the EU (i.e., EU foreign policy targets) To help advance the debate regarding these issues, and to anchor our understanding of the EU’s global ‘actorness’ in a more comprehensive framework, this article examines the EU’s grand strategy This approach addresses both the internal and external dimensions of how the EU acts (its power) and justifies its actions (its purpose), while encompassing both material goals and nonmaterial ones It also allows us to draw together and compare a range of strategic efforts on the part of the EU, including the 2003 European Security Strategy (Solana 2003), the 2007 Treaty of Lisbon, the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), the EU Strategy for Africa, the EU-Pacific Strategy, various bilateral strategic partnerships, and others Finally, this method of mapping the totality of the EU’s major goals and policies also may allow us to make more systematic comparisons between the EU and other leading global political actors, although this is not a primary purpose of this article POWER AND GRAND STRATEGY IN THE EU CONTEXT What is grand strategy, and can an international organization have one? These questions are necessarily related: one’s definition of grand strategy may delimit the types of actors that can supposedly possess such a strategy In international relations, the term ‘strategy’ typically refers to the application of specific power resources or assets of a polity (i.e., military or political or economic strategy) to serve specific goals or interests, such as victory in wartime (Baylis and Wirtz 2007) The concept of ‘grand strategy’ takes a much broader view and involves coordinating all of the goals and assets of a given polity (Gray 1999: 54), such as a state The concept of grand strategy also addresses both peacetime and wartime activities to protect a state’s vital interests (Kennedy 1991: 2-3) At a minimum, these core or vital interests would include physical security, economic prosperity, and some degree of value projection (Deibel 1992) To the extent that states possess ultimate or primary control – sovereignty – over defining and protecting these interests, grand strategy must be reserved for states alone And to the extent that state survival is the sine qua non of the international order itself, grand strategy must be concerned with protecting the interests of those states However, the existence of the EU complicates this classical view of great power, state-centred grand strategy The wide range of (formerly national) competencies now governed by the EU clearly indicates that it is possible to delegate, pool, or even surrender some sovereign state activity to a collective entity that exercises some authority over what used to be exclusively national decisions If grand strategy includes all major instruments of national policy, then any such delegation or pooling suggests in turn that grand strategy can be delegated to a collective entity as well, at least in the areas where that entity exercises a capacity to govern To the extent that such activities extend across all three interests as defined above (physical security, economic prosperity, and value projection), we can say that the collective entity possesses, or is at least developing, its own grand strategy Moreover, this process is not necessarily ‘zero sum’ in the sense that strategic efforts on the part of the collective prevent or undermine such behaviours on the part of its constituent units; if the units retain some degree of sovereignty over their foreign policies, yet still attempt to support the interests of the collective, then a more ‘positive sum’ approach to the generation of a collective grand strategy is possible In this view the collective grand strategy would be greater than the sum of its parts (EU member states) and would provide some clear ‘valueadded’ to the (normal) process of grand strategy conducted by EU member states I argue that something along these lines is happening in the EU, and that this activity invests the pursuit of European integration with more significance than is usually appreciated by more orthodox theories of international relations, particularly those involving realist or intergovernmental approaches To the extent that ‘soft power’ normative and ideational factors play a large role in the content and implementation of EU grand strategy (i.e, value projection), one could say that the EU is pursuing a more liberal approach to global strategic action rather than a more military-centred strategy favoured by realists It might even be argued that the very existence of the EU challenges any state-centred views of international relations, global governance, and grand strategy The EU has been a rich source of theoretical inspiration and institutional innovation regarding notions of sovereignty, regional integration, supranational governance, federalism, statehood, and international ‘actorness’ (Warleigh 2006) In turn, our views about grand strategy and strategic behaviour on the part of novel global actors such as the EU also might require modification Moreover, the EU’s attempt to re-define (or broaden) the notion of ‘security’ well beyond traditional territorial defence (see below) means that a military-centred approach to grand strategy will be lacking in terms of serving as a blueprint for joint action among EU member states In a broader sense, one might also argue that grand strategy is really about re-making the world in accordance with the EU’s own values: to make war not just unlikely but unnecessary, and to make the world safe for European values and interests One critical problem, however, is whether a decentralized ‘actor’ such as the EU can even articulate, let alone implement, a grand strategy As multiple actors claim to speak for, and act on behalf of, the EU, and as EU member states themselves vary in their commitment to the construction of ‘Europe’, the EU’s grand strategy must be inferred from a range of policy documents and other statements, many of which mention strategy (or long-term goals) but not necessarily grand strategy Thus, in speaking of the ‘EU as an actor’ I am actually referring to a range of actors with the authority to make strategic-type plans or statements on behalf of the EU; this approach is consistent with the strategic analysis of other complex global actors (including the US) in which multiple actors are empowered to act on behalf, or in the name, the collective (Posen and Ross 1996/97) These actors might contradict each other or engage in turf battles, and their statements might also reveal ‘gaps’ in terms of what a minimal grand strategy should cover However, to the extent there seems to be some general coherence across these statements, as well as some persistence over a period of several years, we can define an implicit EU grand strategy In fact, the EU’s general pursuit of ‘coherence’ as a core principle across its policies, both internal and external, might even be seen as a proxy for use of the term ‘grand strategy’ (Smith 2001; Keane 2004; Szymanski and Smith 2005; Lerch and Schwellnus 2006) Specifically, in the rest of this paper I shall define ‘EU grand strategy’ as a general plan for, or process of, integrating the policies and resources of the EU to protect and advance its core or vital interests as defined further below Further, and given the high costs of armed force relative to other power resources, grand strategy would apply armed force only as a last resort and with the maximum chance of victory (Earle 1943: viii) Now that the EU has initiated various independent policing/military operations, including at least one involving the capture and punishment of actors who threaten the EU’s interests, we have a more complete picture than ever before of how the EU is developing its grand strategy in terms of all three basic elements noted above: physical security, economic prosperity, and value projection.1 Although these efforts are meant to be outwardly-directed, it is worth noting that they also serve critical internal purposes At a minimum, these intra-EU purposes include: 1) confidence-building among EU member states; 2) defining European foreign policy (EFP) as a distinct and legitimate issue-area related to the overall pursuit and defence of European integration, identity, and core values; 3) creating common viewpoints and analyses on key issues; 4) preventing disputes over foreign policy from adversely affecting the pursuit of European integration in other areas (the ‘damage-limitation’ function);2 5) socializing new member states and new EU officials into the various methods of EU policy coordination; and 6) serving as a political ‘cover’ for foreign policy initiatives that may be unpopular within some EU member states (the ‘scapegoat’ function) These specific (endogenous) factors, not vague (exogenous) balance-of-power dynamics – such as a desire to counteract American hegemony (Pape 2005; Posen 2006) - are equally if not more important in explaining the EU’s persistent pursuit of, and steadily growing desire for, foreign/security cooperation since the 1960s despite the difficulties of organizing it, the high costs of maintaining it, the availability of alternative cooperative forums, and the EU’s problems in executing EFP in certain cases (Author 2003) However, by attempting to mimic the core functions of states the EU has also set itself up for various legitimacy/transparency problems that must be acknowledged in its strategic plans or documents These problems intensify with each widening and deepening, most recently in the form of the debate over the Treaty of Lisbon One critical way the EU attempts to balance these demands – or define its purpose - is through its approach to power In fact, the EU’s grand strategy implicitly recognizes the limits of the orthodox (i.e., realist) view of this topic, which stresses military power, and the EU has now acquired a full range of power resources that might serve its interests These include various forms of both ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ power, such as: 1) Economic power (market access and financial aid, as well as sanctions) 2) Civilian power (diplomacy, legal/judicial missions, and good offices) 3) Ethical power (the promotion of human rights, the rule of law, and democracy) 4) Power of attraction (inspiring prospective member states or serving as an example to others) 5) Light military power (police, constabulary, or para-military/gendarmerie forces) 6) Heavy military power (air, land, and naval forces) In addition, the EU explicitly recognizes, and attempts to pursue, the principled, coherent, and strategic co-mingling of all these forms of power towards specific external actors or problems depending on the case at hand Among EU foreign policy insiders, this aspiration is known as the ‘comprehensive’ or even ‘European’ approach; senior officials within the Commission and the Council General Secretariat (including the EU Military Staff) who oversee EFP consistently argue that this could become the EU’s ‘trademark’ (interviews, 2007-2010) They also point out that unlike the EU, NATO is not welcome as a ‘peacemaker’ in many parts of the world, especially the Middle East and Africa, as it is seen as a tool of US foreign policy The EU thus increasingly sees itself as a ‘one stop shop’ for handling certain foreign policy issues, although this goal can be elusive in actual practice Finally, EU grand strategy recognizes the limits of offensive military power in handling complex security problems (beyond strict territorial defence), as well as the fact that military operations might make matters worse for those who exercise it (i.e., reduce one’s security) by actually increasing local resistance in the target country through insurgencies or similar tactics As the EU now has recourse to military resources to defend its values and principles, it is working to integrate this new capability into the broader European integration project through institutional reforms, resource re-allocation, common strategic plans, and related ‘crosspillar’ policy initiatives (see below) One final general point is the question of whether the EU is a ‘satisfied’ or ‘revisionist’ power (Möttölä 2006) My argument is that the EU clearly is an ‘aspirational’ actor – it seeks to ‘do more’ at the global level in line with its economic weight and interests – but whether this translates to wanting to change or reinforce the existing international order can vary across a range of dimensions If the EU, like the US, is largely a satisfied power then it will generally seek to uphold the status quo – the UN system and a liberal economic order - and encourage other actors to the same However, to the extent that EU grand strategy must take into consideration other major powers (particularly the US, as its main liberal strategic competitor), its approach to changing or reinforcing the existing global order may depend in part on American policies and how they are perceived by other actors This is not to say that much of what the EU does is an effort to contain American power (i.e., ‘soft balance’ against the US); instead, some elements of EU grand strategy will mesh with American objectives, others will conflict with them, and still others might have no relationship at all Nor does it mean that the EU can act primarily in response to what the US is doing; there is increasing evidence that the EU is able to not only set the global agenda, but to exert international policy entrepreneurship as well, even in areas where it faces overt American opposition CONTENT: KEY ELEMENTS OF EU GRAND STRATEGY Turning to the specific content of EU grand strategy as defined above, I shall first consider the three elements – physical security, economic prosperity, and value projection – each in turn For each category, I shall further divide the discussion into three components: grand strategy oriented toward the EU itself (i.e., intra-EU), toward the EU’s immediate region (i.e., the EU’s ‘neighbourhood,’ involving its southern, eastern, and south-eastern flanks), and toward the global system (i.e., the EU in the world) These various conceptual elements of EU grand strategy are summarized in Table 1: Table 1: Major components of the EU’s grand strategy Physical security Economic prosperity Value projection Internal Regional (‘neighbourhood’) Global * EU as a pluralistic security community * Specific confidencebuilding measures through pursuit of common actions * Creation of common market * Maintenance of European social model * Enlargement: turning neighbours into members * EU as a model for regional cooperation * Collective security * Preferential regional trade liberalization based on fulfilment of political/economic conditions * Enlargement * Political conditionality for any structured cooperation with the EU * Enlargement * Support for efforts against WMD * EU as a model for regional cooperation * Collective security * Support for WTO trade regime * Special attention to LDCs * Support for UN human rights policies * Opportunistic valueprojection * Copenhagen criteria required of all EU member states * Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union In the rest of this section I briefly examine the ideational content of these elements in more detail; in the next section I shall examine the implementation of these elements through specific policies Throughout the discussion, it should be kept in mind that the EU attempts to govern all of these efforts according to two fundamental principles: multilateralism and liberalism Institutionalized multilateralism – dominated by the UN system - in fact serves a dual purpose in EU grand strategy, as both a means and an end, and this trait is especially important in distinguishing the EU from other major global actors such as the US To the extent that institutionalized multilateral solutions can be re-produced and exported beyond the EU itself, its grand strategy is being served (Long 1997) The EU’s strategic approach to highly institutionalized multilateral cooperation is also inspired by several core liberal values that appear throughout EU documents and treaties These include a concern with peaceful conflict prevention and resolution; interstate political reconciliation and regional problemsolving through economic integration and civil society building; democracy promotion; the protection of human and minority rights; environmental and social protections; and respect for the rule of law The EU’s specific expression of these values will be seen in more detail below; the key point here is that the EU’s grand strategy reflects the intense, highly institutionalized, multilevel, and multilateral cooperation or regional governance that occurs among EU member states themselves Physical security Physical security can be divided into two major sub-categories: territorial defence of the EU from military threats, and more general societal security from a range of (mostly) non-military threats Regarding the role of the EU in preventing internal military conflicts among EU member states, although this aspect of EU grand strategy is not directly mentioned in EU documents, it can be inferred from terms such as ‘peace’ and ‘reconciliation’ found throughout them This interpretation also fits with the EU’s role as a security community for its own member states Some realists, in fact, continue to claim that much of what the EU does regarding its Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and its European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP3) is primarily – if not exclusively - meant to prevent an internal security competition among EU states by containing Germany in particular (Jones 2003) However, if this were true, we would expect to see a much stronger commitment to mutual defence within EU treaties (i.e., a transparent and credible collective security guarantee, or a statement of non-aggression among EU states), and possibly attempts by individual EU 10 bilateral extradition agreements and other mutual legal assistance treaties Judicial/police cooperation in the EU now even extends to the use of Europe-wide arrest warrants, joint police training, criminal databases, a trans-European policy authority (Europol), an EU border control agency, a European anti-fraud office, and a supranational court system with a Court of First Instance and a supreme/constitutional court (the ECJ) This extensive EU-wide judicial system, much of which has expanded in just the past decade, clearly indicates the importance now attached to this element of the EU’s grand strategy in terms of both physical security and value projection An even more striking aspect of the EU’s ambitions in the realm of physical security involves its new willingness to project power as a security actor in its regional neighbourhood and beyond In fact, the political counsellors who prepare the meetings of EU’s Political and Security Committee (which oversees and directs the CFSP/ESDP), report that more than half of their time is now spent on conflict resolution issues in third countries (interviews, 20072010) The expansion of ESDP military operations also contradicts the theoretical predictions of realism, which expects such cooperation only the face of a major external threat or through the leadership of a hegemonic state The EU lacks both of these powerbased incentives, yet after 1999 it declared a series of ‘Headline Goals’ to develop the capability to deploy troops for handling the so-called ‘Petersberg Tasks’ (humanitarian and rescue tasks, peacekeeping, and peace enforcement) The EU also created the position of the CFSP High Representative to give a ‘voice and face’ to its foreign policy; this office was supported by range of new ESDP infrastructural institutions (such as an EU military committee/staff) and force structures (such as EU battlegroups) between 2000 and 2004 Following the release of the 2003 EU Security Strategy document, the EU extended the range of its crisis management activities to include joint disarmament operations, support counterterrorism measures, and security sector reform Since 2004, the EU has included anti- 17 crime/anti-terrorism in the work of the ESDP and has appointed a counter-terrorism ‘tsar’ to assist such cooperation among EU member states Moreover, all of these efforts are increasingly linked to internal ‘soft security’ EU policies, particularly those involving AFSJ matters, a trend that makes it even more difficult to treat EU security-related actions as largely intergovernmental in practice and territorially-defensive in orientation, contra the arguments of many realists Finally, and perhaps most impressive of all, the EU has made use of these resources and plans by initiating over 20 ESDP operations since 2003, some of which have involved military forces This activity greatly exceeds anything the EU attempted in the 1990s in this realm With these various missions, the EU has demonstrated the ability to independently plan and execute security missions; deploy military forces well beyond the European theatre without recourse to NATO assets; lead non-EU troops in multinational foreign military operations; and use deadly force to protect its own personnel and local civilians The creation of a planning unit (the Crisis Management Planning Directorate) plus a standing operations centre and legal chain of command for civilian crisis management/conflict resolution missions (i.e., policing and rule of law missions, or security sector reform) within the Council General Secretariat represents another EU innovation Indeed, the fact that the EU can provide a clear civilian ‘rule of law covenant’ in post-conflict situations through its Civilian Planning and Conduct Capability unit suggests why the vast majority of ESDP operations have been civilian rather than military in nature (interviews, 2007-2010) Finally, the EU’s recent antipiracy ESDP operation, Operation Atalanta (or EU NAVFOR), demonstrates the EU’s ability to lead a multinational naval operation to deter and detain pirate vessels off the coast of Somalia and thus contribute to the security of that region and of EU vessels/citizens (Germond and Smith 2009) This effort clearly indicates that the EU is capable of ‘punishing’ (i.e capturing and incarcerating) actors who violate its security, contrary to 18 previous views (Lucarelli and Menotti 2006) that the EU’s vision of ‘security’ does not encompass such behaviours Economic prosperity Intra-EU economic prosperity is primarily oriented around the completion of the SEM and the euro programme; these two policy domains are so extensive and central to the raison d’être of the EU that they might be viewed as important as physical security in terms of EU grand strategy However, as strategic mechanisms for ensuring prosperity (i.e., sustainable economic growth and a rising standard of living among EU citizens), the SEM and the euro programme clearly have their limits Economic growth and standards of living still vary widely across the EU, and the EU as a whole occasionally lags behind other major actors in terms of economic growth In response, the EU’s grand strategy for internal economic prosperity increasingly involves problem-specific initiatives to help realize the promises behind the SEM and the euro project: that the reduction of internal barriers to trade and transaction costs (including EU-wide price/financial stability) will, by themselves, improve European economic growth These efforts include, inter alia, the Stability and Growth Pact, support for technology and EU-centred research and development (the Framework Programmes), the free movement of persons under Schengen, the creation of a new EU-wide financial regulatory system, and more indirect efforts to improve overall EU growth, social cohesion, and competitiveness (education and training through Erasmus, regional aid/cooperation, industrial cooperation, etc.) At the regional level, certain elements of the SEM and the euro programme (among other intra-EU economic policies) have been ‘exported’ to various actors in the EU’s neighbourhood, as through the European Economic Area and the Euro-Mediterranean Programme, plus the ENP after 2003 For certain neighbouring states not included in these 19 arrangements, such as Russia and Turkey, the EU maintains bilateral relationships based on comprehensive agreements involving security, prosperity, and European values Finally, and at the global level, this element of EU grand strategy also involves general support for various economic, financial, and development regimes, but also selective protection of certain economic sectors (particularly agriculture, defence industries, financial services, and certain aspects of intellectual property) as a response to global competition, which is done not so much to ensure economic prosperity as it is to facilitate larger political bargains within the EU (i.e., log-rolling to ensure a net level of liberalization across EU member states) and, to a lesser extent, improve the EU’s bargaining leverage vis-à-vis its major global competitors, particularly the US Value projection Value projection at the intra-EU level has been implemented through the application of the Copenhagen criteria to all new EU member states and the development of the AFSJ, as well as through numerous examples of case law in the ECJ and other European courts in situations involving the alleged violation of various rights The entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty also means that the EU as a whole has acceded to the European Convention on Human Rights; this act should provide even more opportunities for persons within the EU to exercise the rights guaranteed under these agreements This tradition of empowering individuals – rather than states alone – to exercise their international rights represents a major and uniquely European element of the EU’s value projection strategy These dynamics are generally replicated at the regional level, which involves the application of political conditionality criteria to neighbouring states who wish some form of association with the EU through the arrangements noted above Many of these states are also members of the Council of 20 Europe/European Convention on Human Rights and have already been socialized to some degree to the values shared across Europe The issue of implementing EU value projection is even more intriguing at the global level, which raises the question of how far the EU is willing to expand its own ‘vision’ of international order, even if that vision undermines or directly contradicts the efforts of other global actors (particularly the US) Based on both the content and implementation of EU grand strategy, we can see a clear expansion of ambition regarding the EU’s global political actorness, which has expanded from a more ‘inward’ orientation (i.e., completion of the SEM and euro programmes) to a much greater ‘outward’ one (the EU as a global economic and political actor) In addition to the security/economic policies already noted, this expanded role also involves opportunistic value projection in a number of areas: banning the death penalty, the creation of international privacy standards, combating global climate change, the promotion of regional integration, and so on When the EU attempts to apply its tools of regional multilateralism to failing or weak states, this activity is now referred to in the EU as a ‘whole of government’ approach; it specifically combines more short-term crisis/security efforts with more long-term development instruments rather than handle each task separately (i.e., peacekeeping then state-building)(interviews, 2007-2010) IMPLICATIONS If indeed the EU can be viewed – in terms of grand strategy – as a prominent actor on the contemporary world stage based on the content and implementation of its various core goals, then two major considerations must follow One is internal in nature; the other is external The major internal consideration is that the more the EU seeks to accomplish in world politics, the more difficult it will be to set priorities and allocate policy resources If the 21 EU’s grand strategic goals of economic prosperity and value projection are contingent on physical stability/security, as a realist would argue, then the EU is correct in subordinating its preferences for economic liberalism and human rights/democracy to concerns about stability/security on a case-by-case basis However, if the EU really believes itself to be an ethical or normative power, then it must increasingly assume the costs of ethical action even while maintaining its security and economic interests This problem will become especially acute as the EU attempts to increase its military dimension, as through the ESDP If the ESDP is primarily oriented towards foreign interventions rather than the defence of the EU itself, which seems to be the case, then there is a real risk that the EU will find itself caught in one of two types of strategic dilemmas: whether to risk innocent civilian lives (and violate EU norms) by attacking the perpetrators of human rights violations (a Kosovo-type dilemma) or whether to offer only token protection to victims and allow them to be slaughtered by a stronger force (a Srebrenica-type dilemma), which also would violate EU norms The EU’s reliance on American air power in the Kosovo War was a major impetus behind the ESDP, yet we still not know whether the EU would use these new forces in a more aggressive manner, and whether such use would seriously undermine the EU’s other ethical goals The major external consideration is that all grand strategies are inherently competitive in nature, and must take into consideration the grand strategies of other major powers Beyond the traditional realist concern with power relations among major actors such as the US and China, where the EU is a major economic force but is well behind the US in particular regarding military power, we have a more intriguing possibility: that the EU (i.e., its elites) thinks it possibly has a unique and better approach – better, that is, than America’s – to many contemporary problems of global governance (interviews, 2007-2010) Europe’s ‘better world’ is often framed, at least implicitly, as a response to US policies, which have come under great stress in light of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, plus its overall ‘war on 22 terror’ In the 1990s, the US strategic debate was largely between a resort to quasiisolationism versus selective intervention – or ‘offshore balancing’ - in certain conflicts (Lynn-Jones and Miller 1992) Today, however, the US has not only placed a major focus on counter-terror/counter-insurgency operations, it has engaged in preventative – not just preemptive – and unilateral military attacks It has also repeatedly undermined its own liberal reputation as a protector of human rights in light of abuses in Iraq and Guantanamo, extraordinary rendition, torture, attacks on civilians through the use of bombing and unmanned drones, and other aggressive policies The liberal value projection components of America’s grand strategy have thus been greatly undermined, and the US finds itself overextended militarily and under-supported politically on a number of fronts This creates a major window of opportunity for other principled global actors such as the EU The EU has started to fill this credibility/leadership gap, and in doing so will increasingly challenge US views, as with European efforts to ban the death penalty, fight global warming, protest human rights abuses, develop global protections on data privacy, support the International Criminal Court, ban certain types of weapons, assert norms regarding competition policy, regulate genetically-modified foods, and so on The EU also increasingly sees itself as a potential ‘superpower for civilian crisis management’ that can fill a security gap in weak or failing states when the UN and the US/NATO are unwilling or unable to act (or unacceptable to a host country) In doing so, the EU has grown far more comfortable with its global principled leadership compared to the situation ten or twenty years ago, and it takes full ‘ownership’ of its foreign operations while the UN tends to delegate its peacekeeping missions to its various member states (interviews, 2007-2010) CONCLUSION 23 Evaluations of policy ideas and strategies require some appropriate basis for comparison Comparing the EU to a state is both inappropriate and limiting considering the EU’s supranational aspects Comparing the EU to other international organizations is more appropriate, but still limiting, in that the EU’s institutions and ambitions go well beyond the capacities of other most other international organizations In my view the main reference point for evaluating EU ‘actorness’ is Europe’s own history: we see greater cooperation, integration, and principled foreign policy action by the EU today as compared to ten, thirty, or fifty years ago? The answer clearly is yes However, a second reference point involves the EU’s own ever-expanding ambitions, and here the record is somewhat mixed The EU was primarily inward-looking and economically-focused in its first decades, and here it has seen major successes: the SEM, the euro programme, and successive enlargements The EU’s success in promoting stability and peace among its own member states, and in ending the post-war division of Europe, is equally undeniable Now, however, the EU is becoming more outward looking and, equally importantly, more politically-minded, even to the extent of involvement in security affairs well beyond the European core I have argued that many of the EU’s policies can be viewed as elements of a more general strategy befitting the EU’s emergence as a global political actor – even a great power To the extent that grand strategy involves global political competition, the EU will face increasing challenges from other major actors, such as the US, China, and Russia As China and Russia not offer what might be called a comprehensive ‘vision’ for global governance, it may be that the EU’s main challenger here will be the US, at least in the short to medium term In fact, some observers are already arguing the merits of the EU’s approach to certain global problems over America’s own approach (Rifkin 2004; Leonard 2006; McCormick 2006) If many international problems are related, to some degree, to problems resulting from interdependence and globalization (i.e., threats to cultural diversity; the stresses of 24 economic competition; trafficking of arms, humans or illicit substances; etc.), then the EU may be much more experienced, and innovative, than the US in handling such problems Moreover, there has been a marked change in emphasis in EU activism in terms of means and ends Where in the past the EU’s uniqueness as a global actor was characterized by its stress on methods such as multilateralism, peaceful dispute resolution, institutions, preventative measures, and soft power mechanisms, the EU is increasingly attempting to articulate a unique vision of ultimate ends as well: promoting itself as a ‘civilizing’ force for global governance and world peace, and (against NATO) as the ‘acceptable face of Europe’ in world politics (interviews, 2007-2010) Even more interesting is that the US itself has been in relative decline as a hegemon or imperial power since the 1970s, and will face greater challenges to its leadership in time in light of two factors: its specific over-commitments across the globe (i.e., ‘imperial overreach’), and its more general desire to maintain its global status and prevent the rise of competing powers Many strategists – even American ones – are currently debating such a possibility, and some believe that America’s ‘unipolar moment’ is well over (Layne 2006) If so, there will be greater opportunities for other actors to fill a leadership gap at the global level, if only on a case-by-case basis Others have observed that Americans are simply not very good at the kinds of security problems facing many populations, particularly in the developing world; in other words, America is not very effective as a ‘state builder’ (Brownlee 2007; also interviews, 2007-2010) Its experience in Afghanistan and Iraq (not to mention Vietnam and Somalia) especially lend credence to this claim, and suggests a clear window of opportunity for new approaches to these problems that more effectively balance the use of short-term offensive military capabilities against the use of police/gendarmerie forces, the rebuilding of judicial capacities, and the long-term development of civil society as a ‘cushion’ between the competing demands of citizens and the response of (temporarily) weak central 25 governing institutions This is precisely the approach the EU is attempting to develop, and in ways consistent with its other core values and goals; in fact, there is now talk within the EU of creating an ‘EU Institute for Peace’ to help advance these ideas (interviews, 2007-2010) There is a world of difference, however, between leading by example (the power of attraction) and leading by assertion (power projection), and between a more general humanitarianism and a more specific ‘civilizing universalism’ as fundamental goals of policy As the EU continues to assert its (supposedly) universal liberal goals through various forms of power projection, questions of grand strategy will become even more salient among EU foreign policy elites, even if they refrain from explicitly framing their actions in such terms 26 Biographical note: Michael E Smith is Professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland Address for correspondence: Michael E Smith, Department of Politics and International Relations, Edward Wright Building, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB24 3QY E-mail: m.e.smith@abdn.ac.uk ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This paper draws upon confidential interviews conducted between 2007-2010 with nearly 40 EU foreign/security/defence policy officials across various EU organizations and EU member states I would also like to acknowledge the financial support of the European Research Council (ERC grant no 203613) and the helpful assistance of JEPP’s external reviewers and editor in revising this article for publication 27 This framework expands and refines the approach suggested in Deibel 1992 This function might also be termed ‘negative integration’ Or since the Lisbon Treaty, the ‘Common Security and Defence Policy’ (CSDP) The Lisbon Treaty does however contain something like a mutual defense pact, in the form of the so-called ‘solidarity clause’ (Art 28A, para 7) However, this commitment is clearly oriented towards responding to external threats (or terrorist attacks), rather than containing Germany REFERENCES Aggestam, L (2004) ‘Role identity and the Europeanisation of foreign policy: a politicalcultural approach’, in B Tonra and T Christensen (eds.), Rethinking European Union Foreign Policy, Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp 81-98 Alson, P., M.R Bustelo and J Heenan (eds.)(1999) The EU and Human Rights, Oxford: Oxford University Press Baylis, J and J Wirtz (2007) ‘Introduction’, in J Baylis, J Wirtz, C.S Gray, and E Cohen (eds.), Strategy in the Contemporary World, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp 1-15 Brownlee, J (2007) ‘Can America nation-build? 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