The Rise of European Security Cooperation / Edition 1

by Seth G. Jones

Overview

One of the most striking developments in recent international politics has been the significant increase in security cooperation among European Union states. Seth Jones argues that this increase in cooperation, in areas such as economic sanctions, weapons production and collaboration among military forces, has occurred because of the changing structure of the international and regional systems. Since the end of the Cold War, the international system has shifted from a bipolar to a unipolar structure characterized by United States dominance. This has caused EU states to cooperate in the security realm to increase their ability to project power abroad and to decrease reliance on the US. Furthermore, European leaders in the early 1990s adopted a 'binding' strategy to ensure long-term peace on the continent, suggesting that security cooperation is caused by a desire to preserve peace in Europe whilst building power abroad.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521689854
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	02/01/2007
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	310
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.71(d)

About the Author

Seth G. Jones is Adjunct Professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University and Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation. He is a distinguished scholar of European affairs, state-building operations and counterterrorism. Professor Jones was Europe Editor at The Christian Science Monitor, is a contributor to The New York Times, The Financial Times, and National Interest and has appeared on the BBC, CNN and other national and international television and radio programs.

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Cambridge University Press
978-0-521-86974-4 - The Rise of European Security Cooperation - by Seth G. Jones
Excerpt

1 Introduction

In the late 1930s, shortly before Germany's blitzkrieg into Poland and the beginning of World War II, Western Europe was a labyrinth of defensive walls and fortresses. A traveler journeying eastward from Paris to Stuttgart would have stumbled across two heavily fortified lines: the Maginot and Siegfried Lines. In France, the Maginot Line began near Basel, Switzerland, snaked northward along the Franco-German border, and ended near the French town of Longuyen. As a reporter for the British Daily Express wrote in May 1933:

I embarked today on a perilous pilgrimage to the battlefields of the next war . . . No man has yet succeeded in locating the exact positions of the mystery defences, in gauging their strength, appearance and cost. “Go at your own peril,” a high official of the War Ministry said to me when I informed him of my intention . . . Along the scattered line of defences north of Metz, behind Belgium, where movable forts, strange modern devices with rolls of barbed wire, armaments and guns, travel from place to place, wherever they are needed, like lumbering tanks, my way lies.¹

French politicians and military figures – including André Maginot, French minister of war who directed its construction – conceived the Maginot Line as an impregnable barrier against any future German invasion.

Itconsisted of some fifty large fortifications. At the front were maisons fortes, fortified barracks manned by armed frontier police, whose job was to delay an enemy's advance and alarm the main defenses. Roughly a mile behind laid the avant postes, large concrete bunkers equipped with machine guns and 47mm anti-tank guns. They were protected by stretches of barbed wire to hinder the advance of infantry, anti-personnel mines, and upright rail sections embedded in concrete to impede tank movement. Behind the avant postes was the main defensive line, the position de résistance. These lines consisted of large forts known as ouvrages that were scattered roughly nine miles apart, held over 1,000 troops, and housed artillery ranging from the 75mm gun to the 135mm howitzer. The surface areas were protected by steel-reinforced concrete up to 3.5m thick, a depth capable of withstanding multiple direct hits.²

In Germany, the Siegfried Line (or West Wall) began near Basel, crept roughly 400 miles northward along the borders with France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands, and petered out just south of the Waal River. The line included a system of pillboxes, observation and command posts, and bunkers that housed machine guns and anti-tank weapons. Most were constructed of concrete, steel, logs, and filled sandbags. Scattered among them were trenches, minefields, barbed wire, and the infamous “dragon's teeth,” large concrete slabs protruding from the earth to obstruct tank movement. As Winston Churchill noted in the late 1930s, the Siegfried Line presented a formidable barrier:

In the dawn of 1938 decisive changes in European groupings and values had taken place. The Siegfried Line confronted France with a growing barrier of steel and concrete, requiring as it seemed an enormous sacrifice of French manhood to pierce. The door from the West was shut.³

The heavily fortified walls in eastern France and western Germany are stark reminders of the security competition that plagued Europe in the two centuries prior to World War II. The Napoleonic wars (1803–1815), wars of Italian unification (1859), Seven Weeks' War (1866), Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), World War I (1914–1918), and World War II (1939–1945) included some of the bloodiest and most destructive wars ever fought.

Today, little more than weeds and rubble are left of these once formidable walls. In fact, a traveler journeying from Paris to Stuttgart today may be forgiven for not realizing that he or she has even crossed borders. The differences between pre-World War II Europe and today are striking. Indeed, Europe has experienced two fundamental transformations in the security realm over the last century. The first was the move from Hobbesian balance-of-power politics and security competition during much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and half of the twentieth century, to US-led transatlantic cooperation during the Cold War. The second major transformation was the increase in intra-European security cooperation after the end of the Cold War. The latter transformation is the primary focus of this book. Yet a proper understanding of today also requires delving into the sinews of Europe during the Cold War.

The debate about Europe

This book examines one of the most striking developments in international politics today: the significant increase in security cooperation among European Union states since the end of the Cold War. To assess this development, this book offers the most systematic and comprehensive analysis of European security cooperation to date. The increase in European security cooperation today is especially impressive given Europe's bloody and divided history, which is neatly illustrated by the walls and fortresses that carved up the continent between World Wars I and II. It is also striking since security cooperation has continued despite such incidents as the French and Dutch veto of the European Constitution in 2005.⁴

Arguments about Europe tend to fall into two camps. A small minority believe that European security cooperation has increased since the end of the Cold War. Some also believe that Europe is becoming a major global actor. For example, Henry Kissinger argues: “The emergence of a unified Europe is one of the most revolutionary events of our time.”⁵ Another analysis contends that European security developments are “of revolutionary significance” and will likely “transform the nature of the European Union, its relations with other parts of the word and, in particular, the shape of transatlantic relations.”⁶ But the vast majority of scholars and policymakers – especially in the United States – are deeply pessimistic that little, if any, meaningful security cooperation has occurred in Europe.

Consequently, this book examines the evolution of European cooperation in the security realm. It asks three sets of questions. First, has there been a significant increase in security cooperation among EU states since the Cold War? Second, if so, why? Why has there been significant cooperation since the end of the Cold War, and why was there comparatively little security cooperation through the European Community during the Cold War? Third, what are the future prospects for security cooperation among EU states? What are the implications for European–American relations?

The main argument can be divided into two parts. First, the evidence clearly shows that there has been a significant increase in European security cooperation since the end of the Cold War. To date, however, there has been virtually no effort to measure this change systematically. A “significant” increase in cooperation means that European states today predominantly cooperate with each other in such areas as imposing economic sanctions for foreign policy goals, developing and producing weapons, and building military forces – rather than unilaterally or with non-European states. It also means that there has been a measurable increase in intra-European cooperation compared to the Cold War. Several examples illustrate the point:

• Security institutions: European states established a foreign policy arm of the EU beginning with the Maastricht Treaty (1992). There was no meaningful intra-European security cooperation during the Cold War, as illustrated by such failed attempts as the European Defense Community, Fouchet Plan, and European Political Cooperation.
• Economic sanctions: European states impose sanctions for foreign policy goals roughly 78 percent of the time through the European Union. This marks a striking difference from the Cold War, when they sanctioned only 12 percent of the time through the European Community.
• Arms production: European states and defense firms largely develop and produce advanced weapons with each other. In some areas, such as missiles and helicopters, research and development occurs almost exclusively at the European rather than the national level.
• Military forces: European states have established a rapid reaction military capability, EU battle groups, European Gendarmerie Force, and a political-military structure to project power independently of NATO and the United States. They have also deployed nearly a dozen EU missions to such countries as Macedonia, Bosnia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Georgia, and Palestinian territory. There were no deployments through the European Community during the Cold War.

To be clear, I use the term “cooperation” rather than integration because European behavior has been intergovernmental, not supranational. Major foreign policy and defense decisions are still made in European capitals. The European Union is not on the verge of becoming a supranational state, nor is a European army imminent. European states also do not agree on all foreign policy issues, though they agree on many of them. The point, however, is that there has been a quantifiable and largely unrecognized increase in security cooperation among European states since the end of the Cold War.

Second, this cooperation has largely occurred because of the changing structure of the international and regional systems. The international system shifted from a bipolar structure during the Cold War characterized by competition between the United States and Soviet Union, to a unipolar structure after the Cold War characterized by US dominance. This shift caused European states to cooperate in the security realm for two reasons: to increase Europe's ability to project power abroad, and to decrease reliance on the United States. In addition, the regional system in Europe shifted from one with a divided Germany and a dominant US presence during the Cold War, to one with a rapidly declining US presence and a reunified Germany. This shift caused European leaders in the early 1990s to adopt a “binding” strategy to ensure long-term peace on the continent. In sum, security cooperation has been about preserving peace on the continent and building European power abroad.

To test this argument, this book offers a comprehensive approach. It measures cooperation from World War II to the present by examining all major attempts to create a European security institution, all cases in which European states imposed sanctions for foreign policy goals, all cases of transnational weapons collaboration involving European defense firms, and the collaboration of military forces. The finding is unambiguous: European states are increasingly cooperating in the security realm. The likely result will be increasing friction between the United States and Europe in the future. Indeed, some in the US government have strongly opposed security cooperation outside NATO. For instance, the US Department of Defense has stated that it would actively work “to prevent the creation of an EU counterpart to Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) and a separate ‘EU’ army.”⁷

Consequently, this book challenges two sets of arguments. First, it contends that the deep skepticism about the extent of European security cooperation and the prospects for the future are mistaken. For the vast majority of scholars – especially in the United States – security cooperation has been more talk than action. European countries have been just as unwilling as always to coordinate foreign and defense policies. “On foreign policy issues,” notes the Financial Times, “Europe [is] more unwilling than ever to speak with one united voice.”⁸ Thomas Risse notes that on foreign policy and defense matters “Europe remains divided, while the US rules.”⁹ In his book Of Paradise and Power, Robert Kagan writes that “the effort to build a European force has so far been an embarrassment to Europeans.”¹⁰ Douglas Lemke likewise argues that European states, including France, continue to view NATO as the only viable regional security organization. “The [European Union] Rapid Reaction Force is too small to serve as a counter to U.S. military power and French officials have stated repeatedly that NATO will remain Europe's primary defense organization.”¹¹

In addition, some argue that the future of Europe will likely be one of competition rather than cooperation. As John Mearsheimer writes: “Without the American pacifier, Europe is not guaranteed to remain peaceful. Indeed, intense security competition among the great powers would likely ensue because, upon American withdrawal, Europe would go from benign bipolarity to unbalanced multipolarity, the most dangerous kind of power structure.”¹² These arguments are misplaced. As this study demonstrates, there has been a measurable increase in security cooperation in several areas despite the withdrawal of 70 percent of US European Command since 1990, and despite the likelihood that more will withdraw from Europe in the near future.¹³ The departure of large numbers of US forces – and European expectations that the US military presence will be short-lived – should have led to less cooperation in the security realm. Instead, there was more.

Second, it challenges several explanations regarding why cooperation has occurred. European security cooperation is not caused by pressure from domestic and transnational actors on state preferences, as argued by liberal intergovernmentalists. This argument, which has its roots in broader liberal theories of international politics, assumes that states' strategic preferences for European cooperation come largely from the efforts of powerful domestic interest groups. Nor is security cooperation primarily a function of efforts to increase the prospects for mutual gain through an international institution, as institutionalists argue. European security cooperation is also not caused by the internalization of a European identity. This argument assumes that German, French, Italian, and other national identities and security interests have increasingly been transformed into a collective European identity. Finally, cooperation is not caused by functional spillover from the economic or other realms.

Part of the problem with the current debate about European security is that the dependent variable is almost never clearly specified or measured. What do we mean by foreign policy or defense cooperation? How do we measure it? How do we know whether European Union states are speaking or acting with “one voice”? The development of the European Union and the subsequent political, economic, and security changes in Europe have led to a sizable – though not always impressive – amount of scholarly work seeking to explain the causes of European cooperation. The bulk of it, however, has focused on explaining cooperation in such areas as economic and monetary affairs. What is perhaps most troubling, though, is the absence of rigorous work that seeks to measure the behavior of European states over time. Has there been a change over the past few decades in the coordination of foreign and defense policies? And, if so, why?

An additional problem is one of selection bias. Skeptics often argue that European cooperation is illusory because European states have not devoted sufficient resources to defense in comparison to the United States.¹⁴ But this is a false dichotomy. It is certainly true that the United States has spent significantly more on defense than Europe. But it is unclear why United States capabilities should serve as a benchmark for European security cooperation, especially when European states collectively amass greater military resources than any other state in the world EXCERPT the United States.

Social scientists have much to offer here. As Gary King, Robert Keohane, and Sidney Verba argue: “The distinctive characteristic that sets social science apart from casual observation is that social science seeks to arrive at valid inference by the systematic use of well-established procedures of inquiry.”¹⁵ With this in mind, this study examines European security since World War II by undertaking a time-series study to measure the extent of security cooperation.

The argument

The major argument is that structural shifts in both the international and European systems have caused a notable increase in EU security cooperation in the post-Cold War era. As used here, “security cooperation” occurs when states adjust their foreign policy and defense behavior to the actual or anticipated preferences of others.¹⁶ States cooperate to realize gains that are unachievable through individual action; policymaking is achieved multilaterally rather than unilaterally.¹⁷

My aim is to develop a theory that can explain the significant increase in European security cooperation since the end of the Cold War, and offer a useful roadmap for the future. Consequently, this book examines three time periods: past, present, and future. Past evidence strongly indicates that structural factors played a determining role in discouraging European states from pursuing widespread security collaboration through the European Community during the Cold War. Recent evidence suggests that changing structural conditions in the post-Cold War created a strong impetus for states to cooperate through the EU. The evidence from both the past and present suggest that EU security cooperation will increase in the future. In short, the overriding independent variable of this book is the structure of the international and regional systems.

The international system

During the Cold War, the international system was bipolar. It was characterized by security competition across the globe between the United States and Soviet Union. Under these conditions, European states were primarily concerned about balancing the Soviet Union, and most security cooperation was transatlantic rather than intra-European. NATO was the primary security institution, the United States was a key sanctions partner, and arms collaboration was largely transatlantic rather than intra-European.

However, the structure of the international system shifted from bipolarity to unipolarity when the Soviet Union collapsed, and the United States emerged as the preponderant global power. This structural shift left European states with a series of choices. One was to bandwagon with the United States through NATO and to continue dependence on American power. But the collapse of the Soviet Union eliminated the one issue that had inextricably tied Europe and America together for over four decades: balancing against the Red Army. European states also became increasingly concerned about American power and, with a growing divergence in security interests, wanted to increase their ability to project power abroad and decrease US influence. Power is important because it can make states more secure, and it can increase states' ability to influence, deter, and coerce others. Consequently, the European Union allowed European states to project power abroad and increase autonomy from America.

This action would not have been taken if the US were not so powerful, or if the international system was still bipolar. As French President Jacques Chirac argued, a powerful America reinforces the need for a stronger Europe “politically and economically.” “The distance between America and Europe continues to increase,” he noted, and this development led “toward a growing consolidation in Europe.”¹⁸ In addition, as the European Security Strategy pointedly noted: “The point of the Common Foreign and Security Policy and the European Security and Defense Policy is that we are stronger when we act together.”¹⁹ This means coordinating foreign and defense policies through the European Union.

In three important areas – economic sanctions, weapons production, and military forces – EU states began to aggregate power in the post-Cold War era. Between 1950 and 1990, European states sanctioned through the European Community in only two out of seventeen cases (12 percent). Yet between 1991 and 2006 they sanctioned through the EU in twenty-one out of twenty-seven cases (78 percent). Between 1950 and 1989, European defense firms were more likely to cooperate with US defense firms in mergers, acquisitions, and codevelopment and coproduction projects. But since 1990, intra-European defense cooperation has increased in order to compete with such powerful US firms as Boeing and Lockheed Martin. This has included the development of the European Defense Agency to develop European military capabilities, improve defense research and technology, manage cooperative programs, and strengthen the European defense industry. Finally, while European states coordinated their military forces through NATO during the Cold War, they established a European Union rapid reaction force, EU battle groups, and an independent planning capability in the post-Cold War era.

To be sure, European states are not “balancing” against the United States as conventionally defined, since the US does not pose a military threat to Europe. Jeffrey Cimbalo argues, for example, that “there is considerable evidence that EU foreign policy, led by Paris and Berlin, will actively seek to balance . . . US power.”²⁰ Some also argue that European security cooperation is a form of “soft balancing” against the United States.²¹ But balancing, as conventionally defined, refers to an attempt by states to build economic and military power to contain an aggressive opponent that directly threatens their security through military conquest. The United States does not present a military threat to Europe.

The regional system

In addition, European Union states have cooperated in response to structural shifts in the regional system. During the Cold War, the Soviet threat and concerns about German revanchism led to a large United States military presence in Europe and the division of Germany. This development was neatly captured in Lord Ismay's famous quip that NATO was critical “to keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down.” The presence of the “American pacifier” ensured that most security cooperation was transatlantic, rather than intra‐European.²² As noted earlier, NATO was the primary security institution and there was little intra‐European cooperation in such areas as sanctions, arms collaboration, and military forces.

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© Cambridge University Press

Table of Contents

1. Introduction; 2. Power and security cooperation; 3. Security institutions; 4. Economic sanctions; 5. Arms production; 6. Military forces; 7. The tragedy of US-European relations.

Editorial Reviews

A political scientist at the RAND Corporation, Jones takes issue with the widespread view (particularly prevalent in the United States) that European security cooperation has been a failure. Thoroughly examining post-Cold War European cooperation on security institutions, economic sanctions, arms production, and military forces, he argues that such skepticism is misplaced: European security cooperation is ‘one of the most striking developments in international politics today.’”
Philip H. Gordon, Foreign Affairs

"...both books contribute to the understanding of European foreign policy, and schoalrs working in this area will profit from reading them." —Richard G. Whitman, University of Bath.

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