European Security Cooperation: A Response to Unipolarity – or Anticipation of Multipolarity?

I already brought forward a neorealist approach to the emergence of the European Union which has been well received. Subsequently, I decided to write about European security cooperation, as well. We’d like to shed light on two competing neorealist views on the issue. This discussion shows that structural realism is far from unable to explain European politics.

(Please note: This is a new version of two earlier post, so don’t be surprised if some of the stuff sounds familiar to you. My sense of quality forced me to rewrite the earlier versions and combine them.)

Since the end of the Cold War, the European Union is heavily engaging in security issues. It does so on two tracks. First, it engages in a common foreign and security policy (CFSP). In 1991, Maastricht established CFSP as one of the three pillars of the EU. The 1997 Amsterdam Treaty introduced some institutional reforms and addressed structural weaknesses of the early CSFP. It also created a high representative for CFSP. In 2003, the European Union’s member states also established a common security strategy document which can be seen as an early grand strategy. Second, it engages in a European security and defense policy (ESDP). In the 1998 Franco-British summit at St. Malo, a common defense policy was added to the second pillar. At the Helsinki Summit in 1999, a permanent political-military structure was established, whereby the EU developed the decision making and operational capabilities needed to autonomously undertake a range of demanding military operations. It can be expected that the Lisbon Treaty will further strengthen these developments on both tracks.

The structural realist literature agrees on the interpretation that the target of this European security cooperation is to become independent from the United States in security issues. They find evidence for their view in two facts: First, European leaders have been very clear about their plans to establish the European security system as a substitute to NATO. Second, and to substantiate these claims, there is a remarkable similarity between NATO and the European security cooperation. Membership, mandates and resources are increasingly comparable (Hofmann 2009).

What the structural realist literature does not agree on is how to interpret the European Union’s wish for independence from the US in security issues. The question which divides the neorealist scholars is thus why the European Union wants to become independent from the United States in security issues since the end of the Cold War. What follows are excerpts of the two main arguments:

• European Security Cooperation: A Response to Unipolarity
  To writers of the “unipolarity-school”, European states engage in security cooperation since 1991, and the reason is unipolarity. In bipolarity, the United States guaranteed Europe’s survival and Europe was reassured of the US’ continued commitment. It thus did not need to engage in an autonomous security cooperation, and would probably even have risked the US’ support when doing so. When the Soviet Union collapsed, however, the US began to withdraw its troops from Europe, and European states started to be alerted by both the US’ capabilities and the possibility of a regional, heated security competition. They decided to solve this situation by building up capacities to autonomously uphold their security while ameliorating their regional security dilemma through integration. The status-quo-ishness of European powers allowed them to engage in such a “binding”-strategy.
• European Security Cooperation: Anticipation of Multipolarity
  To writers of the “multipolarity-school”, European security cooperation became serious in 1999, and the reason is the anticipation of multipolarity. These writers question the US’ continued dominance. They see the US’ power diminishing, while other states are rising. In their view, a move to multipolarity means no good. Both history and theory teach that multipolar systems tend to be conflict-prone. Europe’s re-focus on security issues is an anticipation of these future realities. Europe recognizes that it needs to find means to protect its existence independent from the United States. Again, European states also fear the possibility of a regional, heated security competition and decided to tackle their regional security dilemma through integration.

In sum, neorealist explanations claim that Europe acknowledges that it has to become independent from the United States in security issues in order to guarantee its survival and therefore engages in a strong security cooperation established as a substitute for NATO. What remains unclear is if this is a response to unipolarity or an anticipation of multipolarity. Nevertheless, it is surprisingly clear that Europe’s security cooperation can very well be explained with structural realism.

More generally, the United States assured Europe’s survival until the end of the Cold War and thus took the structural pressures from it. Accordingly, Europe seemed to behave in contradiction to structural realist theories. Today, Europe is back on the map of power politics and poses no challenge to structural realism anymore. In fact, it never did. IR scholars simply underestimated the impact the United States’ support had on Europe’s behavior during the Cold War.

Literature
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- Hofmann, Stephanie. 2009. “Overlapping Institutions in the Realm of International Security: The Case of NATO and ESDP.” Perspectives on Politics 7(1): 45-52.
- Jones, Seth G. 2007. The Rise of European Security Cooperation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Layne, Christopher. 2006. “The Unipolar Illusion Revisited.” International Security 31(2).
- Posen, Barry R. 2006. “European Union and Defense Policy: Response to Unipolarity?” Security Studies 15(2).