Security in a greater Europe: The possibility of a pan-European approach

By Charlotte Wagnsson

Can Russia, the European Union and the three major EU member states adopt a unified policy line in the global arena? Charlotte Wagnsson investigates the cohesiveness of ‘greater Europe’ through the detailed scrutiny of policy statements by the leadership elites in the UK, France, Germany, Russia and the EU in connection with three defining events in international security: the crisis in Kosovo of 1999; the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the Iraq crisis of 2003. This extensive empirical enquiry results in a critical constructivist response to neorealist understandings of European security.

The book is available in paperback for the first time. It contrasts the EU’s new way of ‘doing security’ with the established, competitive bilateral interplay in the European security sphere and provides a clue to the kind of security politics that will prevail in Europe. A joint Moscow-Brussels approach would improve the chances of both increasing their relative strength vis-à-vis the USA, but serious cleavages threaten to undermine such a ‘greater European’ common view on security. Wagnsson considers the extent to which the major European players pursue similar objectives, and assesses the possible implications for and the chances of greater Europe emerging as a cohesive global actor.

This meticulously researched book will interest scholars and students with an interest in international security, the EU’s international role, European international relations and Russian security.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Release date: Jul 19, 2013
• ISBN: 9781847797346

Charlotte Wagnsson

Charlotte Wagnsson is Associate Professor in Political Science at the Swedish National Defence College, Stockholm

Book preview

1 Security in a greater Europe

Introduction

No one calls into question the great value of Europe’s relations with the United States. I am just of the opinion that Europe will reinforce its reputation as a strong and truly independent centre of world politics, soundly and for a long time, if it succeeds in bringing together its own potential and that of Russia, including its human, territorial and natural resources and its economic, cultural and defence potential. Together we have already taken the first steps in that direction. The time has now come to think about what should be done to make sure that a united and secure Europe becomes the harbinger of a united and secure world.¹

Two weeks after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, the Russian President sketched a grand vision of Russia and the European Union (EU) joining forces in world politics to develop into a ‘truly independent centre of world affairs’. Was it a statement made on the spur of the moment? Or did perhaps the Russian President seize an opportunity during the turbulence of post-9/11 to push for much sought after closer EU–Russia relations? In fact, President Putin was only accentuating a decade-long foreign and security policy trend.

Since the late 1990s, Russia and the EU had gained influence in the international arena by pooling diplomatic efforts in some vital areas, such as regional conflicts in the Middle East and the need to strengthen the United Nations (UN). A joint approach could further strengthen their impact on major global issues where both want to ‘make the European voice heard’. Russia, with its long experience as a highly active and experienced actor in the international arena and with a seat on the UN Security Council, could add weight to the EU’s emergent global diplomacy.²

Together with Japan, China and the United States, Russia and the EU are the powers most commonly listed in discussions about the outlook for a potentially multipolar world in the twenty-first century.³ A joint Moscow-Brussels approach would mean that both stand a significantly better chance of turning Europe into a major pole in world affairs and of increasing its relative strength vis-à-vis the USA. The EU cannot compete with the USA militarily in quantitative terms, but the two are clearly on an equal footing in the economic realm.⁴ The EU is strong in other areas as well; in the environmental sector it has even divested the USA of its role as global leader.⁵ Moreover, in the past decade the EU has challenged the USA as the world’s leading ‘moral’ power as it has come to present a different ethics for international and security relations. Whereas the USA remains true to its longstanding ideal of the spread of freedom, the EU promotes human rights and the rule of law. If the EU and Russia can harmonise their ‘ethical efforts’, by pushing for a more strict application of rule of law in international relations, this might limit the USA’s freedom of manoeuvre in the international arena.

Although it is highly unlikely that EU member states would give up their established partnership with the USA,⁶ they could choose to pursue policies on specific global security issues that impinge on US aims – which was also done by a small number of European states during the 2003 Iraq war. If the EU becomes increasingly cohesive, and in addition allies itself more closely with Russia, such European deviations from US policy might become increasingly problematic for policy makers in Washington. The EU and Russia already jointly diverge from the USA on key issues in the security sphere. Both disapprove of the current unipolar system, with its hegemon that from time to time resorts to unilateral behaviour, preferring instead multilateralism and a multipolar world where Europe would form a significant bloc. They may also satisfy their respective needs for a stronger self-image by way of negative identification with their transatlantic ‘other’.⁷

Yet, wide divisions persist within the European security sphere. During its pursuit of greater ‘actorness’ in security affairs, tensions between EU member states, demonstrated during the Iraq war, have continually caused friction inside the EU. Russia, in turn, diverges from Western Europe on some key issues, such as on the spread of norms in the international arena. These and other cleavages present the USA with an opportunity to play up divisions in order to prevent Europe from developing into a cohesive global actor that might become too independent from Washington.

In order to provide further insight into how and to what degree major European security actors converge and diverge, this book presents an extensive and thorough analysis of official standpoints. The focus is on the relationship between the EU and Russia, but also on bilateral relations between Russia and the major EU member states.

The term ‘Europe’ needs clarification. This volume distinguishes between ‘EU-Europe’, which includes the EU and its member states, and ‘greater Europe’, which envisages Russia, the EU and its member states. It would be unsatisfactory to limit the analysis to Russia and the EU. Closer cooperation between Russia and Europe in the security sphere hinges not only on relations between Russia and the EU, but to a significant degree on bilateral relations. The empirical enquiry therefore contrasts Russia’s standpoints on security with those of the EU bureaucracy and with those of the three major EU member states: France, Germany and the United Kingdom.

Despite differing in various ways, ranging from culture to size and from economy to political system, France, the UK, Germany and Russia share experiences of being great powers – major European states with shared histories and memories. Yet, Russian leaders continually express doubts about whether their country is regarded as part of Europe by the remainder of the European states. This book does not aim to determine whether Russia is, or is perceived to be, a part of Europe; but it does explore in detail how some official standpoints tend to facilitate while others place barriers in the way of further cooperation between Russia and various leaderships located within ‘EU-Europe’.

The possibility of a pan-European approach

During the Cold War, governments faced a wide range of potentially destabilising threats. Nevertheless their ultimate common aim was quite clear: to keep the world secure from nuclear war. Although much of the current security policy debate still revolves around how to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction, nuclear war is not currently at the top of politicians’ security policy agendas. Instead, the new, more multi-faceted post-Cold War security situation begs the question: what are the leading actors in the security sphere claiming to protect in the twenty-first century? Have Russia, the major EU member states and the EU reached a level of unanimity that will enable them to pursue a unified policy? What priority do the individual leaderships give to central ‘referent-objects’ of security, such as human rights, the principles of a market economy, the ‘transatlantic link’, democracy and international institutions; and how does each leadership differ?⁸

The aims of this book are to gauge the kind of security agendas that the major European players are pursuing, and to assess the implications these have for greater Europe’s chances of emerging as a unified global diplomat. It compares the rhetoric of the EU, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Russia in connection with three defining events in international security – the crisis in Kosovo in 1999, the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 and the Iraq crisis in 2003 – in order to assess whether they display a tendency to defend similar referent-objects of security. The empirical enquiry provides an indication of Europe’s ability to unite, which in turn has implications for US policy.

The first case (Kosovo 1999) involved a ‘wake up call’ that sparked the evolution of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). It was also one of the significant events that prompted a reconsideration of norms and rules for action in the international system. It was later used as both a negative and a positive example of how conflicts should be handled.

The second case (11 September 2001) serves to illuminate important dividing lines and convergences among the European actors. For many, it signified a paradigm shift after which international interaction abandoned its dominant focus on state-to-state relations. A new, diffuse and not even united actor – international terrorism – had interrupted the ordinary mechanisms of international relations. The events of 11 September 2001 prompted a reconsideration of norms and rules for action. In the USA, a number of the rules of international conduct were henceforth ignored. The US administration claimed that the USA was at war. In Europe, political leaders also had to adjust to the fact that a largely unknown enemy with an extraordinary capacity to create chaos now threatened traditional states and their citizens. The second case study focuses on how the Europeans officially interpreted 11 September 2001, and on what, in essence, was at stake in the face of this evil. Did their basic standpoints as expressed during the Kosovo conflict remain the same or were they altered by the new global security situation? Did cleavages among actors narrow or widen?

The final case study (the war in Iraq of spring 2003) also discusses a major crisis, and one that continues to affect global security dynamics. The USA invaded Iraq, using as its key argument that rogue states with links to terrorism demand forceful action. According to the 2002 version of the US National Security Strategy, the USA would defend itself not only in a reactive way, but also in a proactive way – invoking self-defence in order to act pre-emptively against terrorists.⁹ Thus, disregarding the lack of a United Nations Security Council resolution, and with the support of only one of the four states studied in this volume, the USA invaded Iraq. Rules for action and norms of behaviour in international relations were clearly at stake. How did the four states and the EU respond to this challenge to habitual practice in global affairs? What did they stand up for or defend? Were the major dividing lines that had crystallised during the previous two crises exacerbated?

In order to increase our understanding of the ability of greater Europe to unite in the sphere of security, we need to gain deeper knowledge and understanding of the standpoints of individual European actors on these crises. The cases were not selected with a view to test a hypothesis, i.e. they were not selected from the exigency of a traditional positivist study. The case studies serve to identify tensions and convergences among key European actors at critical instances in the evolution of the ESDP in order to deepen our understanding of that evolution. Since the basic preferences of European leaderships are most easily revealed during times of major crisis, when rules for action and norms of behaviour in international relations are at stake, such crises were selected for analysis. The study can also demonstrate how political preferences change – or remain stable – over time.

Competing constructions of security

Some thirty years ago, security was predominantly about escaping nuclear disaster. In the contemporary globalising world, the kind of security that political leaderships pursue is far from self-evident. Politicians tend to advocate ‘security’ in order to protect anything from the environment to the economy or a specific national or religious identity. As a result, security agendas have come to diverge more between states, even among allies.

This calls for an analysis that can reveal the extent to which leaderships advocate rival versions of security. Such research does not make judgments about what security is in any objective sense, but instead provides an openminded account of how leaderships strive to accomplish their favoured version of security. The ensuing empirical account of official standpoints allows each actor to ‘speak for itself’, and this produces a unique set of comparable ‘stories on security’ from the points of view of each of the key European actors.¹⁰

A constructivist approach to security studies suits such an ambition particularly well, since constructivism involves the conviction that the concept of security is context-bound and requires specification.¹¹ It is an approach less circumscribed by preconceptions about the nature of international relations, and about the standpoints that national leaderships have historically tended to take.¹²

In contrast, both liberal and neorealist scholars adopt a more narrow analytical focus. In line with a pessimistic stance on the likelihood of cooperation and of the emergence of an international society, neorealists play down the impact of norms and instead take into account capabilities and interests.¹³ They gain an acute argument on the EU’s weaknesses as a security actor but lose out on a much needed complex and multifaceted analysis of European security that includes norms and values. Many liberals, on the other hand, who believe and approve of the EU’s normative actorness, tend to overemphasise its internal cohesion.¹⁴ By placing similarities among member states in the foreground, such research designs cannot address the problematic issue of exactly which norms the individual governments promote, and the price they are prepared to pay to achieve these.

In addition to existing research, then, we need to pay attention to the way in which EU member states interpret the meaning of ‘being normative’, and how the EU negotiates between different versions of morality. This volume reveals serious divergences on these issues, both in core EU documents and between EU member states. Tensions between the three major member states on the nature of ‘morality’ are key to understanding the major challenges that lie ahead of the EU.

Furthermore, constructivism involves a reliance on the significance and power of language and it is therefore a suitable approach for mapping out cleavages and similarities in the actors’ interpretations of the political world. Describing and defining the world in one way or another is essentially a power play; the power of definition affects the essence of a debate and determines which issues are included or excluded in a communication process.¹⁵ The battle for control of a political debate is, in turn, a central battle in political reality.¹⁶ As Murray Edelman highlights, it is:

language about political events, not the events in any other sense, that people experience; even developments that are close by take their meaning from the language that depicts them. So political language is political reality; there is no other so far as the meaning of events to actors and spectators is concerned.¹⁷

Thus, if EU member states do not speak the same language, if they do not direct their attention towards the same goals, it is harder to realise common objectives in the sphere of security. Similarly, the European governments and the EU are most likely to pursue further cooperation with Russia if their basic official standpoints on and understandings of what ought to be protected do not deviate too much.

Norms and interests: the essence of security

Leaderships normally justify security strategies with reference to both interests and norms. The need to seek legitimacy is vital in modern politics, and normative considerations are as central as interests in official justifications of security policies. State representatives are obliged to present an acceptable moral basis for their politics in both the domestic and the international arena. The transformation of the global political theatre from a war between communism and capitalism to a new script makes it even more important to provide a legitimate basis for security policy.¹⁸

As a result, in order to obtain a full picture of how a leadership rationalises its security policy, it is not possible either to restrict the analysis to a focus on interests, as realists tend to do, or focus strictly on ideas, identities and other variables central to the constructivist research agenda.¹⁹ It is essential to remain open to how two different main types of logic – rational calculations linked to interests, and statements linked to identities and norms – mix into political messages.²⁰

The ensuing analysis reveals which European actors converge best with regard to norms and interests and, as a consequence, are most likely to cooperate. It seems likely that Europe would unite in normative and interest-based issue-areas where it disagrees with the USA. If this is the case, it is vital to be able to identify such areas in order better to understand past disputes, and foresee possible future crises, in transatlantic relations. It is useful to know precisely on which fundamental issues individual European leaderships have tended to agree and disagree in the recent past.

It might be expected that the actors will diverge on a number of important standpoints that have implications for their ability to undertake joint action. The leaderships are likely to deviate over the norms they wish to protect and promote in the international arena, the importance of the export of norms for the sake of stability, and the means they consider legitimate for the export of norms. They will differ on the role the USA should play in the world and on the actions that are legitimate in order to protect the world from terrorism. Diverging views on the role of the UN and the EU in world affairs are also examples of areas that could make concerted European action in the world more complicated. This volume sets out to discover how the leaderships differ, the potential for convergence and the implications this has for the USA.

The investigation focuses on the standpoints adopted by the leaderships during times of crisis, when they are likely to defend their most fundamental positions in the security sphere. An in-depth analysis of official reactions to events in the sphere of ‘hard security’ can expose the fine detail of differences of emphasis and nuance over core issues such as polarity, the nature of alliances, intervention and the role of norms in global affairs.

In line with the constructivist approach, state identities and interests are not treated as given and leaderships can change their standpoints over time due to both external and internal events and processes, for example, a change of regime in another country. The analysis focuses on processes of change and continuity, remaining open to shifts of meaning in leaderships’ political messages. Notably, when referring to the ‘British’, ‘French’ or ‘Russian’ position, I envisage the position taken by the political regime in power at the time, and not a ‘fixed’ national standpoint. The three case studies can thus inform us about the durability of the actors’ standpoints. If a leadership is shown to rally round a small number of favoured basic referent-objects of security when faced with a crisis, it is likely to react in a similar fashion during future crises.

How, then, do we recognise a ‘norm’ or an ‘interest’ in a political text? In line with the classical realist Hans Morgenthau, this study understands the concept of ‘interests’ in connection with the broad concepts of influence, power and security. Using Morgenthau’s definition as a starting point, the study defines an argument as belonging to the analytical category of ‘interests’ if the leader rationalises an argument as being part of a strategy to counter security threats or to maximise the state’s (or the EU’s) political power.²¹

Norms, in turn, are defined in accordance with Peter Katzenstein, who perceives of norms as ‘collective expectations for the proper behaviour of actors with a given identity’.²² ‘Norms’ define what is considered to be ‘standard’ or ‘normal’ for an actor in a given social context.²³ In the framing analysis below, norms are seen as the building blocks of ideologies, religions, political systems and other collective ideational constructs. The analysis maps out statements that include references to ‘democratic norms’, ‘liberal norms’, and norms underpinning a system aimed at ‘justice’, ‘equal treatment’, and so on. If an actor refers to shared norms, ideologies or morally appropriate behaviour, this is defined as a normative message.

In many cases, norms and interests are mutually reinforcing in a line of argument. The sort of interests decision makers pursue in a particular period is related to the political and cultural restraints – linked to ideas, identities and social interaction with other actors – of their surroundings. The study of the evolution of norms is therefore important to an understanding of the evolution of interests and vice versa.²⁴ The point, therefore, is not to judge who defends interests and who defends norms, but what kind of norms and interests the various actors claim to protect. The focus on interests will reveal whether a leadership places state interests above individual security or vice versa, while the focus on norms will expose whether a leadership primarily promotes the liberal values underpinning the free market or a more equal world order.

Official standpoints: opening and closing windows for cooperation

Governments often cooperate for dissimilar reasons. Convergence of official goals is normally a sufficient basis for cooperation. The fact that Russia and the EU might defend the UN’s central position in world affairs for quite different reasons does not reduce their chances of making joint efforts to strengthen the organisation’s status. Similarly, even though signatory powers to the Kyoto Protocol disagree on the exact meaning and implications of the complex issue of climate change, they nevertheless signed the agreement making concrete their shared intent to address the problem of environmental security. This shows that the vital question is whether the leaderships express convergence on a standpoint, not why they do so. As a result, the analysis takes account of justifications and refrains from uncovering hidden intent, even though occasional references to historical memories and other underlying driving forces that can provide a clue to the durability of an actor’s position are mentioned.²⁵

Features such as these are sought through a framing analysis, the intent of which is to unravel differences at the rhetorical level that have political effects. Politicians have to consider the words and concepts they use carefully in order to fit them into their social context, where certain shared symbols are used in order to facilitate communication.²⁶ Yet, leaders tend to provide shared concepts with different meanings. While one actor may associate the concept of ‘multipolarity’ primarily with a balance of power, another actor may link it to a just world order where no single state can impose its will on another. Such competing frames ultimately lead to policy differences.²⁷

The frames that this study seeks to reveal are located in texts, and are identifiable by the appearance of certain key concepts and phrases.²⁸ In practice, the target of the analysis is political rhetoric or ‘persuasive communication’.²⁹ Such rhetoric is used to describe and justify security policy, which in Schön and Rhein’s words result in so-called rhetorical frames.³⁰

In this sense, the framing analysis, and the kind of constructivism that this study builds on, bear a certain resemblance to discourse analysis. However, as opposed to the framing approach, discourse analysis is often informed by an ambition to unmask dominant discourses that serve to oppress other interpretations of the political world.³¹ Also, discourse analysis maps patterns of ideological and ideational meaning that are located in texts, whereas framing analysis, as applied in this context, aims more narrowly at certain key parts of the political message. It focuses specifically on what is at stake, how a problem is constituted, how it should be evaluated and the plausible solutions that exist in relation to it.³² Discourse theorists distinguish themselves in other ways as well, for example, by expecting texts to be largely structured in terms of binary oppositions.³³

The framing method was developed in social movement research and is used widely in media studies, but it has only been applied to security studies to a limited extent.³⁴ This volume demonstrates that framing is particularly useful in the area of security studies, in that vital components of security politics – such as how guilt and responsibility are allocated and how the salience of a problem is being judged or looked on – are also central to the framing approach.

A key aspect of framing analysis that is also vital to the political processes is problem definition. How a problem is defined is key to political processes since it has repercussions for both political standpoints and the solutions envisaged. Solutions may determine problem definition. Politicians are inclined to emphasise those aspects of a problem to which their favoured political solutions apply. Problem definition is closely linked to agenda setting and thus normally includes identifying both the emergence of problems and, depending on the answer, how they should be resolved.³⁵

The question of guilt is normally the most prominent of all aspects of problem definition, which brings us to the issues of causal interpretation and moral evaluation – framing aspects centred on who or what is to blame.³⁶ The political rhetoric analysed in the three case studies is strongly coloured by different techniques for apportioning blame. This is no surprise since security politics are generally quite focused on defining an ‘other’ – not only to identify the nature of the problem or threat, but also to strengthen an actor’s own identity.³⁷

This study deals with the deliberate strategic framing used to influence a receiver, as opposed to subconscious or cognitive framing. Strategic framing aims to make certain features or interpretations of politics salient to the audience, that is, to make these stand out in the process of communication in order to impose a particular meaning or understanding on an audience.³⁸ This may be done by use of well-known concepts, by references to shared memories or by frequent repetition.

How actors make sense of a problem also depends on the level of analysis that they employ.³⁹ The analysis below asks whether actors evaluate a problem primarily from the standpoint of European or global security. It is reasonable to assume that a problem is a more salient issue if politicians link it not only to the European, but also to the global security situation. An issue linked to the global security situation is assumed to be treated as a more salient problem than one that is linked merely to the European context.

Finally, a key political battleground in the international arena during a crisis situation is the question of who, or which institutional vehicle, to appoint as ‘problem solver’. This is intimately connected