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

It first argues that the EU’s efforts as a global actor do conform to three basic components of grand strategy: physical security, economic prosperity, and value projection.. To the exte

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 EUpolicy 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 do 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 theUS

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; 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 EUsupports 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)

Hyde-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 non-

material 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, theEU-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.

1 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 ofthose 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 ‘value-added’ 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 resortand 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 ofpower 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

‘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) byactually 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

‘cross-pillar’ 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 do 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 isnot 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

2 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

* Specific building measures through pursuit of common actions

confidence-* Enlargement: turning neighbours into members

* EU as a model for regional cooperation

* Collective security

* Support for efforts against WMD

* EU as a model for regional cooperation

* Preferential regional trade liberalization based on fulfilment

Value

projection

* Copenhagen criteria required of all EU member states

* Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union

* Political conditionality for any structured cooperation with the EU

* Enlargement

* Support for UN human rights policies

* Opportunistic projection

value-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 problem-solving 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

member states to balance against Germany and prevent any increase in its military power

We do not see these behaviours at all,4 and EU states have in fact continued to encourage Germany’s involvement in military cooperation, which calls into question the importance of internal balancing as a core element of EU grand strategy Thus, it is still most appropriate tosee the EU’s grand strategy over its internal physical security as a type of pluralistic security community (Deutsch et al 1957), which is based on shared values, sensitivity to each other’s needs, communication, predictable behaviour, and support for international institutions

In addition, the EU’s (or more correctly, France’s) rapprochement with NATO over

the past decade also suggests the low status given to this element of EU grand strategy As NATO still provides a credible deterrent against both internal and external military threats (atleast within the EU/North Atlantic area), and as EU member states are not motivated by a need to ‘contain’ Germany, there is no need to provoke a debate regarding the specific commitments regarding collective defence expected of all EU members Even more

conspicuous in its absence is the question of a possible nuclear deterrence policy for the EU

If nuclear weapons are the ultimate deterrent against military threats, the EU’s lack of debate

on this issue suggests the question of physical security against major military threats is still effectively delegated to NATO We also might infer that that the EU is effectively free-riding on the nuclear deterrent provided by two of its member states (the UK and France), in combination with NATO’s nuclear ‘umbrella’ However, as the EU still might face a global threat from weapons of mass destruction (WMD) possessed by other actors, it still

incorporates into its grand strategy support for multilateral non-proliferation regimes

Regarding threats relating more to societal security rather than territorial defence, EU grand strategy is far more specific, particularly with the internal and regional dimensions Here we have the guidance of the 2003 European Security Strategy paper (Solana 2003), and most major threats identified within it fall outside the realm of traditional territorial defence

These include the problems of terrorism, regional conflict, state failure, and organized crime Moreover, the document emphasizes that European security must first be enhanced in its ownneighbourhood by stabilizing the Balkans and extending cooperation and security to the east and south, with a focus on resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict It also articulates the principle of ‘effective multilateralism’ as a general norm underlying European security, which suggests a clear European alternative to the more unilateral approach of the US.

Economic prosperity

The EU’s grand strategy for economic prosperity varies widely across internal,

regional, and global levels At the intra-EU level, the cornerstones of the strategy involve a

general preference for trade liberalization supported by the European social model Althoughthe commitment to these goals may vary across (and even within) EU member states, this desire to find a more ‘humane’ balance between the liberalizing goals of transnational firms and the public need for social protections (i.e., rights to collective bargaining, health care, education, pensions, etc.) is a core element of intra-EU grand strategy; one might even refer

to this goal as the ‘European dream’ (Rifkin 2004) The idea of giving ‘capitalism a

conscience’, as articulated during the 2009 G-20 economic summit in London, is similarly reflected in the EU’s approach to competition (or anti-trust) problems, environmental

regulation, and other potentially pathological effects of unbridled capitalism, which often put

it at odds with the US, especially when it applies ‘extraterritorial’ control over these problemsagainst non-EU actors

At the regional and global levels, the question of trade liberalization dominates EU grand strategy, though we see clear variation between these levels At the regional level, the

EU attempts to balance its support of the World Trade Organization (WTO) regime and its norm of non-discrimination with selective and conditional market access to non-EU members

on its periphery, thus forming a preferential trading area with somewhat flexible membership criteria Normally access to this area is treated as part of the general accession process; however, the EU has taken steps to supplement (if not delay) the enlargement process with various types of ‘second class’ membership Finally, at the global level, the EU has modifiedits support for the general liberalizing goals of the WTO regime in light of (mostly)

transatlantic disputes over specific sectoral problems, such as agriculture, steel, aircraft, genetically-modified foods, intellectual property, and trade in services Again, this problem stems from the EU’s need to find a workable balance between the (internal) protectionist temptations felt by its member states and the (external) pressures of the world trading system.Thus, and just like the US, the EU will engage in selective protectionism even as it tries to negotiate an end to such measures with its major trading partners In addition, the EU pays special attention to its relationship with various less developed countries (LDCs), particularlyformer European colonies, in ways that go well beyond the efforts of other liberal economic powers such as the US, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and so on

Value projection

As with other components of grand strategy, value projection involves internal and external dimensions: to justify EU actions to European citizens internally and to encourage outside actors to conform to or adopt EU values as their own At the intra-EU level, the conditions of EU membership serve to reinforce EU values in terms of the type of ethical order the EU is attempting to create These are reflected primarily in the so-called

‘Copenhagen Criteria’ as the basic conditions of EU membership These criteria require that

a candidate state has achieved stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights, respect for and protection of minorities, and the existence of a functioning

market economy, as well as the capacity to cope with competitive pressures and market

forces within the EU The accession process judges the candidate state’s ability to take on the obligations of membership (framed as core EU values), including adherence to the EU’s aims of political, economic and monetary union.

These values are reflected in the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU, agreed at Nice in December 2000 This Charter covers 50 specific rights in six major areas: dignity, freedoms, equality, solidarity, citizens’ rights, and justice, many of which go well beyond the protections found in America’s own Bill of Rights These include a prohibition against the death penalty; prohibitions against eugenics and reproductive human cloning; privacy protections; freedom of arts and sciences; gender equality; consumer protections; access to health care; and rights for children, the elderly, workers, and the disabled Citizens and residents of the EU therefore enjoy – at least in principle - the widest human rights protections of any region on the planet, and indicate the EU’s explicit self-definition as a

‘zone of liberalism’ in world politics (Alson, Bustelo and Heenan 1999)

This intra-EU set of basic values extends to the broader regional European

neighbourhood and even to the global level through similar agreements, particularly the European Convention on Human Rights and the Council of Europe’s Social Charter

Obviously the accession process makes reference to these rights, as do numerous association agreements with non-EU member states both in the neighbourhood and much further afield

As we shall see below, the EU is already attempting to take the lead on a number of specific value-related problems at the global level, some of which challenge America’s views These efforts might be termed ‘opportunistic value projection’ as the EU chooses certain issues to pursue at the global level mainly when it sees a clear window of opportunity Again, this approach often depends on America’s attitude to certain issues, yet to the extent that these efforts are largely in line with other ethical elements of EU policy we can interpret this activity as a key element of EU grand strategy In fact, some have seen these activities as a

manifestation of a unique European responsibility or even as a ‘civilizing mission’ (Linklater

2005; Eriksen 2006) that goes well beyond the mere protection of its own values and interests

to encompass the projection of those values as universal, cosmopolitan, global norms.

3 IMPLEMENTATION: STRATEGY AND THE EU’S CHANGING GLOBAL ROLE

Developing a grand strategy and implementing it are two separate things, and it is perfectly normal for complex organizations to demonstrate some incoherence in these two tasks Without undertaking a detailed critical examination of the various strategic elements

discussed above, we should first note that the EU is clearly attempting to implement every

one of the nine major types of strategic goals listed in Table 1 with a wider range of power resources and policy tools than ever before Such implementation involves the creation of

formal institutions and the execution of specific policies regarding each component element

of grand strategy as defined above; some major examples are summarized in Table 2:

Table 2: The implementation of EU grand strategy: Major examples

* European Court of Justice (ECJ), Europol

* Development of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ)

* ‘Solidarity’ clause to respond

* EU-Russian ‘Four common spaces’ and ‘road maps’

* ‘Solidarity’ clause to respond

* Actions against money laundering, organized crime, and terrorism

competition, energy, etc.)

* Selective protection of certain sectors

* Selective, conditional market access through the

* Lomé/ACP aid

* Strategic partnerships with major powers

Value

projection

* Charter of Fundamental Rights

of the European Union

* Social chapter

* Political conditionality clause

of ENP Action Plans and related cooperation agreements

* Support for UN human rights policies

* Problem-specific