As recognised by Clausewitz’s famous works on war, the “defence dimension” of each organized community – whether a state, a federation or confederation, etc. – is intrinsically linked to its “political dimension”. It therefore makes little sense to discuss European defence without opening a wider debate about the future development of the EU’s overall political dimension, and more specifically of the so-called “instruments of power” which would be necessary to make the Union a fully-fledged actor on the world stage.

The EU project is often described as an eternal work in progress, a “beautiful yet still incomplete masterpiece”, primarily because of its inability, with a few exceptions, to reach shared decisions, thus effectively exercising its full power potential. It has been said that the European Union could “potentially” become a fully-fledged member of the looming multi-polar system of global governance, provided that it not only develops its economic power, which is insufficient on its own, but also diplomatic, informational and military capabilities. Such domains are currently non-existent at the European level, remaining largely the remit of individual member states, thus undermining the EU’s external projection capacity.

 

Read the publication here.

This blog first appeared on the IAI site. 

Author: Stefano Cont, IAI. 

Image courtesy of EU Naval Force via Flickr.

The views are those of the author and not necessarily those of ETTG.