This volume provides the first geographically and thematically comprehensive study of the evolution and current state of the national security and defence policies, strategies, doctrines, capabilities, and military operations, as well as the alliances and security partnerships, of European armed forces.

This book explains the creation of the European Union's Security and Defence Policy - to this day the most ambitious project of peacetime military integration. Mérand explores the complex relations between the state, the military, and citizenship in today's Europe.

This book examines how the European Union can pursue a grand strategy and become a distinct global actor in a world of emerging great powers. At the grand strategic level, its sheer economic size makes the EU a global power. However, the EU needs to take into account that many international actors continue to measure power mostly by assessing military capability. To preserve its status as an economic power, therefore, the EU has to become a power across the board, which requires a grand strategy, and the means and the will to proactively pursue one. The authors of this book aim to demonstrate that the EU can develop a purposive yet distinctive grand strategy that preserves the value-based nature of EU external action while also safeguarding its vital economic interests. The book analyses the existing military capability of the European Union and its bottom-up nature, which results in a national-based focus in the member-states, impeding deployment capability. A systematic realignment of national defence planning at the strategic level will enable each member-states to focus its defence effort on the right capabilities, make maximal use of pooling and specialization, and contribute to multinational projects in order to address Europe’s strategic capability shortfalls. A stronger Europe will therefore result, it is argued, a real global actor, which can then become an equal strategic partner to the United States, leading to a revitalized Transatlantic partnership in turn. This book will be of interest to students of military studies, European Union policy, strategic studies and International Relations generally.

Filling a surprising gap in existing studies, this book addresses many of the unanswered questions surrounding the role of european integration in shaping national defence policy. The impressive array of contributors consider the pressures on state policy emanating from the process of integration. The book is divided into three distinct parts: * an outline of the tortuous history of attempts to link defence with European integration * a study of the four larger member states - France, Germany, Italy and the UK as well as a chapter on The Netherlands; * an analysis of the effects of the nuclear weapons and arms procurement policies. This, the second book in The State and the European Union series, sheds light on an increasingly important and topical aspect of contemporary European security and will be essential reading for those studying European Politics, Public Policy and International Relations.

"This book explains the creation of the European Union's Security and Defence Policy - to this day the most ambitious project of peacetime military integration. Whether hailed as a vital step in the integration of Europe or berated as a wasteful threat to U.S. power, European citizens are increasingly interested in the common defence policy. Today, "European Defence" is more popular than the European Union itself, even in Great Britain." "Merand addresses the fundamental challenge posed by military integration to the way we think about the state in the 21st Century. Looking back over the past 50 years, he shows how statesmen, diplomats and soldiers have converged towards Brussels as a "natural" solution to their concerns but also as something worth fighting over." --Résumé de l'éditeur.

This new Handbook brings together key experts on European security from the academic and policy worlds to examine the European Union (EU) as an international security actor. While the focus is on the politico-military dimension, security will be put in the context of the holistic approach advocated by the EU.

"The EU made a strong commitment to developing an effective EU led crisis management capacity. By 2003 the EU must be in a position to deploy within 60 days up to 50,000-60,000 troops capable of a full range of so-called Petersberg tasks including: humanitarian and rescue missions, peacekeeping, combat force tasks in crisis management and peacemaking missions." "According to the EU however the initiative should not be seen as a duplication of NATO. Neither should the establishment of a European Force be confused with the concept of a European army. Whether a European army, or a common defence for Europe is more capable of handling the future needs and challenges of the EU is not the subject of this book. Essentially it is about whether a military crisis management system is practical and realistic and how the planned initiatives within the agreed limits are to be transformed into operative policy."--BOOK JACKET.