Security in a greater Europe
Security in a greater Europe: The possibility of a pan-European approach
Charlotte Wagnsson
Series: Reappraising the Political
Copyright Date: 2008
Published by: Manchester University Press
Pages: 200
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt155jdbc
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Book Info
Security in a greater Europe
Book Description:

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 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. It 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.

eISBN: 978-1-84779-237-2
Subjects: Political Science
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  1. Front Matter
    Front Matter (pp. i-iv)
  2. Table of Contents
    Table of Contents (pp. v-vi)
  3. Preface
    Preface (pp. vii-vii)
  4. List of abbreviations
    List of abbreviations (pp. viii-viii)
  5. 1 Security in a greater Europe
    1 Security in a greater Europe (pp. 1-24)

    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...

  6. 2 Kosovo: a precedent?
    2 Kosovo: a precedent? (pp. 25-47)

    In May 1998, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) pressured Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic to enhance self-determination for repressed ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. When peace talks in Rambouillet broke down early in 1999, NATO chose to carry out air strikes.

    The vast majority of the EU member states supported NATO’s actions, justifying them as a matter of the protection of human rights and democracy in Europe. Only a few states seriously questioned the campaign. Among the NATO members, the United Kingdom, France and Germany acted most forcefully in defence of the air campaign. The British government and the major political...

  7. 3 11 September 2001: a new perspective unfolds
    3 11 September 2001: a new perspective unfolds (pp. 48-72)

    The catastrophe of 11 September 2001 provided a new perspective on international relations for Western political leaders and added a new dimension to EU–Russia relations. However, the points of departure of the European leaderships diverged considerably. The EU and its member states portrayed the terrorist attacks as an extraordinary event and as a new experience, while Russia described it as nothing more than a recurrence of an all too familiar problem. The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, whose country had repeatedly been the target of terrorist acts, argued that the United States had failed to predict the attacks because of...

  8. 4 Iraq reshuffles Europe
    4 Iraq reshuffles Europe (pp. 73-100)

    The US-led coalition waged its ‘official’ war against Iraq from 19 March to 1 May 2003. 1 The Bush Administration had been building up to the armed intervention throughout 2002 by defining three countries thought to possess or have the potential to develop weapons of mass destruction – Iran, Iraq and North Korea – as an ‘axis of evil’, and by adopting a National Security Strategy allowing for first strikes.² In Jan Hallenberg’s analysis, the decision to get rid of Saddam Hussein’s regime had already been taken in principle in the United States at the presidential level in the autumn of 2001.³...

  9. 5 The European Union and the major European powers
    5 The European Union and the major European powers (pp. 101-127)

    The case studies in this volume reveal that the national leaderships of the three leading EU member states placed different emphases on a number of the referent-objects of security. When issues were discussed at a rudimentary level, it is easy to find unanimity. All the leaders, for example, wanted to protect human rights and enhance regional stability. However, words cannot simply be taken at face value, removed from their context. It is sufficient in this context to recall the rhetoric of the Soviet Union and the USA during the Cold War. Both claimed to stand up for democracy, liberty and...

  10. 6 Russia and the EU: the need for pragmatism
    6 Russia and the EU: the need for pragmatism (pp. 128-151)

    This chapter analyses how rhetorical divergences, referred to as ‘security gaps’, hamper cooperation between Russia and the EU. It is a major problem for both entities that these divergences, derived from the official messages taken from the case studies, apparently mirror deep policy controversies linked to existential issues and consequently to the two parties’ identities. Ironically, scholars and politicians tend to perceive the EU as an actor that lacks identity, even though it seems more inclined than most nation states to base its foreign policy on a fairly specific conception of its role, namely, that of a morally superior entity....

  11. 7 Will greater Europe unite?
    7 Will greater Europe unite? (pp. 152-175)

    The purpose of this book is to assess whether the major European players defend similar referent-objects of security and pursue similar objectives, and to suggest implications for greater Europe’s chances of emerging as a cohesive global actor. Do Russia, the EU and the three major EU member states pursue reasonably similar agendas in the security sphere – by giving priority to analogous referent-objects of security – and are they able to adopt a unified policy line in the global arena?¹

    My analysis suggests that the entities referred to above are united on a range of specific issues in the security sphere, for...

  12. Bibliography
    Bibliography (pp. 176-184)
  13. Index
    Index (pp. 185-190)
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