European Union Military Operations. A Collective Action Perspective [1 ed.] 9781138104792, 9781315102030

Table of contents :
Cover
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication Page
Contents
List of Tables
Preface
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
List of
Abbreviations
Chapter 1: New frontier:
The deployment of European Unionmilitary operations
Development of an EU military intervention capability
Deployment of EU military operations
Studying EU military operations
Existing literature
Argument
Outline of the book
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 2: Revelations: A multi-level collective action approach
International level
State level
EU level
Methodology
Conclusion
Note
Bibliography
Chapter 3: Out of the shadows: Operation Althea in Bosnia and
Herzegovina
Background
Agenda setting
Planning and launch
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 4: To tame a land: Operation Artemis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Background
Agenda setting
Planning and launch
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 5: Déjà-vu: EUFOR RD Congo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Background
Agenda setting
Planning and launch
Conclusion
Bibliography
Chapter 6: Gangland: Operation Atalanta off the coast of Somalia
Background
Agenda setting
Planning and launch
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 7: The aftermath:
Conclusions and final thoughts
Argument
Findings
Operation Althea
Operation Artemis
EUFOR RD Congo
Operation Atalanta
Final reflections
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

European Union Military Operations

This book offers an in-­depth study on the deployment of military operations in the framework of the European Union’s Common Security and Defence Policy (ESDP/CSDP). While existing studies of the subject are either descriptive or focused on a single level of analysis, this book incorporates factors from three different levels of analysis to explain the deployment of ESDP military operations. First, the international level, where the emergence of events that threaten certain values held dear by EU member states, catalyses the process leading to an operation; second, the national level, where the member states formulate their initial national preferences towards a prospective deployment based on national utility expectations; and third, the EU level, where the member states come to negotiate and seek compromises to accommodate their different national preferences towards a deployment. The strength of this multi-­level collective action approach is demonstrated by four in-­depth military case studies, which analyse the preference formation of France, Germany, and the UK towards the deployments of Operation Althea in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Operation Artemis and EUFOR RD Congo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Operation Atalanta off the coast of Somalia, respectively. The author draws on a wealth of primary sources, including over 50 semi-­structured interviews conducted with national and EU officials during 2011–15, and provides an up-­to-date overview and critique of the existing theoretical literature on the deployment of ESDP/ CSDP military operations. This book will be of much interest to students of European security, EU politics, military and strategic studies, and International Relations in general. Niklas I.M. Nováky is a Research Officer at the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies and holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of Aberdeen, UK.

Routledge Studies in European Security and Strategy Series Editors: Sven Biscop Egmont Royal Institute for International Relations, Belgium

and Richard Whitman

University of Kent, UK

The aim of this series is to bring together the key experts on European security from the academic and policy worlds, and assess the state of play of the EU as an international security actor. The series explores the EU, and its member states, security policy and practices in a changing global and regional context. While the focus is on the politico-­military dimension, security is put in the context of the holistic approach advocated by the EU. The EU and Military Operations A comparative analysis Katarina Engberg The EU and Effective Multilateralism Internal and external reform practices Edited by Edith Drieskens and Louise van Schaik EU Foreign Policy and Crisis Management Operations Power, purpose and domestic politics Benjamin Pohl

EU Security Policy and Crisis Management A quest for coherence Nicole Koenig The EU, Strategy and Security Policy Regional and strategic challenges Edited by Laura Chappell, Jocelyn Mawdsley and Petar Petrov EU–US Cooperation on Internal Security Building a Transatlantic Regime Dimitrios Anagnostakis

EU Foreign Policy, Transitional Justice and Mediation Principle, policy and practice Laura Davis

EU Security Strategies Extending the EU System of Security Governance Edited by Spyros Economides and James Sperling

The European Defence Agency Arming Europe Edited by Nikolaos Karampekios and Iraklis Oikonomou

European Union Military Operations A Collective Action Perspective Niklas I.M. Nováky

European Union Military Operations A Collective Action Perspective

Niklas I.M. Nováky

First published 2018 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 Niklas I.M. Nováky The right of Niklas I.M. Nováky to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-10479-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-10203-0 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear

To my wife Neva, for all her love and support

Contents



List of tables Preface Acknowledgements List of abbreviations

1

New frontier: the deployment of European Union military operations

2

Revelations: a multi-­level collective action approach

25

3

Out of the shadows: Operation Althea in Bosnia and Herzegovina

50

4

To tame a land: Operation Artemis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

76

5

Déjà-vu: EUFOR RD Congo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

105

6

Gangland: Operation Atalanta off the coast of Somalia

132

7

The aftermath: conclusions and final thoughts

159



Index

178

viii ix xiii xv

1

Tables

1.1 Launched EU military operations, 2003–17 1.2 How different levels impact the deployment process of an EU military operation 2.1 Possible joint product expectations from EU military operations 3.1 Joint product expectations from Operation Althea 4.1 Joint product expectations from Operation Artemis 5.1 Joint product expectations from EUFOR RD Congo 6.1 Joint product expectations from Operation Atalanta 7.1 Overview of joint product expectations

7 18 37 60 93 117 140 172

Preface

I did not initially plan to write this book. Back in 2010 when I began my doctoral studies at the University of Aberdeen, my original idea was to write my thesis on burden sharing in the context of military operations launched in the framework of the European Union’s (EU’s) Common (formerly European) Security and Defence Policy (ESDP/CSDP). The subject of burden sharing interested me because I wanted to make sense of how EU member states shared the burden of conducting military operations, often in regions in which few – if any – of them have had clear interests at stake. Thus, I spent the first year of my doctoral studies conducting research on the subject, and even presented a paper containing some early and unrefined ideas on it at a workshop at the JMCE Research Student Workshop at King’s College London in September 2011. Over time, however, I became increasingly interested in the more fundamental question of why the EU deploys military operations in the first place. There were at least three different reasons for this. The first was that it had never happened before in the long history of international relations that an actor that began its life as a regulator of coal and steel production among its members eventually created a capability to deploy military force. I had always been taught during my undergraduate and postgraduate studies that, in addition to states, military force can only be used by alliances, such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), or international organisations created specifically for ensuring peace, such as the United Nations (UN). Thus, as a military actor, the EU seemed completely different to other actors that have traditionally used military force. The second reason was that the deployment of military operations seemed to be at odds with what I had learned about the EU’s ‘normative power’ self-­image. Since normative power, as conceptualised by Ian Manners, the concept’s inventor, is about influencing others through the attractiveness of one’s norms and values, it seemed odd to me that an actor that was said to take pride from being such a power would feel the need to develop a capacity to use force. This was especially the case because military power could almost be considered to be the polar opposite of normative power. The third reason was that, at the time when I began working on it, no one had yet tackled the subject of the deployment of EU military operations comprehensively. Although scholars such as Ståle Ulriksen, Catriona Gourlay, Catriona Mace, Catherine Gegout, and

x   Preface Alexander Mattelaer among others had published papers on the subject, there were yet no book-­length studies available on it in the market. Since, then, however, Hylke Dijkstra, Benjamin Pohl, and Katarina Engberg have all published excellent books on the subject, which have significantly improved our understanding of the factors that contribute to the EU’s decision to launch operations. They also helped me when writing this book, for which I am very grateful. Thus, although this is no longer the first book on the deployment of EU operations, I hope that it will provide something new to those readers who are already familiar with the work of Dijkstra, Pohl, and Engberg. After I started working on my thesis, I began to feel after a while that I had begun to study the deployment of EU military operations somewhat too late. The reason for this was that, at the time, the most recent military operation with an executive mandate the EU had launched was Operation Atalanta, the on-­going naval anti-­piracy operation off the coast of Somalia, and it had already been a few years since it had become operational. In fact, it seemed for a while in the early 2010s that the EU had completely stopped the deployment of military operations, and it would focus exclusively on various types of capacity building, training, and civilian missions in the future. During one research group meeting at the University of Aberdeen, we even held a discussion on why this was the case. This feeling was reinforced by the experience of EUFOR Libya, which was established during the 2011 Arab Spring to support the provision of humanitarian assistance in Libya. However, since the Union never received a request for EUFOR from the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), on which it had made the launch of the operation conditional, it was never actually launched. Thus, I felt for a while that I was writing my thesis on a subject that had ceased to be relevant. Following this period of inaction, the deployment of EU military operations took off again in 2014. In 2014, the EU launched EUFOR RCA, which was a bridging operation that was designed to contribute to the provision of a safe and secure environment in the Central African Republic (CAR). Then a year later, the Union launched EUNAVFOR Med – later renamed Operation Sophia after a baby that a rescued migrant had on-­board a German frigate – to disrupt the business model of human smuggling and trafficking networks in the Mediterranean. Sophia is a unique operation because it is the first time the EU has addressed an issue that is essentially a domestic security problem – that is, human smuggling and trafficking – with military means through CSDP. It also represents an important turning point in the development of CSDP, as it suggests that CSDP is becoming increasingly active also in the area of border control. No one ever wishes for the deployment of military operations because, whenever there is a need for them, it usually means that vulnerable people are suffering in difficult circumstances somewhere in the world. However, the deployments of EUFOR and Sophia demonstrated that the active phase of military CSDP had not ended with the deployment of Operation Atalanta in 2008. Since most of the research for this book was conducted before 2014, all of its case studies – that is, Operation Althea in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Operation Artemis and EUFOR RD Congo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Preface   xi (DRC), and Operation Atalanta in the Indian Ocean – are operations that were launched before the Lisbon Treaty entered into force in 2009. This is why, in the chapters that follow, the book uses mainly the term ESDP instead of CSDP. The latter term is used only when the book refers explicitly to EU security policy after the Lisbon Treaty had already entered into force. Some readers might feel that the case studies are already somewhat ‘dated’ because it has been 15 years since Artemis, the earliest of them, and ten years since Atalanta, the most recent of them, were launched. Furthermore, all of them have already been covered to a varying extent in various journal articles, books, think tank papers, and theses. However, few scholars have previously analysed their deployment processes in the same level of detail as this book. I therefore hope that the empirical chapters will offer something new to those who are already familiar with the cases, and are easy to follow to those who are not familiar with them from before. I also hope that the new theoretical framework that is developed in Chapter 2 boosts the relevance of the cases studies further. It is called the multi-­level collective action approach because it relies on a combination of multiple levels of analysis and collective action theory. While building the framework, I became interested in collective action theory after reading Hans Dorussen, Emil J. Kirchner, and James Sperling’s 2007 article ‘Sharing the Burden of Collective Security in the European Union’ in the journal International Organization. It was recommended to me by Professor Michael E. Smith, my PhD supervisor. The article used Todd Sandler’s theory on joint products to explain burden-­sharing dynamics among EU member states in the field of collective security. After reading it, I became convinced that collective action theory, especially the joint product model, could also be applied to explain how EU member states form their initial preferences at the national level towards prospective deployments. Combined with insights on how various pressures at the international level cause the deployment of an operation to enter into the EU’s agenda, and how the member states negotiate at the EU level to accommodate their different national preferences, I thought that it would allow me to create a powerful new theoretically informed framework of analysis for explaining the deployment of EU military operations. Thus, I hope the reader agrees with my framework, and perhaps even finds it useful in his/her own research. One of the main findings of this book is that EU member states supported the deployment of EU military operations in 2003–08 because they wanted to produce a club good – that is, a benefit that could only be enjoyed by them. More specifically, they wanted the ESDP to become more credible, which was a key factor that helped drive the deployment of early operations such as Concordia, Artemis, and Althea. It should be remembered that, before 2003, the EU had never deployed a military operation of any kind. Furthermore, its ambitions to become a more influential international actor were viewed with scepticism by those who remembered its ineffective response to the wars of Yugoslav secession in the 1990s. Thus, a key driving force behind the deployment of early operations was to demonstrate to the world that the EU had become able to undertake even relatively large operations to ensure peace and stability in conflict-­ridden countries on its own. However, as the Union continued to deploy

xii   Preface operations, the power of this incentive decreased as there was no longer a need to showcase the EU’s ability to undertake autonomous military operations – the world eventually already learned that it is. From the case studies, the deployment process of EUFOR RD Congo was particularly difficult because most member states no longer favoured the deployment of an EU operation to the DRC just for the sake of facilitating the production of a club good. This issue has also decreased the member states enthusiasm towards more recent operations, such as EUFOR RCA in the CAR. Another theme that is present in this book but will disappear in 2019 is the United Kingdom’s (UK’s) EU membership. The case studies focus primarily on analysing the preference formation of France, Germany, and the UK towards prospective deployments. I chose to focus on these member states because they are the EU’s biggest military powers and also because their views on the purpose and role of the ESDP vis-­à-vis NATO are different. Also, I wanted to make the findings of this book easily comparable to those generated by other scholars, who also focused on the same member states. The case studies showed that the UK supported the deployment of EU military operations because it wanted the Union to have a credible military arm. It should not be forgotten that it was British Prime Minister Tony Blair who, together with French President Jacques Chirac, called for the Union to develop a capacity for ‘autonomous action, backed up by credible military forces, the means to decide to use them, and a readiness to do so, in order to respond to international crises’ at Saint-­Malo in 1998 (Rutten 2001: 8). However, the case studies also showed that the UK was willing to block the deployment of EU operations whenever it felt that they undermined NATO primacy in Europe. The deployment process of Operation Althea, for example, was slow because the UK and the United States (US) felt that France and Germany were pushing for an EU operation in BiH to undermine NATO. In the same way, the UK initially opposed the deployment of Operation Atalanta in 2008 because NATO was already present in the Indian Ocean. Thus, while the UK has encouraged the development of the ESDP/ CSDP and supported the deployment of operations in its framework, it was always willing to hit the brake if it felt that the ESDP/CSDP was developing in the wrong direction. Although no one yet knows for certain how Brexit will affect the deployment of future EU military operations, it may occasionally make it easier. This issue is discussed in more detail in the conclusion. I hope you, the reader, will find this book interesting and that you will learn something new from it about EU military operations and collective action theory. If it accomplishes this, I will be delighted. Lastly, I would like to emphasise that I am alone responsible for any mistakes, errors, or omissions that you might encounter on the pages that follow. I do hope there are none left, but let me apologise in advance just in case you find one!

Bibliography Rutten, M., 2001. From St-­Malo to Nice – European Defence: Core Documents. Chaillot Paper N. 47. Paris: Institute for Security Studies of WEU.

Acknowledgements

During the process of writing this book, I have benefited immensely from the support and encouragement that I have received from numerous colleagues, friends, and relatives. Together, they made it much easier, more enjoyable, and more enlightening than it would have otherwise been. It is therefore a delightful exercise, but also a humbling one, to think back and remember all those who helped me conclude this project, one way or another. The biggest thank you of all goes self-­evidently to Professor Michael E. Smith, my PhD supervisor, without whom this book would have never happened. During my doctoral studies at the University of Aberdeen, Professor Smith was a constant source of support, advice, and inspiration for me. He read numerous drafts of the individual chapters, and the thesis as a whole, and always came back with constructive feedback that helped me refine my ideas further. More importantly, he helped me transform from a student of EU security policy into an early career scholar. He was an excellent mentor, but now he is also a friend. Also from the University of Aberdeen, I would like to thank Dr Andrew Glencross and Dr Joanne McEvoy, who were my secondary supervisors. Dr Glencross provided helpful feedback on early drafts of some of the individual chapters, and Dr McEvoy read and commented on the entire manuscript before it was submitted to the internal and external examiners. In addition, I would like to thank Dr Giovanni Arcudi, Dr Benjamin Pohl, Dr Nicola Chelotti, and Dr Sofia Sebastian, who completed their postdoctoral projects as part of the same European Research Council (ERC) funded project of which my thesis was also part of. They provided comments on some early drafts of the individual chapters, which helped me develop them further. While drafting the individual chapters, I benefited immensely from the support of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel’s (VUB’s) Institute of European Studies (IES), which kindly hosted me as a Visiting Fellow from 2011 to 2014. Due to its in-­house expertise of EU security policy, the IES was an ideal environment for me to conduct research on the deployment of EU military operations and prepare the first full draft of my thesis. Its support was also crucial for my fieldwork in Brussels, and it also enabled me to live in the same city with my wife. Although I owe a big thank you to the entire IES team, I am especially grateful

xiv   Acknowledgements for the support and encouragement that I received from Professor Eva Gross, Professor Alexander Mattelaer, Professor Luis Simon, Professor Joachim Koops, and Professor Sebastian Oberthür. I also owe a thank you to Professor Sven Biscop from the Royal Institute for International Relations, Egmont, for helping me find a place from where to work in Brussels. After the first year of my doctoral studies at the University of Aberdeen, I moved to Brussels to conduct fieldwork and live in the same city with my wife. This meant that I needed to find a place in my new home city from where I could work. Thus, I contacted Professor Biscop because I knew from before that he was based in Brussels. He kindly suggested that I contact Professor Gross from the IES to enquire about the possibility of working from there, which I did. I would also like to thank Professor Mike Smith from the University of Warwick and Mr James Wyllie from the University of Aberdeen, whom I had the pleasure of having as my external and internal thesis examiners respectively. They ensured that my defence was both intellectually stimulating and positively challenging. They also provided me with many comments that helped me refine my thesis further while preparing this book. After my viva, I was encouraged by Dr Gezim Visoka from the Dublin City University (DCU) to turn my thesis into a book. His practical advice on the preparing a book proposal and choosing the right publisher was very helpful, and much appreciated! After submitting the proposal for this book, Dr Hylke Dijkstra from Maastricht University encouraged me to submit the final manuscript slightly earlier than I had originally intended. I greatly appreciated the advice and support he gave me. From the submission of the proposal until the publication of this book, I benefited greatly from the experience and professionalism of Routledge’s excellent editorial team. I owe a special thank you to Senior Editor Andrew Humphrys, who helped me get from a book proposal to an advance contract and then finally to this book, and Senior Editorial Assistant Hannah Ferguson, who patiently advised me on many of the nuts and bolts issues about publishing a book. I also need to thank all those EU, member state, and third-­country officials, who kindly agreed to take time off from their normal work to be interviewed for this project mainly in Brussels, but also in Helsinki and Tallinn. I enjoyed doing every interview, and felt more enlightened after each one of them than I had before. Last but certainly not least, I would like to thank my wife, Neva, for patiently putting up with my academic ambitions and supporting me from the beginning of this project all the way to its end. More than anyone else, she shared with me the triumphs and frustrations that I experienced while writing this book. She made the good days better, and the bad ones less daunting.

Abbreviations

ACTORD AGFISH AMISON AU BiH CAR CDU/CSU CFE CFSP CMC CMPD COMPET CONOPS CSDP CTF DDRRR DRC DSACEUR EC ECSC EDA EDC EEA EEAS EEC EFTA ENP EP EPC ESDI ESDP

Activation Order Agricultural and Fisheries Council African Union Mission in Somalia African Union Bosnia and Herzegovina Central African Republic Christian Democratic Union of Germany and Christian Social Union of Bavaria Convention on the Future of Europe Common Foreign and Security Policy Crisis Management Concept Crisis Management and Planning Directorate Competitiveness Council Concept of Operations Common Security and Defence Policy Combined Task Force Demobilisation, Disarmament, Repatriation, Resettlement and Reintegration Democratic Republic of the Congo Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe European Community European Coal and Steel Community European Defence Agency European Defence Community European Economic Area European External Action Service European Economic Community European Free Trade Association European Neighbourhood Policy European Parliament European Political Cooperation European Security and Defence Identity European Security and Defence Policy

xvi   Abbreviations ESS European Security Strategy EU European Union EU NAVCO European Union Naval Coordination action EU NAVFOR European Union Naval Force EUCAP European Union Capacity Building Mission EUFOR European Union Force EUMC European Union Military Committee EUMS European Union Military Staff EUTM European Union Training Mission FBH Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina FDP Free Democratic Party FGDSC Franco-­German Defence and Security Council FHQ Force Headquarters FYROM Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia GAIA Global and All-­Inclusive Agreement in the Democratic Republic of the Congo GNI Gross National Income HHG Helsinki Headline Goal ICD Inter-­Congolese Dialogue ICTY International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia IDP Internally Displaced Person IEC Independent Electoral Commission IEMF Interim Emergency Multinational Force IFOR Implementation Force IMB International Maritime Bureau IMO International Maritime Organisation IMP Integrated Maritime Policy IO International Organisation IOC Initial Operational Capability IR International Relations IRC International Rescue Committee ISAF International Security Assistance Force JHA Justice and Home Affairs JNA Yugoslav People’s Army MND-­N Multinational Division North MND-­SE Multinational Division Southeast MND-­SW Multinational Division Southwest MNTF-­N Multinational Task Force North MNTF-­SE Multinational Task Force Southeast MONUC United Nations Organisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo MSO Military Strategic Options NAC North Atlantic Council NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organisation NGO Non-­Governmental Organisation

Abbreviations   xvii OHQ OPLAN PMG PSC QMV RUF SAS SFOR SHAPE SNMG SOFA SPD SSR TCE TEU TFG UK UN UNAMSIL UNDPKO UNICEF UNIFIL UNPROFOR UNSCR UPC UPDF USA VLCC WEU WFP WMD

Operational Headquarters Operational Plan Politico-­Military Group Political and Security Committee Qualified Majority Voting Revolutionary United Front Special Air Service Stabilisation Force Supreme Headquarters Allied Power Europe Standing NATO Maritime Group Status of Force Agreement Social Democratic Party of Germany Security Sector Reform Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe Treaty on European Union Transitional Federal Government United Kingdom United Nations United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations United Nations Children’s Fund United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon United Nations Protection Force United Nations Security Council Resolution Union of Congolese Patriots Uganda People’s Defence Forces United States of America Very Large Crude Carrier Western European Union World Food Programme Weapons of Mass Destruction

1 New frontier The deployment of European Union military operations

The European Union has turned into a military power – of a sort. The Economist, 3 April 2003

On 31 March 2003, the European Union (EU) launched Operation Concordia, the first-­ever military operation in the framework of its European (now Common) Security and Defence Policy (ESDP/CSDP).1 Its mission was to contribute to the realisation of a safe and secure environment in Macedonia, which had been ravaged by ethnic conflict in 2001.2 In the 14 years that have passed since Concordia’s launch, the EU has deployed 12 military operations in Europe and Africa. The most recent is EUTM RCA, a training mission launched in 2016 to contribute to defence sector reform in the Central African Republic (CAR). Although the EU’s entry into the business of military crisis management sparked a lively academic debate over whether it was something that an actor that had traditionally seen itself as a ‘civilian’ or ‘normative power’ should do (Manners 2006), military operations have become a surprisingly uncontroversial addition to the Union’s foreign policy toolbox. As one official from European External Action Service (EEAS) noted in 2014, it is nowadays more likely that the EU would have to justify the inaction of CSDP rather than action whenever a crisis erupts (Interview with EEAS official in Brussels, 5 May 2014). For almost half a century, the conventional wisdom in International Relations (IR) held that the ‘high politics’ of security and defence was too sensitive to be dealt at the European level and at odds with the EU’s ‘civilian power’ self-­image (Hoffmann 1966; Duchêne 1972). Given that the creation of the ESDP and the launch of operations in its framework represented a break from this view, they have understandably received a high amount of academic attention. Thus, there already exists a relatively large body of literature on them, which will only grow further as the EU continues to launch new operations (e.g. Merlingen and Ostraukaite 2008; Grevi, Helly, and Keohane 2009; Dijkstra 2013; Engberg 2014; Pohl 2014; Rodt 2014). Although this literature has improved our understanding of the factors that drive the deployment of EU military operations, most of it is descriptive and prescriptive rather than theoretical. Yet, over the past years, there has been a welcome increase in theory-­driven studies on the subject.

2   New frontier Pohl (2014) and Dijkstra (2013), for example, have published books that analyse the deployment of EU operations from liberal and institutionalist perspectives respectively. However, both books draw their conclusions from a mixture of civilian and military operations. This means that there are still few studies that focus exclusively on EU military operations. The only such study available is Engberg’s (2014) book on the circumstances under which the EU undertakes military operations, which uses a descriptive Analytical Tool to identify a set of factors that either drive or inhibit their deployment. Engberg found that the EU tends to undertake military operations when a conflict can be identified as an opportunity, where individual member states or the Union as a whole have intervened before, when the consent of influential local actors are secured, when resources are available, and when the operation would complement the work of other actors (Engberg 2014: 182–4). Although knowing that these factors play a role in the deployment of EU military operations helps us understand the logic behind them, it is difficult to evaluate their relative importance without IR theory. This book develops a multi-­level collective action approach for explaining the deployment of EU military operations in 2003–08. It draws from collective action theory, which has so far been underutilised by EU security policy scholars, to answer the research question: why are EU military operations deployed? The book argues that EU military operations were deployed in 2003–08 because the member states expected them to facilitate the production various benefits. More specifically, operations launched in this period were expected communicate to the world that the EU had become a credible autonomous actor in international security. Before presenting the multi-­level collective action approach in Chapter 2, this chapter will introduce the reader to EU security policy and the deployment of EU military operations. It is divided into six sections: the first provides an overview of European efforts to create an autonomous framework for security and defence cooperation since the 1950s, the second provides an overview of EU military operations launched in 2003–17, the third explains why the deployment of those operation is a subject worth studying, the fourth reviews the existing literature on the subject, the fifth lays out the book’s argument, and the sixth outlines the structure of the book. The conclusion summarises the main points of the chapter.

Development of an EU military intervention capability During the Cold War, tensions between the United States of America (USA) and the Soviet Union constrained Europeans’ willingness to create a more robust institutional framework for autonomous foreign and security policy cooperation than the European Political Cooperation (EPC) [Merlingen 2012: 31–2]. The reason for this was that most of them did not want to do anything that would make it appear they were decreasing their commitment to the US-­led North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), which was the cornerstone of their security and defence. Although there had been ambitious proposals for an autonomous European framework for security and defence cooperation, such as the

New frontier   3 1950 Pleven Plan, which would have created a supranational European Defence Community (EDC), they had collapsed due to a lack of consensus. However, after the Cold War, the room for manoeuvre was increased for those who wanted deeper European foreign and security policy cooperation. Furthermore, the Yugoslav Wars, which began after Slovenia’s secession from Yugoslavia in 1991, reinforced these states’ conviction that they needed new institutional structures to deal with post-­Cold War security challenges more effectively. Thus, France and Germany worked hard to convince their partners in the then European Economic Community (EEC) of the necessity of creating a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) for the EU (Merlingen 2012: 32). In the end, the CFSP became one of the three pillars of the EU, which was created by the 1992 Maastricht Treaty. Although CFSP inherited the EPC’s intergovernmental structure, it included ‘all questions related to the security of the Union, including the eventual framing of a common defence policy, which might in time lead to a common defence’ (Hill and Smith 2000: 155). Furthermore, the Maastricht Treaty also stated that the EU requests the Western European Union (WEU) to ‘elaborate and implement decisions and actions of the Union which have defence implication’ (Hill and Smith 2000: 155). When negotiating the Maastricht Treaty, EEC countries agreed to examine and possibly revise certain sections of it in 1996 (Hill and Smith 2000: 168). One of these sections was CFSP because the policy’s structures had proven unsatisfactory. Following a difficult negotiation process, EU member states agreed to the Amsterdam Treaty in 1997. Although it was expected to improve CFSP’s functioning, it ultimately failed to do so due to a lack of political will among the member states. However, the treaty introduced several reforms, which proved to be significant for the EU’s ambition to become an autonomous actor in international security. First, it created the office of the High Representative for the CFSP, who would ‘assist the Council in matters coming within the scope of ’ CFSP, ‘in particular through contributing to the formulation, preparation and implementation of policy decisions, and, when appropriate and acting on behalf of the Council at the request of the Presidency, through conducting political dialogue with third parties’ (Hill and Smith 2000: 178). Second, the member states also agreed to incorporate the so-­called Petersberg Tasks, which were originally adopted by the WEU in 1992, into the Treaty on European Union (TEU). At the time, these included ‘humanitarian and rescue tasks, peacekeeping tasks and tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peacemaking’ (Hill and Smith 2000: 174). The most important development, however, took place in 1998. In December, France and the United Kingdom (UK) held their annual bilateral meeting in Saint-­Malo, France. During this meeting, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac agreed to a joint declaration on European defence, which called for the development of a robust security and defence policy for the EU. The Saint-­Malo Declaration stated that the EU ‘needs to be in a position to play its full role on the international stage’ (Rutten 2001: 8). To this end, it saw that the EU ‘must have the capacity for autonomous action, backed

4   New frontier up by credible military forces, the means to decide to use them, and a readiness to do so, in order to respond to international crises’ (Rutten 2001: 8). It also emphasised that the EU would take military action only ‘where the Alliance as a whole is not engaged’ (Rutten 2001: 8). However, they emphasised that the EU must be given appropriate structures and a capacity for analysis of situations, sources of intelligence, and a capability for relevant strategic planning, without unnecessary duplication, taking account of the existing assets of the WEU and the evolution of its relations with the EU. (Rutten 2001: 8–9) In this regard, France and the UK saw that the EU ‘will also need to have recourse to suitable military means (European capabilities pre-­designated within NATO’s European pillar or national or multinational European means outside the NATO framework)’ (Rutten 2001: 9). The ESDP was set up quickly following the Saint-­Malo Declaration. During the German EU Council Presidency in spring 1999, many important issues relating to the policy’s creation were advanced. This debate culminated at the Cologne European Council on 3–4 June, where EU heads of state and government discussed the ESDP’s institutional framework and possible deployment scenarios for future operations. With regards to the institutional framework, they agreed that conducting EU operations ‘may require’ regular or ad hoc meetings of the General Affairs Council, a Political and Security Committee (PCS) consisting of national representatives with experience from political and military affairs, an EU Military Committee (EUMC) consisting of national military representatives making recommendations to the PSC, an EU Military Staff (EUMS) including a Situation Centre, and other institutions, such a Satellite Centre and an Institute for Security Studies (Rutten 2001: 44). With regards to deployment scenarios, it was agreed that the EU would deploy two types of military operations: (1) ‘EU-­led operations using NATO assets and capabilities’ or (2) ‘EU-­led operations without recourse to NATO assets and capabilities’ – that is, autonomous EU operations (Rutten 2001: 44). The ESDP was created formally at the 10–11 December 1999 Helsinki European Council. During this meeting, EU heads of state and government agreed ‘to develop an autonomous capacity to take decisions and, where NATO as a whole is not engaged, to launch and conduct EU-­led military operations in response to international crises’ (Rutten 2001: 82). Due to concerns that this process would lead to the EU’s militarisation and US warnings against duplicating existing NATO assets and capabilities, it was emphasised that the ‘process will avoid unnecessary duplication and does not imply the creation of a European army’ (Rutten 2001: 82). Furthermore, the Helsinki European Council agreed the so-­ called Helsinki Headline Goal (HHG), which was to become the centrepiece of the new ESDP. The purpose of the HHG was to facilitate the ESDP’s development so that EU member states would ‘be able, by 2003, to deploy within 60 days and sustain for at least one year military forces of up to 50,000–60,000

New frontier   5 persons capable of the full range of Petersberg tasks’ (Rutten 2001: 82). More specifically, these were to be ‘militarily self-­sustaining with the necessary command, control and intelligence capabilities, logistics, other combat support services and additionally, as appropriate, air and naval elements’ (Rutten 2001: 85). In addition, the Helsinki European Council agreed that the institutional framework proposed by the Cologne European Council would be established. To prepare the EU for the 2004 ‘big bang’ enlargement to Central and Eastern Europe, which increased its membership from 15 to 25 states, the European Council approved the Nice Treaty in December 2000. With regards to the CFSP/ ESDP, the treaty made some small adjustments by codifying what had already been agreed. It was decided that the EU would assume the crisis management functions of the WEU, thus effectively incorporating the organisation into the Union (Rutten 2001: 173). In addition, the Nice Treaty extended the procedure known as ‘enhanced cooperation’ to CFSP. This meant that a subgroup of a minimum of eight EU member states could implement CFSP decisions and use EU institutions and funds towards this end. However, it should be noted that the Nice Treaty stated explicitly that the process of enhanced cooperation ‘shall not relate to matters having military or defence implications’ (Rutten 2001: 210). In other words, it would not be possible for a subgroup of EU member states to undertake military operations. Furthermore, the treaty also incorporated the ESDP related institutional structures that were created after the Helsinki European Council (PSC, EUMC, EUMS) formally into the TEU. After the ESDP was created, the EU needed to set strategic priorities for it. The need for such priorities became clear in 2003 during the transatlantic rift over the Iraq War, which caused bitter divisions among EU member states. It was therefore hoped that a European Security Strategy (ESS) would enhance the EU’s cohesion and prevent similar divisions from emerging in the future. Thus, in December 2003, the European Council adopted the ESS. Although only 14 pages long, the document identified five key threats that the EU would focus on countering through its CFSP/ESDP. These were terrorism, the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), regional conflicts, state failure, and organised crime. Although it was meant to be a strategy that would guide the ESDP, the ESS did not specify the circumstances in which the EU would use military force. In fact, it downplayed the utility of military force in addressing contemporary security challenges in general by emphasising that ‘none of the new threats is purely military; nor can any be tackled by purely military means’ (CEU 2003: 7). The ESS saw that dealing with terrorism ‘may require a mixture of intelligence, police, judicial, military and other means’. With regards to failed states, it stated that ‘military instruments may be needed to restore order’. Furthermore, the ESS saw that military assets ‘may be needed in the post conflict phase’ of regional conflicts (CEU 2003: 7). Like the ESS, the 2004 Battlegroup Concept was also meant to increase the ESDP’s effectiveness. Following Operation Artemis, the first EU military operation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), France and the UK proposed in November 2003 that the EU ‘should be capable and willing’ to deploy

6   New frontier ‘coherent and credible battle-­group sized forces, each around 1,500 troops offered by a single nation or through a multinational or framework nation force package’ (Missiroli 2003: 281). This proposal was elaborated in the February 2004 Franco-­British-German ‘food for thought paper’, which outlined a ‘battle-­ group concept’. They saw that the EU should develop approximately 1,500strong force packages that could be deployed to a crisis area with 15 days’ notice. Once they would arrive in the crisis area, the battlegroups could be sustained for 30 days without rotations and up to 120 days with rotations. In May, the Council approved the Headline Goal 2010 in which the Union’s ability ‘to deploy force packages at high readiness as a response to a crisis either as a stand­alone force or as part of a larger operation enabling follow-­on phases’ was ‘a key element’ (CEU 2004: 7). Furthermore, the European Council endorsed the Headline Goal 2010 in June. Although the Battlegroup Concept has been operational since 2005, no battlegroups have so far been deployed. Thus, many member states have become frustrated with the battlegroups and would like to see them reformed (Interviews with national officials in Brussels, January–May 2014). Although the Nice Treaty made some adjustments to the CFSP/ESDP, the 2009 Lisbon Treaty introduced more significant reforms. It was largely based on the 2004 Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe (TEC), which collapsed after French and Dutch voters rejected it in 2005. The Lisbon Treaty abolished the EU’s pillar structure, which had been in place since the Maastricht Treaty’s entry into force in 1993. It also granted the Union legal personality, which allows the EU to conclude international agreements when making deals with other organisations and third-­countries. To improve the coherence of EU foreign policy, the Lisbon Treaty also merged the portfolios of the External Relations Commissioner and the High Representative for CFSP. Thus, the person holding the new position would be both a Vice-­President of the Commission and the chair of the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council (FAC).3 The holder of this powerful office would have the title of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. To support the work of the High Representative, the Lisbon Treaty established the EEAS, which was launched in December 2010. The treaty also included a separate section on security and defence policy for the first time in the EU’s history. Moreover, it expanded the Petersberg Tasks to include joint disarmament operations, military advice and assistance tasks, and post-­conflict stabilisation tasks in addition to the original ones.

Deployment of EU military operations Since 2003, the EU has launched 12 military operations. Eight of them have had an executive mandate, which authorises them to intervene forcefully if necessary to, for example, stop an outbreak of violence (Emerson and Gross 2007: 9). Table 1.1 provides an overview of all EU military operations, the missions of which have ranged from ensuring a safe and secure environment in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) to protecting maritime traffic from pirates off the coast of

FYROM DRC BiH DRC Chad/CAR Somalia Somalia Mali CAR CAR Mediterranean CAR

Operation Concordia Operation Artemis Operation Althea EUFOR RD Congo EUFOR Tchad/RCA Operation Atalanta EUTM Somalia EUTM Mali EUFOR RCA EUMAM RCA Operation Sophia EUTM RCA

Executive Executive Executive Executive Executive Executive Non-executive Non-executive Executive Non-executive Executive Non-executive

Mandate

Source: Various pages and documents from www.eeas.europa.eu/.

Deployment country/region

Name

Table 1.1  Launched EU military operations, 2003–17

Berlin Plus Autonomous Berlin Plus Autonomous Autonomous Autonomous Autonomous Autonomous Autonomous Autonomous Autonomous Autonomous

Type 400 1,800 7,000 2,000 3,300 1,800 125 560 1,000 60 1,000 170

Max size

31/03/2003 05/06/2003 02/12/2004 12/06/2006 28/01/2008 08/12/2008 10/04/2010 18/02/2013 01/04/2014 16/03/2015 22/06/2015 16/07/2016

Start date

15/12/2003 01/09/2003 On going 30/11/2006 15/03/2009 On going On going On going 15/03/2015 On going On going On going

End date

8   New frontier Somalia. Before looking at them in more detail, it is necessary to define two terms that appear frequently in this book: ‘EU military operation’ and ‘deployment’. This book prefers the term ‘EU military operation’ to ‘ESDP military operation’ or ‘CSDP military operation’ because it refers to both. Although the existing literature often treats ESDP and CSDP as synonyms, this book prefers not to do so for historical accuracy and because there are legal differences between the two. The EEAS sees that a ‘CSDP military operation/mission’ is a ‘CSDP crisis management operation subject to a military chain of command and financed through ATHENA mechanism as regards common costs’ (CEU 2013: 46). This definition implies three things. First, an EU military operation is a crisis management operation. Second, an EU military operation is subject to a military chain of command. Each EU military operation is commanded by career officers seconded by the member states. The positions of Operation Commander and Force Commander, the two highest positions in an EU military operation’s chain of command, are usually given to soldiers with a General’s rank. Third, an EU military operation is also financed through the Athena mechanism with regards to common costs. The basic principle for financing EU military operations is ‘costs lie where they fall’, which means that each member state is responsible for financing its own contribution. However, each operation has certain common costs that cannot be attributed directly to any specific member state, such as running the headquarters, transportation, and accommodation. These are financed collectively through the Athena mechanism, which is a permanent financial instrument outside the EU budget that was created in 2004. Athena is funded by the member states based on their Gross National Income (GNI), except for Denmark due to its ESDP opt out.4 All member states are expected to pay their shares of an operation’s common costs, even if they do not participate in the operation in question. However, Athena-­funded common costs are usually no more than 5–10 per cent of an operation’s total costs (Interviews with national and EU officials in Brussels, 2011–14). The EEAS’s definition is unnecessarily technical. An EU military operation could be defined more simply as an EU collective action with military or defence implications involving the deployment personnel. The types of EU operations that have military or defence implications are listed in the Petersberg Tasks, which define the types of military tasks that can be carried out in the framework of the ESDP/CSDP. They make it clear that an EU operation does not have to involve the use of force to be considered a military operation. In fact, any EU operation that involves military personnel and has a military chain of command classifies as a military operation. The second term that needs a definition is ‘deployment’. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, deployment is ‘[t]he action of deploying’. More specifically, it is the noun that describes the action of moving troops from one place to another for military action or position. This book uses ‘deployment’ to describe the action of moving an EU military operation to its target area. However, this action is not a stand-­alone event; it is the end result of a long

New frontier   9 process that begins when the idea of the deployment is first raised. Thus, before an operation can be deployed, there are usually numerous steps that have to be taken from the point when the idea of deployment is raised to the point when the deployment can be carried out. These steps usually include related activities such as planning, negotiations and force generation. Thus, to explain why an EU military operation is deployed, it is necessary to focus on its entire deployment process. The first EU military operation was Operation Concordia, which operated in Macedonia from March to December 2003. Its mission was to contribute to the realisation of a safe and secure environment in the country and ensure the continued implementation of the 2001 Ohrid Framework Agreement, which had ended the conflict between the Albanian National Liberation Army and the Macedonian security forces. Before the deployment of Concordia, a NATO force that had been in the country since the Ohrid Agreement was signed had carried out this task. Thus, when Concordia was launched, the EU took over an existing NATO operation called Allied Harmony. In addition to be being the first EU military operation, Concordia was the first operation planned and conducted in the Berlin Plus framework. This framework is based on a 2002 agreement between NATO and the EU, which allows the Union to use the Alliance’s planning and command and control assets when conducting military operations. However, despite its novelty, Concordia was a modest endeavour in terms of its size and mandate. At the time of its launch, it consisted of 345 personnel of which only 200 were soldiers. Furthermore, given that the security climate in Macedonia had improved significantly since the Ohrid Agreement was signed, it did not face any major challenges during its deployment period. The second EU military operation was Operation Artemis, which operated in the DRC from June to September 2003. It was deployed in response to a request from then UN, which needed assistance in stabilising the town of Bunia in the Ituri region. Unlike Operation Concordia, Artemis was a medium-­size operation with a robust mandate. It consisted of approximately 1,800 troops and was authorised ‘to take all necessary measures to fulfil its mandate’, meaning that it could use lethal force if necessary. Even when compared with more recent EU military operations, such as EUFOR RCA, which operated in the CAR in 2014–15, Artemis’s deployment process was extremely quick. The period between the EU’s expression of readiness to deploy the operation and its launch is less than a month. After Artemis was concluded, the EU drew lessons from the experience and used them as the basis for the Battlegroup Concept. Another important feature of Artemis was that it was planned and conducted by the EU without assistance from NATO. Unlike Concordia, which took advantage of Berlin Plus, Artemis did not rely on any NATO assets. This made it the EU’s first-­ever autonomous military operation. The third EU military operation is Operation Althea, the on-­going operation in BiH that replaced NATO’s Stabilisation Force (SFOR) in December 2004. It was deployed to continue the implementation of the military aspects of the 1995 Dayton Agreement, which was to bring peace to the war-­torn country. Like

10   New frontier Operation Concordia, Althea took over from an existing NATO operation, the Stabilisation Force (SFOR), and was planned and conducted in the Berlin Plus framework. Although there were similarities between Concordia and Althea, the latter was a much larger and more ambitious operation, especially in the beginning of its mandate. When it took over from SFOR, the strength of the operation was approximately 7,000 personnel. However, due to BiH’s improving security climate, its size has been reduced over the years and currently stands at 600 personnel. The fourth EU military operation was EUFOR RD Congo, which was deployed to the DRC in 2006. Its strength was approximately 2,500 personnel and it operated in the country for four months. Like Operation Artemis, it was requested by the UN because it needed assistance in ensuring stability in the country during the 2006 Congolese general elections. EU member states eventually agreed that they would deploy an operation to ensure security and stability in Kinshasa, the DRC’s capital, during the country’s elections. Since most member states were reluctant to deploy large numbers of troops to the DRC, it was agreed that EUFOR would have an ‘over the horizon’ force in the neighbouring Gabon that would be flown over to the DRC should the situation in the country deteriorate. Thus, in case the situation in the DRC would deteriorate, this force could be flown to the country very rapidly. The fifth EU military operation was EUFOR Tchad/RCA, which was launched in January 2008 and concluded in March 2009. It operated in eastern Chad and north-­eastern CAR with the aim of improving the security climate in the region. EUFOR was mandated to contribute to the protection of civilians, facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid and humanitarian workers, contribute to the protection of UN personnel and infrastructure, and to ensure the freedom of movement of its own and UN personnel. Although it operated in parts of Chad and the CAR, its deployment was driven primarily by the conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region. However, despite its humanitarian purpose, EUFOR’s planning process was extremely difficult because EU member states lacked the political will to send soldiers to a former French colony. Although France had proposed the deployment, it did not want to lead it to avoid accusations that the ESDP is only an umbrella framework for French national operations in Africa. Thus, the overall command of EUFOR was given to Ireland even though France was the operation’s largest troop contributor. The sixth EU military operation is Operation Atalanta, the on-­going naval operation off the coast of Somalia launched in December 2008. It protects maritime traffic from pirates that threaten the strategic shipping routes that pass through the region. Following a piracy surge in spring 2008, France and Spain began to push the EU to improve the security of the shipping routes in the area. The EU eventually decided that it would deploy a naval operation to contribute to the growing international campaign against Somali piracy. In addition to being the EU’s first-­ever naval operation, Atalanta is arguably the first EU operation that has dealt with a clear threat to its member states’ core interests. Although the previous operations in Macedonia, Congo, Bosnia, and Chad had

New frontier   11 improved the member states’ security, they had done so indirectly by reducing the impact of various negative externalities, such as refugee flows. The seventh EU military operation was EUFOR RCA, which was launched in April 2014 and concluded in March 2015. It contributed to the creation of a safe and secure environment in the CAR, which became engulfed in sectarian violence in 2013. To put an end to sectarian violence in the country, France deployed Operation Sangaris, a national military operation, in December 2013. At the same time, the EU expressed its readiness to contribute to the CAR’s stabilisation, including through the CSDP. Thus, the January 2014 FAC decided that the EU would deploy a military operation to the country that would secure several districts in Bangui, the CAR capital, thus relieving French national forces from that responsibility. Following a difficult force generation process, during which most EU member states were extremely reluctant to contribute troops and other capabilities to the operation, EUFOR was launched on 1 April. The most recent EU military operation is Operation Sophia, the on-­going naval operation in the Mediterranean launched in June 2015. Following the drowning of over 800 migrants in a single incident in April 2015, EU member states began to discuss immediate options to prevent further loss of life in the Mediterranean. Following discussions in the FAC and the European Council in April, it was agreed that the EU would launch a naval operation that would ‘identify, capture and dispose of vessels and enabling assets used or suspected of being used by migrant smugglers or traffickers’ (EU 2015: 32). Although the operation targeted the specific issue of migration, it was framed as part of the EU’s broader strategy towards the region, ‘including the cooperation with our partners in Africa, particularly in the Sahel region, and the work with the International Organisation for Migration and the UNHCR’ (CEU 2015). Furthermore, the EU emphasised that it was determined to contribute to saving lives, dismantling the networks of the smugglers of human beings and addressing the root causes of migration.

Studying EU military operations At this point, the reader might be wondering why the author has chosen to write a book about the deployment of EU military operations. After all, it has been said that they are ‘operations of choice rather than necessity’ (Mattelaer 2013: 73), which deal with EU member states’ second order concerns rather than their core interests (Hyde-­Price 2006: 222). The reasons for this view are twofold. First, although crises in places like Central Africa, Chad, or Congo may affect the member states’ interests, they pose ‘no direct threat to the primary interests of any of these states, let alone the EU in its entirety’ (Mattelaer 2013: 73). This means that the deployment of EU operations has not been driven by a need to protect the core interest of its member states. Second, with two exceptions, EU military operations have not dealt with high-­profile international security issues. When operations Concordia and Artemis were deployed in 2003, the most high-­ profile international security issues were the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. When

12   New frontier EUFOR RCA was launched in 2014, the most pressing international security problems were the Ukraine crisis, the Syrian civil war, and the threat posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The only EU military operations that have clearly served the member states’ security interests are operations Atalanta and Sophia. Merlingen (2012: 167) sees that Atalanta is the EU operation ‘that most clearly reflects EU security concerns’. Since ‘95 percent of EU sea-­based trade passes through the Gulf of Aden, the threat posed by piracy in the gulf to EU economic security played a central role in its deployment’ (Merlingen 2012: 167). Sophia also reflects EU security concerns because it is expected that targeting the business model of human smugglers and traffickers will decrease the flow of migrants and refugees from North Africa to Europe. Thus, with these two exceptions, EU operations have dealt mainly with second order international security issues that fall somewhere in the grey area between Hoffmann’s (1966) high and low politics. However, there are at least four reasons for studying the deployment of EU military operations. First, in the history of international relations, it is unprecedented that an organisation that began its life as a regulator of coal and steel production has developed a military intervention capability. When the EU’s forefather, the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), was created in 1952, its purpose was to establish a common market for coal and steel that would eliminate competition over the production of these strategic resources. Then French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman famously argued that it would make war between France and Germany ‘not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible’ (Hill and Smith 2000: 13). Over time, the ECSC paved the way for the creation of the EEC and then finally the EU. The Union’s original raison d’être, therefore, was the elimination of conflict within its borders through cooperation and dialogue, not the projection of power beyond them. Thus, studying how and for what reasons the Union chooses to deploy military operations is an interesting research area. Second, since the TEU requires that the decisions to establish and deploy an EU military operation be taken unanimously by the member states, studying how such a large group of countries can reach an agreement on something as sensitive as deploying troops out of area makes for a fascinating study. When countries discuss the possibility of undertaking a joint military operation, it is common to hear about the different interests and opinions that tend to make such collective actions difficult, sometimes impossible. The same applies to the deployment of EU military operations. Before the launch of Operation Artemis in 2003, for example, the member states disagreed on the necessity of the operation. France was very keen on it, whereas Germany thought that the EU should not deploy troops to the DRC. However, despite these differences, the member states came to an agreement and launched Artemis. It should be noted that, although some predicted that enlargement would complicate the EU’s decision-­ making ability, the Union has maintained the ability to launch military operations, even though its membership has enlarged three times since the first operation was launched. During the ESDP’s existence, the EU enlarged from 15

New frontier   13 member states to 25 in 2004, from 25 to 27 in 2007, and from 27 to 28 in 2013.5 Thus, studying why and how EU member states can agree on the deployment of military operations is an interesting research area. Third, the EU does not intervene militarily in every crisis, even if requested. In 2003 and 2006, for example, the UN requested the Union to deploy a military operation to the DRC to assist its own mission in the country (MONUC). The EU answered both requests positively, which led to the deployment of Operation Artemis in 2003, and EUFOR RD Congo in 2006. In 2008, the UN requested that the Union deploy a military operation to the DRC for a third time. This time, however, the EU declined the request (Gowan 2011). Thus, whenever a crisis erupts somewhere, the null hypothesis should be that the Union will not intervene in it militarily; it chooses to do so only in very select cases. This means that studying why the EU chooses to intervene militarily in the select cases in which it does will help us to understand the conditions under which EU military operations are launched, or whether they are strictly ad hoc. It will also help us see if there is a broader strategy that drives their deployment. Fourth, analysing the reasons behind concrete EU actions, such as the deployment of military operations, is the only way to understand the Union’s nature as an international actor. Since Manners published his seminal article on Normative Power Europe (NPE) in 2002, there has been an incredible surge of academic interest towards theorising about the nature of the EU as an international actor. Manners argued that the EU is a normative power that can shape what is considered ‘normal’ in international relations through the attractiveness of its own norms and principles to other actors (Manners 2002: 239). Following his example, other scholars and policy makers have also attempted to conceptualise the nature of the EU. Schnabel and Rocca (2005) see the EU as a ‘potential superpower’, Eriksen (2006) as a ‘cosmopolitan polity’, Zielonka (2008) as an ‘empire’, Moravcsik (2009) as a ‘quiet superpower’, and Toje (2010) as a ‘small power’. However, the problem with these types of conceptualisations is that they are often rooted in abstract theorising and disconnected from what the EU does. In other words, the only way to understand the nature of the Union as an international actor is by analysing the reasons behind the things it does.

Existing literature Since the early 2010s, a group of scholars has picked up the task of explaining the deployment of EU military operations through IR theory (Riddervold 2011; Brummer 2013; Dijkstra 2013; Pohl 2014). Thanks to their work, our theoretical understanding of the phenomenon has improved significantly from what it was at the beginning of the decade and it continues to evolve. The theoretical literature on EU operations can be divided into four categories: realist, liberal intergovernmentalist, institutionalist, and constructivist. Realists analyse EU operations from the perspective of power and interests. They see that those operations are deployed when the interests of the most powerful EU member states converge. This school of thought is represented by

14   New frontier Gegout (2009b: 408–9), who argues that Operation Artemis, EUFOR RD Congo, and EUFOR Tchad/RCA were deployed primarily because France wanted to increase the EU’s international prestige and demonstrate its independence from the US. She sees that the member states’ national interests have changed ‘from promoting the prestige of a state to proving to other powers the existence and efficacy of the EU as a viable, unitary and proactive international actor to other powers’ (Gegout 2009a: 239). This means that they launch military operations ‘to prove the EU’s capacity to act alone’ (Gegout 2005: 435–6). Given that not all interventions can provide the Union with prestige, the EU is very selective in crisis management. Gegout (2009b: 412) sees that if there is a high risk of casualties, for example, the EU will not intervene militarily. Thus, EU military operations are launched when the largest member states – that is, France, Germany, and the UK – identify an opportunity to enhance the Union’s prestige at a low risk of casualties. Liberal intergovernmentalists analyse EU military operations from the perspective of domestic politics. This school of thought is represented by Pohl (2014), who argues that governmental as opposed to national interests have been the main drivers of EU operations. He sees that, in the absence of clear external security threats, democratic governments’ foreign policy decisions are shaped primarily by domestic opportunities and constraints. Given that the main goal of governments is to get re-­elected, Pohl sees that their foreign policy stances reflect attempts to satisfy their home constituencies and dodge potential blame. This leads him to argue that EU governments have to consider two things when the deployment of an operation is considered: first, they might receive a political benefit from demonstrating to their domestic constituencies that they are capable of influencing international events; and second, they might receive a penalty in the form of a public backlash if their constituents perceive that ‘they are paying too high a price in treasure and casualties for foreign policy projects whose benefits are dubious, uncertain or essentially public goods’ (Pohl 2014: 23). Thus, liberal intergovernmentalism argues that the deployment of EU operations depends on the member states’ societal preferences as expressed by the media and foreign policy elites. Institutionalists focus on the role of institutions and bureaucratic actors in the deployment of EU operations. This school of thought is represented by Dijkstra (2013), who argues that launching operations was high on the EU’s agenda during the 2000s due to the efforts of then High Representative Solana and his colleagues at the Council. He sees that this group of officials had strong bureaucratic interests in establishing the ESDP as an EU policy competence and launching operations was their means of doing so. The reason for this was that EU operations provided them with leverage in the foreign policy turf battles with the Commission. Thus, whenever a window of opportunity opened for launching an operation, Solana and his colleagues pushed for a deployment. Dijkstra explains that the frequent success of these officials was due to their central position in the ESDP policy-­making process, which gave them an early mover advantage in policy framing. Additionally, he sees that many of them had excellent social networks, which allowed them

New frontier   15 to push for the deployment of EU operations also informally. Thus, they could present their plans to EU member states as faits accomplis, which left them with no option but to agree to a deployment.

Argument This book presents a different argument, which is based on four basic assumptions about the deployment of EU military operations: (1) that the deployment of an EU operation is a complex process that cuts across multiple decision-­making levels and involves multiple actors, (2) that the member states have interests they seek to further and protect, (3) that the member states cooperate to realise mutually beneficial outcomes, (4) that the deployment of EU operations requires decisions about resource allocation. First, a theory on the deployment of EU military operations needs to use multiple levels of analysis to avoid the ‘natural tendency’ to overemphasise the explanatory power of a single level of analysis (Singer 1961: 80–1). The trick is to determine the appropriate number of levels to analyse. Ginsberg and Penksa (2012: 47) have proposed using six different levels of analysis, which ‘serve as portals to the different origins or sources of CSDP activity’. These are the domestic politics/public opinion level, the elite actors level, national interests and values level, European interests and values level, international system level, and the global/transnational/borderless phenomena level (Ginsberg and Penksa 2012: 47–8). However, this book sees that it is sufficient to use three levels when analysing the deployment of EU operations: the international, the EU, and the state level. The reason for this is that most of Ginsberg and Penksa’s levels of analysis are different phenomena taking place within the same level of analysis rather than autonomously existing levels. This means that some of them can be merged together. The domestic politics/public opinion, elite actors and the national interests and values levels can be merged into a single national level. The same applies to the international system and global/transnational/borderless phenomena level, which can be merged into a single international level. Furthermore, analysing up to six autonomous levels of analysis will make the explanatory task unnecessarily complicated. Thus, to keep the task manageable, this author will settle for what he considers to be the three most important levels of analysis. The relationship between the international, state, and EU levels can be thought of as one of intersecting spheres of action as opposed to one of hierarchy. This means that, although the international level is broader than the state and EU level, it is not necessarily more important than them. Conversely, although the state level is narrower than the international and EU level, it is not necessarily any less important than them. The international level is where the deployment processes of an EU operation is catalysed and shaped by third-­ actors. There are two main ways in which the deployment of a military operation can enter into the EU’s agenda. First, it may be a direct response to an event that takes place, or is expected to take place, in a troubled state or region. This event

16   New frontier is usually a crisis, which has either erupted or is expected to erupt soon. Depending on the crisis in question, it produces, or is expected to produce, a mixture of humanitarian problems for the local population of the troubled state or region and/or negative externalities that affect other states. To eliminate these negative effects or prevent them from emerging in the first place, different types of peacekeeping and crisis management operations are deployed. However, as already noted, there are numerous different crises in the world and only a small number of them catalyse the deployment of EU operation. Thus, it is important to trace how and why those specific crises enter the EU’s agenda. Second, the deployment of an EU operation can also be put on the EU’s agenda if it is requested by a third-­state or actor. A third-­state, for example, could request the EU to deploy an operation to its territory if it faces a problem, such as a sudden insurgency, that it cannot handle by itself. Furthermore, the deployment of an EU operation can also be requested by an international organisation, such as the UN or the African Union (AU). The UN, for example, might need temporary assistance to stabilise a troubled country until it can reinforce its own peacekeeping operation in that country. The international level also plays a role during the planning process of EU military operations. Before it can launch an operation, the Union must plan it both politically and militarily. The actors with the leading role in this process are obviously EU member states and the relevant ESDP/CSDP related working groups and committees. However, depending on the operation in question, certain third-­actors may also play an important role in its deployment process. If the EU is planning to deploy a bridging operation to stabilise a country in sub-­ Saharan Africa, such as the CAR, until the UN can reinforce its own peacekeeping operation in the country, then it is vital for the EU to plan it in close cooperation with the UN. This is because the EU cannot design things such as the operation’s exit strategy without knowing when the reinforced UN operation will arrive. If, on the other hand, the EU is planning to take over an existing NATO operation, as it did in Macedonia and BiH in 2003 and 2004 respectively, using the Berlin Plus framework, then it obviously must plan that operation in close cooperation with NATO. The state level is where EU member states formulate their national preferences towards international events, such as the deployment of an operation. Although there are many national actors, such as Non-­Governmental Organisations (NGOs), the media, and foreign policy elites, that express opinions on foreign and security policy issues, the primary actors on the national level are governments. This is because governments are formally responsible for formulating foreign, security, and defence policies for the states they represent. When it comes to formulating a member states’ position towards a possible EU military operation, the main government bodies involved in the process are usually the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Defence, and the office of the Prime Minister or President depending on whether the country in question has a prime ministerial or presidential system of government. However, in some member states, such as Germany, the national parliament has also a constitutional right to

New frontier   17 approve or reject the country’s participation in out of area military operations. Thus, when analysing the preference formation of countries with a strong parliamentary system, it is important to include the parliaments of those countries in the analysis as well. The EU level is where operations are planned and launched. Some have argued that the EU level can be conceptualised as ‘a subsystem of international relation’ due to the way the Union has dealt with its internal ‘foreign’ relations (Hill and Smith 2011: 8). However, this book views it primarily as the forum where EU member states negotiate with each other about the possible deployment of an EU military operation once they have formulated their initial national positions towards that operation. Furthermore, in case the member states find themselves at odds with each other over the possible deployment of an EU military operation, they must seek compromises that would accommodate the different interests of their EU partners to the greatest possible extent. This negotiation and compromise seeking process takes place at the EU level, which means that it is important to follow the views, opinions and decisions of those institutions that are formally involved in the ESDP/CSDP decision-­making process. Since all EU decisions having military or defence implications are ‘taken by the Council acting unanimously’ (TEU Article 23), the EU level focuses primary on the Council and its ESDP/CSDP committees and working groups – that is, the PSC, EUMC, and EUMS. As the Council is the institution where the member states’ ministers meet in different configurations, the decision to deploy an EU military operation is fundamentally intergovernmental. When analysing how each of these levels impact the deployment of EU military operations, it is helpful to divide the deployment process of those operation into two different stages. The first stage is the agenda setting stage during which the idea of a possible deployment is discussed before the EU makes a commitment to do it. It begins when the idea of a new deployment is first raised and ends when the Union reaches a political decision to have that operation. The second stage is the planning and launch stage during which the exact nature of the operation in question is debated and decided. It begins when the EU reaches a political decision to have that operation and ends when the operation in question is launched. During stages, the international, national and EU levels will impact the deployment process of an EU military operation in different ways. During the agenda setting stage, for example, the EU must deal with the emergence of a crisis or a request for a deployment from a third-­party. During the planning stage, however, it needs to coordinate the forthcoming deployment with the relevant third parties to ensure its effectiveness. Table 1.2 summarises the impact of the international, state, and EU level on EU operations’ deployment processes during the agenda setting and planning stages. Second, EU member states have national interests, which they seek to realise and protect. Although the concept of ‘interests’ is one of the oldest and most frequently used analytical tools in IR (Wolfers 1965; Waltz 1979; Moravcsik 1998; Wendt 1999; Bull 2002; Morgenthau 2005; Mearsheimer 2003), it is also extremely ambiguous and difficult to define in a way that would be acceptable to

18   New frontier Table 1.2 How different levels impact the deployment process of an EU military operation Level

Deployment stage Agenda setting

International State EU

Planning

Emergence of crisis Coordination with relevant IOs Deployment request from IO or and third-states third-state Preference formation towards the Preference formation towards the general need of EU action specific nature of the EU action Policy input from EU Policy input from EU institutions institutions; Bargaining between member Bargaining between member states over the specific nature states over necessity of EU of EU action action

everyone. This is due to the on-­going debate in IR about the nature and constitution of interests. Realists and liberals argue that they are constituted by objective material factors, such as power, wealth, and geography (Waltz 1979; Moravcsik 1998; Mearsheimer 2003; Morgenthau 2005), whereas constructivists see interests as being constituted by subjective ideational factors, such as ideas and identities (Wendt 1999). However, Wolfers (1965: 147) wrote that the concept of national interests has ‘very little meaning’ beyond suggesting ‘a direction of policy which can be distinguished from several others presenting themselves as alternatives’. According to him, it merely ‘indicates that the policy is designed to promote demands that are ascribed to the nation’ and ‘emphasizes that the policy subordinates other interests to those of the nation’ (Wolfers 1965: 147). Adopting such an understanding of national interests is useful because it does not discriminate between material and ideational interests. Thus, when it comes to the deployment of EU military operations, it is assumed that both material and ideational interests can play a role in their deployment. Third, EU military operations are deployed to realise mutually beneficial outcomes. This is also the case with regards to other types of peacekeeping and crisis management operations, which are deployed in the hope of producing certain benefits. An example would be stability in the troubled country or region where the operation is being deployed. Thus, it is these expected benefits that serve as the incentives that encourage the member states to set up EU operations and to contribute to them. At this point, it is too early to make assumptions with regards to the specific nature of these benefits because we have not yet analysed the deployment of EU operations. However, it suffices to say that previous academic studies of the topic have shown that states expect these operations to produce a variety of different benefits, which can be both material and ideational in nature (Sandler 2004). The key point is that, at the time when an operation is being launched, these benefits are purely hypothetical. Therefore, it is not

New frontier   19 p­ ossible to tell whether an operation will produce the desired benefits until it has concluded. Therefore, it is conceivable that the benefits states expect an operation to produce might never materialise. For example, during its planning process, Operation Atalanta was expected to reduce maritime piracy around the Horn of Africa. However, this was only an expectation, not something that was guaranteed to happen. Thus, the deployment of EU operations is driven by expectations of potential gains, not by gains already realised. Fourth, the successful deployment of an EU military operation requires resources, especially money and soldiers. The TEU states that ‘expenditure arising from operations having military or defence implications’ cannot be charged from the EU budget (TEU Article 18). Thus, these types of costs are financed mainly according to the principle of costs ‘lie where they fall’ whereby each member state is responsible for financing its own contribution to an operation. This means that the amount of financial resources each participating country must invest in an EU military operation is correlated to the size and type of the contribution that it makes to it. However, every EU operation has certain costs that cannot be attributed to any specific member state. These costs are known as common costs and they include expenditure such as travelling costs to the headquarters etc. They are financed collectively through the so-­called Athena mechanism, which is a permanent intergovernmental financial instrument situated within the Council General Secretariat designed to finance the common costs of EU military operations. The mechanism’s funds are provided by the member states, which make annual contributions to its budget based on the size of their GNI. It should be noted that even if some member states do not participate in an operation directly, they are required to participate in the financing of the operation’s common costs. Thus, the deployment of EU operations requires the member states to invest resources in them.

Outline of the book The rest of the book is structured as follows. Chapter 2 lays out the multi-­level collective action approach for explaining the deployment of EU military operations. It is based on three levels of analysis: first, the international level, where the emergence of events that threaten values held dear by EU member states catalyses the process leading to a deployment; second, the state level, where the member states formulate their preferences towards prospective deployments based on national utility expectations; and third, the EU level, where the member states seek compromises to accommodate their different preferences. The chapter also includes a methodology section. Chapter 3 is the first empirical chapter. It analyses the deployment process of Operation Althea, which replaced NATO’s Stabilisation Force (SFOR) in 2004 as the actor responsible for ensuring a safe and secure environment in BiH. It argues that Althea’s deployment was driven by EU member states’ desire to facilitate the production of both public and private goods. In addition to the public good of continued stability in BiH, the operation was expected to facilitate the production of a

20   New frontier club good in the form of a more credible ESDP as well as various private goods. However, Althea’s deployment process was highly contentions because there were disagreements over what a more credible ESDP should look like. Chapter 4 analyses the deployment process of Operation Artemis, which was launched in 2003 to assist the UN stabilising Bangui, the capital of the DRC’s Ituri region. It argues that Artemis was deployed because it was expected to facilitate the production of various joint products for EU member states. In addition to stability in Bunia, Artemis was expected to facilitate the production of a club good in the form of a more robust ESDP as well as contributor specific private goods. Due to its reluctance to see the ESDP develop a role in sub-­ Saharan Africa, Germany was initially against the deployment of Artemis. However, since most EU member states supported it, Germany became entrapped in it. Chapter 5 analyses the deployment process of EUFOR RD Congo, which assisted the UN in ensuring stability in the DRC during the country’s 2006 general elections. It argues that EUFOR’s deployment was slow and difficult because EU member states had no direct interest in deploying troops to the DRC. Although France, Germany and the UK justified EUFOR’s deployment by referring to a need to assist the DRC on its way to democracy and ensuring stability in the broader Great Lakes region, these were essentially public goods. Furthermore, they did not expect EUFOR’s deployment to facilitate the production of any private goods either. Despite this, EUFOR was deployed because it was a means to restore some of the Union’s prestige following the French and Dutch peoples’ rejection of the Constitutional Treaty in 2005. Chapter 6 analyses the deployment process of Operation Atalanta, which was launched in 2008 to contribute to the international campaign against Somali piracy. It argues that Atalanta was deployed because EU member states expected it to facilitate the production of various joint products. First, it was expected to facilitate the production of a public good in the form of improved maritime security around the Horn of Africa. Second, Atalanta was also expected to facilitate the production of various private goods. Most notably, France expected it to reduce domestic opposition to its forthcoming reintegration into NATO, Germany saw that it would enable it to engage in anti-­piracy operations without changing its constitution, and the UK saw that leading the operation would reaffirm its traditional role as a naval power. Third, Atalanta was also expected to facilitate the production of club goods by introducing an active maritime dimension to the ESDP. The concluding chapter reviews the multi-­level collective action approach, the argument of the book, and compares the findings from the empirical case studies. It also reflects on the future of EU military operations, especially on how Britain’s exit from the EU, or Brexit, in 2019 will affect their deployment. Lastly, it provides thoughts on where future research on subject should focus on.

New frontier   21

Conclusion This chapter introduced the deployment of EU military operations as a subject of study. It began by exploring the origins of the ESDP, which was created in 1999. Although the 1998 Franco-­British Summit at Saint-­Malo is often considered as the event that initiated the development of the ESDP, European countries have sought to develop an autonomous framework for security and defence cooperation since the 1950s. However, the first successful step towards creating such a framework was taken in 1969, when EEC member states proposed the creation of the EPC. It was an informal intergovernmental arrangement that was kept outside the legal and institutional framework of the EEC to safeguard the sovereignty of its member states. Furthermore, the EPC did not discuss security and defence issues. However, after the Cold War ended, EEC member states moved quickly to create the EU, which had CFSP as one of its three pillars. Furthermore, the 1992 Maastricht Treaty stated explicitly that CFSP included the eventual framing of a common defence policy, which might also lead to a common defence. Some progress towards this goal was made when EU member states agreed to the 1997 Amsterdam Treaty, which incorporated the Petersberg Tasks into the TEU. However, a more significant event was the 1998 Franco-­ British Saint-­Malo Declaration, which stated that the EU must have the capacity for autonomous action, backed up by credible military forces, the means to decide to use them, and a readiness to do so, in order to respond to international crises. Following the Saint-­Malo Declaration, the EU took rapid steps to establish the ESDP at the June 1999 Cologne European Council and the December 1999 Helsinki European Council. Since 2003, the EU has deployed a total of 12 military operations, eight of which have had an executive mandate. Although early deployments, such as operations Concordia and Althea, suggested that the geographical focus of the ESDP/CSDP would be in the Balkans, this did not end up being the case. Following the deployment of Operation Artemis in 2003, its main theatre has overwhelmingly been Africa. In 2006, the EU deployed EUFOR RD Congo to assist the UN in ensuring security and stability in the DRC during the Congolese elections. Two years later in 2008, the EU launched EUFOR Tchad/RCA, which was to improve the fragile security situation in Chad and the CAR and to protect refugee in Sudan’s Darfur region. In 2014, the EU decided to deploy EUFOR RCA to assist in creating a safe and secure environment in the country. In 2008, the EU also launched Operation Atalanta, its first-­ever naval operation, to combat maritime piracy off the coast of Somalia. In addition to these executive operations, the EU has deployed four military training missions: EUTM Somalia, EUTM Mali, EUMAM RCA, and EUTM RCA. In other words, only two of the 12 EU military operations launched so far have been deployed outside Africa. One of the distinctive characteristics of EU military operations is that, with two exceptions, they have not dealt with high-­profile international security issues. When the world’s attention was focused on the Iraq War in 2003, the EU deployed operations to the Balkans and the DRC. When the world was focused

22   New frontier on the Syrian civil war and the Ukraine crisis, the EU deployed an operation to the CAR. The only exceptions to this pattern have been Operation Atalanta, which was deployed as a response to a highly visible international security issue that clearly affected the interests of EU member states, that is, Somali piracy, and Operation Sophia, which was deployed in response to the equally visible problem of the migration crisis in the Mediterranean. Thus, it is completely reasonable to ask why anybody should study the deployment of EU military operations in detail. As explained above, the author wrote this book for four main reasons. First, it is unprecedented in the history of international relations that an organisation that began its life as a common market for coal and steel has developed a capability to deploy military force. Second, even though the EU has enlarged from 15 to 24, from 24 to 27, and finally from 27 to 28 member states during the ESDP/CSDP’s existence, it has not lost its ability to reach consensus on the deployment of military operations. Third, EU operations have so far been deployed very selectively. Fourth, studying concrete action that the EU does can tell us a lot about the Union’s nature as an international actor. Due to these reasons, studying the deployment of EU operations is an interesting academic exercise.

Notes 1 The 2009 Lisbon Treaty renamed ESDP as CSDP. Since there are legal differences between the two and because this book focuses primarily on operations that were launched before the Lisbon Treaty’s entry into force, it will use the term ESDP except when explicitly referring to the post-­2009 CSDP. 2 There is an ongoing dispute between Greece and FYROM over the latter’s use of the name ‘Macedonia’. Greece sees that FYROM took the name from a Greek province located south of the FYROM–Greek border. For simplicity, this book will use the name ‘Macedonia’ to refer to the country. 3 The first person appointed to this position was Baroness Catherine Ashton from the UK. She served as the EU’s High Representative from December 2009 until the end of her five-­year term in November 2014. Her successor is Federica Mogherini, who had previously served as Italy’s Foreign Minister. 4 Denmark was given several opt outs, including one from EU decisions with defence implications, after the Danish people voted against the Maastricht Treaty in a referendum in June 1992. After these opt outs were provided, Denmark held another referendum on the Maastricht Treaty in May 1993 in which a majority of the voters approved the treaty. 5 After the UK leaves the EU, the Union’s membership will decrease back to 27.

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2 Revelations A multi-­level collective action approach1

The member states cannot be pushed anywhere where they do not want to go. EEAS official, 14 November 2014

Until the late 1990s, the conventional wisdom in International Relations (IR) held that the ‘high politics’ of security and defence was too sensitive to become a European Economic Community (now Union) (EEC/EU) competence (Hoffmann 1966). Furthermore, it was seen as at odds with its ‘civilian power’ self-­ image (Duchêne 1972). Yet, following the EU’s failure to deal with the Balkan Wars on its own, France and the United Kingdom (UK) proposed in 1998 the creation of an autonomous military capacity for the Union. This launched a process that led to the creation of the European (now Common) Security and Defence Policy (ESDP/CSDP) a year later. The biggest step was taken in 2003 when the EU deployed troops for the first time in the framework of its new instrument. Since then, the EU has launched a total of 12 military operations, the missions of which have varied from ensuring a safe and secure environment in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) to fighting human smugglers and traffickers in the Mediterranean. The deployment of EU military operations shattered the conventional wisdom that the Union could not deal with security and defence matters. The phenomenon has understandably received a high amount of attention. Scholars have been particularly interested in answering the questions ‘why are EU military operations deployed?’ and ‘what drives their deployment?’ This chapter develops an original theoretically informed framework of analysis for answering these questions. It is a framework rather than a stand-­alone theory because it highlights theoretical factors that need to be considered when explaining the deployment of EU operations as opposed to proposing explicit causal processes that lead to them. It is called the ‘multi-­level collective action approach’ because it is based on the use of three distinct levels of analysis. The first is the international level, where the emergence of events that threaten certain values held dear by the member states catalyse the process leading to the deployment of an operation. The second is the state level, where the member states formulate their initial national preferences towards prospective deployments based on national

26   Revelations utility expectations. The third is the EU level, where the member states come to negotiate and seek compromises to accommodate their different national preferences towards a prospective deployment. In other words, EU operations are deployed due to the interactions of these three levels.

International level As with all peacekeeping and crisis management operations, EU military operations are reactive in nature. This means that they tend to enter the Union’s agenda in two different ways. First, a demand might be created for them by an event that produces, or threatens to produce, humanitarian problems for the local population of a troubled state or region and/or negative externalities that affect other states in the international system. Second, they can be requested by a third-­ state or actor. The international level will also play a role in the planning process of EU operations. If the EU is deploying an operation to assist the United Nations (UN), for example, then it must plan the operation in close cooperation with that organisation. If the EU is deploying an operation in the Berlin Plus framework, then it needs to coordinate the deployment of the operation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). As Chapter 1 explained, this book works from the assumption that EU military operations are deployed in response to events that have either humanitarian consequences or produce negative externalities that affect EU member states. However, balance of threat theory tends to be of limited use when explaining how the deployment of a military operation enters the Union’s agenda. This is because its focus is on state-­centric threats that emerge and disappear as the international distribution of power changes. After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the risk of nuclear war between the great powers faded away while new threats, such as international terrorism, organised crime, and failed states emerged from the horizon and became the dominant items in most countries’ security agendas. However, these threats were not strictly speaking ‘new’ because they had also existed during the Cold War and even before. Yet, they had been overshadowed by the ideological struggle between capitalism and socialism, or framed in the context of the broader zero-­sum game between the superpowers. Thus, the world’s ability to deal with these problems was constrained. After the Cold War ended, these threats began to acquire much more visibility than they had before. From the early 1990s onwards, the media was suddenly full of stories about failed states and civil wars in places such as Somalia, BiH, Rwanda, and Kosovo. Security analysts also began to argue that problems within these states could also create negative externalities, which could even affect regions separated from the conflicts by oceans. This became clear at least on 11 September 2001, when terrorists who had trained in Afghanistan crashed two hijacked airplanes into the Twin Towers in New York, killing over 2,000 people. As states began to understand the potential harm that non-­conventional security threats could cause, they also began to show increased willingness to act

Revelations   27 against them. However, this was not always straightforward because threats such as terrorism and organised crime are usually not associated with states. Instead, they are usually carried out by non-­state actors, which do not act on behalf of any state. These groups tend to use the territories of weak, civil war-­ridden states as a base for operations because the government’s weakness in such states enables them to operate relatively freely in the country’s territory. Examples include al Qaeda in Afghanistan, Hezbollah in Lebanon, al Shabaab in Somalia, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia in Colombia and now the so-­ called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or Daesh. Thus, to fight these threats, states began to understand that the root problem was weak or failed states. In other words, civil wars and weak states have become the ‘breeding houses’ of many of the major international security problems of today. Due to this realisation, states’ willingness to fight various security problems at their source has increased over the past two decades. One manifestation of this willingness is the number of peacekeeping and crisis management operations that have been launched over the past 20 years. During the Cold War from 1948 to 1989, for example, only 18 UN peacekeeping operations were launched. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, however, the UN has launched 50 additional peacekeeping operations around the world (UNDPKO 2013). Since these operations are often costly endeavours, their deployment signals the increased willingness of states to sacrifice national resources for taking care of threats outside their own borders. As Smith (2010: 116) puts it, ‘the international community seems more willing than ever before to devote resources to the question of weak states, which includes various forms of outside intervention or aid by a range of both state and non-­state actors’. What all this means is that the deployment of peacekeeping and crisis management operations has become a common practice in international affairs. However, the goals of modern operations are very different from the goals of those that were launched in the twentieth century and before. Throughout history, the most common reason for launching military operations has arguably been the acquisition of possessions, or defending something already possessed, such as territory and/or resources. Most recently, one can think of Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 as an example of a military campaign that was driven by a desire to acquire new possessions. Wolfers sees that when a state’s foreign policy is aimed at ‘the enhancement or the preservation of one or more of the things’ to which it attaches value, then the state is pursuing ‘possession goals’ (Wolfers 1965: 73–4). If a state is looking to enhance or increase its existing possessions, then we can describe the state in questions as being revisionist; if, on the other hand, the same state is interested only in protecting the possessions that it already controls, then we can describe it as being status quo-­ oriented. With regards to EU military operations, their deployment has not been driven by a desire to acquire new possessions. In most cases, their aim has been to change or preserve a set of conditions within the area to which they were deployed. EUFOR RCA, for example, was deployed in 2014 to ‘to contribute to

28   Revelations the provision of a safe and secure environment’ in Bangui, the capital of the conflict ridden Central African Republic (CAR) (EU 2014: 60). Wolfers saw that when a state’s foreign policy is aimed at shaping conditions beyond one’s national boundaries as opposed to the acquisition or preservation of possessions, then it is pursuing ‘milieu goals’ (Wolfers 1965: 74). Milieu goals are those foreign policy goals that aim to shape conditions beyond a state’s national boundaries (Wolfers 1965: 74). The realisation of these goals is important because it is in states’ own interest to ensure that their surroundings remain relatively stable and permissive. If a civil war suddenly erupts somewhere in Africa, for example, the states that are in the immediate vicinity of the conflict have an interest in ensuring that it does not harm them as well. However, even countries that are thousands of kilometres away from the conflict usually have an interest in doing something about it. This is because many of the negative externalities of civil wars, such as refugee flows and organised crime, tend to create spillover effects that affect even seemingly distant countries, as the flow of migrants and refugees across the Mediterranean to Europe has recently again demonstrated (Murdoch and Sandler 2004). Given that many of the spillover effects of civil wars and failed states tend to affect many states simultaneously, it is in the interest of all the affected states to ensure that they are dealt with. This means that the goal of stabilising the troubled state or region is a shared one or what Kirchner and Sperling (2007: 79) call a ‘collective milieu goal’, which can be defined as a shared aim between two or more states to shape conditions somewhere in the world. As many of today’s international security problems are transnational in nature, there is no shortage of collective milieu goals. This is clearly demonstrated by the large number of unilateral, bilateral, and multilateral statements that states release to express their collective views on contemporary international security issues. The EU, for example, issues declarations on important international developments that express the collective view of not only its member states, but also EU candidate countries, members of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), the European Economic Area (EEA), and certain countries that belong to the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). Thus, when the EU issues a statement that calls for peace in the Middle East, for example, it is essentially saying that a stable Middle East is a collective milieu goal shared by its own members and partner countries. As already noted, balance of threat theory’s ability to explain the deployment of EU military operations is constrained by its focus on threats emanating from changes in the international distribution of power. In other words, it is focused almost exclusively on things that threaten the very survival of a state or, to put it differently, its existence as an independent political unit. However, Wolfers (1965: 153) has written that threats to states’ survival have been the exception rather than the norm throughout history. He reasoned that if states were not also concerned with protecting other values in addition to survival, ‘most of them most of the time would not have had to be seriously worried about their security’ (Wolfers 1965: 153). But as every student of international relations knows, this

Revelations   29 clearly has not been the case. Whatever historical period one chooses to analyse, one finds that states have had to deal with multiple security threats to different values at any given time. Thus, Wolfers (1965: 153–4) saw that the way states choose to act against threats: is a function not merely of the will of others, real or imagined, to destroy the nation’s independence but of national desires and ambitions to retain a wealth of other values such as rank, respect, material possessions, and special privileges. In other words, although survival is extremely important for all states, it is not the only value that can be threatened. What values, then, do EU military operations protect? To answer this question, we should look at the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and the European Security Strategy (ESS), which outline the types of military operations that the EU can conduct and the threats that these operations are meant to address. First, the types of operations the EU can conduct are listed in Article 17 TEU. It states that the EU can carry out ‘humanitarian and rescue tasks, peacekeeping tasks and tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peacemaking’ through the ESDP. These are the so-­called Petersberg Tasks, which were originally adopted by the Western European Union (WEU) in 1992, and incorporated into the TEU in 1997. When the Lisbon Treaty was negotiated in 2007, the Petersberg Tasks were expanded to include conflict prevention and peacekeeping tasks, joint disarmament operations and military advice and assistance tasks. If the Petersberg Tasks were placed on an intensity scale ranging from advisory tasks at the lower end of the scale to war fighting at the higher end of the scale, most of them would be located at the lower end. The only exception would be ‘tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peacemaking’, which suggests that the EU can conduct high intensity crisis management operations. So far, however, only one of the 12 EU military operations launched since 2003 – that is, Operation Artemis – can be considered as a peacemaking operation. This is because it was deployed to an area where ethnic militias were actively fighting each other. Second, the threats that the EU aims to address through the ESDP are outlined in the 2003 ESS and the 2008 report on its implementation. The ESS identifies five ‘key threats’ on which the ESDP should focus. These are terrorism, Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) proliferation, regional conflicts, state failure, and organised crime. The 2008 report on the implementation of the ESS expanded this threat list by adding cyber security, energy security, and climate change to it. However, the problem with the ESS is that it does not specify the circumstances in which the EU would use military force. In fact, the document downplays the utility of military force in general by emphasising that ‘none of the new threats is purely military; nor can any be tackled by purely military means’ (CEU 2003: 7). When discussing the threat of terrorism, for example, the ESS states that addressing it ‘may require a mixture of intelligence, police,

30   Revelations j­udicial, military and other means’. In the case of failed states, the ESS states merely that ‘military instruments may be needed to restore order’ and also ‘in the post conflict phase’ of regional conflicts (CEU 2003: 7). Thus, since it does not specify the circumstances in which the EU would use military force, the ESS is not a real strategy that could guide the deployment of EU military operations. When taken together, the Petersberg Tasks and the ESS make it clear that the purpose of the ESDP is to change or preserve a set of conditions outside the EU’s borders. As Hyde-­Price has observed, the ESDP/CSDP is ‘an institutional and procedural framework for limited security co-­operation in order to collectively shape the Union’s external milieu, using military coercion to back up its diplomacy’ (Hyde-­Price 2006: 230–1). With regards to the values that the EU hopes to protect through the deployment of military operations, the ESS suggests that the Union is especially interested in promoting the rule of law, democracy, good governance, and regional stability, as there are several references to these values throughout the document. Furthermore, the ESS also suggests that the EU is ready to promote these values for both egoistic and altruistic reasons. This is because promoting these values would help the EU in addressing the threats identified by the ESS and ‘building a better world’ (CEU 2003: 1). Thus, we can assume that the Union is prepared to deploy military operations for humanitarian reasons and because they serve the interests of its member states.

State level The second level in the multi-­level collective action approach is the state level, where EU member states formulate their national positions towards prospective deployments. Although many actors, such as think tanks, Non-­Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and the media, express opinions on foreign policy, this book focuses on governments. The reasons for this is that they are responsible for deciding their country’s foreign and security policy, and incorporating non-­ state actors in the theory would complicate the task unnecessarily. The international environment can change rapidly. This means EU member states must keep an eye on their milieu goals because it is in their interest to ensure that the problems created by civil wars and weak states, for example, such as refugee flows and organised crime, do not affect them negatively. Despite this shared interest, the systematic realisation of collective milieu goals has hitherto been problematic for EU member states and recent history can give us examples of them failing to act on a shared milieu goal. For example, despite the conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region being a constant source of refugees and a haven for organised crime since 2003, actors that are affected by the situation have found it difficult to change it. The difficulty of realising certain milieu goals stems from the fact that the benefits they produce, such as regional stability, do not fall into the hands of any one state. Unlike possession goals, which benefit only the state that controls the possession in question, realising milieu goals can potentially benefit a much broader group of states. Furthermore, once a milieu goal has been realised, this broader group of states can usually enjoy the resulting benefits to the same extent

Revelations   31 as the state that produced it. Thus, if states can enjoy the benefits of the milieu goal regardless of their involvement in its realisation, why should they do anything to realise it? The benefits with the above characteristics are known as public goods. Economics teaches us that markets are formed to provide goods that are desired by consumers. If people desire apples but do not have a source to buy them from, for example, someone will see the business opportunity and start selling apples. In the case of certain goods, however, markets might be deterred from providing them despite consumer demand for them. The reason for this is that, after the good has been produced, it will benefit all consumers regardless of whether they would purchase some of it or not. This means that public goods are unlikely to be produced without additional encouragement from third actors, such as the state, that would make the incentives to produce them more favourable. This is also why the literature often refers to public goods as ‘market failures’ in the sense that they represent the market’s inability to meet consumer demand (Best and Gheciu 2014: 23). Modern public goods theory began to develop in the 1950s when Paul A. Samuelson created a dichotomy distinguishing between private consumption goods and collective or public consumption goods. He defined the former as goods that can be ‘parcelled out among different individuals’ and the latter as goods that everyone can ‘enjoy in common in the sense that each individual’s consumption of such a good leads to no subtraction from any other individual’s consumption of that good’ (Samuelson 1954: 387). Over the subsequent decades, public goods theory developed rapidly. In 1965, Mancur Olson published his seminal study on group behaviour, The Logic of Collective Action. He saw that the defining characteristics of public goods are twofold. The first is that they are non-­excludable in the sense that those who did not participate in their production ‘cannot be excluded or kept from sharing in the consumption of the good’ (Olson 1971: 15). The second is that they are non-­rival in the sense that one consumer’s consumption of a portion of the good does not reduce the amount of the good available to others (Olson 1971: 15). In other words, a pure public good is both non-­exclusive and non-­rival. Clean air, for example, is often used as an example of a pure public good because everyone can enjoy it without restriction and consume it without reducing the amount available to others (Hardin 1982: 47). Since the benefits of public goods can be enjoyed as much by those who did not participate in their production as they can by those who did, producing them can be difficult. If consumers are rational actors aiming to maximise their personal utility, then they are likely to ‘free ride’, ‘easy ride’ or ‘cheap ride’. This means that they make a zero, marginal or purely symbolic contribution to the production of the desired good while others do the work (Cornes and Sandler 1984: 580; Posen 2014: 35–8). As they get to enjoy the benefits of the good regardless of their participation in its production, their utility is maximised by free riding and spending their money and/or time on other things. In other words, although consumers may have a common interest in producing a public good, they will not have a corresponding common interest in paying for it (Hardin

32   Revelations 1982: 21). The same logic applies to EU military operations, the benefits of which are often described as ‘dubious, uncertain or essentially public goods’ (Pohl 2014a: 23). When the EU is contemplating the deployment of an operation, the best strategy for an individual member state would be to free ride while its partners stabilise the region. By doing so, the member state would get to enjoy the benefits of stability without sacrificing any resources to produce it. Although free riding can maximise an individual’s utility, it does not maximise a group’s utility. The reason for this is that ‘individual rationality is not sufficient for collective rationality’ (Sandler 2004: 18). Strict individual rationality can lead to a prisoner’s dilemma type collective action problem in which no one has incentives to cooperate with other actors if they can gain more by defecting and free riding. Therefore, if all group members base their decisions on personal utility expectations and free ride, it is likely that the collective action they are trying to initiate will fail and the desired public goodwill not be produced. In such a situation, rational actors are paradoxically left worse off by trying to maximise their own utility. If we turn back to the example of clean air, the best strategy for an individual, from a personal utility point of view, would be to free ride while others produce the good. However, if every citizen thinks the same way, then clean air will not be produced because everybody will free ride. This means that everyone is left worse off than they would have by cooperating because air quality continues to remain poor or deteriorate further. Public goods are also studied in IR. During the Cold War, for example, a much-­studied collective action problem was the production of deterrence against the Warsaw Pact in NATO (Olson and Zeckhauser 1966; Sandler 1977). When the Alliance was committed to the strategy of massive retaliation, deterrence was a public good that was available to all NATO members without restriction and could be enjoyed without reducing the amount available to others. Thus, the incentives for European countries to easy ride under the American nuclear umbrella were considerable. In addition, scholars have often studied how to facilitate collective actions among groups of states against mutual threats (Walt 1987; Snyder 1997). When faced with such a threat, the most effective way for states to eliminate it would be to act collectively. This could mean deploying a military operation or issuing economic sanctions, for example. However, because the removal of the threat is a public good for the countries that are subject to it, collective action theory dictates that the best strategy for an individual state would be to remain on the side-­lines while others remove the threat. Certain benefits produced by the realisation of milieu goals are relatively pure public goods because they satisfy the criteria of non-­exclusiveness and non-­ rivalry. Regional stability, for example, is a milieu goal that is considered desirable by most members of the so-­called international community. After it has been produced somewhere, its enjoyment is not confined to those states that invested in its production. Instead, it is likely to benefit a much broader group of states regardless of their participation in its production, which means that it is non-­exclusive. If a group of states carry out a crisis management operation to stabilise a country in sub-­Saharan Africa, for example, the resulting stability will

Revelations   33 benefit all states that were negatively affected by the conflict. Furthermore, since regional stability is a qualitative rather than quantitative good, it is also something that states can enjoy, or ‘consume’, without reducing the amount available to others. This makes it non-­rival in the sense that each state can enjoy it without reducing its availability to other states. Thus, the benefits produced by the realisation of milieu goals have public goods features. It should be emphasised that the benefits produced by the realisation of milieu goals cannot be treated as ‘goods’ without certain qualifications. As already discussed, regional stability is a good that satisfies both of Olson’s criteria of publicness: non-­exclusiveness and non-­rivalry. Yet, whether regional stability is genuinely an ‘international public good’ is contestable. This means that it is not clear if it is something that it is valued by the entire world. It is easy to imagine a situation in which turbulence in one part of the world might harm the interests of some states while serving those of others. The EU and the US, for example, have systematically called for the relevant stakeholders to resolve the frozen conflicts in the Georgian breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia to restore the country’s territorial integrity. Russia, on the other hand, has tended to pursue a policy of prolonging the prevailing status quo to prevent Georgia from establishing closer ties with the West and moving outside its sphere of influence. Thus, whereas restoring Georgia’s territorial integrity is seen as a good in both Europe and the US, it might be seen as a ‘bad’ in Russia. This means that some benefits produced by the realisation of milieu goals, such as regional stability, can simultaneously be both goods and bads depending on the interests of the receiving actor (Olson 1971: 15). Yet, the fact that some international security products can simultaneously be both goods and bads does not mean that public goods theory is ill suited for explaining their production. As Olson pointed out, ‘[t]here is no necessity that a public good to one group in a society is necessarily in the interest of the society as a whole’ (Olson 1971: 15) According to him, ‘[j]ust as a tariff could be a public good to the industry that sought it, so the removal of the tariff could be a public good to those who consumed the industry’s product’ (Olson 1971: 15). In other words, whether something is a good or a bad depends on one’s own position and interests. Olson emphasised that this was also true about international relations, ‘for a military expenditure, or a tariff, or an immigration restriction that is a public good to one country could be a “public bad” to another country, and harmful to world society as a whole’ (Olson 1971: 15). In the context of EU military operations, this means that the member states can have different views on the goods that an operation is expected to produce, which may cause them to react differently to the possibility of producing those goods. Thus, like consumers, the member states have different ‘tastes’ or preferences that determine the type of goods they desire and the type of bads they want to avoid. As already discussed, many of the benefits produced when states realise milieu goals have public good features. It was also pointed out that the systematic realisation of collective milieu goals could be problematic precisely because of these features. The reason for this is that the incentive structure of such

34   Revelations c­ ollective actions is often portrayed as a prisoner’s dilemma, which discourages cooperation and encourages free riding. However, the incentive structure of a collective action is a prisoner’s dilemma only if four conditions are met: first, the collective action is strictly one-­off; second, the parties taking the collective action do not have any prior knowledge of each other; third, the parties cannot communicate with each other; and fourth, the collective action produces only a pure public good. Unless these conditions are met, the prisoner’s dilemma disappears. While a lot could be said about each of these conditions, the fourth one is theoretically most relevant for this book. The above discussion on public goods perhaps gave the impression that a collective action can produce only a single good. Furthermore, it was often implied that this good would be a pure public good that would satisfy the conditions of non-­exclusivity and non-­rivalry. In reality, however, this is not necessarily the case. A collective action may lead to the simultaneous production of multiple different goods that might vary in their level of publicness. In other words, a single collective action may lead to the production of a bundle of goods that consists of a mixture purely public, impurely public and or purely private goods as opposed to a single pure public good (Sandler 1977). Such goods are known as ‘joint products’ and they occur whenever a collective action ‘yields two or more outputs that may vary in their degree of publicness’ (Sandler 2004: 37). The joint product model was developed in the 1970s to explain changing burden-­sharing dynamics within NATO. It was an update of the conventional wisdom of the time, which was based on the work of Olson and Zeckhauser (1966). They argued that European countries were easy riding while the US was carrying the main burden of maintaining deterrence against the Soviet Union. This argument was supported by empirical evidence on NATO countries’ defence budgets, which showed that European countries were investing a disproportionally smaller share of their national incomes in defence compared to the US. Thus, the joint burden of maintaining common defence was primarily on the shoulders of the US. Olson and Zeckhauser saw that the uneven sharing of burdens within NATO was due to the fact that the US was significantly ‘larger’ than its European allies in terms of the absolute value that it placed on the public good of deterrence, which the Alliance produced. They determined the value that each NATO ally placed on the production of deterrence primarily, although not exclusively, by looking at the size of their population and national income. Thus, since the US possessed a significantly larger population and generated higher levels of national income than its European allies, Olson and Zeckhauser saw that it had more to lose if deterrence failed. Thus, it was in national interest of the US to maintain credible deterrence against the Soviet Union even if it meant investing disproportionately in its production. In the collective action literature, this has become known as the ‘exploitation hypothesis’. It refers to a systematic tendency for the great being ‘exploited’ by the small in small groups with common interests (Olson 1971: 29). After NATO’s response strategy was changed from ‘massive retaliation’ to ‘flexible response’ in 1967, Sandler saw that the dynamics of burden sharing

Revelations   35 within the Alliance had also changed. The reason for this was that the incentive structure to invest in the production of deterrence had changed after NATO decided that a ‘massive response’ was no longer its only response option to possible Soviet aggression. The Alliance could now start with conventional weapons and gradually progress to tactical nuclear weapons and ultimately to strategic nuclear weapons if the conflict escalated to that level. As a result, the flexible response strategy required NATO allies to invest not only in strategic nuclear weapons, but also in conventional weapons systems, such as main battle tanks. The reason for this was that NATO planners saw that an armed conflict with the Soviet Union was likely to start as a conventional war in Europe. Thus, these conventional weapons systems contributed to the production of a public good by enhancing general deterrence against the Soviet Union, but they also provided private goods to the countries that possessed them. For example, if a NATO member invested in conventional weapons systems, those weapons systems would allow it to protect its own borders and fight possible domestic terrorist groups in addition to contributing to the production of deterrence. Thus, Sandler argued that the more NATO allies expected to gain private and impurely public goods from various weapons systems, the more likely they were to invest in them regardless of what the US did. Sandler (2004: 18) saw that ‘the prognosis for collective action hinges on the collective activity’s ratio of excludable benefits (that is, contributor specific benefits and club goods) to total benefits’. This means that the more excludable benefits, that is private and impurely public goods, a state expects to gain from a collective action, the more likely it is to participate in it regardless of what other states will do. If this ratio is in favour of excludable benefits, then the state expecting to gain these benefits has strong incentives to ensure that the collective action is launched. It might even be willing to carry out the effort by itself if no one else is willing to lend it a hand. In other words, any state expecting to gain excludable benefits from a collective action has incentives to push for the effort’s launch and contribute to it regardless of what other states will do. On the other hand, if the benefits ratio is in favour of non-­excludable benefits (public goods), then the state expecting to gain these benefits has low incentives to participate in the collective action and strong incentives to easy ride while others produce the good. However, because many collective actions are almost certain to produce varying amounts of both excludable and non-­excludable benefits, the actual benefits-­ratio of most collective actions will fall somewhere between these two maxims. In the collective action literature, peacekeeping and crisis management operations are sometimes portrayed as joint product activities. This is because they tend to facilitate the production of multiple different goods that vary in their level of publicness. To demonstrate how this is possible, let us imagine that the EU deploys an operation to sub-­Saharan Africa to stabilise a country that is suffering from ethnic violence. When the operation is being planned, it is reasonable to assume that the planners of the operation expect it to facilitate the production of several different goods. First, the operation is likely to contribute

36   Revelations to the production of relatively pure public goods, such as regional stability and world peace (Khanna and Sandler 1997: 113; Khanna, Sandler, and Shimizu 1998: 181). After the country in question has been stabilised, all states can enjoy the resulting peace and stability without restriction and regardless of their participation in the operation that produced them. Furthermore, all states in the international system can ‘consume’ both goods as much as they want without decreasing the amount available to others. Second, the operation may also facilitate the production of several impure public goods or ‘club goods’ for the countries that carried it out (Bobrow and Boyer 1997). However, unlike pure public goods, which are entirely non-­exclusive and non-­rival, club goods have a finite level of publicness. This means that their enjoyment and consumption are restricted to members of certain ‘clubs’ that produce benefits exclusively for their own members. In other words, unless you are a member of the club that provides the good you desire, you are excluded from enjoying it (Buchanan 1965). In the context of crisis management, an EU military operation may facilitate the production of goods such as collective prestige, status and military experience that can be utilised to make joint military structures more effective. These are club goods because only those states that are members of the organisation that carried out the operation that produced them can enjoy their benefits. Non-­members, therefore, have no way of enjoying them by free or easy riding at the club’s expense. Thus, within the club in question, all club members can enjoy the resulting prestige and status freely without reducing their availability to other members. As a result, club goods have a tendency to be partially exclusive and completely or partially non-­rival. Third, the operation may also facilitate the production of contributor specific private goods. Examples of such goods include improved relations with the target state of an operation that might eventually lead to increased bilateral trade or deeper diplomatic relations. Furthermore, if the bulk of the operation’s forces were provided by a specific state, the state in question is likely to receive a much higher amount of international prestige than those states that made smaller contributions to the operations. However, private goods are different from pure public goods and club goods in the sense they can only be enjoyed by an individual participating in the collective action, which means that they are entirely exclusive. This means that their production depends on an individual state’s decision on whether or not it will participate in the operation. If a state chooses to participate, it will acquire the private good(s), and if it chooses to opt out, it will not acquire the private good(s) and it cannot make up for this loss by enjoying the private good(s) produced by other states because they are completely exclusive. Table 2.1 summarises that types of joint products that EU military operations may produce. As EU military operations may produce joint products, different member states may support them for different reasons. Some of them may support an operation because they want to prevent a rebel militia from overthrowing a friendly government. Others may support it because they want to prevent instability from spreading outside the troubled state. Although the reasons are

Revelations   37 Table 2.1  Possible joint product expectations from EU military operations Rivalness in consumption

Exclusiveness Non-exclusive

Partly exclusive

Non-rival

Regional stability

Partly rival Rival

– –

Reduced migration; Individual prestige    collective prestige – Increased trade – –

Exclusive

different, they are mutually compatible as both facilitate the operation’s deployment. In such a case, the collective action’s benefits are defined asymmetrically (Hardin 1982: 76). However, an asymmetric definition should not be confused with a rival definition in which the collective action’s benefits would be seen a mutually incompatible. If states have rival expectations of the benefits that the collective effort is expected to produce, that is, if they are mutually non-­ compatible, then collective action becomes difficult. Creating a permanent EU Operational Headquarters (OHQ), for example, has so far been difficult because, on the one hand, countries such as France see that it would create a club good by saving resources and making the Union’s military planning process more effective. On the other hand, countries such as the United Kingdom (UK) see that an EU OHQ would create a public bad by duplicating existing NATO assets and weakening Europe’s commitment to the Alliance. In the same way, launching an EU military operation can become difficult if the member states expect it to produce rival goods.

EU level The third level included in the multi-­level collective action approach is the EU level. This is where EU military operations are planned and where the decisions to establish and launch them are taken. Article 23 TEU states that all EU decisions having military or defence implications are ‘taken by the Council acting unanimously’. Given that the Council is the institution where ministers from EU member states assemble in different configurations, the ESDP/CSDP is a policy domain ‘where intergovernmental forums and procedures clearly dominate’ (Smith 2004: 212). However, this should not be taken to mean that EU institutions do not play any role in the deployment of EU military operations. The reason for this is that Article 23 TEU states that all decisions having military or defence implications are taken by the Council ‘acting unanimously’. This means that every time an operation is being prepared, the Council has a formal decision-­making role in the deployment process of that operation, although that role is not a supranational one. More specifically, the Council’s main role in the EU decision-­ making process is to serve as an intergovernmental discussion forum where EU member states can discuss possible deployments. If all of them support the

38   Revelations operation from the start, then the member states can proceed to launching the operation relatively quickly. However, in case they find themselves at odds with each other, then they must look for compromises to accommodate their different national preferences before the operation can be launched. Although all Council decisions must be approved by EU ministers, most of the work that goes into preparing joint actions, such as EU operations, is done by the member states’ representatives in various Council committees and working groups. In the case of the ESDP/CSDP, the most important committees and working groups are the Political and Security Committee (PSC), the Working Party of Foreign Relations Counsellors (RELEX), and the Politico-­Military Group (PMG). Although the ESDP/CSDP is formally an intergovernmental policy domain, some have argued that EU officials can play an important informal role in the deployment process of military operations. Dijkstra, for example, has argued that launching operations was placed high on the EU’s agenda during the 2000s due to the efforts of former High Representative Javier Solana and his colleagues at the Council (Dijkstra 2012: 455). As explained earlier, these officials had strong bureaucratic interests in establishing the ESDP as an EU policy competence and launching operations was their means to do so. However, the strongest evidence for Dijkstra’s argument came from civilian missions; the evidence from military operations was non-­conclusive. In the case of the Aceh Monitoring Mission, Dijkstra found that ‘Solana and his officials played a leadership role during the agenda-­setting phase’ and that it ‘was through their international contacts that the operation first came on the EU agenda’ (Dijkstra 2012: 462). In the case of EULEX Kosovo, he found that ‘Solana acted with considerable foresight’ as he had ‘unrivalled expertise and knowledge about the dossier’ since he had served as NATO’s Secretary-­General during the 1999 Kosovo campaign (Dijkstra 2012: 466). However, in the case of Operation Althea, Dijkstra found that ‘Solana and his officials played an active role in the agenda setting’ of that operation because they ‘wanted to develop the CSDP’s military aspects’ (Dijkstra 2012: 460). Yet, in the case of EUFOR Tchad/RCA, he found that ‘Solana and his EU officials played perhaps a smaller role in the agenda-­setting phase of the Chad operation than in some of the other cases’ because ‘France clearly took the lead’ (Dijkstra 2012: 464). Thus, Dijkstra’s research suggests that EU officials have more influence over the deployment of civilian EU missions than military ones. The reasons why EU officials seem to play a weaker role in the deployment process of military operation than they do in the deployment process of civilian missions are twofold. First, the perceived risks involved in EU military operations are much higher than they are in civilian mission. Second, EU military operations are resourced entirely by EU member states. It is generally considered that military crisis management operations are much more dangerous for the people involved than policing, Security Sector Reform (SSR), or other civilian missions conducted by the EU. This is because military crisis management operations often deploy to highly unstable regions where fighting is still active and the use of force might be necessary. This means that all democratically elected governments need to be careful when committing themselves to operations that

Revelations   39 might cost the lives of their citizens. If they are not, then their domestic constituencies are likely to punish them by voting them out of office in the next elections. Thus, since the decision to send soldiers to crisis management operations in faraway countries is always highly political and sometimes even controversial, the member states are likely to stay firmly in control of the deployment process of EU military operations. Also, unlike civilian missions, EU military operations are resourced entirely by EU member states. This means that, whenever the Union is considering the deployment of a new operation, both the capabilities and funding for that operation must come from the member states. With regards to capabilities, the member states contribute troops and other assets to military operations in intergovernmental force generation conferences, which are organised to assemble an operation after a decision to establish one has been made. The contributions made in these conferences are purely voluntary, and no member state can be forced to contribute against its will. With regards to financing, the basic principle for funding EU military operations is, as previously explained, ‘costs lie where they fall’ and therefore each member state is responsible for funding its own contribution. However, as already discussed above, each EU military operation has several common costs, such as transportation and lodging, which are not incurred by specific member states. They are funded collectively through the Athena mechanism, which is a permanent financial instrument based in the Council General Secretariat. However, Athena is outside the EU’s budget and its funding comes from the member states, which make annual contributions to it based on their Gross National Income (GNI). Thus, given that EU military operations are both staffed and funded by the member states, EU officials’ ability to play a significant role in their deployment is limited. Given that the decisions to establish and launch EU military operations need to be taken by the Council acting unanimously, each EU member state has a formal right to block them. Even if all other member states supported the operation, it is theoretically possible that its deployment could be blocked by Malta, the smallest member states in terms of population size. In other words, each member state is a formal veto player in the ESDP/CSDP decision-­making process, that is, ‘an individual or collective actor whose agreement is required for a policy decision’ (Tsebelis 1995: 293). At the time when the first two EU military operations (Concordia and Artemis) were deployed in 2003, the EU had 15 member states, which means that there were 15 formal veto players in the ESDP/CSDP decision-­making process. However, since 2003, there have been three rounds of EU enlargement, which have increased the Union’s membership from 15 to 28 member states. Thus, there are currently 28 formal veto players in the ESDP/CSDP decision-­making process. In addition to formal veto players, the deployment of an EU military operation often requires the approval of certain third-­actors that are not formally part of the ESDP/CSDP decision-­making process. Despite this, these actors are connected to the ESDP/CSDP decision-­making process informally and they can also block the deployment of EU military operations. Thus, they can be described as

40   Revelations informal veto players. The host country of a possible EU operation, for example, can block the deployment of an operation because the EU does not deploy operations without the consent of the countries where those operations would be deployed. This gives the potential host countries of an EU military operation an informal veto over the deployment. The UN Security Council is also an informal veto player in the ESDP/CSDP decision-­making process because the EU does not generally deploy military operations without a UN mandate. This means that the three non-­EU permanent members of the Security Council (China, Russia and the US) have a veto over the deployment of EU operations. Furthermore, non-­EU NATO member states, such as Turkey and the US, are informal veto players when the EU considers conducting an EU military operation in the Berlin Plus framework. Any one of them can veto allowing the EU to conduct a crisis management operation using NATO planning and command and control assets. Due to the high number of veto players involved in the ESDP/CSDP decision­making process, one would expect that launching EU military operations would be extremely difficult. However, the EU has launched 12 military operations since 2003. What explains this? If all veto players in the ESDP/CSDP decision-­ making process expect that the deployment of an operation would facilitate the production of a public good that would benefit all of them, one could assume that they would not block the operation. This should apply especially to informal veto players because they would not have to invest any resources into the production of that public good; the EU operation would be resourced entirely by EU member states. In the best-­case scenario, the planned EU operation would facilitate the production of a public good as well as a private good for each veto player involved in the decision-­making process. However, it is far more likely that the operation in question would not produce a private good for each veto player. Furthermore, some veto players may expect the operation to facilitate the production of goods that could be mutually incompatible with the goods expected by other veto players. In such a case, the veto players must engage in negotiations to reach a compromise before the operation can be launched. How, then, do EU member state reach compromises over the deployment of military operations? Some argue that the Union’s foreign policy actions have tended to reflect the ‘lowest common denominator’ (e.g. Hyde-­Price 2007; Ginsberg and Penksa 2012). Hyde-­Price (2007: 113), for example, sees that, in the CFSP/ESDP, cooperation between the member states ‘will remain limited to a set of ‘second-­order’ concerns agreed based on the lowest common denominator. Ginsberg and Penksa (2012: 71) note that because establishing an EU operation requires unanimity among the member states, ‘the negotiation process typically results in a mandate that is the least controversial, a ‘lowest common denominator’ approach, or it may result in a ‘mixed bag’ approach where every actors gets something it wants in the mission mandate’. This means that, whenever the EU is considering a foreign policy action, the final form of that action will reflect the minimum of what all member states are can agree on. In the case of the ESDP/CSDP, for example, some the member states might prefer a strong operation that has a robust mandate and an open-­ended deployment period.

Revelations   41 Other member states, however, might not be willing to agree to such an operation because it might be politically controversial or they might not be willing to shoulder the financial burden incurring from such an operation. Thus, this group of member states would be willing to agree only to a small operation with a weak mandate and a strictly limited deployment period. Thus, after the member states have negotiated over the planned operation, a lowest common denominator compromise would reflect the position of the more cautious member states. In other words, lowest common denominator decision-­making favours the side that is more reluctant or cautious to act. Other scholars suggest, however, that the lowest common denominator is not an accurate description of how decisions in the CFSP/ESDP are made. They see that EU member states have managed to overcome the constraints of traditional intergovernmental bargaining because the union operates as a community, even when it comes to foreign and security policy. Smith (2004: 11), for example, has found that EU foreign policy cooperation has evolved ‘from a bargaining style of cooperation to a problem-­solving style of cooperation’. The bargaining style of cooperation reflects classical intergovernmentalism where the member states’ main concern is the satisfaction of their own interests through trade-­offs and incentives. The problem-­solving style of cooperation, on the other hand, developed over the years as the member states shared information and interacted with each other through EU institutions. This means that there is a much higher level of trust and familiarity among the member states than there is among many other groups of states. Thus, when the member states find themselves at loggerheads with each other over a foreign policy issue, they can appeal to common interests and use ostracism or peer pressure to sanction those member states that might be reluctant to act. Thus, negotiated compromises in the CFSP/ESDP do not always reflect the lowest common denominator. Ostracism, peer pressure, and rhetorical entrapment are negative ways of changing the initial position of those EU member states that might be reluctant to support the deployment of an EU military operation. However, there is also a positive way to do this by appealing to the member states’ sense of solidarity. Unless the problem at hand touches the core national interests of a member state, its partners can attempt to reach a compromise with it in two different ways: first, they could appeal to a sense of European solidarity; or second, they could point out inconsistencies between its current policy and its previous statements. First, as the member states have made a commitment to cooperate with each other long into the future, compromises in the Union are often made on the basis of ‘you scratch my back now, I scratch yours later’ (Interviews with national officials in Brussels, 2011–14). This means that the member states can accept a suboptimal compromise in a policy question if they can anticipate that their partners will return the favour in the future by compromising on something they hold dear. One official explained that ‘if you provide something, you can expect something’ (Interview with Hungarian official in Brussels, June 2011). Another one saw that ‘if you contribute big [to an ESDP operation], you have much more voice in the EU’ (Interview with Swedish official in Brussels, June 2011). It is

42   Revelations worth noting that this influence is not limited to the area of the ESDP; it can help a member state further its positions in the broader CFSP field as well (Interview with Hungarian official in Brussels, June 2011). EU member states are willing to make compromises out of solidarity to their EU partners because there is a high level of trust between them, which has been created through years of information sharing and close cooperation. Thus, European solidarity can be viewed as an intervening variable that may cajole initially reluctant member states to support an EU military operation even if they do not gain any private goods from it. Second, if appeals to European solidarity do not work, the partners of the reluctant member state can also attempt to entrap it rhetorically in supporting the EU operation. If the reluctant EU member state has previously made statements in which it expresses support for the ESDP or emphasises the necessity of maintaining stability in a certain region, for example, its partners can exploit these statements and shame it. They can do this by pointing out inconsistencies between the member state’s lack of support for the EU operation and its previous rhetorical statements. If the member state’s inconsistency is publicly exposed, it will lose credibility and reputation among its peers as well as its own domestic constituents (Schimmelfennig 2001: 65). In such a situation, it would be politically difficult for the member state in question to publicly oppose the EU operation without losing face (Schimmelfennig 2001: 4). Thus, the desire to save face may cause the reluctant member state to become rhetorically entrapped in supporting the EU operation. What are EU member states’ common interests when an EU military operation is being prepared? Smith (2004: 11) sees that the member states’ ‘common interests are not self-­evident’ and ‘they must be determined through institutionalized interactions’. With regards to the ESDP, the common interests that the member states hope to realise through the policy can be found from the 2003 ESS and the 2008 report on the implementation of the ESS. According to the 2003 ESS, ‘[i]t is in the European interest that countries on our borders are well-­ governed’ (CEU 2003: 7). The document sees that ‘[n]eighbours who are engaged in violent conflict, weak states where organised crime flourishes, dysfunctional societies or exploding population growth on its borders all pose problems for Europe’ (CEU 2003: 7). Thus, a stable neighbourhood is a common interest that the member states share. However, the EU is also concerned about instability beyond its immediate neighbourhood. The ESS states that regional conflicts ‘in Kashmir, the Great Lakes Region and the Korean Peninsula impact on European interests directly and indirectly, as do conflicts nearer to home, above all in the Middle East’ (CEU 2003: 4). This is because regional conflicts threaten regional stability; destroy human lives and social and physical infrastructures; and threaten minorities, fundamental freedoms and human rights (CEU 2003: 4). Furthermore, the EU recognises that regional conflicts can lead to extremism, terrorism and state failure; provide opportunities for organised crime; and fuel the demand for WMD (CEU 2003: 4). As a result, the ESS sees that ‘[t]he most practical way to tackle the often elusive new threats will sometimes be to deal with the older problems of regional conflict’ (CEU 2003: 4).

Revelations   43 Although regional stability is something that is clearly in the interest of all EU member states, it is essentially a public good. This means that, once it has been produced, it will benefit not just the member states, but also the world more broadly. Therefore, appeals to the common interest of regional stability might be insufficient to convince those member states that might be sceptical about the utility of an EU military operation to support it. However, as already explained, the deployment of an EU military operation can facilitate the production of joint products, which may vary in their levels of publicness. This means that it is possible that an EU military operation would facilitate the production of certain goods that would benefit only the EU or even single member states. In the best-­ case scenario, each member state would expect an EU military operation to facilitate the production of a private good that only it could enjoy. However, even if the operation in question would not produce a private good for each member state, it could produce certain club goods that could be enjoyed by all member states but nobody else. An example of such a club good would be international prestige; if the operation in question is successful, it will provide international prestige for the states that conducted it. This international prestige could then add to the EU’s political capital when dealing with third-­actors. If the EU military operation in question is expected to facilitate the production of a European club good, then peer pressure and appeals to European solidarity are likely to be more effective in convincing reluctant EU member states to support that operation. This is because those member states that are supportive of the operation can then shame their reluctant partners more effectively by arguing that they are not acting in the European interest. If the operation in question would produce only a public good, such as stability in a region where most member states have no direct interests at stake, it would be difficult to argue convincingly that deploying an operation to that region would be in the European interest. Thus, those member states that have no interests at stake in the region are unlikely to change their position. If, however, the operation was also expected to facilitate the production of a European club good, such as a more robust ESDP, then it would be much easier to make the argument that the deployment of the operation is in the European interest. In such a case, it would be easier to shame reluctant member states into participating in that operation by arguing that they are not acting in the interest of the community and in its values.

Methodology This book adopts a qualitative approach based on in-­depth case studies and process tracing to explain the deployment of EU military operations. A case study approach enables it to subject the overall hypothesis to rigorous testing, and helps it achieve a higher level of conceptual validity than a statistical one. In this book, a case study refers to the deployment process of an EU operation. Chapters 3–6 present four case studies, which demonstrate theoretically relevant empirical variations. They are the deployment processes of Operation Althea in

44   Revelations BiH, Operation Artemis and EUFOR RD Congo in the DRC, and Operation Atalanta off the coast of Somalia. Artemis was chosen because it was an autonomous EU operation deployed to assist the UN in a country where only a few member states have clear interests at stake. Althea was chosen because, unlike Artemis, it was planned in close cooperation with NATO in the framework of Berlin Plus. Furthermore, it took over an existing NATO operation in a country located in the EU’s immediate neighbourhood. Thus, stability in BiH is in the interest of a much larger group of member states than stability in the DRC. EUFOR was chosen because it was also deployed to the DRC to assist the UN. This allows the book to compare the deployment processes of two operations deployed to the same country to establish how the member states’ preferences towards intervention in the DRC changed over time. Atalanta was chosen because it is an EU naval operation conducted in coordination and cooperation with NATO, the UN, and other actors. It differs from the other cases because it was deployed in response to a clear threat to the member states’ economic interests. Thus, the case study operations were deployed to different geographical areas and they differ in their missions, partners, mandates, and sizes. Each case study will process trace the causal chain between EU member states’ preferences and the deployment of an operation. Process tracing allows a researcher to trace the links between possible causes and observed outcomes. It usually involves the examination of histories, archival documents, interview transcripts, and other sources to see whether the causal process that a theory hypothesises or implies in a specific case that is being studied is in fact evident in the sequence and values of the intervening variables in that case (George and Bennett 2005: 6). Process tracing is ideally suited for studying the deployment of EU operations because their deployment is a complex process that involves multiple steps from the event that puts the idea of deploying an operation on to the EU’s agenda to its decision to launch it. As already discussed, the idea of deploying an operation is usually first raised informally among the member states. Afterwards they discuss what kind of operation they would like to have, make the political decision to launch its planning process, and hold a force generation process. It is only at the very end of this process that an operation is launched. This means that the reasons behind the EU’s decision to deploy a specific kind of operation to a specific country cannot be determined using simple correlative methods. The findings process tracing will generate in the individual case studies will then be compared to draw broader inferences on the deployment of EU operations. The case studies should ideally analyse the preference formation of all EU member states. Given that they have different ‘tastes’, they are likely to support or oppose the deployment of an operation for different reasons. Furthermore, some of them might expect the operation to produce certain goods that others do not, as the discussion on joint products demonstrated. Unfortunately, however, it is not possible to analyse the preference formation of such a large group of states in the level of detail required. The reason for this is that doing so would require considerably more time and resources to process all the data that doing so would

Revelations   45 require. Thus, to keep the task manageable and ensure continuity across the cases, the book focuses primarily on three member states: France, Germany, and the UK. The reasons for this are threefold. First, any EU operation will have to rely on their capabilities because they are the Union’s most powerful member states militarily. Whether we look at their military expenditure or the number of deployable forces they possess, they rank above their partners. Data from the European Defence Agency (EDA) shows that the combined military expenditure of France, Germany, and the UK in 2012 was approximately €115,291 million or 60 per cent of the EU total (EDA 2014: 2). Furthermore, they also possess most of the deployable forces from which EU operations would have to be assembled. In 2012, the member states had a total 449,702 deployable troops (EDA 2013: 24). The UK and France possessed 68,400 and 71,585 of these troops respectively, which means that collectively they possessed approximately 31 per cent of the EU’s total deployable forces (EDA 2014: 52). If Germany’s deployable forces were added to this share, the percentage would most likely rise above 40 per cent. However, for political reasons, the German government does not specify the number of deployable forces it possesses. Second, they have different views on the purpose of the CSDP, which maximises the likelihood that the benefits they might expect to gain from individual operations would be different. Howorth (2007) has suggested that EU member states could be categorised using an Atlanticist/Europeanist dichotomy. Atlanticist member states prioritise NATO and maintaining close relations with the US, while Europeanist ones prioritise the CSDP and maintaining close relations to other member states (Howorth 2007). The UK is considered as the archetypal Atlanticist member state due to its strong prioritisation of NATO and its ‘special relationship’ with the US. France, on the other hand, is treated as the archetypal Europeanist member state due to its desire to develop the CSDP to ensure the EU’s ability to respond to crises autonomously. Germany, however, falls somewhere between the Atlanticist and Europeanist maxims represented by the UK and France. Although it tends to support autonomous EU security cooperation, it also places great value on NATO and its relations to the US for historical reasons. Due to these differences, France, Germany, and the UK are likely to value the goods that EU operations are expected to produce differently. Third, focusing on them will also make it easier to compare the book’s findings to those of others. There are several other studies on the deployment of EU military operations that have also focused on these countries. Gegout, for example, chose to focus on France, Germany, and the UK when explaining the deployment of Operation Artemis because she saw that ‘they are the biggest military powers in the EU’ (Gegout 2005: 435). Gross, on the other hand, chose to focus on the same member states in her book on EU crisis management ‘due to their substantial political and military involvement in the crisis management operations analysed, their size and influence in the EU setting and their contrasting preferences and approaches towards the EU foreign and security institutional framework’ (Gross 2009: 4). Thus, since this book will work towards a new theoretical framework for explaining the deployment of EU operations, it is

46   Revelations easier to compare its findings to those of others when it also focuses on France, Germany, and the UK. To improve the validity of the results, the book uses different kinds of data or triangulation whenever possible (Della Porta and Keating 2008). It relies primarily on publicly available primary and secondary sources. First, it uses official EU, national, and UN documents as well as newspaper articles. These sources are publicly available online. The official documents include Council conclusions, press releases, speeches, and resolutions. In addition, the book uses diplomatic cables from various US embassies around the world, which have become publicly available online. Although American officials wrote these cables, they give valuable insight into the deployment process of several EU military operations. Second, the book also uses material from 53 semi-­structured interviews with EU and national officials that the author conducted in 2011–15. In total, 24 of them were conducted specifically for this book, while the remaining 29 were conducted for other purposes. Most the interviews were conducted face-­to-face in Brussels, but two of them took place in Helsinki, two in Tallinn, and five were telephone interviews. All of them were conducted under the Chatham House Rule, which means that neither the identity nor the affiliation of the interviewees can be revealed (Chatham House 2016). However, occasionally some of the interviewees gave the author permission to mention the country they were affiliated to.

Conclusion This chapter presented a new theoretically informed framework of analysis for explaining the deployment of EU military operations. This ‘multi-­level collective action approach’ is based on three levels of analysis: first, the international level, where events catalyse the process leading to the deployment of EU operations; second, the state level, where governments formulate their initial preferences towards prospective deployments based on utility expectations; and third, the EU level, where EU member states negotiate with each other to find compromises that would accommodate their different national preferences. The international level is where the deployment of an EU military operation is catalysed by events. It was suggested that these events usually take the form of a crisis, which produces or threatens to produce local humanitarian problems in the area where the crisis takes place and/or negative externalities that affect the security of other countries. The products of these crises can be transmitted to the EU in two different ways: first, they can be transmitted indirectly through media reports that raise concern; and second, they can be transmitted directly through refugee flows, terrorist attacks, and other related phenomena. However, if we accept that the ESDP/CSDP is ‘a collective instrument for coalitional coercive diplomacy and military crisis management’ as defined by the Petersberg Tasks and the ESS and a framework for ‘limited security co-­operation in order to collectively shape the Union’s external milieu’ (Hyde-­Price 2006: 230–1), then we can expect two things: first, if the crisis in question produces only local

Revelations   47 humanitarian problems, then we can expect that the EU is relatively slow to consider the deployment of an EU operation to the crisis area; and second, if the crisis creates negative externalities that have direct effects on the security of EU member states, then we can expect that the deployment of an EU operation will enter into the Union’s agenda relatively quickly. The state level is where EU member states formulate their national positions towards the deployment of an EU military operation. After the deployment of such an operation has entered into the Union’s agenda, it is up to each member state to decide whether or not they want to participate in it. Collective action theory suggests that the enthusiasm in which the member states will support the deployment of an EU operation will depend on the type of benefits that they expect to gain from it. If the member states expect an operation to produce only a relatively pure public good, such as regional stability, then we can expect relatively little enthusiasm towards that operation. However, if there is a possibility that the operation will also produce other benefits, that is, club goods and private goods, then we can expect those member states that benefit the most from those goods to be enthusiastic about the proposed deployment. In other words, the member states will formulate their initial national positions towards the deployment of an EU military operation based on national utility expectations. The EU level is where EU member states gather to discuss the possibility of deploying an EU military operation and, if they find themselves to be at loggerheads with each other, to negotiate compromises that would accommodate their different national preferences. However, contrary to what is often suggested, these compromises do not necessarily reflect the lowest common denominator. Even if a member state does not expect to gain any private goods from the deployment of an EU operation, it can still support and even participate in it. This can happen for two different reasons: first, the member state in question might feel obliged to participate in an EU operation due to a sense of European solidarity; and second, other member states that do have an interest in the operation could use peer pressure to shame the reluctant member state into supporting and even participating in it. Peer pressure and shaming are likely to be most effective when two conditions are met: first, the member state that is being pressured or shamed does not have a clear reason for staying out of the operation; and second, the operation in question is expected to produce a club good. However, if these conditions are not met, it is unlikely that peer pressure or shaming will be effective.

Note 1 Acknowledgement: This chapter is derived in part from an article published in European Security 21 (4), November 2014, copyright Taylor & Francis, available online: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09662839.2014.982063.

48   Revelations

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Revelations   49 Hyde-­Price, A., 2007. European Security in the Twenty-­first Century: The Challenge of Multipolarity. Abingdon: Routledge. Khanna, J. and Sandler, T., 1997. Conscription, Peace-­keeping, and Foreign Assistance: NATO Burden Sharing in the Post-­Cold War Era. Defence and Peace Economics 8 (1), 101–21. Khanna, J., Sandler, T., and Shimizu, H., 1998. Sharing the Financial Burden for U.N. and NATO Peacekeeping, 1976–1996. Journal of Conflict Resolution 42 (2), 176–95. Kirchner, E. and Sperling, J., 2007. EU Security Governance. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Murdoch, J.C. and Sandler, T., 2004. Civil Wars and Economic Growth: Spatial Dispersion. American Journal of Political Science 48 (1), 138–51. Olson, M., 1971. The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and Theory of Groups. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Olson, M. and Zeckhauser, R., 1966. An Economic Theory of Alliances. Review of Economics and Statistics 48 (3), 266–79. Pohl, B., 2014a. EU Foreign Policy and Crisis Management Operations: Power, Purpose and Domestic Politics. London: Routledge. Pohl, B., 2014b. To What Ends? Governmental Interests and European Union (non-) Intervention in Chad and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Cooperation and Conflict 49 (2), 191–211. Posen, B.R., 2014. Restraint: A New Foundation for US Grand Strategy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Samuelson, P.A., 1954. The Pure Theory of Public Expenditure. Review of Economics and Statistics 36 (4), 387–89. Sandler, T., 1977. Impurity of Defense: An Application to the Economics of Alliances. Kyklos 30 (3), 443–60. Sandler, T., 2004. Global Collective Action. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Schimmelfennig, F., 2001. The Community Trap: Liberal Norms, Rhetorical Action, and the Eastern Enlargement of the European Union. International Organization 55 (1), 47–80. Smith, M.E., 2004. Europe’s Foreign and Security Policy: The Institutionalization of Cooperation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Smith, M.E., 2010. International Security: Politics, Policy, Prospects. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Snyder, G.H., 1997. Alliance Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Tsebelis, G., 1995. Decision Making in Political Systems: Veto Players in Presidentialism, Parliamentarism, Multicameralism and Multipartyism. British Journal of Political Science 25 (3), 289–325. UNDPKO (United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations), 2013. List of Peacekeeping Operations 1948–2013. www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/documents/opera tions list.pdf. Walt, S.M., 1987. The Origins of Alliances. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Wolfers, A., 1965. Discord and Collaboration: Essays on International Politics. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

3 Out of the shadows Operation Althea in Bosnia and Herzegovina1

Bosnia, the scene of perhaps the EU’s biggest foreign-­policy humiliation, is now the venue for the biggest test so far of its military ambitions. The Economist, 19 March 2005

On 2 December 2004, Operation Althea replaced the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s (NATO) Stabilisation Force (SFOR) in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). The British-­commanded operation, which included 7,000 troops from 33 different nations at the time of its launch, was hailed as the European Union’s (EU) first ‘substantial military mission’ (Dombey and Jansson 2004). Althea was also seen as ‘a major step forward’ in the development of the military dimension of the European (now Common) Security and Defence Policy’s (ESDP/CSDP) because it confirmed the Union as ‘an actor in international security affairs’ (Bertin 2007: 61). The reason for this was that Althea was substantially larger and more ambitious than Operations Concordia and Artemis, the first two EU military operations, which were deployed in Macedonia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) respectively in 2003. Operation Althea has already received a good amount of attention in the literature (Bertin 2007; Friesendorf and Penksa 2008; Muehlmann 2008; Keohane 2009; Overhaus 2009; Domm 2011; Knauer 2011; Pentland 2011; Kirchner 2013; Engberg 2014; Rodt 2014; McDonagh 2015; Sigri and Basar 2015; Palm 2017). However, this chapter argues that Althea was deployed because EU member states saw it as a lucrative joint product activity – that is, a collective action that was expected to facilitate the production of both public and private goods. First, the main task that Althea inherited from SFOR was ensuring a safe and secure environment in BiH, a public good. Although the country’s security climate had improved, EU member states understood that there was still a need to maintain a military presence in BiH as a deterrent against nationalistic movements and organised crime. Second, Althea was also expected to facilitate the production of contributor specific private goods by creating resource savings for the member states. Since BiH’s security climate had improved, many of the countries of who were involved in SFOR at the time the operation was handed over to the EU could reduce their military presence in the country. Third and

Out of the shadows   51 most importantly, Althea also facilitated the production of a club good that could be enjoyed exclusively by the member states. As the first major EU operation, Althea was expected to demonstrate the Union had come to age as an actor in international security. In other words, the operation was expected to provide the EU with a significant amount of prestige. However, some member states pushed the ESDP to become more autonomous from NATO and the United States (US), whereas others wanted it to be closely linked to the Alliance. These opposing views on the nature of the club good that Althea was expected to produce explain the disagreements over SFOR’s handover in 2003 and the exact division of labour in BiH between NATO and the EU in 2004.

Background On 25 June 1991, both Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence from Yugoslavia. Following Slovenia’s independence declaration, the country’s forces clashed with the predominantly Serb forces of the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA). The fighting between the two sides lasted for only ten days and casualties were limited. In Croatia, however, the fighting was more intense and lasted for several months. The Croatian forces clashed with the JNA as well as Serb militias. The clashes between the two sides escalated into warfare in August 1991 and continued until January 1992 when a ceasefire agreement was signed in Sarajevo under the United Nation’s (UN) auspices. Shortly afterwards, the parties to the conflict ‘fully and unconditionally’ accepted the so-­called Vance Plan, which presented concept for a UN peacekeeping operation in Yugoslavia presented (UNGS 1999: 8). This enabled the UN Security Council to adopt resolution 743 on 21 February, which established a UN Protection Force (UNPROFOR) for an initial period of 12 months. UNPROFOR’s mandate was later extended to BiH, where people had voted for independence in a referendum held between 29 February and 1 March. Following the referendum, sporadic fighting in different parts of the country began to intensify. However, UNPROFOR was too weak to prevent the war from escalating and ultimately getting out of hand. The reason for this was that the mission had been provided ‘with an imprecise mandate that was constricting, frequently amended and impossible to implement’ (Glenny 2012: n.p.). The situation began to change only after NATO reluctantly launched Operation Deliberate Force, an air campaign that worked in concert with UNPROFOR ground operations to undermine the Bosnian Serb Army. The international military campaign in BiH ultimately paved the way for the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was a comprehensive ceasefire agreement between Yugoslavia, BiH, and Croatia. The agreement was negotiated under American mediation in November 1995 at Dayton Air Force Base in Ohio, which is why it is also known as the Dayton Agreement. During the negotiations, the warring parties agreed to divide BiH into two autonomous regions: the Republika Srpska and the Federation of BiH (Glenny 2012).

52   Out of the shadows The warring parties also welcomed ‘the willingness of the international community to send to the region, for a period of approximately one year, a force to assist in implementation of the territorial and other militarily related provisions’ of the Dayton Agreement (Ramcharan 1997: 347). This force was to be a 60,000 strong NATO-­led Implementation Force (IFOR) that would replace UNPROFOR. On 15 December, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 1031, which authorised NATO to establish IFOR to fulfil the role specified in the military annexes (Annex 1-A and Annex 2) of the Dayton Agreement. The operation was authorised to take ‘all necessary measures’ to affect the implementation of and to ensure compliance with Annex 1-A (UNSC 1995: 3). IFOR was also authorised to take all necessary measures to ensure compliance with rules and procedures governing the command and control of the airspace over BiH with respect to all civilian and military air traffic. Following the adoption of resolution 1031, NATO launched IFOR on 16 December and the operation began its one-­year mission on 20 December. Following the peaceful conduct of the Bosnian general elections in September 1996, IFOR completed its mission. However, although the country’s security climate had improved during the operation’s deployment, much more work needed to be done on the civilian side to ensure BiH’s long-­term stability. The reason for this was that BiH’s political environment was expected to remain unstable and insecure even after IFOR’s mandate concluded. Thus, NATO defence ministers concluded in September that ‘the Alliance needed to re-­assess how it might continue to provide support for the establishment of a secure environment after the end of IFOR’s mandate’ in December 1996 (SFOR 2003). A month later, the NAC ‘approved detailed political guidance for a study to be undertaken by the NATO Military Authorities of post-­IFOR security options’ (SFOR 2003). In November and December 1996, a two-­year consolidation plan was established in Paris and elaborated in London under the auspices of the Peace Implementation Conference. On the basis of this plan and the Alliance’s own study of security options, NATO foreign and defence ministers concluded that a reduced military presence was needed to provide the stability necessary for consolidating the peace. Thus, on 10 December, the North Atlantic Council (NAC) expressed that NATO is ‘prepared to organise and lead a Stabilisation Force (SFOR) to take the place of IFOR’ after its mandate would end (NATO 1996). Two days later, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 1088, which authorised the deployment of SFOR ‘as the legal successor to IFOR’ for an initial period of 18 months (UNSC 1996: 5). The operation was officially activated on 20 December 1996, the same day IFOR’s mandate expired. Whereas IFOR’s purpose had been the implementation of peace in Bosnia, SFOR’s aim was to further stabilise and consolidate it. This meant that the operation did not require as many troops as IFOR to fulfil its mandate. At the beginning of its mandate, the SFOR’s strength was around 32,000 troops or roughly half of the strength of IFOR. NATO saw that the operation would be able to concentrate on implementing all the provisions of Annex 1A of the

Out of the shadows   53 Dayton Agreement: stabilising ‘the current secure environment in which local and national authorities and other international organisations can work’ and providing support to other agencies on a selective and targeted basis (SFOR 2003). However, in October 1999, the NAC decided to implement a revised structure for SFOR between November 1999 and April 2000 and reduce its size. The reason for this was that Bosnia’s security climate had continued to improve after SFOR was launched, which meant that it was no longer necessary to have a 32,000-strong operation in the country. As a result, NATO was able to reduce SFOR’s size to approximately 22,000 troops by the end of 2000, and further down to approximately 18,000 troops by early 2002. In addition to BiH’s improved security climate, a factor that contributed to NATO’s decision to reduce SFOR’s size was America’s desire to withdraw from the Balkans. At the time when the war in Bosnia was still intensifying, the US had been extremely reluctant to get involved in the country because it saw the Balkans as Europe’s problem. However, due to Europe’s inability to handle conflicts in the region, the US was forced to deploy a large number of troops as part of IFOR. After the US had deployed troops to BiH, the Pentagon put a significant amount pressure on NATO to reduce SFOR’s size (Clark 2001: 102). In 1998, the US also decided to cut the size of its contingent in the operation without any promulgated NATO-­drawdown criteria and expected that its European allies would make up for the reduction, which did not happen (Deni 2014: 184). The pressure to downsize the American presence in BiH increased further after the election of George W. Bush as President in 2001. During the first presidential debate between Bush and Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore in October 2000, Bush explained that he would be ‘very careful’ about using American troops as nation builders (Bush 2010: 205). After the Bush administration had taken office, Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld ‘focused on reducing the American military presence in Bosnia and Kosovo and assigning security responsibilities to local security forces or international peacekeepers from countries more directly affected by potential instability in the area’ (Rumsfeld 2011: 484). In both BiH and Kosovo, this meant handing more responsibility to the Europeans while the US would gradually withdraw its own forces.

Agenda setting In February 2002, the EU announced its readiness to ensure a follow-­up mission to the UN’s International Police Task Force (IPTF ) in BiH (CEU 2002: 16). Shortly before, the Union had also begun to consider the possibility of complementing its growing civilian presence in the country with a parallel military presence by taking over SFOR (Interviews with former EU Council and UK officials, February–April 2013). These considerations were catalysed by two related developments: first, the US had been pushing Europe to assume more responsibility in the Balkans because it wanted to withdraw its forces from the region; and second, BiH’s security climate had improved to a point where European countries could handle the country without American support. High Representative

54   Out of the shadows for the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) Javier Solana was a strong advocate of the idea because he wanted the EU to start the deployment of military operations as soon as possible to attract member state capitals towards the new and untested ESDP, and to convince them to make commitments towards the 1999 Helsinki Headline Goal (HHG) (Interview with former EU Council official, February 2013). Officials also noted that Solana’s efforts were facilitated by the fact the member states had ‘an appetite’ for starting the deployment of EU operations (Interview with former UK official, April 2013). At the time when the EU began to consider the possibility of taking over SFOR, it had not yet launched a single military or civilian operation. This meant that launching the first operations would operationalise the ESDP and demonstrate to the world that the EU was serious about developing a credible security and defence policy. This was expected to provide the Union with a significant amount of international prestige, which can be viewed as a club good because its enjoyment would be limited to the member states. In other words, SFOR’s handover to the EU was a means to facilitate the production of a club good by operationalising the ESDP and demonstrating the effectiveness of the Union’s new management structures (Interviews with current and former EU and national officials, 2011–13). France was a strong supporter of the idea of replacing NATO operations in the Balkans with EU ones. President Jacques Chirac was the first French official to raise the idea publicly. During a campaign speech at Strasburg on 6 March 2002, Chirac spoke about his vision for the EU’s future role in international politics. Among other things, he called for an assertive European foreign policy and emphasised the need to construct Europe de la défense, the traditional ideological goal of French Gaullists. To facilitate its realisation, Chirac proposed taking ‘immediate action’ to hand over the on-­going NATO operations in Macedonia and Bosnia – that is, Amber Fox and SFOR – to the EU (Elysee 2002). He saw that the Union was already capable of commanding such operations on its own. Chirac explained that if the EU would take over these operations from NATO, it would demonstrate to the world that Europe is capable of managing its own security without being systematically dependent on NATO – that is, the US. This means that Chirac supported the handover because it would facilitate the production of a club good in the form of international prestige for the EU. At the time when President Chirac made his proposal, France was the lead nation of SFOR’s Multinational Division Southeast (MND-­SE). This division included a 2,200-strong French contingent and it was responsible for ensuring stability in the area around Mostar and Sarajevo, which was largely inside the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, France and other countries participating in SFOR had begun to feel that the operation’s size could be reduced further due to BiH’s improved security climate. France was encouraged by BiH’s progress, but it was also aware that nationalistic movements and organised crime could still threaten the country’s fragile stability if the international military presence would be withdrawn too early. French Minister of Defence Michèle Alliot-­Marie, for example, noted during her visit to the Balkans in May

Out of the shadows   55 that the signs of political and economic progress in BiH in Bosnia that she witnessed encouraged her (MINDEF 2002). However, she also emphasised that the international community must remain vigilant in BiH and that the current security environment in the country necessitated prolonging the international military presence, even if a further reduction of SFOR’s size would eventually be possible. Thus, France supported SFOR’s handover to the EU because it saw that BiH’s security climate had become permissive enough for the Europeans to manage the country without American assistance. Furthermore, the handover was considered beneficial because it would facilitate the production of a club good in the form of international prestige for the ESDP and also because it would allow France to reduce its military presence in the Balkans. However, the French military understood that it would still take time before SFOR could be concluded. On 8 October, for example, Chief of Defence General Jean-­Pierre Kelche briefed the French National Assembly’s Defence and Armed Forces Committee. Among other topics, Kelche spoke about the progress achieved with the ESDP since the policy was launched. He felt generally positive about the progress that had been achieved, but noted that it was time to bring the ESDP out of virtual reality by anchoring it firmly into reality (Assemblée nationale 2002). According to Kelche, this could be done only if the EU was allowed to command an actual crisis management operation. He saw that the Union could do this in Macedonia and BiH. However, Kelche emphasised that a possible EU operation that would replace SFOR should not lead to an early departure of American forces in SFOR’s Multinational Division North (MND-­N). The size of the American contingent was 1,770 troops or roughly 12 per cent of SFOR’s total strength at the time. Thus, although the French military saw that SFOR’s handover to the EU would facilitate the production of a club good in the form of international prestige for the ESDP, it recognised that it would not be simple to find a country that would be willing to replace the US in MND-­N. Germany also supported handing over NATO’s responsibilities in Bosnia to the EU. In spring 2002, the country had indicated that it was confident in Europe’s ability to command SFOR without the US in the future. On 11 April, Defence Minister Rudolf Scharping gave a speech in which he drew attention to the fact that Europe was already providing the lion’s share of NATO’s forces in the Balkans. He pointed out that 70 per cent of the Alliance’s troops in Kosovo, 65 per cent of the troops in Bosnia, and nearly all of the troops in Macedonia were ‘NATO Europeans’ (BMVg 2002a). Scharping explained that this would not have been possible without decades of cooperation with the US in NATO; the Alliance’s integrated force and command structures; and Europe’s willingness to share risks, burdens, and responsibility with the transatlantic allies. These remarks were especially applicable to Germany itself, which was participating in SFOR with a 1,418-strong contingent that was approximately 10 per cent of the operation’s total strength. Most of these forces were serving in the French-­led MND-­SE. After Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s red-­green coalition was re-­elected in September, Germany began to signal that it was seriously considering the possibility of supporting SFOR’s handover to the EU. On 5 November, Parliamentary

56   Out of the shadows State Secretary for Defence Walter Kolbow gave a speech on the new challenges facing German security policy and armed forces. He also spoke about the progress achieved in the area of military ESDP since 1999. Kolbow declared that Europeans continued to be determined to conduct the first-­ever crisis management operation under the EU’s command, which was expected to take place in Macedonia. He also spoke briefly about BiH and mentioned that Europeans should start considering the conditions under which SFOR could eventually be handed over to the EU (BMVg 2002b). Three weeks later, Peter Struck, Scharping’s successor as the Defence Minister, proposed publicly that SFOR could eventually be taken over by an EU force (AFP 2002a). Following the Copen­ hagen European Council, Struck explained that leading SFOR would be ‘a very attractive mandate’ for the ESDP and noted that the EU could prove in BiH ‘that it is able to take up the role played by NATO’ (AFP 2002b). This meant that, like France, Germany supported SFOR’s handover to the EU because it would facilitate the production of a club good in the form of international prestige for the ESDP. The United Kingdom (UK) did not endorse the idea of replacing SFOR with an EU operation publicly until the December 2002 Copenhagen European Council. However, the UK had supported the initiative behind closed doors from spring 2002 onwards because it also saw it as a good opportunity to test the ESDP in a country where NATO as a whole no longer wanted to be engaged (Interview with former UK official, April 2013). More specifically, the UK saw SFOR’s handover to the EU as an opportunity to meet part way those member states that seemed to be pressing for a much more concerted push on building up European defence almost into a rival of NATO (Interview with former UK official, April 2013). This meant that the UK saw the possibility of handing SFOR over to the EU as a ‘manageable risk’ and an opportunity to encourage the Union to ‘step up to the plate’ in terms of taking more responsibility in the management of crises in its own backyard (Interview with former UK official, April 2013). In other words, the UK saw that SFOR’s handover to the EU would facilitate the production of a club good. However, compared to France and Germany, the UK defined that club good differently because it put more emphasis on making the ESDP credible and less emphasis on generating prestige for it. It is also worth noting that, for the UK, making the ESDP credible meant that it would have close links to NATO. This is clear from the British government’s statements on NATO’s military presence in the Balkans prior to the Copenhagen European Council, which suggested that it did not have any major objections to eventually replacing SFOR with an EU operation provided that such an operation would be conducted in the framework of Berlin Plus. On 18 March, Prime Minister Tony Blair reconfirmed the UK’s commitment to play its ‘proper role in the Balkans’ by being ‘part of the system of peacekeeping there’ (House of Commons 2002). On top of this, he emphasised that Europe should upgrade its defence capability so that it has the ability to act ‘in circumstances where NATO does not want to be engaged’ and pointed out that the Alliance was already in the process of withdrawing from Macedonia (House of Commons 2002). At the

Out of the shadows   57 time, the UK was participating in SFOR’s Multinational Division Southwest (MND-­SW) with a 1,469-strong contingent, which was approximately 10 per cent of the operation’s total strength. This division was responsible for ensuring stability in the area around Banja Luka that covered parts the FBH and Republic of Srpska. However, since the US had made clear its desire to withdraw from Bosnia, the UK understood that NATO’s presence in country would have to be restructured and reduced during the coming years. The EU proposed the idea of having its own military operation in BiH officially for the first time at the 12–13 December Copenhagen European Council. It ‘indicated the Union’s willingness to lead a military operation in Bosnia following SFOR’ (CEU 2003: 8). This became possible after a deal was reached on the Berlin Plus arrangements, which would allow the EU to access NATO’s planning and command and control structures when conducting military operations in the framework of the ESDP. However, the European Council also invited High Representative Solana and the future Council Presidency to begin consultations on the possibility of conducting an EU military operation in BiH following SFOR ‘with the authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the High Representative/ EU Special Representative Lord Ashdown, NATO and other international players and to report to the Council in February’ (CEU 2003: 8). Furthermore, it ‘requested the relevant EU bodies to make proposals on an overall approach, including the legal framework, by the same time’ (CEU 2003: 8). After Copenhagen, the UK also spoke publicly about the possibility of the EU taking over SFOR. On 16 December, Prime Minister Blair declared that the brand-­new Berlin Plus agreement implied that the EU could now ‘undertake peacekeeping operations using NATO planning, and the option of NATO headquarters and NATO assets as well’ (10 Downing Street 2002). He went on to declare that the EU stood ready ‘to lead a military operation in Bosnia following SFOR’ (10 Downing Street 2002). As already noted, the UK’s decision to support SFOR’s handover to the EU was due to two factors. First, the UK saw that the move would facilitate the production of a club good in the form of a more credible ESDP. Second, it also saw that it would facilitate the production of a private good in the form of American goodwill. At the time, the US was fighting a war in Afghanistan and had already begun planning for Operation Iraqi Freedom. As a result, the UK understood that the US needed to withdraw its forces from the Balkans in order to redeploy them to strategically more important theatres (Black 2002). Thus, it seems that the UK also expected that SFOR’s handover to the EU would generate American goodwill because it would enable the US to withdraw from BiH. After the Copenhagen European Council had indicated the EU’s willingness to take over SFOR, the Union began to plan informally for a possible operation in BiH. In January 2003, Germany gave more explicit reasons on why it supported handing over SFOR’s responsibilities to the EU. Defence Minister Struck explained that there are ‘good reasons’ for allowing the Union to take over the military command in Bosnia (BMVg 2003a). According to him, the takeover would allow Europeans to take the responsibility for securing their

58   Out of the shadows own continent more firmly into their own hands. On top of this, he saw that it would allow the US to withdraw from BiH without decreasing its commitment to the ‘joint responsibility’ of stabilising the country (BMVg 2003a). Like all European countries, Germany was aware of Washington’s desire to pull out its forces from the Balkans and redeploy them to strategically more important theatres, such as Afghanistan and eventually Iraq. Due to BiH’s improved security climate and the EU’s willingness to lead SFOR’s successor operation, the operative phrase that characterised Washington’s policy towards NATO’s military operations in the country was ‘in together, out together, but hasten the day’ (Garamone 2003). As a result, Germany saw that a transfer of authority in BiH would be in the interest of both the EU and the US. This means that Germany also expected the operation to generate American goodwill for the countries that enabled the US to withdraw from BiH. Germany initially advocated a late 2003 handover of SFOR’s responsibilities to the EU. In an interview published on 19 January, Defence Minister Struck mentioned that Germany was striving for a transfer of authority in Bosnia from NATO to the EU that could take place already in autumn 2003 (BMVg 2003b). This was much earlier than anyone had suggested before. However, on 22 January, the Franco-­German Defence and Security Council (FGDSC) issued a statement saying that both France and Germany ‘fully support’ the EU’s ‘plan to take over militarily from NATO in Bosnia, possibly at the beginning of 2004’ (Missiroli 2003: 23). The short period of time between the two statements suggest that Germany changed its position on the handover date after discussing it with France. It should be remembered that Chief of Defence Kelche had cautioned in October 2002 against a hasty handover of SFOR’s responsibilities to the EU if it would lead to an early departure of the Americans in MND-­N. France seems to have been sceptical about the EU’s short-­term ability to replace the American SFOR contingent, whereas Germany indicated that it was confident that the EU was already capable of managing BiH without the US. Like Germany, the UK also stepped up public support for an eventual EU takeover of SFOR in January 2003. As NATO had already expressed that it would like Europe to take the lead in both BiH and Macedonia (Dempsey 2003a), the UK did not have to worry that supporting an EU follow up operation to SFOR would be against US interests. On January 24, Parliamentary Under-­ Secretary for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Mike O’Brien explained the British government’s position on the possible replacement of SFOR with an EU operation. He said that the government thought that ‘the EU should be ready to take on’ this task and anticipated that the force would take the form of ‘an EU operation planned, commanded and conducted with recourse to NATO planning, assets and capabilities’ (FCO 2003). According to O’Brien, the operation would support the UK’s long-­term strategy of moving BiH ‘in a European direction’. Furthermore, he saw that Operation Concordia, which would launch on 31 March, would be ‘useful preparation’ for the more demanding operation in BiH. However, O’Brien emphasised that SFOR’s possible handover to the EU ‘would not mean the end’ of NATO’s presence in BiH because the he Alliance would

Out of the shadows   59 continue its Partnership for Peace activities in the country. In other words, the British government was behind the proposed EU takeover of SFOR, but only if it took place under close cooperation with NATO. The reason for this was that the UK wanted to use the handover as a means to make the ESDP credible, which for it meant that the policy would have to be closely linked to NATO. The UK continued its steady support for an EU successor operation to SFOR the following month. On 4 February, Prime Minister Blair travelled to the annual Franco-­British summit at Le Touquet to meet with President Chirac. The summit produced a declaration on strengthening European defence cooperation that reconfirmed that both France and the UK welcomed the EU’s ‘intention to undertake a military operation in Bosnia-­Herzegovina in early 2004, working with the international community and NATO in particular to take over the stabilisation role from the Alliance’ (French Embassy London 2003). This was the first time the UK had publicly endorsed a timetable for the possible transfer of authority in BiH. They saw ‘this as supporting the efforts of Lord Ashdown, as High Representative and EU Special Representative, to pursue the EU’s agenda in Bosnia-­Herzegovina and to complement the EU’s efforts to promote the development of that country’ (French Embassy London 2003). France and the UK also noted that they would present to the EU General Affairs and External Relations Council on 24 February joint proposals to launch work in the coming weeks for a takeover by the EU of the stabilisation mission in Bosnia, on the basis of transparency and cooperation with NATO. (French Embassy London 2003) At the 24 February General Relations and External Relations Council (GAERC), High Representative Solana presented his report on the envisaged takeover of SFOR by the EU. It underscored the need for the future mission to retain a ‘robust mandate’, the opportunity that an EU operation would offer in terms of an integrated EU approach towards the country (notable with the presence of the EU Police Mission in BiH) and the importance of ‘close co-­operation’ with NATO and the US (Missiroli 2003: 46). The joint Franco-­British proposal was presented by Jack Straw, the British Foreign Minister, and Dominique de Villepin, his French counterpart. It echoed what Solana’s report had mentioned by calling for a ‘seamless transition, based on a shared strategic military analysis between the two (Nato and EU) organisations’ (Dempsey 2003b). Furthermore, the proposal emphasised that the EU force ‘should not be weaker that [sic] the Nato force it replaces’ and the Alliance should start planning ‘at the earliest opportunity’ for the transition. After the meeting, the British government reported that ministers from other EU member states had ‘joined the UK in stressing the importance of a robust mandate and close co-­operation with NATO’ (House of Commons 2003). Table 3.1 lists the types of joint products that France, Germany, and the UK expected to realise by replacing SFOR with an EU operation.

60   Out of the shadows Table 3.1  Joint product expectations from Operation Althea Country

Public goods

Club goods

Private goods

France Germany United Kingdom

Stability in Bosnia Stability in Bosnia Stability in Bosnia

Prestige for ESDP Prestige for ESDP Credibility for ESDP

US goodwill US goodwill US goodwill

In spring, the momentum that had been built for SFOR’s handover to the EU was lost due to the transatlantic rift over the Iraq War. As it became clear that the US was going to launch Operation Iraqi Freedom, France and Germany became the leaders of Europe’s anti-­war camp. President Chirac took a highly public stance against the American war plan, which angered the US and its closest European allies. The UK, however, was a member of the opposite camp that supported the American plan for regime change in Iraq. Prime Minister Blair had pledged to Washington that the UK would support the US war effort even if the UN Security Council would not authorise it. This caused enormous tension in the UK’s relations with France and Germany, the loudest anti-­war voices in Europe. As the Iraq War began, the EU was also under pressure to ensure the success of Operation Concordia in Macedonia, its first-­ever military operation. With 350 troops and a six-­month mandate, Concordia was a modest operation in terms of both size and mandate. However, it was highly important because the US had expressed to the EU that it should prove that it was able to make a success of the much smaller operation in Macedonia before focusing on replacing SFOR in BiH (US Embassy Rome 2003a). This meant that Concordia was essentially a mandatory ‘prequel’ for any operation the EU might wish to conduct in BiH because it allowed the Union ‘to test its recently agreed procedures covering every aspect of the mounting of a military operation’ (Howorth 2007: 232; Gross 2009: 174). Norheim-­Martinsen (2013: 141) has also observed that Concordia was ‘first and foremost a test case for Berlin Plus, and an opportunity to take CSDP into the field’. Furthermore, he sees that the operation was ‘marked by the underlying assumption that military action was not really required, suggesting that the EU needed a more robust venture to earn the badge of military player in the Balkans’ (Norheim-­Martinsen 2013: 141). In other words, if the EU would prove unable to handle the relatively permissive Macedonia, there was little chance that the US would risk allowing it to take over SFOR, which was a much larger and more demanding operation than Concordia. Like France, Germany also tried its best not to neglect its priorities in the Balkans during the transatlantic rift over the Iraq War. After the launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom on 20 March, Defence Minister Struck explained that Germany wanted to continue reducing NATO’s presence in Kosovo and BiH ‘independently’ of the situation in Iraq. He noted that both Europe and the US agree that their military presence in the Balkans can be significantly reduced (BMVg 2003c). Due to concerns that intra-­EU division over the Iraq War would affect the Union’s plans to take over SFOR, French Defence Minister Michele Alliot-­ Marie emphasised that EU member states’ ‘different opinions’ on Iraq ‘cannot

Out of the shadows   61 change Europe’s intention and desire to be present in Bosnia-­Hercegovina’ [sic] militarily (AFP 2003). Furthermore, she thought that there was ‘a high level of unity’ on the issue and that the problems the EU had were ‘of a technical nature’ (AFP 2003). However, the Union’s plans to replace SFOR were further complicated on 29 April when France, Germany, Belgium, and Luxemburg – the so-­ called ‘gang of four’ – proposed creating ‘a nucleus collective capability for planning and conducting’ autonomous EU operations (Missiroli 2003: 79). In other words, they were proposing setting up an autonomous EU Operational Headquarters (OHQ) in Tervuren, a quiet suburban area a 20-minute tram ride from central Brussels. The US and its closest European allies were extremely annoyed by the proposal because they saw it ‘not as practical military measure but a political gesture, an assertion of independence from American leadership’ (Schnabel and Rocca 2005: 66–7). Following the proposal, British Prime Minister Blair rejected claims that he was losing control of the direction the ESDP was heading by stating that the UK would not accept any proposals that would undermine NATO or be in conflict ‘with the basis of European defence’ that had previously been set out (Helm 2003). France tried to justify the Tervuren proposal as a way to move the ESDP forward following the intra-­European divisions over Iraq, but the US saw it as an explicit attempt to undermine NATO’s primacy in Europe. American suspicions over France’s true intentions vis-­à-vis the Alliance were also reinforced by France’s rhetoric on the need to ‘rebalance’ the transatlantic relationship to reflect a multipolar world (Schnabel and Rocca 2005: 67). In addition, the Tervuren proposal raised fears in the US that France and Germany were pushing for the transfer of authority in BiH for similar reasons, triggering a series of critical statements from high-­ranking NATO and American officials on the planned EU operation. As a result, the US had few incentives to allow the EU to replace SFOR with an EU operation as long as France might use it as an opportunity to assert Europe’s independence from NATO and the US. In other words, there were fears that France would use the handover of NATO’s responsibilities in Bosnia to the EU as a means to promote a more exclusive ESDP that would develop outside Berlin Plus. In September, France, Germany, and the UK reached a partial compromise over the Tervuren proposal. President Chirac and Chancellor Schröder assured Prime Minister Blair that they would not move further with it for the time being and emphasised that NATO would continue to serve as the ‘basis of collective defence for its members’, which was enough to ease British and American concerns (Castle 2003). This compromise led to the 29 November Joint Paper, which proposed creating ‘a small EU cell’ in NATO’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Mons, Belgium; enhancing the EU Military Staff ’s (EUMS) planning structures and using national HQs for conducting autonomous EU operations (Missiroli 2003: 283–4). However, before the Joint Paper was presented, the compromise also enabled the EU to move forward with the proposed replacement of SFOR with an EU operation. In the end of September, a high-­ranking German diplomat from the Council General Secretariat reported

62   Out of the shadows that there were ‘signals’ that the EU could soon take command of NATO’s military operations in Bosnia (FAS 2003). During an informal EU defence ministerial meeting in Rome on 3–4 October, it was confirmed that such ‘an EU-­led military operation would be with recourse to Berlin-­plus’ (Missiroli 2003: 232). Furthermore, the UK offered to serve as the ‘managing state’ of the EU operation by commanding it on the ground (EurActiv 2003). According to interviewees, this decision was due to the UK’s desire to ‘keep control’ of the operation and assure Washington that it would not undermine NATO (Interviews with former EU Council and UK officials, February–April 2013). The ministers also agreed in principle to take over SFOR and proposed creating a working group to consider four possible options for the EU’s future role in BiH. These were an EU police mission, an EU military operation that would be ‘softer’ than SFOR, no action at all, or an EU operation that would replace SFOR by mid-­2004 (US Embassy Rome 2003b). Furthermore, the French delegation to the meeting proposed that informal planning for the operation should already be launched ‘in order for the EU to take over SFOR’s mission by mid-­2004’ (US Embassy Rome 2003b). Before the EU could start formal planning for a replacement operation for SFOR, however, NATO had to formally approve the plan. The reason for this was that EU officials had assured the US earlier that the Union would take over SFOR only when the US, EU, and NATO would jointly decide that it was time (US Embassy Rome 2003c). Following NATO’s informal defence ministerial at Colorado Springs in October, then NATO Secretary-­General Lord Robertson told reporters that the Alliance had adopted a ‘direction’ that indicated that it is looking ‘very carefully’ at how a transition from SFOR to an EU operation could take place (NATO 2003a). However, he also emphasised that no formal decisions were made because the meeting at Colorado Springs was an informal one. In order to secure NATO’s approval of the plan, France promised to the US in late October that it would ensure that any EU operation in BiH ‘would use the new ‘Berlin Plus’ agreement’ (Spiegel 2003). These assurances appeased NATO and the US and paved the way for the Alliance’s official endorsement of the EU’s plans shortly before the end of the year. Following an NAC meeting on 1 December, NATO defence ministers issued a communiqué saying that the Alliance ‘has made indispensable contributions to peace and stability in the Balkans’ and continues to remain ‘fully committed to these goals’. However, due to BiH’s improved security climate, the NAC decided that SFOR would ‘reduce to a deterrent force of around 7,000 troops’ by June 2004. Furthermore, it noted that NATO would ‘consider how to adjust the operation further’ over the coming months, including possibly terminating SFOR ‘by the end of 2004’ and transitioning to a new NATO military liaison and advisory mission (NATO Headquarters Sarajevo) and to a new EU mission within the framework of the Berlin Plus arrangements; in this context, the NATO Military Authorities, keeping the Military Committee informed, should consult with their EU counterparts on Bosnia-­Herzegovina, in accordance with agreed texts and procedures. (NATO 2003b)

Out of the shadows   63 Following an EU–NATO ministerial meeting on 4 December, the Union and the Alliance issued a statement saying that both sides ‘look forward to’ these consultations (Missiroli 2003: 285). The 12–13 December Brussels European Council ‘confirmed the EU’s readiness for an ESDP mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina, including a military component based on the agreed Berlin Plus arrangements’ (CEU 2004a: 22). It also ‘welcomed NATO’s readiness to start consultations with the EU’ and invited the incoming Council Presidency and High Representative Solana ‘to take the matter forward in accordance with agreed procedures’ (CEU 2004a: 22).

Planning and launch At the beginning of Operation Althea’s planning process, France continued to insist that it should be smaller than SFOR. The reason for this was that France saw that SFOR’s force levels did not correspond to the relatively permissive security climate that prevailed in BiH. Defence Minister Alliot-­Marie, for example, noted in January 2004 that the 1,100 French soldiers that were stationed in BiH should be reduced to 400 when SFOR is handed over to the EU (Assemblée nationale 2004a). However, she also warned that the international community should not rush to declare the end of military operations in BiH because the country could still come under threat from nationalistic movements and criminal networks that had an interest in ensuring that it would remain in prolonged disorder (Assemblée nationale 2004a). Thus, while France was willing to pay its share for the continued production of the public good of stability in BiH, it wanted this share to be as small as possible to save national resources. Like France, Germany saw that BiH’s improved security climate should lead to a reduction in the size of its military presence in the country when SFOR was handed over to the EU. On 26 January, Defence Minister Struck gave a speech in which he emphasised that the reduction of NATO’s military presence in BiH to 7,000 soldiers, which the Alliance agreed in December 2003, would allow Germany to redeploy some of its 1,300 personnel who were serving in SFOR at the time (BMVg 2004). However, high-­ranking NATO officials expressed concern at the time over EU member states’ plans to reduce their military presence in BiH following SFOR’s handover to the Union. They worried that if EU member states continued to reduce their military presence in BiH after SFOR’s handover to the Union, then the EU follow-­up operation would not have the necessary credibility to deal with all problems that it might encounter. One of these officials was Admiral Rainer Feist, NATO’s outgoing DSACEUR. He warned the EU that the planned operation would not credible if its strength was less than 7,000 (SZ 2004a). When the 27 April External Relations Council adopted the General Concept for Althea, the German government agreed provisionally to contribute 1,800 soldiers to SFOR’s successor operation (Die Welt 2004). It seems that Germany had to rethink the size of its planned contribution to Althea after NATO officials had expressed their warnings. Thus, since both

64   Out of the shadows France and Germany had already existing forces in BiH, they were not thinking about free-­riding in the forthcoming EU operation. However, both of them wanted to maintain only the minimum level of forces in the country necessary to produce the desired joint products: stability in BiH, prestige for the EU, and American goodwill. The first half of 2004 was also marked by differences between NATO and the EU over the exact post SFOR division of labour between the two organisations in BiH. France, Germany, and a number of other EU member states saw that the planned operation should inherit all of SFOR’s responsibilities, including the power to track down war criminals indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), such as Ratko Mladić and Radovan Karadžić (MAEE 2004). The reason for this was that they wanted to avoid the authority of the new EU operation being questioned on the ground due to a confusing division of labour with NATO (FAZ 2004a). High Representative Solana also saw that a continuing NATO presence in BiH would contradict the basic message of ‘mission accomplished’ in the country and complained to the US that it was seeking a joint NATO/EU operation rather than a genuine EU led mission. According to Solana, this turned Berlin Plus on its head in the sense that the US seemed to be wishing to maintain NATO authority in BiH while using EU assets instead of the Union having guaranteed access to the Alliance’s assets. Solana saw that this would blur the lines of authority in BiH, and signal that the US did not trust the EU (US Embassy Brussels 2004). From the perspective of the multi­level collective action approach, certain member states were against a continuing NATO presence in BiH because it would limit the amount of prestige that the EU would gain from conducting Althea. The more responsibility the planned EU operation would have, the more international prestige it would generate for the ESDP. Whereas France and Germany wanted the planned EU operation to inherit all of SFOR’s responsibilities, the UK and the US wanted to keep NATO in charge of tracking down war criminals in BiH, even after SFOR’s conclusion. The reason for this was that the UK was interested in using SFOR’s handover to the EU as a means to increasing the ESDP’s credibility as opposed to generating prestige for it. Furthermore, the UK had always seen that the ESDP could be credible only if it would be closely associated with the Alliance. The UK believed that the planned residual NATO presence ‘should retain some operational activities, such as hunting for indicted war criminals and counter-­terrorist operations’ (House of Commons 2004a). London wanted to see BiH ‘on an irreversible track towards European and Euro Atlantic integration’, which it saw could happen only with the assistance of both NATO and the EU (House of Commons 2004a). The UK continued to maintain this position in the run up to the adoption of the EU’s General Concept at the External Relations Council on 27 April (House of Commons 2004b), as well as after its adoption. Defence Minister Geoffrey Hoon explained to the House of Common on 17 May that the British government expected the forthcoming EU force to ‘provide the security framework to enable political and economic development to continue’ in BiH,

Out of the shadows   65 whereas NATO would focus on ‘defence reform, including advising the Bosnians on NATO accession’ and operational tasks such as counter terrorism and support of the ICTY (House of Commons 2004c). Germany was careful not to give an impression that it opposed a residual NATO presence in BiH after SFOR’s conclusion. The Foreign Ministry, for example, indicated that it did not have any major objections to NATO’s plans to maintain a small presence in the country that would continue to carry out some of SFOR’s responsibilities. Furthermore, Political Director of the German Foreign Ministry Michael Schaefer said in March that NATO ‘should and will’ retain a role in BiH that would complement the planned EU operation (Auswärtiges Amt 2004). On 13 April, France also signalled that it was willing to compromise when Defence Minister Alliot-­Marie noted that discussions over the exact division of labour between NATO and the EU in BiH were ongoing, but ‘common sense’ indicated that the two organisations would eventually share responsibility for tracking down war criminals, even though the US would continue to insist that NATO should retain the primary responsibility in this area (Assemblée nationale 2004b). Yet, during an informal meeting of EU defence ministers in Brussels on 6 April, it was confirmed that NATO would continue to remain in charge of capturing war criminals after SFOR’s conclusion. Although some EU member states considered the decision as regrettable, Alliot-­Marie promised that Paris would not make a ‘casus belli’ over it (EurActiv 2004). Following the meeting, High Representative Solana emphasised that it is important ‘to have clarity between EU and NATO tasks in Bosnia’ and ‘to demonstrate to the BiH authorities that such clarity exists’ (EUISS 2005: 46). Thus, France and Germany were unable convince all of their NATO partners, most importantly the US and the UK, over the merits of allowing the planned EU operation to take over all of SFOR’s responsibilities. In addition to confirming that NATO would remain in charge of capturing war criminals after SFOR’s conclusions, the informal EU defence ministerial supported the draft General Concept. The 26 April External Relations Council in Luxemburg adopted the final version of the document. According to the EU’s standard military planning process, the first planning document is usually the Crisis Management Concept (CMC). However, in the case of Operation Althea, the CMC was renamed as the General Concept to avoid having the word ‘crisis’ in its title. The reason for this was that some EU member states wanted to avoid having to answer whether or not there still was an actual crisis in BiH (Interview with EEAS official in Brussels, March 2012). The aim of the General Concept was to set down ‘the strategic parameters of the security and stabilisation tasks’ of the provisions of the 1995 Dayton Agreement ‘to be carried out by an EU global engagement, including an EU military force’ (CEU 2004b: 2). Furthermore, the document noted that since ‘assuming the military tasks will add to the EU’s existing responsibilities in BiH, this concept highlights the EU’s comprehensive approach, and the organisational steps required to ensure EU coherence and unity of effort’. It stated that the Union’s political-­military objective in BiH was ‘to contribute to a safe and secure environment for the achievement of the

66   Out of the shadows necessary political and economic reforms’ that would support its short and medium-­term political objectives (CEU 2004b: 3). In the short term, the EU hoped to ensure a seamless transition from SFOR to Althea and support BiH’s path to European integration in the medium-­term. Its ultimate long-­term aim was a ‘stable, viable, peaceful and multiethnic’ BiH that would eventually become a full EU member. The next step was taken on 28 May when the Council adopted a Military Strategic Option (MSO) that described ‘a military action designed to achieve the EU objectives as defined’ in the General Concept. Although the document remains classified, one interviewee explained that the document stated that the EU ‘tends to adopt a military posture similar to SFOR’ (Interview with EEAS official in Brussels, March 2012), which implied a 7,000-strong operation with the necessary logistical and support elements. However, in another deviation from its standard planning process, during which the EUMS usually prepares a number of alternative MSOs, only one MSO was identified for the BiH operation. According to the document, the reason for this was that a single option ‘is sufficient to embrace the different military factors defining the ESDP military operation’, which was due to the fact that the EU was taking over an existing operation from NATO (Interview with EEAS official in Brussels, March 2012). As a result, there was no need to prepare alternative MSOs. The formal decision to conclude SFOR was taken at NATO’s Istanbul Summit on 28 June. The summit decided to conclude SFOR by the end of the year and welcomed the EU’s readiness ‘to deploy a new and distinct’ operation with a robust UN Chapter VII mandate (NATO 2004). However, despite the efforts of France and other EU member states that wanted to see a clear division of labour between the Union and NATO in BiH once the EU would take over SFOR, the summit confirmed the Alliance would continue advising BiH on defence reform and ‘undertake certain operational supporting tasks’ in the country after SFOR’s conclusion, including counter terrorism and tracking war criminals. This meant that the UK’s preference had prevailed over those member states, such as France, that had argued in favour of the Union inheriting all of SFOR’s previous functions. A day after the Istanbul Summit, Irish Foreign Minister Brian Cowen, whose country was holding the EU Council’s rotating presidency, sent a letter to the President of the UN Security Council. He wrote that the EU ‘would be grateful’ if the President could inform the Security Council of the EU’s intention to launch an EU military operation in BiH after SFOR’s conclusion ‘so that the Security Council can be in a position to welcome’ it (UNSC 2004a). Thus, on 9 July, the Security Council adopted resolution 1551, which welcomed ‘the EU’s intention to launch an EU mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina, including a military component, from December 2004’ (UNSC 2004b). After the UN Security Council had welcomed the forthcoming deployment of Operation Althea, GAERC adopted a Joint Action on 12 July (EU 2004a). The purpose of the document was to establish Althea’s legal framework and outline the operation’s command and control structures. It appointed an experienced

Out of the shadows   67 British officer and the future Director General of the EUMS, Major General A. David Leakey, as Althea’s Force Commander (EU 2004a). Leakey’s appointment followed the UK’s decision in September 2003 to lead the EU operation (FAZ 2003). The UK had made this decision to calm those in Washington who were concerned after the ‘gang of four’ debacle that France and Germany might use the operation as a means to assert Europe’s independence from NATO. As General Sir John Reith, who would replace Admiral Feist as NATO’s DSACEUR in October, would serve as Althea’s Operation Commander, this meant that British officers occupied both of the highest positions in the operation’s chain of command. Following the adoption of the Joint Action, the Concept of Operations (CONOPS), which lays out the EU’s force requirements, was drafted under the direction of General Reith and approved without debate by foreign ministers at the September 13 GAERC (CEU 2004c). It noted that the ‘bulk of the SFOR forces presently deployed in BiH will be transferred to the EUFOR by the respective TCNs’ [Troops Contributing Countries] (CEU 2004d). This was followed by a single force generation conference on 15 September, which one high-­ranking officer described as ‘easy’ because the EU was actually ‘drawing down’ the number of existing forces in BiH instead of asking its member states to provide new contributions (Interview with former EUFOR commander, October 2011). However, there were two force generation challenges that the EU needed to overcome: first, it had to replace almost 1,000 American troops, who would leave BiH when SFOR would conclude; and second, it had to find a substitute for the US as the framework nation of Multinational Task Force North (MNTF-­N) (Bertin 2007: 64). In the end, the EU was able to generate enough forces to fill the gap that the withdrawal of the Americans would create. Furthermore, Finland volunteered to serve as the framework nation of Task Force North, which was nicknamed in Brussels as Task Force Nokia (Interview with national official in Helsinki, July 2011). France agreed to maintain a 450strong contingent in BiH, which was in line with its desire to reduce its presence in the country from 1,500 personnel to 400 personnel. The UK agreed to maintain a 950-strong contingent in the country, which consisted mostly of Grenadier Guards. This meant that the UK would also be Operation Althea’s largest troop contributor when the operation would deploy. Following the force generation conference, Althea’s Operation Commander Rainer Feist was reportedly ‘confident’ that he would get the forces needed to accomplish his task (EUISS 2005: 235). Although the UN Security Council had already welcomed Operation Althea’s deployment, it had not yet provided the operation with an actual mandate. This changed on 22 November when the Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 1575. The resolution authorised the EU ‘to establish for an initial planned period of 12 months a multinational stabilisation force (EUFOR) as a legal successor to SFOR under unified command and control, which will fulfil its missions in relation to the implementation’ of the military aspects of the 1995 Dayton Agreement in cooperation with the residual NATO presence that would

68   Out of the shadows remain in BiH after SFOR would conclude (UNSC 2004c). Although this NATO presence would continue to carry out certain operations in the country, the Security Council also recognised that ‘EUFOR will have the main peace stabilization role under the military aspects of the Peace Agreement’. This was good news to those who had worried that the operation’s authority might be questioned on the ground if the division of labour between the EU and NATO was unclear. Furthermore, Althea was authorised to take ‘all necessary measures’ to ‘effect the implementation of and to ensure compliance with’ the military aspects of the Dayton Agreement and defend its own presence. During the summer, the French government continued to speak in public about Operation Althea’s significance for the development of the ESDP. Defence Minister Alliot-­Marie described it as a ‘quantum leap’ and declared that Europe de la défense had finally become a reality (FAZ 2004b). For the UK, the military-­strategic phase of Althea’s planning process did not present any major surprises. Since British officers occupied all of the highest positions in the operation’s chain of command from Operation Commander to Force Commander, the UK did not have to worry about having its views heard. Some EU member states disagreed with the UK’s view that the EU would not have to sign a new Status of Force Agreement (SOFA) with BiH since Althea was taking over from SFOR. However, this issue was ultimately resolved in the UK’s favour with the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1575, which authorised Althea’s deployment ‘as a legal successor to SFOR’. The CONOPS was drafted under the direction of General John Reith, the Operation Commander, and agreed without discussion by the General Affairs Council on 13 September. This was followed by a single force generation conference on 15 September, where the UK promised to provide approximately 950 troops consisting mostly of Grenadier Guards, making it Althea’s largest troop contributor. However, even the UK was able to reduce its existing military presence in BiH. The formal decision to launch Operation Althea was taken by the EU’s Competitiveness Council (COMPET) on November 25 when it adopted a Council Decision (CEU 2004e).2 The document authorised General Reith to release the Activation Order ‘in order to execute the deployment of the forces, prior to Transfer of Authority following their arrival in theatre, and start execution of the mission on 2 December 2004’ (EU 2004b). As Friesendorf and Penksa (2008: 687) have noted, the replacement of SFOR with Althea ‘completed the shift from a US dominated military mission under both IFOR and SFOR to a more European SFOR and finally to EUFOR’. When Althea took over from SFOR, Reith brushed aside scepticism that the force would not be as capable as SFOR by declaring that ‘[a]nybody who was even thinking about testing our mettle would see that it is not worth their while’ (Castle and Zimonjic 2004). France had agreed to maintain a contingent of 450 in BiH as part of Althea, which continued to serve around Mostar and Sarajevo in Multinational Task Force Southeast (MNTF-­SE). This contribution was in line with the statements made by the French government earlier during the year, which had called for a reduction of the country’s military presence in BiH from the 2003 level of 1,500 personnel

Out of the shadows   69 that were part of SFOR. However, in March 2005, the number of French soldiers serving in the country was only 377 (EUFOR 2005). Germany made the formal decision to contribute to Operation Althea at the end of its planning process. On 17 November, the German government decided formally that the country would participate in Althea (FAZ 2004c). One week later, it requested that the Bundestag approve the deployment of a maximum of 3,000 German soldiers to BiH as part of the operation (Deutscher Bundestag 2004a: 4). However, this high number did not mean that the government was increasing Germany’s military presence in BiH from its previous levels. On 26 November, Defence Minister Struck explained to the Bundestag that the government had decided to continue Germany’s military presence in Bosnia by sustaining 1,100 troops in the country (Deutscher Bundestag 2004b: 13,314). The much larger number of forces that was requested, Struck explained, was to ensure that the government had a degree of flexibility so that it could increase Germany’s military presence in BiH quickly in case the situation on the ground would unexpectedly deteriorate. On 26 November, an overwhelming majority of 583 of a total of 590 Bundestag members approved Germany’s participation in Althea (SZ 2004b). This allowed the country to transfer its soldiers in SFOR’s MNTF­SE under the command of Althea, where they continued to serve in the area around Mostar and Sarajevo as part of the same Task Force.

Conclusion This chapter analysed the deployment process of Operation Althea, the largest military operation the EU has launched to date. It showed that the deployment of Althea was possible because SFOR’s handover to the EU was seen as a lucrative joint product activity that was expected to facilitate the production of both public and private goods. By continuing to provide stability in BiH and serving as a deterrent against nationalistic movements and organised crime, Althea was expected to continue the production of a public good that could be enjoyed by the EU as well as the broader world. During the period from the Copenhagen European Council to Althea’s launch, France, Germany, and the UK indicated that they all believed that the international military presence should be maintained in the country even after SFOR would conclude. The reason for this was that none of them wanted to see BiH relapse into the type of chaos and ethnic violence that had plagued the Balkans throughout the 1990s and cost thousands of lives. It is unlikely that France, Germany, and the UK would have pushed for SFOR’s handover to EU from 2002 onwards had they expected it to produce only a dubious public good. The above sections showed that all countries thought that the transfer of authority in BiH from SFOR to Operation Althea should lead to a reduction in their military presence in BiH, which would allow them to save national resources. It should be remembered that, at the time Althea was deployed, France, Germany, and the UK were sustaining large deployments in Iraq and/or Afghanistan, which was putting considerable strain on their armed

70   Out of the shadows forces and defence budgets. This means that the economic rationale to save national resources seems to have increased their desire to hand over SFOR’s responsibilities to the EU than its public goods feature. Thus, it can be argued that SFOR’s handover to the Union also produced private goods for EU member states in the form of national savings. The sections above also showed that the countries supported Operation Althea’s deployment also because they saw it as a means to make the EU’s embryonic military structures more credible, to finally bring them out of virtual existence and anchor them into reality. In other words, they expected the deployment would facilitate the production of a club good in the form of a more robust ESDP. In fact, the desire to make the ESDP operational and gain international recognition for the EU’s nascent military ambitions seems to have been the primary motivation behind Althea’s deployment. However, France, Germany and the UK had very different perspectives on what this club good should look like and what its relationship should be vis-­à-vis NATO. Whereas France and Germany were more interested in generating the maximum amount of prestige for the ESDP, the UK emphasised the need to make it credible and associate it with NATO. These perspectives clashed after the ‘gang of four’ proposed setting up an autonomous EU in Tervuren, which raised concerns in the UK and the US that France and Germany were pushing for the handover of SFOR’s responsibilities to the EU to undermine NATO’s primacy in Europe. It also surfaced when the EU and NATO were discussing what the exact division of labour between them would be in BiH after SFOR concluded. Thus, there was a clash between two distinctive ideological views on the role of the ESDP vis-­à-vis NATO, which explains the transatlantic and intra-­European differences over Althea’s deployment in 2003.

Notes 1 Acknowledgement: This chapter is derived in part from an article published in European Security, 21 November 2014, copyright Taylor & Francis, available online: www. tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09662839.2014.982063. 2 Once EU member states’ permanent representatives at COREPER have approved a document, it can be formally adopted by any Council configuration even if the subject matter of the document has nothing to do with the configuration that adopts it.

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Out of the shadows   75 Palm, T., 2017. The changing character of EUFOR Althea: Power Politics or Learning? Cambridge Review of International Affairs. DOI: 10.1080/09557571.2016.1256947. Pentland, C.C., 2011. From Words to Deeds: Strategic Culture and the European Union’s Balkan Military Missions. Contemporary Security Policy 32 (3), 551–66. Ramcharan, B.G., ed., 1997. The International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia: Official Papers. Vol. 1. The Hague: Kluwer Law International. Rodt, A.P., 2014. The European Union and Military Conflict Management: Defining, Evaluating and Achieving Success. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Rumsfeld, D., 2011. Known and Unknown: A Memoir. New York: Sentinel. Sigri, U. and Basar, U., 2015. Assessing the Quality of Training: The Case of EUFOR Operation ALTHEA. Journal of International Peacekeeping 19 (3–4), 274–86. Schnabel, R.A. and Rocca, F.X., 2005. The Next Superpower? The Rise of Europe and its Challenge to the United States. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. SFOR (Stabilisation Force), 2003. History of the NATO-­led Stabilisation Force (SFOR) in Bosnia and Herzegovina. www.nato.int/sfor/docu/d981116a.htm. Spiegel, P., 2003. France Seeks to Ease US Fears over NATO Role in Any EU-­led Bosnia Force. The Financial Times, 29 October, p. 10. SZ (Süddeutsche Zeitung), 2004a. Admiral: Für Bosnien 7000 EU-­Soldaten nötig. 14 February, p. 6. SZ, 2004b. Bundeswehr bleibt länger in Bosnien. 27 November, p. 5. UNGS (United Nations General Assembly), 1999. Report of the Secretary-­General pursuant to General Assembly resolution 53/35. A/54/549, 15 November. www.un.org/en/ ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/54/549. UNSC (United Nations Security Council), 1995. Resolution 1031 (1995). S/RES/1031 (1995), 15 December. www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/RES/1031(1995). UNSC, 1996. Resolution 1088 (1996). S/RES/1088 (1996), 12 December. www.un.org/ en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/RES/1088(1996). UNSC, 2004a. Letter dated 29 June 2004 from the Permanent Representative of Ireland to the United Nations addressed to the President of the Security Council. S/2004/522, 30 June. www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2004/522. UNSC, 2004b. Resolution 1551 (2004). S/RES/1551 (2004), 9 July. www.un.org/en/ga/ search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/RES/1551%20(2004). UNSC, 2004c. Resolution 1575 (2004). S/RES/1575 (2004), 22 November. www.un.org/ en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/RES/1575%20(2004). US Embassy Brussels, 2004. Solana on Bosnia: Partnership Requires Trust, Too. 04BRUSSELS1074, 12 March. http://wikileaks.org/cable/2004/03/04BRUSSELS1074. html. US Embassy Rome, 2003a. Italy/EU – GoI Reaction to USG GAERC Points. 03ROME1568, 11 April. http://wikileaks.org/cable/2003/04/03ROME1568.html. US Embassy Rome, 2003b. EU Informal Defense Ministers Meeting in Rome. 03ROME4564, 6 October. http://wikileaks.org/cable/2003/10/03ROME4564.html. US Embassy Rome, 2003c. U.S.–EU Troika Political Directors – Productive Discussions on ESDP, Iraq, Non proliferation. 03ROME3368, 24 July. http://wikileaks.org/ cable/2003/07/03ROME3368.html.

4 To tame a land Operation Artemis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Is it getting across that this is a European operation? French officer quoted in The Irish Times, 21 July 2003

Operation Concordia, the European Union’s (EU’s) first military operation, took almost two years of preparation before it was ready to be launched. This suggested that the EU would not be capable of genuine rapid reaction if necessary. However, Operation Artemis, the second EU military operation, was launched only two months after Concordia. Artemis was deployed to a challenging environment in a remote province in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Unlike Concordia, it received a robust mandate from the United Nations (UN), which inspired French Brigadier General Jean-­Paul Thonier, Artemis’s Force Commander, to describe it as ‘a real soldier’s mission’ (Ngowi 2003). The deployment of Artemis was a response to then UN Secretary-­General Kofi Annan’s call for an interim emergency force that would stabilise the city of Bunia, which had become engulfed in ethnic violence. Following the eruption of violence in the city, both the UN and the DRC government proved unable to prevent the situation from deteriorating further. Thus, Annan requested France and then the EU to lead an emergency force to stabilise Bunia and relieve the embattled UN peacekeepers until they could be reinforced. There is a relative large body of literature on Operation Artemis (Grignon 2003; Faria 2004; Ulriksen, Gourlay, and Mace 2004; Bono 2005; Gegout 2005; Abass 2007; Homan 2007; Martinelli 2008; Türke 2008; Duke 2009; Helly 2009; Morsut 2009; Jahier 2010; Petrov 2010; Norheim-­Martinsen 2011; Page 2011; Rayroux and Wilen 2011; Schmidt 2011; Özveri 2011; Rodt 2014; Janos 2015). This chapter argues that Artemis was launched because EU member states saw it as a lucrative joint product activity that would facilitate the production of both public and private goods. First, Artemis was expected to facilitate the production of a public good by ensuring stability in Bunia until the UN could reinforce its own peacekeeping operation. Second, since it was the EU’s first-­ ever autonomous military operation, Artemis was also expected to facilitate the production of a club good in the form of a more robust ESDP. Third, France and the United Kingdom (UK) also expected Artemis to facilitate the production of

To tame a land   77 private goods. Both countries saw that, by responding positively to the UN’s request, Artemis would generate a significant amount of goodwill from the organisation and help restore its credibility after it had been side lined in the run up to the Iraq War. In addition, France saw that an EU operation was diplomatically more acceptable to the countries in the Great Lakes region than a French national operation. Thus, Artemis provided diplomatic cover for France. Germany did not expect Artemis to facilitate the production of any private goods, nor did it value the club good that the operation was expected to produce because it did not think that the ESDP should focus on crisis management in sub-­Saharan Africa. However, after it had become clear that a majority of Germany’s partners supported the deployment, the country was entrapped to support it or risk losing goods that it valued.

Background The escalation of violence between the Hema and Lendu tribes in Bunia, the capital of the northeastern DRC Ituri province, that followed the withdrawal of Ugandan armed forces from the town, was not a sporadic incident. The roots of this violence lay in a complex mixture of a local conflict over land between the two ethnic groups and a broader conflict among five Central African states in the Great Lakes region, the Second Congo War. It broke out in 1998 and, by April 2003, approximately 3.3 million people lost their lives as a result of the conflict, making it the deadliest war ever documented in Africa (IRC 2003: 1). After a series of peace agreements between the belligerent countries had been signed, the war was brought to an end in July 2003 when the Transitional Government of the DRC was established. In July 1999, the DRC and the five other belligerent countries – Angola, Namibia, Rwanda, Uganda, and Zimbabwe – agreed to a ceasefire in the Zambian capital of Lusaka. The Lusaka Agreement laid down the terms and conditions for the cessation of hostilities between the warring parties and called the UN Security Council to authorise the deployment of ‘an appropriate peacekeeping force’ to the DRC to ensure the agreement’s implementation and track down armed groups in the country’s territory (UNSC 1999a: 6). On 30 November, the Security Council adopted resolution 1279, which authorised the deployment of United Nations Organisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC).1 At first, MONUC was given a weak Chapter VI mandate, which authorised it to plan for the observation of the ceasefire and disengagement of forces and maintain liaison with all parties to the Lusaka Agreement (UNSC 1999b: 3). However, MONUC’s mandate was subsequently expanded to include the supervision of the Lusaka Agreement’s implementation and multiple related additional tasks were assigned to it. However, many of the issues that had caused the Second Congo War remained unresolved. Although the Lusaka Agreement had effectively brought an end to conventional fighting between the various armed groups that remained in the DRC and their foreign backers, it had failed to require Rwanda, Uganda,

78   To tame a land and Zimbabwe to withdraw their forces from the country’s territory. They remained in the DRC’s territory as de facto occupiers, plundering the country’s vast natural resources for economic gain, and arming and training ethnic militias. A UN expert panel on the exploitation of natural resources in the DRC, for example, reported in 2002 that various elite networks supported by Rwanda, Uganda, and Zimbabwe ‘have control over a range of commercial activities involving the exploitation of natural resources, diversion of taxes and other revenue generation activities’ in those parts of the DRC that they control (UNSC 2002a: 6). Due to its failure to resolve the conflicts between the different parties to the Second Congo War, Baroness Crawley described the situation that the Lusaka Agreement had produced as a ‘no-­peace no-­war stalemate’ (House of Lords 2003). In mid-­2002, the DRC, Rwanda, and Uganda as well as the various armed groups operating in the DRC began to take steps to resolve this stalemate. The first major step was taken when the DRC and Rwanda signed a peace agreement in Pretoria, South Africa, on 30 July. The Pretoria Agreement committed Rwanda to withdraw its forces from the DRC as soon as measures were in place to dismantle former Rwandan military personnel and members of the Interahamwe, a paramilitary group that was supported by Rwanda’s Hutu government during the 1994 genocide, which continued to operate from the DRC (UNSC 2002b). The Pretoria Agreement also included a timetable on the normalisation of relations between the two countries, which committed Rwanda to withdraw its forces from the DRC within three months after signing it. On 6 September, the DRC signed a similar agreement with Uganda in the Angolan capital of Luanda. The Luanda Agreement committed Uganda to withdraw its forces from eastern DRC within four months after it was signed. The two countries also agreed that Ugandan troops would remain on the slopes of the Ruwenzori mountains ‘until the Parties put in place security mechanisms guaranteeing Uganda’s security, including training and coordinated patrol of the common border’ (DoS 2002). Yet, there were concerns over the short-­term consequences of the withdrawal of Rwandan and Ugandan forces from eastern DRC. The reason for this was that, although the foreign armies had continued to wage war through proxies and plunder the DRC’s resources during their de facto occupation, they had also protected the local population from ethnic militias and criminal gangs. Given that the influence of the DRC government did not reach far outside Kinshasa, the country’s capital, there was little hope that it could take over this role from Rwanda and Uganda. Thus, it was feared that the departure of Rwandan and Ugandan forces from eastern DRC would create a power vacuum that would leave the civilian population exposed. UN Secretary-­General Annan had emphasised this already in 2001. At the time, Annan explained that he took ‘very seriously’ the dangers that might confront the Congolese people with the departure of the foreign forces, ‘which are now responsible for the security of the civilian population in the areas under their control’ (UNSC 2001: 17). The situation was especially worrisome in the DRC’s north-­eastern province of Ituri and its capital, Bunia, which had been controlled mostly by the Uganda

To tame a land   79 People’s Defence Forces (UPDF ) since conventional fighting had ceased in 1999. During its occupation, the UPDF and the ethnic it had sponsored served as ‘the de facto enforcement arm’ of a network of Ugandan officers, private businessmen, and rebel leaders who plundered the region’s natural resources (UNSC 2002a: 20). The UPDF had also armed and trained the militia of ‘their “commercial allies” in Ituri, the Hema, which had a local conflict with another local ethnic group, the Lendu, over the possession of land’ (UNSC 2002a: 23). Whereas the Hema had traditionally received their livelihood from herding animals, the Lendu were primarily cultivators. However, the conflict between the two groups had been escalated by Hema businessmen and politicians’ attempts ‘to increase the benefits they derive from the commercial activities’ of the elite network established and sponsored by the UPDF. The Hema were also using their enmity with the Lendu as an excuse to import arms and train their own militia, including the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC), with the objective of ‘consolidating their economic strength in the region’ (UNSC 2002a: 22). With this objective in mind, the UPC took control of Bunia in August 2002 with the support of the UPDF. After it had taken control of the town, the militia began to receive support from Rwanda and expanded its activities outside Bunia in an attempt to take control of the entire Ituri region. As a response to the attacks carried out by the now Rwandan-­backed UPC, the UPDF recaptured Bunia and several nearby villages in March 2003 and increased its overall presence in Ituri to over 7,000 troops. The UPDF ’s increased presence in Ituri escalated tensions between Rwanda and Uganda to the point where the DRC feared their armies might clash directly on its territory (UNSC 2003a). To avoid this, Amos Namanga, the UN Secretary­General’s Special Representative to the DRC, proposed that a trilateral meeting be held between the heads of state of Rwanda, Uganda and the DRC. The meeting was held on 9 April in Cape Town, South Africa, where the three presidents reconfirmed the timetable for Ugandan withdrawal from Ituri. According to this timetable, the withdrawal would begin on 24 April and finish by 14 May. However, Uganda’s withdrawal from Ituri began on 25 April, a day later than it had agreed to with the DRC and Rwanda. The withdrawal was carried out in a disorganised and haphazard manner, which left Ituri’s civilian population unprotected. Thus, immediately after the UPDF had completed withdrawing from Bunia on 6 May, various Hema and Lendu militia groups moved to take control of the town. With the Ugandan forces gone, there was no one to stop the violent clashes between the militias from escalating.

Agenda setting On 6 March, while the parties to the Inter-­Congolese Dialogue were meeting in Pretoria, the UPDF recaptured Bunia and several other villages in Ituri from Rwanda-­backed militias, causing tensions between Uganda and Rwanda to boil almost to the point of war. France was quick to express concern over the increasing instability in Ituri and called on ‘all parties in the region to exercise restraint, so as not to jeopardize the agreement in Pretoria on 6 March’ (MAEE 2003a).

80   To tame a land London was also quick to join the efforts of the UN in calling the Ugandan government to immediately withdraw its forces from the DRC and urging Rwanda ‘to refrain from any action that would aggravate the situation in Ituri’ (FCO 2003a). Following the signing of the UN mediated agreement between various rebel groups and representatives of the Ugandan government in Bunia on 18 March, France again called on all countries in the region to refrain from intervening in Ituri and to exercise maximum restraint in order to allow the Inter-­ Congolese Dialogue to reach the goal of establishing a Transitional National Government (MAEE 2003b). The importance that France attached to this goal was re-­emphasised on 9 April, when French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin gave a joint statement with his British counterpart, Jack Straw, which emphasised the importance of moving forward with the establishment of the Transitional National Government (MAEE 2003c). The UK also condemned the attacks carried out by various Hema and Lendu militias and underlined the need to stop what it described as a ‘senseless cycle of violence’ in eastern DRC, especially at a time when the parties to the Inter-­Congolese Dialogue had just agreed on the establishment of a new Transitional Government (FCO 2003b). Despite the hopes entertained by France and others that the situation in Ituri would improve after the signing of the 9 April ceasefire agreement, the province was re-­engulfed in ethnic violence only a month later. Immediately after the UPDF completed its withdrawal from Bunia on 6 May, Hema and Lendu militias took advantage of the power vacuum that the departure of the Ugandans had created and attempted to take control of the town. This resulted in a dramatic escalation of violence between the two ethnic groups against each other and Bunia’s civilian population. Although MONUC had a presence in Bunia that was reinforced with 700 troops in April, the operation was unable to exercise any real authority over the clashing militias and stop the violence from escalating. In fact, MONUC was unable to prevent students and militias armed with machetes from storming its own headquarters and injuring its sector commander (UNNC 2003). On 25 April, the DRC government had also deployed some 700 Congolese police to assist MONUC in maintaining stability in Bunia. However, this force disintegrated quickly after it began to face violence (UNP 2004: 7). Thus, both MONUC and the DRC government clearly lacked the necessary resources and authority to stop the on-­going violence in Bunia. With the situation in Bunia continuing to deteriorate and MONUC being reduced to a bystander, the UN was forced to consider new measures to put an end to the violence. On 9 May, UN Under-­Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operation Jean-­Marie Guéhenno briefed the Security Council on the situation in Bunia and warned that the town was ‘on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe’ (UN 2003a). He stressed that the situation might spin out of control and lead to the massive killing of civilians ‘without decisive action’ from the international community. In the meantime, the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (UNDPKO) had proposed to Secretary-­General Annan that the Security Council should take urgent measures to improve security in Bunia (UNP 2004: 10). Following these warnings, Annan issued a statement on 10 May in which he

To tame a land   81 requested the Security Council ‘to consider effective measures to prevent the situation from deteriorating with further loss of civilian lives’ (UN 2003b). Although Annan’s statement did not specify what he meant by ‘effective measures’ at the time, it is clear that he and the UNDPKO had decided that a ‘firm military intervention, of the kind that went beyond the impartial peacekeeping that had been implemented hitherto’ in Ituri, was urgently required to stabilise Bunia (Annan and Mousavizadeh 2012: 117). This was clear from the fact that Annan and the DPKO had also begun to contact different world leaders to enquire whether their countries would be willing to lead such a force (UNP 2004: 10). As the UN began to search for a country that could lead an emergency force to Ituri, one of the countries that Secretary-­General Annan approached was France. During the weekend of 10–11 May, Annan spoke on the phone with President Chirac to enquire whether France would be willing to lead the emergency force (UNP 2004: 10). Chirac responded positively to Annan’s call for ‘a force to protect the people of Ituri’ from the imminent danger they were facing from the fighting militias (Annan and Mousavizadeh 2012: 117). France was willing to assist the UN because it was deeply concerned about what was happening in Bunia. Foreign Minister de Villepin, for example, explained that France was willing to mobilise because there was an emergency in Bunia and the reinforcement of MONUC had been delayed (MAEE 2003d). Despite these assurances, France refrained from making a public statement about its offer until two days later. On Monday 12 May, the UN Security Council discussed Annan’s request for the deployment of ‘a coalition of the willing’ to help MONUC and fill the power vacuum that had emerged in Bunia after the Ugandan forces had withdrawn from the town (Barringer 2003). Following the meeting, a spokesperson for France’s Permanent Mission to the UN said that France was still considering Annan’s request. However, she emphasised that the request was not directed to France alone and noted that ‘every member of the Security Council is considering the request’ (Barringer 2003). A day after the UN Security Council had discussed Annan’s request, the French Foreign Ministry announced publicly that ‘France is willing to contribute to the stabilisation of Ituri (province), and we are looking into the practicalities of participating in an ad hoc and temporary international force’ (Astill 2003a). The French government also confirmed that they were considering the deployment of a battalion size force, which was likely to be in the size range of 500–700 soldiers (De Barochez 2003). It was also clear that France had made its offer conditional on a clear mandate and the participation of other countries (Isango 2003). This was to avoid the perception that the emergency force would be a unilateral French operation. On 15 May, Secretary-­General Annan sent a letter to the President of the UN Security Council requesting that the body would ‘urgently consider’ his proposal ‘for the rapid deployment to Bunia of a highly trained and well-­equipped multinational force’ that would secure the local airport as well as other vital installations in the town and protect civilians (UNSC 2003b). Furthermore, he added that the force, which would be deployed ‘for a limited period until a considerably

82   To tame a land reinforced United Nations presence could be deployed’, should be given a robust mandate under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. These points were important for France because it had emphasised to the UN that its offer to lead the requested emergency force was conditional on a robust mandate, explicit support from the DRC, Rwanda and Uganda, the participation of other countries, and a strictly limited deployment period. On 16 May, the Security Council held a special session that focused exclusively on the situation in Ituri. In a statement released after the meeting, the Security Council stated that it welcomed Annan’s efforts ‘to address the urgent humanitarian and security situation in Bunia, including options for sending an emergency international force, and encourages him to complete consultations to this end as a matter of urgency’ (UNSC 2003c). Thus, both Annan and the Security Council were pushing for a rapid deployment of the emergency force. At the time when UN Secretary-­General Annan appealed for an international emergency force, the UK did not make any immediate promises to participate in it. On 18 May, International Development Secretary Valerie Amos confirmed the UK had also received a request from Annan for a contribution to the emergency force and explained that the government was urgently considering it (Wintour 2003). Although the UK was sustaining large military deployments at the time in Afghanistan and Iraq, which had placed a heavy burden on its armed forces and defence budget, it would have been politically difficult for the country to turn down the UN’s request. The reason for this was that the UK had recently launched a campaign to restore the UN’s credibility, which had been ‘battered and bruised’ in the run up to the Iraq War, to show that the organisation still had a central role in shaping international affairs (Wintour 2003). Thus, even if the UK could not provide a substantial contribution to the planned force, a negative response to Annan’s request would have undermined its UN campaign. In addition, it would have undermined the credibility of the UK’s policy of promoting African peace and stability, to which it had made a joint commitment with France at the 1998 Saint-­Malo Summit and also at the 2003 Le Touquet Summit. Although the UN-­requested emergency force was originally conceived as a French-­led ‘coalition of the willing’, it would eventually become an EU operation. Initially, there was no sign that the Union would consider a military deployment to the DRC. Political commentators were also sceptical about the EU’s ability to stop the violence in eastern DRC. The Economist (2003), for example, saw the ESDP at the time as ‘a virtual army, which exists mainly in the minds of enthusiastic politicians’. Furthermore, it wrote that the EU ‘would probably not be able, for instance, to intervene on its own to stop war in the Congo’ (The Economist 2003). Thus, it came as a surprise when the EU’s External Relations Council announced on May 19 that the Union was considering the possibility of undertaking a military deployment in eastern DRC. Following his request to President Chirac, UN Secretary-­General Annan had also approached High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) Javier Solana to request support from the EU for the deployment of an emergency military operation in the DRC (CEU 2003a). As this was a matter that needed unanimous

To tame a land   83 approval from EU member states, Solana presented the UN’s request to EU defence ministers in Brussels on 19 May (CEU 2003b: 26). Some member states, such as Germany, were taken aback by the prospect of having to send troops to a dangerous environment in which they might face child soldiers. Thus, Germany said ‘it was completely unprepared for the Solana request’ and had ‘no appetite for sending troops’ to Ituri (EurActiv 2003a). This exposed a mismatch between what Germany was demanding from its international partners and what it was prepared to do itself, which would eventually lead to the country to support the EU operation because it had become entrapped rhetorically. In the end, however, the member states decided not to raise objections because it was an official request from the UN. After discussing Annan’s request over lunch, the ministers tasked Solana with drafting a response to it (Kirk and Beatty 2003). For France, there were several compelling reasons for turning the UN-­requested force into an EU operation. First, France saw a private benefit in making the force as multinational as possible. Some countries in Central Africa viewed the prospect of a unilateral French intervention in the Great Lakes region with hostility. This was the case especially with Rwanda, which had been suspicious about France’s motives ever since Operation Turquoise in 1994. In fact, this hostility was so intense that Rwandan-­backed Hema fighters in Bunia stated that they would consider French troops as enemies if they were to arrive there (De Barochez 2003). Due to these international level constraints, Foreign Minister De Villepin told reporters after the 19 May meeting of the External Relations Council that France was hoping the EU could support the UN requested emergency force because it would make it easier for the DRC and its neighbouring countries to support it (MAEE 2003e). Paris wanted to place the operation under the EU flag to avoid the perception among the countries in the Great Lakes region that it was only the French Foreign Legion that would be deployed to Bunia (Interview with EEAS official in Brussels, March 2012). In other words, France had to take into account international level factors when designing the operation. Second, France saw that turning the force into an EU operation would also facilitate the production of a club good because it would further France’s goal of developing Europe de la défense, the longstanding ideological goal of French Gaullists. France’s ambitions with regards to this goal had suffered a setback as a result of the intra-­European divisions created by the Iraq War and the 29 April joint proposal made by France and three other Europeanist EU member states (Germany, Belgium, and Luxemburg) to establish a permanent EU Operational Headquarters (OHQ). This proposal was vehemently rejected by a group of Atlanticist member states led by the UK, which feared that this was a deliberate attempt on part of France and Germany to weaken Europe’s traditional commitment to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the US. Thus, Paris was aware that, if successful, the deployment of an EU operation to Bunia would facilitate the development of the ESDP and allow the member states to overcome some of these differences. Although Germany’s new Defence Policy Guidelines published on 21 May recognised that one of the reasons for developing the ESDP was to provide the

84   To tame a land EU with a capability to conduct crisis management operations ‘also beyond European borders’ (BMVg 2003b: 8), Germany’s negative reaction to High Representative Solana’s proposal to deploy an EU military operation to assist the UN in Bunia was to be expected. Defence Minister Struck had explained in February that the record number of out-­of-area deployments that Germany was sustaining at the time prevented it from taking on additional mandates unless the country’s defence budget was increased (BMVg 2003a). Furthermore, Germany was hoping to start reducing its military commitments around the world and saw no need for considering additional mandates in the near future. Thus, Germany would have preferred the original idea of deploying a French-­led coalition of the willing to Bunia because it would have faced less pressure to participate in it. As Foreign Minister Fischer had speculated in February, Germany could examine the feasibility of participating in such an operation independently from other factors and, if possible, support it with a small number of specialised units (Auswärtiges Amt 2003a). If, however, there was an EU operation, it would be politically far more difficult for Germany to stay out of it. Eventually, Germany agreed to turning the UN requested force into an EU operation because it had become rhetorically entrapped. As a Europeanist EU member state, Germany had been a vocal supporter of increased flexibility and use of Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) in EU foreign and security during the Convention on the Future of Europe, which had been drafting a constitution for the Union since 2001 (EurActiv 2003b). Although the extension of QMV did not concern EU decisions with military or defence implications, vetoing the deployment of an EU military operation that was supported by the majority of Ger­ many’s EU partners would still have made it seem that the country was having its cake and eating it too. More specifically, if Germany vetoed turning the UN-­ requested force into an EU operation, it would expose the inconsistency between, on the one hand, what it was advocating at the Convention on the Future of Europe and, on the other hand, what it was willing to do in practice. At this stage, the UK did not give any public indications that the force might actually became an EU operation instead of just a UN-­authorised coalition of the willing led by France. On 21 May, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman confirmed that the UN had indeed made a request for the UK to participate in ‘an emergency international peacekeeping force’ to stabilise Bunia (10 Downing Street 2003a). He also said that the government had not yet responded to this request, but it had asked the UN to provide further detail on the proposed deployment to enable it to look at possible options for providing assistance. Later in the afternoon, it was specified that the UK was waiting for the UN ‘to spell out the extent of the operation and the length of time any troops might have to remain there’ (10 Downing Street 2003b). On the same day, Prime Minister Blair also announced to Parliament that a ‘UN force is being put together’ to go to the DRC and that France would make a ‘considerable contribution’ to it (House of Commons 2003a). He added that, given the UK’s existing military commitments around the world, ‘we are seeing what support we can give’ to this force. Thus, the UK wanted to do something to help the UN in stabilising Bunia,

To tame a land   85 but it had not yet decided the kind of support it would offer (Morris and Whitaker 2003). Although the UK remained relatively quiet over the ESDP option, supporting the deployment of an EU operation to the DRC was consistent with its previous commitments. Blair and Chirac had announced at the Franco-­British Summit at Le Touquet in February 2003 that they would propose to their EU partners that the Union ‘should examine how it can contribute to conflict prevention and peacekeeping in Africa, including through EU autonomous operations, in close cooperation with the United Nations’ (French Embassy London 2003). Thus, if the UN-­requested force turned into an EU operation, it would be difficult for the UK to stay out of it due to its earlier commitments, even if that was not its preferred option. After the potential new EU operation had been discussed several times at the Political and Security Committee (PSC), it had become clear that some EU member states were still in favour of an informal coalition of the willing, whereas others were prepared to accept the ESDP option proposed by High Representative Solana (FAZ 2003a). Germany, for example, had made it clear that it preferred the force to remain as an informal UN-­sponsored coalition of the willing. The reason for this was that the country felt that such an operation would put less pressure on it to send soldiers to the DRC, which was something that it had no appetite for doing, compared with an EU operation. However, this did not mean that Germany was not prepared to consider other ways of supporting the UN-­requested emergency force. On 22 May, the German government announced that it was prepared to support the operation financially. Development Minister Wieczorek-­Zeul explained that, in light of the danger that thousands of civilians in Bunia would be killed by ethnic militias unless the international community moved quickly to prevent it, there was a particular ‘German responsibility’ to assist the UN requested emergency force financially (FAZ 2003b). She also reiterated her previous calls for the international community to avoid the accusations that it was standing by idly as ethnic militias wrought havoc and killed civilians in Bunia (SZ 2003). In addition to this, the German Foreign Ministry decided to send Minister of State Kerstin Müller to the Great Lakes to speak to the leaders of the DRC, Rwanda, and Uganda. The Minister was to determine if there was any other type of support that Germany could offer to help solve the on-­going conflict in eastern DRC. Despite its ambivalence towards the idea of an EU operation, Germany’s position on the issue was becoming increasingly untenable. The reason for this was that both France and the UK had already indicated that they supported the idea, which meant that Germany found itself in the rare position where it was preventing other EU member states from moving forward with an EU initiative. As a result, the German government decided to adopt a more constructive approach towards the issue. During a meeting of G8 foreign ministers in Paris on 23 May, Foreign Minister Fischer met with High Representative Solana and French Foreign Minister de Villepin to discuss Germany’s reservations on the proposed deployment of an EU operation to the DRC. During these discussions,

86   To tame a land Fischer promised that Germany would not block turning the UN-­requested force into an EU operation if the majority of member states preferred to do so (FAS 2003). In other words, Germany had no choice but to support turning the UN-­ requested force into an EU operation because it had become metaphorically entrapped due to its support for extended use of QMV in CFSP at the Convention on the Future of Europe. However, Fischer also reiterated that Germany could not be expected to contribute soldiers to the operation due to the high level of its existing military commitments around the world (FAZ 2003a). Following Germany’s decision not to block the EU operation, the EU was able to launch political and strategic planning for it. Thus, when the PSC reconvened on 27 May, none of the 15 Ambassadors raised further objections to an EU operation (FAZ 2003c). This allowed the PSC to task the EU Military Committee (EUMC) with drafting a Crisis Management Concept (CMC) for an operation in Bunia.

Planning and launch While Germany’s decision not to stand in the way of transforming the UN requested force into an EU operation was a step forward, France still had not received explicit approval from Uganda and Rwanda of its offer to lead it. On 28 May, Defence Minister Alliot-­Marie explained to the French National Assembly’s National Defence and Armed Forces Committee that one of the conditions that France had set for leading the UN-­requested operation was the approval of the Rwandan and DRC governments (Assemblée nationale 2003). The reason for this was that both Rwanda and Uganda exercised considerable influence over the clashing militias in Ituri, which meant that their approval of France’s appointment as the framework nation was likely to reduce the threat the militias would pose to the force when it would deploy. However, despite the mounting death toll in Bunia, Uganda and especially Rwanda were still unconvinced that France was the right country to lead the operation. Rwandan Foreign Minister Charles Murigande, for example, had stated firmly that, given France’s previous record in the region, it would be ‘totally inappropriate’ if a French-­led force deployed to Bunia (Berthemet 2003). However, due to the joint diplomatic efforts of the US and the UK, Rwanda and Uganda adopted a more compromising approach towards the planned French-­led force. On 17 May, Ugandan Defence Minister Amama Mbabazi told reporters that Uganda would ‘welcome the French offer’ and noted that it would ‘come in handy’ if there cannot be an African force (AFP 2003). Furthermore, Rwandan President Paul Kagame announced on 28 May that Rwanda would accept the deployment of an emergency force to Bunia that consisted of as many countries as possible if it had a UN mandate and a clearly defined objective (Berthemet 2003). He also noted that, in the context of such an operation, ‘French soldiers would be treated as men of the UN’. Rwanda’s and Uganda’s endorsement cleared the way for moving forward with getting the operation on the ground. On 28 May, following President Chirac’s official decision that France would lead the emergency force, France circulated a draft resolution at the UN Security Council that called for the

To tame a land   87 authorisation to deploy an Interim Emergency Multinational Force (IEMF ). This force would remain in Bunia to fill the existing power vacuum until a reinforced MONUC would take over its responsibilities on 1 September (Lesnes and Smith 2003). The Security Council unanimously adopted it on 30 May as resolution 1484 under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. The objectives of the IEMF were threefold: first, it was to ‘contribute’ to the stabilisation of the security conditions and the improvement of the humanitarian situation in Bunia; second, it was to ‘ensure the protection’ of the local airport and internally displaced persons in camps in the town; and third, it was to ‘contribute’ to the safety of civilians, UN personnel and the humanitarian presence in the town if the situation required (UNSC 2003d: 2). In addition, the Security Council authorised the force ‘to take all necessary measures to fulfil its mandate’, thus giving it the kind of robust mandate that France had demanded (UNSC 2003d: 2). Following the adoption of the resolution, a preliminary force generation conference was held in New York where the UK, Belgium, Sweden, South Africa, Canada, and Brazil expressed their readiness to contribute to the operation in addition to France (Turner and Wallis 2003). French UN Ambassador Jean-­Marc de La Sablière said that the first French troops would start arriving in Bunia on the following week and the force would reach full strength by the end of June (Roy 2003). In the UK, some officials suggested that the country was interested in supporting the force because there was a ‘definite desire’ among EU member states to show that they can work together on foreign affairs and defence issues after the lead up to the Iraq War had exposed significant intra-­European divisions (Smith and La Guardia 2003). They also noted that the UK was still in the process of studying different options for supporting the French-­led force. The officials explained that the British government would send a small military reconnaissance team to the DRC along with the French army’s advance party, which would arrive in Bunia on the following week. According to them, the reconnaissance team would evaluate the type of force that the UK could provide as well as study whether the elite Special Air Service (SAS) could play a role in stabilising Bunia. However, it was considered more likely that the UK would make a modest contribution that did not include combat troops due to its existing military commitments in Iraq and elsewhere (Steele 2003). Some officials suggested that the UK’s contribution was ‘likely to be no more than 200 signallers, intelligence and logistics specialists but, at its largest, could include a battalion of light infantry’ (Smith and La Guardia 2003). In addition, it could also include a detachment of Royal Engineers to help rehabilitate Bunia’s potholed airstrip (Smith and La Guardia 2003). Several days after the preliminary force generation conference, the UK confirmed it would participate in the UN requested force. On 4 June, Prime Minister Blair announced that, with regards to the forthcoming deployment to Bunia, the government ‘will make a UK commitment in so far as we can, but that will be for logistics and support’ (House of Commons 2003b). Although the size of the UK’s contribution was not specified, officials estimated that it would be no more than 80 soldiers (Castle 2003). On the same day, Parliamentary Under-­Secretary

88   To tame a land of State Bill Rammell explained it was important that the UK contributed to the force ‘to support the UN and the DRC peace process’ (House of Commons 2003c). A day later, he noted that an additional incentive for contributing to the EU operation was that it responded ‘to the vision of the UK and France in launching the ESDP’ in that it would allow European countries to underpin the EU’s CFSP ‘with the military means to carry out humanitarian, peace-­keeping and other crisis management tasks’ (ESC 2003: 33). However, Blair had also noted that he did not think that plans for the emergency force had yet reached ‘a sufficient state of readiness’ (House of Commons 2003b). Although he did not specify what he meant, it is likely that Blair was referring to the difficulties the EU was facing in acquiring sufficient airlift capabilities for the operation, which was turning out to be problematic. As a result, he explained that the government ‘are seeing what more we can do with others to ensure that we can make a better and swifter response’. After resolution 1484 had been adopted, German UN Ambassador Gunter Pleuger said that his country welcomed the decision and commended France ‘for having taken the lead in this mission’ (UNSC 2003e: 2). At the same time, State Minister Müller had finished her visit to the DRC. During her visit, she had held discussions with President Joseph Kabila, Foreign Minister She Okitundu, and other high-­ranking DRC officials who told her that unless the emergency force arrived soon, it would not have to arrive at all because it would be too late by then. On her own part, Müller emphasised that it would be very difficult for Germany to contribute soldiers to the force because it was already sustaining a large number of troops in various other theatres, particularly Afghanistan, which had put the country’s military capabilities on the ‘edge’ (Auswärtiges Amt 2003b). Despite this, she emphasised that there were other ways in which Germany could support the force, such as by providing humanitarian assistance, even if it could not contribute soldiers to it. However, although it was portrayed as a remote possibility, Müller indicated that Germany had not completely ruled out the possibility of contributing soldiers to the force by noting that the issue would be discussed in the government after her return to Berlin (Auswärtiges Amt 2003c). On 1 June, Müller noted that ‘it is the wish of UN Secretary-­General Annan as well as France that Germany would also take part in the operation’ (FAZ 2003d). In addition, parties in the Bundestag, including the opposition CDU/CSU and the Free Democrats (FDP), made statements that explicitly supported Germany’s participation in the EU operation. CDU/CSU Foreign Policy Speaker Friedbert Pflüger, for example, saw that Germany could consider a limited military contribution to the force, such as a MedEvac air ambulance, in addition to supporting it financially. FDP Deputy Chairman Walter Döring also saw that ‘when the EU intervenes under a UN-­mandate, Germany must also send troops’ and floated the idea of contributing 100 men to it. However, despite this pressure, the German government emphasised that it had not yet taken any decisions regarding its possible contribution to the French-­led force. During a G8 Summit in Evian, for example, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder explained that the government’s opinion

To tame a land   89 formation process on the matter was not yet finished (Spiegel Online 2003). However, he suggested that a German contribution might be forthcoming by noting that ‘countries that are prepared for such an operation should not be left alone.’ Defence Minister Struck echoed Schröder by saying that when the UN requested the EU to help the Congolese people, Germany could not simply stand aside. After the G8 Summit, the German government wrapped up its opinion formation process on how it could support the EU operation. On 4 June, Chancellor Schröder’s cabinet agreed that Germany would not contribute any combat troops to the French-­led force. Instead, Germany would offer a MedEvac air ambulance for taking care of and flying home wounded soldiers, several Transall C-­160 transport aircraft to transport troops and equipment between France and the operation’s forward mounting base in Uganda, and a number of staff officers to serve in the OHQ in Paris (FAZ 2003e). This offer was essentially a compromise that accommodated Germany’s reluctance to contribute soldiers and the pressure it had been facing to do more than open its chequebook for it. The Defence Ministry had made it especially clear that it had no desire to contribute soldiers to yet another operation due to the high number of deployments it was already sustaining. Two days after the cabinet’s decision, State Minister Müller explained to the Bundestag that Germany’s participation in the UN-­requested force was the right course of action because the international community had a responsibility to enforce human rights in places where they are violated (Deutscher Bundestag 2003a: 4168). Germany’s decision to participate in Operation Artemis was welcomed by its EU partners, especially France. On 10 June, President Chirac met with Chancellor Schröder in Berlin to discuss topical international issues, including the deployment of the French-­led emergency force to Bunia and Germany’s support for it. After their meeting, Schröder told a press conference that Germany would help France and other EU member states in their effort to stabilise Bunia. However, he emphasised that ‘helping’ was all that Germany could do because its existing commitments elsewhere were putting an unprecedentedly heavy burden on the Bundeswehr, the country’s armed forces (Fried 2003). Schröder added that Chirac had shown ‘complete understanding’ of Germany’s situation and had made no demands for additional contributions whatsoever. On his own part, Chirac told he was ‘very grateful’ that Germany had decided to participate in Artemis after all by contributing logistical and medical capabilities to it (MAEE 2003f ). He added though that unlike in Afghanistan, where its contribution was ‘essential’ to NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF ), Germany’s contribution to the EU operation was ‘modest’. However, he emphasised that, for France, the most important thing was that Germany had decided to participate and not the size of its contribution. The reason for this was that he saw Germany’s decision as a demonstration of ‘European solidarity’ towards an important UN-­requested operation. On 4 June, the Council approved a Framework for EU Action in Response to  the Crisis in Bunia, which essentially combined the CMC and the Military

90   To tame a land Strategic Options (MSO) into a single planning document. In the standard ESDP planning process, the Council would usually approve the CMC and MSO as separate planning documents. However, since the situation in Bunia demanded ‘immediate action’, the Union recognised it was necessary to bypass standard planning procedures to speed up the deployment of the operation. In the part of the document that formed the CMC, it was noted that the EU’s Political Military Objective with regards to the on-­going crisis in eastern DRC was to deploy an interim emergency force that would ‘contribute to the stabilisation of the security and humanitarian situation in Bunia, including, if the situation requires it, to the protection of the civilian population’, and allow the UN Secretary-­General ‘to reinforce MONUC’s presence in Bunia’ (CEU 2003c: 4). This objective was to support the Union’s broader Political Objective of giving ‘impetus to ongoing EU and UN efforts to keep the overall peace process in the DRC and the Great Lakes on track’. In other words, an EU operation in Bunia would essentially carry out the tasks outlined in resolution 1484. To fulfil the above objectives, the document outlined two possible MSOs. The first option was ‘an EU led military operation supported by other EU or Member States [sic] instruments’, whereas the second option was ‘a multinational operation led by France with the participation of other Member States’ (CEU 2003c: 5, 10). The EUMC recommended the first option because it saw that an EU intervention in support of the UN ‘would bring greater political weight than a coalition of the willing’ (CEU 2003c: 10). This was due to the fact that the EU and its member states were already the largest donors of aid in the region, which put them ‘in a position to exercise influence’ if they acted together (CEU 2003c: 10).2 Because of this, the EUMC saw that ‘a willingness to deploy force would give this a sharper focus, and would enhance the EU’s credibility in the region and its influence even after forces had departed’ (CEU 2003c: 10). However, it also emphasised that this course of action included several risks that needed to be acknowledged, of which the most important ones were the difficulty of coping with a possible wider crisis in Ituri and the re-­emergence of a power vacuum in Bunia after the EU force departed. In case ethnic violence would spread outside Bunia during the operation’s deployment period, the EUMC warned that ‘the EU force might not be able to intervene’ to stop it (CEU 2003c: 10). If this were to happen, there would be ‘serious consequences’ for the DRC peace process and for the EU, ‘which would be seen as failing to live up to expectations’ (CEU 2003c: 10). Furthermore, in case a power vacuum re-­emerged in Bunia after the departure of the EU force, ‘the effects of the operation could be cancelled, the peace process endangered and lives in Bunia put at risk’ (CEU 2003c: 10). When the Council approved the EU’s framework for action, the PSC also agreed on a draft Joint Action. It was then submitted for final approval in the Council, which adopted it the following day in Luxemburg. In another example of the sense of urgency that was driving the EU to wrap up the operation’s planning process, the Joint Action was adopted by the Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Council, composed of EU justice and interior ministers, instead of GAERC, the foreign ministers’ forum that would normally adopt documents like

To tame a land   91 this (CEU 2003d: 1). The Joint Action stated that the EU had decided to carry out a military operation codenamed Artemis in the DRC in accordance with the mandate set out in resolution 1484 (EU 2003a). It also confirmed that France would serve as the operation’s framework nation and provide its Paris-­based Centre de planification et de conduite des opérations as the OHQ. Furthermore, France’s dominant role in the operation was reinforced by the appointment of Major General Bruno Neveux as Operation Commander and Brigadier General Jean-­Pierre Thonier as Force Commander since both men were career officers in the French Army. Thus, ‘Artemis was more a French operation with an EU cover, than an EU operation led by the French’ (Grignon 2003: 4). An important feature of Operation Artemis was that it was both the first EU military operation deployed outside Europe as well as the first autonomous EU military operation. Unlike Operation Concordia, the first-­ever EU military operation, which had taken over NATO’s Operation Allied Harmony in Macedonia on 31 March, Artemis was planned and conducted outside the Berlin Plus without any help from NATO. The reason for this was that France wanted to use the operation as a political showcase to demonstrate the EU’s ability to act quickly, decisively, and without the Alliance after it squabbled over the Iraq War. In fact, France was so determined to ensure the operations’ autonomy that it refused an American offer of some badly needed C-­17 Globemaster strategic transport aircraft to help the EU airlift its forces to the DRC. France had actually approached the US to enquire whether such aircraft could be made available for Artemis, but refused to accept them after Washington informed France through NATO Secretary-­General George Robertson that it would have to take place in the framework of Berlin Plus (Wernicke and Fried 2003). Thus, the EU leased Ukrainian Antonov 124-100 strategic transporters instead to ensure the operation’s autonomy. NATO was also annoyed because France had bypassed standard EU–NATO consultation procedures when the decision was made to turn the UN requested force into an EU operation. According to one reading, these procedures give the Alliance the so-­called ‘right of first refusal’ to intervene in a specific crisis before the EU decides to do so to ensure there will be no competition between them (Reichard 2006: 163). However, this did not happen before the decision was made to turn the UN-­requested emergency force into an EU operation, which made some NATO diplomats feel that France had put the Alliance in an ‘awkward position’ where it had to accept an EU operation as a fait accompli (Evans and Dynes 2003). The first chance for the Alliance to discuss the operation was a NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in Madrid on 3 June, where it was made clear that ‘NATO would not want to be engaged’ in the crisis in Bunia (NATO 2003). In a show of solidarity, Secretary-­General Robertson also said that NATO ‘wishes those who have taken on this humanitarian effort good will and success because it’s a deeply necessary humanitarian move’. This was despite reports that Robertson had been enraged after hearing from Washington that France had enquired with the Pentagon about the possibility of making several C-­17s available for an EU operation on which NATO had not been consulted (Wernicke and Fried 2003). 3

92   To tame a land On 6 June, an advance party of French Special Forces from the Commandement des Opérations Spéciales arrived in the town. As the Council had not yet made a formal decision to launch Operation Artemis, the French deployment was carrying the name of Operation Mamba (Koops 2011: 320). France was able to start the deployment of its forces to the DRC already at this stage because the UN Security Council had authorised the deployment by adopting resolution 1484. After they had arrived, the French soldiers moved quickly to inspect the tactical situation in Bunia, check the condition of the local airport, and secure it so that the majority of the forthcoming deployment could be airlifted to the area without security problems. Due to the short length and poor condition of Bunia’s potholed airstrip, which could only cope with approximately half a dozen landings from medium-­sized aircraft a day, the EU had decided to use Entebbe airport in neighbouring Uganda as a forward mounting base for the heavy airlift required for Artemis. This meant that the deployment of the operation would be carried out in two parts: first, troops and other military equipment would be airlifted from Europe to Entebbe by using the heavy Antonov An-­124s; and second, the force would be transported from Entebbe to Bunia by using the lighter C-­130 Hercules aircraft. According to French Defence Minister Michelle Alliot-­Marie, it would take approximately 45 days and 250 aircraft sorties for the operation to reach its full strength. As already noted, the UK had decided to send a five-­man reconnaissance team to Bunia. This team arrived in the city along with the French advance party on 6 June to assess the feasibility of deploying a modest British contingent to the area (Astill 2003b). Several days after the team had begun its work, the British government issued statements that gave a clearer image of the capabilities that it was thinking of contributing to Artemis. According to reports by Whitehall officials on 10 June, the government was considering the deployment of approximately 100 troops to the operation, which were likely to consist primarily of ‘military advisers and staff officers, as well as engineers and other specialists’ (Astill and Norton-­Taylor 2003). However, they also added that the final size of Britain’s contribution, which would be agreed at the Paris force generation conference on the same day, could be even less than 100 personnel. A day later, Minister of State for the Armed Forces Adam Ingram clarified previous reports about Britain’s contribution to the EU operation by noting that the government ‘are considering providing a small contingent of support elements together with aircraft to assist in the deployment of the force’ (House of Commons 2003d). On 12 June, Minister of State Ingram announced the UK’s contribution to Operation Artemis. He stated that the government had decided to contribute a detachment of Royal Engineers and several C-­130 Hercules tactical transport aircraft ‘to help deploy the multinational force’ (House of Commons 2003e). In addition, the UK would also provide ‘five staff officers to the force headquarters and a liaison officer to work with the UN’ to help the UN and the EU coordinate with each other during the operation. Ingram described this contribution as ‘modest, realistic and sustainable’ and noted that the exact numbers of personnel would not be known until the government had completed ‘further detailed

To tame a land   93 a­ nalysis of the engineering tasks required in Bunia’. He also expressed satisfaction over the EU’s rapid and decisive response to the crisis in Bunia and noted that it was exactly how the government intended the ESDP to develop, that is, as a ‘practical expression of a common foreign and security policy’. Following the completion of the additional analysis, Ingram announced on 23 June that the government intended to send ‘about 70 Royal Engineers to assist in improving Bunia airfield’ (House of Commons 2003f ). He added that, with support staff and headquarters based officers, the UK’s ‘total deployment will be in the region of 85 personnel’. Following the announcement of the UK’s contribution to Operation Artemis, the government continued to emphasise that its decision to participate in the operation was linked to its desire to strengthen both the UN and the EU after both had suffered a blow to their prestige in the run up to the Iraq War. On 19 June, for example, Parliamentary Under-­Secretary of State Rammell emphasised that ‘the UN must have teeth’, which he understood as an enhanced ‘willingness to take effective action to deal with threats to peace and security’, if it was to retain a central role in international politics (FCO 2003c). He also highlighted the deployment of Artemis as a good example of ‘what can be done’ when the international community had the courage to act collectively. Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon echoed similar thoughts when he noted that the UK was committed to making the world a safer place, which, among other things, meant maintaining a ‘strong and authoritative’ UN (House of Commons 2003g). Furthermore, during a debate in the House of Commons at the end of June, Prime Minister Blair explained that the UK wanted ‘Europe to develop a better and more effective common foreign and security policy, which is why, for example, we are backing France in the Congo through the EU mission, which is very important’ (House of Commons 2003h). Norheim-­Martinsen (2013: 153) has argued that the UK’s support for Artemis was arguably due to the reason that its and France’s ‘desire to strengthen Europe’s military credibility and reinforce the EU’s role in Africa went hand in hand – and Europe needed to prove that it could still launch operations in spite of the divisions over the Ira war’. In other words, the UK saw the deployment of Artemis as a way to strengthen both the EU and the UN and alleviate some of the wounds caused by the Iraq War. Table 4.1 lists the types of joint products that France, Germany and the UK expected to gain from Artemis. As French forces continued to make their way to Bunia, an official force generation conference was held in Paris on 10 June. Due to the nature of the planned Table 4.1  Joint product expectations from Operation Artemis Country

Public goods

Club goods

Private goods

France

Stability in Bunia

Germany United Kingdom

Stability in Bunia Stability in Bunia

Credibility for ESDP    Prestige for the EU – Credibility for ESDP

Multilateral cover    UN goodwill – UN goodwill

94   To tame a land operation, the type of capabilities it required from the member states were mainly Special Forces (Interview with Estonian official in Tallinn, July 2011). At the end of the conference, it was confirmed that Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, and the UK would join France in the operation. However, France did not automatically accept every offer its EU partners put forward at the conference. In an illustrative example of the degree to which France dominated the operation, France rejected Ireland’s offer of highly trained soldiers from its Army Ranger Wing because it preferred to fill the requirement for some 50 Special Forces units with its own men (The Irish Times 2003). However, this did not mean France had reservations about the quality or performance of the Irish soldiers. Their involvement in international peacekeeping and crisis management operations is generally highly valued by Ireland’s partners because the country tends to contribute highly usable infantry units (Interview with Irish official in Brussels, September 2011). Rather, the Irish offer was declined because France wanted to ensure the maximum effectiveness of the force. The Outline Force Requirements for the operation stated explicitly that the requirements of military effectiveness ‘will limit the number of different contributions that can be accommodated’ in the force (CEU 2003c: 6). Following the force generation conference on 10 June, the way was clear for the EU to launch Operation Artemis. On 12 June, the EU Council adopted a Council Decision launching the operation. This meant that the Council approved the Operation Plan as well as the Rules of Engagement and authorised Operation Commander Major General Neveux to release the activation order (ACTORD) ‘in order to execute the deployment of the forces, prior to transfer of authority following their arrival in theatre, and start execution of the mission’ (EU 2003b). Thus, Artemis was now officially launched. In a final demonstration of the sense of urgency that had driven the operation’s planning process ever since High Representative Solana had proposed turning the UN requested emergency force into an EU operation, the operation was not launched by the General Affairs and External Relations Council (GAERC). Instead, the symbolic honour of launching Artemis, which was both the first EU military operation outside Europe as well as the first autonomous EU military operation, was given rather ingloriously to the Agricultural and Fisheries (AGFISH) Council, the EU agriculture and fisheries ministers’ forum. Following the decision of Chancellor Schröder’s cabinet that Germany would offer logistical and medical capabilities to Operation Artemis, the government quickly drafted a mandate and submitted it to the Bundestag on 13 June to get its approval. It stated that Germany’s contribution to Artemis would consist of security, medical, support and air transport forces (Deutscher Bundestag 2003b: 3). In addition, Germany would send several staff officers to the Operation Headquarters in Paris and, if necessary, provide forces that would serve as ‘connection points’ to the local governmental and non-­governmental organisations as well as international organisations. The total number of personnel that Germany would make available for the operation was said to be 350 soldiers, which was

To tame a land   95 surprisingly high. However, this number was intentionally inflated to make sufficient reserves available in case their use would be required at some point during the operation’s deployment (FAZ 2003f ). After the mandate was submitted, Defence Minister Struck noted that this contribution was well within the ‘politically defined, justifiable limits’ that the government had set for Germany’s participation in the operation (BMVg 2003c). At the debate that preceded the Bundestag’s vote on the mandate, both Defence Minister Struck and Foreign Minister Fischer had a chance to argue the case for supporting Germany’s participation in Operation Artemis. According to Struck, Artemis was an important contribution to the stabilisation of the DRC and showed that Europeans remained true to their ‘special responsibility’ towards Africa (BMVg 2003d). He added that it also supported Germany’s goal of developing the EU’s capabilities in the area of foreign and security policy so Europe would eventually become equipped to fulfil its share of responsibility of ensuring European and global security. On his own part, Fischer dismissed comments that the situation in the DRC was not in Germany’s interest by explaining that Europe’s security interests would become directly threatened if Africa started to export instability to other regions in the world (Auswärtiges Amt 2003d). He also admitted that the government was not entirely sure at the beginning of the operation’s planning process of whether it should become an EU operation or remain a more informal coalition of the willing. Fischer explained that the government changed its mind because most EU member states, but especially France and the UK, advocated the ESDP option. He noted that the government’s decision was also influenced by its advocacy for extended use of QMV in CFSP matters at the Convention on the Future of Europe. Thus, since most member states had supported turning the UN requested force into an EU operation, Germany become rhetorically entrapped and had no option but to support the move or risk losing face. When it was time to vote on the issue, 441 Bundestag deputies voted in favour of Germany’s participation in Artemis, 30 voted against it and seven abstained.

Conclusion This chapter analysed the deployment Operation Artemis, the first EU military operation to deploy outside Europe. It was deployed to the DRC in June 2003 to stabilise the city of Bunia and relieve embattled UN peacekeepers until they could be reinforced. The chapter argued that the deployment of Artemis was possible because it presented a lucrative joint product activity for EU member states – that is, a collective action that was expected to facilitate the production of both public and private goods for them. In addition, the chapter argued that, after it was clear that the majority of member states had come to favour an EU operation over a UN sponsored coalition of the willing, dissenting countries were entrapped to support it because otherwise they would have risked losing other goods that they valued. When UN Secretary-­General Annan enquired from French President Chirac whether France would be willing to lead an interim emergency force to Bunia,

96   To tame a land France expressed its readiness to do so. In addition to its desire to stabilise Bunia and the DRC more broadly, which can be seen as a relatively pure public good because it benefits are not restricted to EU member states, France’s decision was motivated by an expectation that the operation would lead to the production of a number of club and private goods. At first, France saw Annan’s request as a convenient way to support a stronger UN and reassert its own credentials as a military power after it had led the campaign against the Iraq War. Due to the legacy of Operation Turquoise in Rwanda, France was also keen to make the operation appear as multilateral as possible to obtain support from both Rwanda and Uganda, which exercised influence over the warring militias in Bunia. This is why France was also keen on the ESDP option from the moment it was proposed to EU defence ministers by High Representative Solana on 19 May. However, France also saw that an EU operation would have the added value of making the EU’s ESDP more credible, which can be viewed as a club good. Thus, France offered to lead the UN requested emergency force and advocated turning it into an EU operation because it expected the operation to contribute to the production of a number of club and private goods. With regards to the UK, the British government supported the UN Secretary-­ General’s idea of deploying an emergency force to Bunia. The reason for this was that the UK was genuinely concerned about the emerging humanitarian disaster in Ituri and because it saw the idea as an opportunity to restore the UN’s credibility after the organisation had suffered a prestige loss in the run up to the Iraq War. However, given that the UK did not see any clear private gains in such an operation, it did not offer to contribute to it. At the time, the UK’s armed forces were heavily engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan, which meant that contributing to yet another military operation would have diverted valuable military resources away from these priority operations. However, when it was proposed that the emergency force should become an EU operation as opposed to remaining as a UN-­sponsored coalition of the willing, the UK saw an opportunity to receive a number of private benefits by making a modest contribution to the operation. Above all, the UK saw the operation as an opportunity to repair its damaged relationship with France, which had become bruised due to their differences over the Iraq War. In addition, the UK saw the operation as an opportunity to encourage cooperation among EU member states and support a more effective EU foreign policy. In other words, the UK saw Operation Artemis as a type of post-­Iraq ‘team building exercise’. Like France and the UK, Germany also supported the UN Secretary-­General’s idea of deploying an emergency force to Bunia. However, Germany made it clear from early on that it could not be expected to contribute anything beyond financial assistance to it. The reason for this was that Germany was sustaining a record level of troops in various out-­of-area operations at the time, which meant that there was no desire in the German government to stretch the Bundeswehr even further by taking on yet another mandate. In addition, Germany was reluctant to send soldiers to the DRC because the government feared the prospect that German soldiers might have to engage child soldiers, which would

To tame a land   97 have been a public relations nightmare for the German government. In other words, beyond the public good of stabilising Bunia, Germany saw very few private gains in the operation. However, when it was proposed that the operation should be turned into an EU operation, Germany was faced with a dilemma. As a country that championed increased majority voting in foreign and security policy in the EU’s constitutional convention, Germany’s long-­term policy goals in the EU would have suffered a setback if it had vetoed an operation supported by a majority of EU member states. In addition, it was unthinkable that Germany would not participate in a symbolically important EU operation, which was both the first EU military operation Europe and also the first autonomous EU military operation. To avoid losing these goods as a result of its recalcitrance, Germany decided to participate in the operation with a modest contribution consisting of logistical capabilities. It did not provide any combat troops and no German personnel were deployed to the DRC directly.

Notes 1 The mission’s official acronym comes from its French name – that is, Mission de l’Organisation des Nations Unies en République Démocratique du Congo. 2 According to UN OCHA’s Financial Tracking Service, the total humanitarian assistance donated to the DRC by the European Commission and individual EU member states in 2002 was $41.4 million. This was approximately 30 per cent of all humanitarian assistance donated to the country in 2002 (FTS 2002). 3 After a decision has been approved the Permanent Representatives Committee (COREPER), it can be adopted formally by any Council formation (Interviews with national officials in Brussels, 2014).

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To tame a land   99 CEU (Council of the European Union), 2003a. Remarks by Javier Solana, EU High Representative for the CFSP, to the press on the preparations to deploy an EU military mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). S0123/03, 4 June. www.consilium. europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/EN/declarations/76025.pdf. CEU, 2003b. 2509th Council Meeting: External Relations. 9379/03 (Presse 138), 20 May. http://register.consilium.europa.eu/doc/srv?l=EN&f=ST%209379%202003%20INIT. CEU, 2003c. Framework for EU Action in Response to the Crisis in Bunia. 9889/3/03, 4 June. http://register.consilium.europa.eu/doc/srv?l=EN&f=ST%209889%202003%20 REV%203%20EXT%201. CEU, 2003d. 2514th Council Meeting: Justice and Home Affairs. 9845/03 (Presse 150), 6 June. http://register.consilium.europa.eu/doc/srv?l=EN&f=ST%209845%202003%20INIT. De Barochez, L., 2003. La France prepare son retour militaire dans la region des Grands Lacs. Le Figaro, 15 May. http://recherche.lefigaro.fr/recherche/access/lefigaro_fr.php? archive=BszTm8dCk78Jk8uwiNq9T8CoS9GECSHi%2BkaWAlsJCjlvMy6cwjGWN %2BowzvnBd9KV8E%2FHaa%2BdalmZy6BaSOXVcw%3D%3D. Deutscher Bundestag, 2003a. Plenarprotokoll 15/49. 6 June. http://dip21.bundestag.de/ dip21/btp/15/15049.pdf. Deutscher Bundestag, 2003b. Beteiligung bewaffneter deutscher Streitkräfte an dem EU-­ geführten Einsatz zur Stabilisierung der Sicherheitslage und Verbesserung der humanitären Situation in Bunia auf der Grundlage der Resolution 1484 (2003) des Sicherheitsrats der Vereinten Nationen vom 30. Mai 2003. Drucksache 15/1168, 13 June. http://dip21.bundestag.de/dip21/btd/15/011/1501168.pdf. DoS (Department of State), 2002. Agreement Between the Governments of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of Uganda on Withdrawal of Ugandan Troops from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cooperation and Normalisation of Relations Between the Two Countries (Luanda Agreement). http://2001-2009.state. gov/t/ac/csbm/rd/22627.htm. Duke, S., 2009. Consensus Building in ESDP: The Lessons of Operation Artemis. International Politics 46 (4), 398–412. ESC (European Scrutiny Committee), 2003. Twenty-­seventh Report of Session 2002–03: Documents Considered by the Committee on 25 June 2003. London: The Stationery Office. www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmselect/cmeuleg/63-xxvii/63-xxvii.pdf. EU (European Union), 2003a. COUNCIL JOINT ACTION 2003/423/CFSP of 5 June 2003 on the European Union Military Operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Official Journal of the European Union L  143, 50–2. www.consilium.europa.eu/ uedocs/cmsUpload/Joint%20action%205.6.03.pdf. EU, 2003b. COUNCIL DECISION 2003/432/CFSP of 12 June 2003 on the Launching of the European Union Military Operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Official Journal of the European Union L  147, 42. www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms Upload/Decision%2012.06.03.pdf. EurActiv, 2003a. EU Considering Congo Mission. 21 May. www.euractiv.com/security/ eu-­considering-congo-­mission/article-­115415. EurActiv, 2003b. France, Germany and the UK in the Convention – Common Interests or Pulling in Different Directions? www.euractiv.com/future-­eu/france-­germany-uk-­ convention-common-­interests-pulling-­different-directions/article-­109992. Evans, M. and Dynes, M., 2003. French Troops in Congo Steal March on NATO. The Times, 10 June, p. 20. Faria, F., 2004. Crisis Management in Sub-­Saharan Africa: The Role of the European Union. Occasional Paper n°51. Paris: European Union Institute for Security Studies.

100   To tame a land FAS (Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung), 2003. EU-­Truppen nach Kongo. 25 May, p. 1. FAZ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung), 2003a. Die EU auf dem Weg nach Kongo. 26 May, p. 2. FAZ, 2003b. Deutschland sollte Friedenstruppe unterstützen. 23 May, p. 1. FAZ, 2003c. EU bereitet Einsatz in Kongo vor. 28 May, p. 7. FAZ, 2003d. Deutsche Soldaten nach Kongo? 2 June, p. 1. FAZ, 2003e. Deutschland unterstützt Kongo-­Einsatz. 5 June, p. 1. FAZ, 2003f. Bundeswehr soll sich aus Kämpfen heraushalten. 14 June, p. 6. FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office), 2003a. DFID/FCO Press Statement on the ­Deteriorating Situation in Ituri. 14 March. http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ 20040202024338/www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front/TextOnly?pagename=OpenMarket/ Xcelerate/ShowPage&c=Page&cid=1007029391638&to=true&a=KArticle&ai d=1047661182574. FCO, 2003b. Democratic Republic of the Congo: Amos Condemns Ituri Province Killings. 7 April. http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20040202024338/www.fco. gov.uk/servlet/Front/TextOnly?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/ShowPage&c=Page &cid=1007029391638&to=true&a=KArticle&aid=1049390008203. FCO, 2003c. ‘The UN Must Have Teeth’ – Rammell. 19 June. http://webarchive.nation alarchives.gov.uk/20040202024338/www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front/TextOnly? pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/ShowPage&c=Page&cid=1007029391638&to=true &a=KArticle&aid=1055784957765. French Embassy London, 2003. Declaration on Strengthening European Cooperation in Security and Defence. 4 February. www.ambafrance-­uk.org/Franco-­British-summit-­ Declaration,4970. Fried, N., 2003. Notwendiges Risiko. Süddeutsche Zeitung, 11 June, p. 7. FTS (Financial Tracking Service), 2002. Democratic Republic of Congo 2002. http://fts. unocha.org/reports/daily/ocha_R24_E14172___1409091240.pdf. Gegout, C., 2005. Causes and Consequences of the EU’s Military Intervention in the Democratic Republic of Congo: A Realist Explanation. European Foreign Affairs Review 10 (3), 427–43. Grignon, F., 2003. The Artemis Operation in the DRC: Lessons-­learned for the Future of EU Peacekeeping in Africa. Paper presented at the IEEI International Conference, Lisbon, 23–24 October. https://web.archive.org/web/20080312080032/www.ieei.pt/ files/Paper_FGrignon.pdf. Helly, D., 2009. Operation ARTEMIS (RD Congo): The EU Military Operation in DR Congo (Artemis). In: G. Grevi, D. Helly, and D. Keohane, eds. European Security and Defence Policy: The First 10 Years (1999–2009). Paris: European Union Institute for Security Studies, 173–80. Homan, K., 2007. Operation Artemis in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In: European Commission, ed. Faster and More United? The Debate about Europe’s Crisis Response Capacity. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 151–5. House of Commons, 2003a. HC Deb. 21 May 2003 vol.  405 col.  1009. www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmhansrd/vo030521/debtext/30521-03.htm. House of Commons, 2003b. HC Deb. 04 June 2003 vol. 406 col. 162. www.publications. parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmhansrd/vo030604/debtext/30604-06.htm. House of Commons, 2003c. HC Deb. 04 June 2003 vol. 406 col. 434–5W. www.publica tions.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmhansrd/vo030604/text/30604w10.htm.

To tame a land   101 House of Commons, 2003d. HC Deb. 11 June 2003 vol.  406 col.  50WS. www.publica tions.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmhansrd/vo030611/wmstext/30611m02.htm. House of Commons, 2003e. HC Deb. 12 June 2003 vol. 406 col. 849–62. www.publica tions.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmhansrd/vo030612/debtext/30612-10.htm. House of Commons, 2003f. HC Deb. 23 June 2003 vol.  407 col.  702–3. www.publica tions.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmhansrd/vo030623/debtext/30623-04.htm. House of Commons, 2003g. HC Deb. 23 June 2003 vol.  407 col.  540W. www.publica tions.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmhansrd/vo030623/text/30623w03.htm. House of Commons, 2003h. HC Deb. 23 June 2003 vol. 407 col. 714. www.publications. parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmhansrd/vo030623/debtext/30623-07.htm. House of Lords, 2003. HL Deb. 03 April 2003 vol.  646 col.  1576. www.publications. parliament.uk/pa/ld200203/ldhansrd/vo030403/text/30403-26.htm. IISS (International Institute for Strategic Studies), 2008. European Military Capabilities: Building Armed Forces for Modern Operations. London: International Institute for Strategic Studies. IRC (International Rescue Committee), 2003. Mortality in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Results from a Nationwide Survey. www.rescue.org/sites/default/files/resource-­ file/2002-2003_Survey.pdf. Isango, E., 2003. U.N. Seeks Peacekeeping Force Led by France to Halt Congo Violence. Associated Press, 14 May. Jahier, A., 2010. ESDP Operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo: A Realist Analysis. Central European Journal of International and Security Studies 4 (2), 81–92. Janos, T., 2015. Operation ‘Artemis’: The First Autonomous EU-­led Operation. AARMS 14 (1), 121–32. Kirk, L. and Beatty, A., 2003. European Forces for Congo Peace Mission. EUobserver, 19 May. http://euobserver.com/defence/11289. Koops, J.A., 2011. The European Union as an Integrative Power? Assessing the EU’s ‘Effective Multilateralism’ towards NATO and the United Nations. Brussels: VUBPRESS. Lesnes, C. and Smith, S., 2003. République démocratique du Congo – Une force sous commandement français va être mandatée par l’ONU pour intervenir au Congo. Le Monde, 30 May. www.lemonde.fr/cgi-­bin/ACHATS/acheter.cgi?offre=ARCHIVES&type_item= ART_ARCH_30J&objet_id=806282&xtmc=une_force_sous_commandement_francais_ va_etre_mandatee_par_l_onu_pour_intervenir_au_congo&xtcr=1. MAEE (Ministère des affaires étrangères et européennes), 2003a. Point de presse: Declarations du porte-­parole. 7 March. http://basedoc.diplomatie.gouv.fr/exl-­php/cadcgp.php ?CMD=CHERCHE&QUERY=1&MODELE=vues/mae_internet___recherche_ avancee/home.html&VUE=mae_internet___recherche_avancee&NOM=cadic__ anonyme&FROM_LOGIN=1. MAEE, 2003b. Point de presse: Declarations du porte-­parole. 20 March. http://basedoc. diplomatie.gouv.fr/exl-­php/cadcgp.php?CMD=CHERCHE&QUERY=1&MODELE=vues/ mae_internet___recherche_avancee/home.html&VUE=mae_internet___recherche_ avancee&NOM=cadic__anonyme&FROM_LOGIN=1. MAEE, 2003c. Point de presse conjoint du ministre des affaires étrangères, M. Dominique de Villepin, et du ministre britannique des affaires étrangères, M. Jacques Straw. 9 April. http://basedoc.diplomatie.gouv.fr/exl-­php/cadcgp.php?CMD=CHERCHE&QUE RY=1&MODELE=vues/mae_internet___recherche_avancee/home.html&VUE=mae_ internet___recherche_avancee&NOM=cadic__anonyme&FROM_LOGIN=1. MAEE, 2003d. Point de presse conjoint du Ministre des affaires étrangères, M. Dominique de Villepin, et du ministre belge des affaires étrangère s, M. Louis Michel. 16

102   To tame a land May. http://basedoc.diplomatie.gouv.fr/exl-­php/cadcgp.php?CMD=CHERCHE&QUE RY=1&MODELE=vues/mae_internet___recherche_avancee/home.html&VUE=mae_ internet___recherche_avancee&NOM=cadic__anonyme&FROM_LOGIN=1. MAAE, 2003e. Conseil affaires generals: Conference de presse du ministre des affaires étrangère s, M. Dominique de Villepin. 19 May. http://basedoc.diplomatie.gouv.fr/exl -­php/cadcgp.php?CMD=CHERCHE&QUERY=1&MODELE=vues/mae_internet___ recherche_avancee/home.html&VUE=mae_internet___recherche_avancee&NOM= cadic__anonyme&FROM_LOGIN=1. MAEE, 2003f. Point de presse conjoint du President de la Republique, M. Jacques Chirac, et du Chancelier de la Republique d’Allemagne, M. Gerhard Schroeder, a l’issue de leur recontre. 10 June. http://basedoc.diplomatie.gouv.fr/exl-­php/cadcgp.php?CMD=C HERCHE&QUERY=1&MODELE=vues/mae_internet___recherche_avancee/home. html&VUE=mae_internet___recherche_avancee&NOM=cadic__anonyme&FROM_ LOGIN=1. Martinelli, M. 2008. Implementing the ESDP in Africa: The Case of the Democratic Republic of Congo. In: M. Merlingen and R. Ostrauskaite, eds. European Security and Defence Policy: An Implementation Perspective. Abingdon: Routledge, 111–27. Morris, N. and Whitaker, R., 2003. British Troops May Go to Congo After UN Uncovers Massacre. Independent, 22 May, p. 1. Morsut, C., 2009. Effective Multilateralism? EU–UN Cooperation in the DRC, 2003–2006. International Peacekeeping 16 (2), 261–72. NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation), 2003. Press Conference by NATO Secretary General, Lord Robertson with Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou, EU Presidency and Javier Solana, EU High Representative following the NATO-­EU Meeting. 3 June. https://web.archive.org/web/20060815143558/www.nato.int/docu/speech/2003/ s030603i.htm. Ngowi, R., 2003. Multinational Force Arrives in Northeast Congo to Restore Order. Associated Press, 10 June. Norheim-­Martinsen, P.M., 2011. Our work here is done: European Union peacekeeping in Africa. African Security Review 20 (2), 17–28. Norheim-­Martinsen, P.M., 2013. The European Union and Military Force: Governance and Strategy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Özveri, D., 2011. EU’s Impact on Congo Conflict through Operation Artemis: An Early Attempt for Crisis Management Capacity? Paper presented at the 24th Annual International Association of Conflict Management Conference, Istanbul, 3–6 July. Page, G., 2011. Motives for European Union Common Security and Defense Policy Mission Selection. Thesis (Master), Naval Postgraduate School. Petrov, P., 2010. Early Institutionalisation of the ESDP Governance Arrangements: Insights from the Operations Concordia and Artemis. European Integration online Papers 14. http://eiop.or.at/eiop/texte/2010-008a_htm. Rayroux, A. and Wilen, N., 2011. Trapped Inside the Ownership Rhetoric: The EU and Peacebuilding in the DR Congo. Paper presented at the IPSA-­ECPR Joint Conference, Sao Paulo, 16–19 February. Reichard, M., 2006. The EU–NATO Relationship: A Legal and Political Perspective. Aldershot: Ashgate. Rodt, A.P., 2014. The European Union and Military Conflict Management: Defining, evaluating and achieving success. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Roy, R., 2003. UN Security Council Approves Deployment of International Force in Congo. Associated Press, 30 May.

To tame a land   103 Schmidt, P., 2011. The EU’s Military Involvement in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Security Culture, Interests and Games. Contemporary Security Policy 32 (3), 567–81. Smith, M. and La Guardia, A., 2003. British Forces in Mission to Halt Congo Massacres. Daily Telegraph, 31 May, p. 1. Spiegel Online, 2003. Struck zum Kongo-­Einsatz: ‘Dieses Abschlachten von Menschen verhindern’. 3 June. www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/struck-­zum-kongo-­einsatz-dieses-­ abschlachten-von-­menschen-verhindern-­a-251380.html. Steele, J., 2003. UN Sends Troops to Stop Congo Massacres. Guardian, 31 May, p. 19. SZ (Süddeutsche Zeitung), 2003. Berlin unterstützt Friedensmission in Kongo. 23 May, p. 10. The Economist, 2003. ‘Ready, or Not’, Vol. 367, No. 8325, 24 May. The Irish Times, 2003. France Declines Offer of Irish Troops for Peacekeeping in Congo. 11 June. www.irishtimes.com/news/france-­declines-offer-­of-irish-­troops-for-­peacekeeping-in-­ congo-1.362127. Turner, M. and Wallis, W., 2003. UN Approves French-­led Force to Keep Congo Peace. The Financial Times, 31 May, p. 2. Türke, A.I., 2008. The Operation Artemis in the Democratic Republic of Congo: EU and UN Crisis Management in Ituri, in the Context of Conflicts at the Great Lakes region in 2003. CERPESC Analysis, 07/AF/02/2008, 21 January. Ulriksen, S., Gourlay, C., and Mace, C., 2004. Operation Artemis: The Shape of Things to Come? International Peacekeeping 11 (3), 508–25. UN (United Nations), 2003a. Daily Press Briefing by the Office of the Spokesman for the Secretary-­General. 9 May. www.un.org/News/briefings/docs/2003/db050903.doc.htm. UN, 2003b. Secretary-­General Asks Security Council to Prevent Further Deterioration of Dire Situation in Bunia, Democratic Republic of Congo. 12 May. www.un.org/News/ Press/docs/2003/sgsm8696.doc.htm. UNNC (United Nations News Centre), 2003. DR of Congo: Mob Attacks UN Mission, Injures Sector Chief with Machete. 9 May. www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID= 7018&Cr=democratic&Cr1=congo. UNP (United Nations Peacekeeping), 2004. Operation Artemis: The Lessons of the Interim Emergency Multinational Force. October. www.peacekeepingbestpractices. unlb.org/pbps/Library/Artemis.pdf. UNSC (United Nations Security Council), 1999a. Letter Dates 23 July 1999 from the Permanent Representative of Zambia to the United Nations Addressed to the President of the Security Council. S/1999/815, 23 July. www.un.org/Docs/s815_25.pdf. UNSC, 1999b. Resolution 1279 (1999). S/RES/1279 (1999), 30 November. www.un.org/ en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/RES/1279(1999). UNSC, 2001. Seventh Report of the Secretary-­General on the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. S/2001/373. www.un.org/en/ ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2001/373. UNSC, 2002a. Final Report of the Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. S/2002/1146. www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2002/1146. UNSC, 2002b. Letter dated 9 August 2002 from the Permanent Representative of South Africa to the United Nations addressed to the President of the Security Council. S/2002/914. www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2002/914. UNSC, 2003a. Letter dated 10 March 2003 from the Permanent Representative of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the United Nations addressed to the President of the Security Council. S/2003/291. www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/ 2003/291.

104   To tame a land UNSC, 2003b. Letter dated 15 May 2003 from the Secretary-­General addressed to the President of the Security Council. S/2003/574, 28 May. www.un.org/en/ga/search/ view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2003/574. UNSC, 2003c. Statement by the President of the Security Council. S/PRST/2003/6, 16 May. www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/PRST/2003/6. UNSC, 2003d. Resolution 1484 (2003). S/RES/1484 (2003), 30 May. www.un.org/en/ga/ search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/RES/1484(2003). UNSC, 2003e. 4766th Meeting. S/PV.4766 (Resumption 1), 30 May. www.un.org/en/ga/ search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/PV.4766(resumption1). Wernicke, C. and Fried, N., 2003. Europas erster Kampfeinsatz. Süddeutsche Zeitung, 6 June, p. 10. Wintour, P., 2003. Britain Considers UN Call for Congo Help. Guardian, 19 May, p. 14.

5 Déjà-vu EUFOR RD Congo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

EUFOR RD Congo ‘is more about European form than African substance, comforting rhetoric than relevant action’. Jean-­Yves Haine and Bastian Giegerich, The International Herald Tribune, 12 June 2006

On 12 June 2006, the European Union (EU) launched EUFOR RD Congo, its second military operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The purpose of EUFOR was to support the United Nations Organisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) during the country’s 2006 general election. Shortly before its launch, High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) Javier Solana hailed EUFOR as a model for future EU operations in Africa conducted (AFP 2006a). However, commentators and experts did not share Solana’s view. Haine and Giegerich (2006), for example, wrote that EUFOR demonstrated that the EU was still far ‘from effectively fulfilling its international responsibilities’ because its planning process had taken almost six months. Although this was partly because the Congolese authorities had delayed the election date during EUFOR’s planning process, the main reason for it was EU member states’ reluctance to send troops to the DRC, which was already evident when Operation Artemis was deployed. Furthermore, it took the Union no less than three months to give a definitive response to the UN on whether or not it would deploy the operation. Thus, EUFOR hardly seemed like a positive model that future EU operations should emulate. EUFOR RD Congo has received a good amount of attention in the literature (e.g. Handolin and Elomaa 2007; Hoebeke, Carette, and Vlassenroot 2007; Martin 2007; Mattelaer 2007; Fritsch 2008; Major 2008, 2009; Martinelli 2008; Gross 2009; Knutsen 2009; Tull 2009; Hagemann 2010; Jahier 2010; Norheim-­ Martinsen 2011; Koops 2011; Brummer 2013; Engberg 2014). This chapter shows that the preferences of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom (UK) towards intervening in the DRC had changed since the deployment of Operation Artemis. It argues that the EUFOR deployment process was sluggish and difficult largely because none of the big member states had direct interests at stake in ensuring stability the DRC during the country’s general elections. Although all

106   Déjà-vu three justified EUFOR’s deployment to their domestic constituents by referring to various interests during the operation’s planning process, such as assisting the DRC on its way to democracy and ensuring stability in the broader Great Lakes region, they were essentially speaking about public goods. Given that states can enjoy the benefits of public goods even if they do not contribute to their production, they were insufficient to trigger decisive action from the member states by themselves. Furthermore, the member states did not perceive the deployment of EUFOR as a means to facilitate the production of any private good either. However, what ultimately tipped the scale in favour of the operation was the member states’ vague desire to enhance the EU’s prestige as an international actor in the aftermath of the French and Dutch peoples’ rejection of the Constitutional Treaty in 2005. In other words, EUFOR was an opportunity to restore the EU’s credibility among its citizens, which can be viewed as a club good.

Background On 30 July 2006, the Congolese people went to the polls in the DRC’s first multiparty general elections in over 40 years. These elections were historic not only because they were to install a democratically elected government to a country that had suffered from President Mobutu Sese Seko’s dictatorship for over three decades until his fall at the end of the First Congo War, but also because they symbolised the end of the DRC’s transition process from a long and deadly civil war to national rehabilitation (England and Mahtani 2006). Since this process was launched in 2002, many international actors had gone to great lengths to support it to put an end to the violence that had engulfed the DRC since the outbreak of the Second Congo War. For the same reason, many international actors had invested heavily in the 2006 elections to ensure they would be carried out in a relatively safe and secure environment. These investments also included the deployment of EUFOR RD Congo to support MONUC. However, before analysing EUFOR’s deployment process, it is necessary to provide a brief overview of the DRC’s transition process in order to understand the significance of the 2006 elections. The DRC is a large country roughly half the size of the EU28. However, unlike the Union, the DRC does not have a proper road system or other infrastructure that would be considered basic even in most developing countries. From 1998 to 2003, the DRC was engulfed in a complex web of overlapping intra and interstate conflicts known as the Second Congo War. During its peak, the conflict drew the armies of seven African states to the DRC’s territory and caused incalculable material damage and loss of human lives for the country. In 2004, for example, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) reported that an estimated 3.8 million people had died in the DRC since the outbreak of the Second Congo War in 1998 (IRC 2004: iii). The IRC also concluded that the conflict was now ‘by far the deadliest war in the world since World War II and the deadliest in Africa ever recorded’. The Second Congo War had also wreaked havoc on the DRC’s already fragile and underdeveloped economy. Although

Déjà-vu   107 rich in natural resources such as diamonds, gold, copper, and cobalt, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) produced by the DRC and its population of 55 million in 2002 was approximately $34 billion (CIA 2003a). In comparison, Slovenia, a country with a population of just under two million people, produced a roughly equal GDP of $36 billion the same year (CIA 2003b). On 17 December 2002, the DRC signed an agreement in Pretoria, South Africa, with the main Congolese rebel groups. It was negotiated in the framework of the Inter-­Congolese Dialogue (ICD), a forum set up by the 1999 Lusaka Agreement that brought together the DRC government and the main opposition groups. In the resulting Global and All-­Inclusive Agreement on the Transition in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (GAIA), the DRC government and the rebel groups greed ‘to cease hostilities and to seek a peaceful and equitable solution to the crisis’ in the country (UNP 2002: 2). In addition, they decided ‘to set up a government of national unity [in the DRC] which will organise free and democratic elections after a period of transition’ (UNP 2002: 3). More specifically, it was mentioned that such elections would be held within two years after the formation of a transitional government and the beginning of the transitional period, which ‘may be extended by six months, renewable once for a period of six months’ in case problems would emerge during the transition period that were related to the organisation of the elections. This meant that the power to govern the DRC would be shared between the different Congolese parties until elections would take place and a democratically elected government could be installed. Thus, the signing of the GAIA was the first step on a road towards national reconciliation. After the GAIA was signed, the different Congolese groups proceeded to form the transitional government. The first step was taken on 1 April 2003, when the ICD agreed on a Draft Constitution of the Transition, which had been presented to them on 6 March and laid out the framework under which the country would be governed until the elections. According to the constitution, positions in the transitional government would be distributed equally between the acting government and the other Congolese groups. On 7 April, Acting President Joseph Kabila was sworn in as the DRC’s transitional president for a period of two years. After his appointment, Kabila named the ministers and deputy-­ministers that would form the transitional government on June 30 (AFP 2003). It is worth noting that the swearing in of the transitional government had to be postponed for several weeks because different members of Kabila’s transitional cabinet ‘could not agree on the military arrangements’ (Prunier 2009: 301). The formation of the cabinet was finally announced on 1 July, which also marked the beginning of the country’s transitional period that would last until a new president would be elected in the forthcoming elections. As stated in the GAIA, these elections should be held within two years after the transitional government had been appointed, which meant that the deadline for them would be 30 June 2005. However, if the transitional government would deem it necessary to use both of the extension that the GAIA provided, then the elections could be postponed until 30 June 2006.

108   Déjà-vu Despite the formation of the transitional government, the DRC continued to be plagued by general lawlessness and disorder. This was especially the case in the country’s eastern regions, such as Ituri and the Kivus, where the government’s ability to exercise control over armed rebel groups was still limited. Furthermore, the DRC’s security climate was made worse by the government’s inability to pay the salaries of a large number of soldiers in the country’s armed forces, which forced many of them to resort to looting and other forms of criminal activities to ensure a basic livelihood for themselves and their families. As a result, Prunier (2009) wrote that the biggest domestic problem facing the transitional government was a general lack of security. According to him, creating the conditions of national security during the DRC’s transition process, such as a paid and professional army as well as an honest police force, ‘was the primary task overshadowing all the others and whose success or failure could make them either productive or irrelevant’ (Prunier 2009: 305). Thus, if the DRC’s security climate would not improve before the elections, it was clear that violence could break out sometime during the electoral process.

Agenda setting After the DRC’s transitional government began preparations for the elections, the UN began to voice concern over possible spoilers that might destabilise the country during the electoral process. In May 2005, then UN Secretary-­General Kofi Annan presented a special report on the DRC’s elections to the UN Security Council. Among other things, the report outlined three categories of threats that could potentially destabilise the country during the electoral process. First, Annan warned about the continued existence of ‘armed groups of uncertain allegiance and intentions, particularly in Ituri, North and South Kivu, central and northern Katanga and, to a lesser extent, Maniema’ (UNSC 2005a: 5). He explained these groups could seriously affect the climate in which the elections were held and delay their preparations. Second, Annan warned about possible tensions between political parties in major population centres, such as Kinshasa, where dominant parties could threaten the activities of smaller ones and where rival groups could stage violent demonstrations (UNSC 2005a: 5). Third, he warned about the prevailing tensions between various ethnic groups that could lead into violence during the elections. This was the case especially in the DRC’s eastern regions, where historically rooted tensions continued to cause violence between various ethnic tribes. Thus, the security climate that was expected to prevail in the DRC during the electoral process looked very uncertain (UNSC 2005a: 5–6). To counter these threats, the UN was preparing MONUC to help maintain peace in the DRC during the electoral process. However, Secretary-­General Annan told the Security Council that, due to the country’s large size, ‘MONUC will not be able to deploy its civilian, military and police personnel in all areas’ when the elections take place (UNSC 2005a: 6). He explained that MONUC’s military deployments would focus on the military threat posed by uncontrolled

Déjà-vu   109 armed groups that operated primarily in the DRC’s eastern provinces. Thus, Annan concluded that it is not expected that MONUC will have the capacity to redeploy troops to assist in providing security for elections in northern and central Katanga, or to provide extraction capabilities for electoral and other United Nations personnel in the politically volatile areas of southern Katanga and Mbuji-­Mayi. (UNSC 2005a: 10) Given this expectation, he proposed that MONUC should be reinforced with an additional brigade that could provide security during the elections in the Katanga region. This implied boosting MONUC with 2,590 additional troops (UNSC 2005a: 10). However, on October 28, the Security Council decided to reinforce MONUC only with a 300-strong infantry battalion (UNSC 2005b). The reason for this was that the United States (US), which paid roughly 22 per cent of the UN’s budget and 27 per cent of its peacekeeping budget, was reluctant to support a significant enlargement of MONUC’s size (AFP 2005a). As the UN was attempting to find reinforcements for MONUC, it was becoming increasingly clear that the first round of the Congolese presidential elections could not be held by the original deadline. This was due to the problems that the DRC’s Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) was facing in the area of voter registration, which was turning out to be a Herculean challenge due to logistical issues. Thus, the DRC’s transitional parliament voted on 17 June to postpone the elections for the first time by extending the country’s transition period until December 2005 (AFP 2005b). However, since these problems were not resolved before the end of the year, the transitional period was extended for a second time on 14 December (AFP 2005c). This meant that the elections would be held sometime before the 30 June 2006 final deadline. Since MONUC was left without sufficient reinforcements, the UN needed to find another way to get additional troops to the DRC. On 27 December, UN Undersecretary-­General for Peacekeeping Operations Jean-­Marie Guéhenno sent a letter to British Foreign Minister Jack Straw to suggest ‘possible means’ through which the EU could further contribute to the UN’s efforts in the DRC (UNSC 2006a: 2). The Union was already supporting the DRC’s transition process. In 2005 alone, it had deployed two civilian missions to the country (EUSEC RD Congo and EUPOL Kinshasa) that focused on security sector reform and supporting the Congolese police respectively. Guéhenno contacted Straw because the UK was holding the rotating Presidency of the Council of the EU in autumn 2005, which meant that Straw was serving as the President of the EU’s General Affairs and External Relations Council (GAERC). In his letter, Guéhenno wrote he ‘should be grateful if the European Union could consider the possibility of making available a deterrent force that, if necessary, could be deployed to the Democratic Republic of the Congo during the electoral process’ (UNSC 2006a: 2). He said ‘this contribution could take the form of a suitably earmarked force reserve that could enhance the quick reaction capabilities of

110   Déjà-vu MONUC during or immediately after the electoral process’ (UNSC 2006a: 2). Due to the relatively short amount of time available to plan the force, Guéhenno ended the letter by saying that he ‘should be most grateful’ if the EU could give urgent consideration to his suggestion (UNSC 2006a: 3). The UN’s request took the EU by surprise because it had reached Brussels without any previous information or consultations (Major 2008: 23). Furthermore, it was addressed to the UK Council Presidency, bypassing formal EU–UN consultation mechanisms that had been put in place in 2001. However, the Union launched political discussions on what to do about the UN’s request after the holiday season. On 10 January, the Political and Security Committee (PSC) held preliminary discussions on the topic but it did not make any concrete decisions (CNN 2006). At the time, EU officials saw that the UN Department for Peacekeeping Operations (UNDPKO) had left many important technical issues unspecified in the request because it had formulated the request very vaguely (AFP 2006b). Among other things, the UN had not specified the area of operation where it would like the force to operate nor the number of troops that it was hoping for. This was problematic for planning purposes because the Congolese elections were getting closer. On 12 January, the IEC decided provisionally that the first round of the presidential elections would be held on 29 April (AFP 2006c). Thus, there was a feeling in Brussels that the UN saw the EU as a ‘reserve army’ that it could recall back to service whenever it wished (Winter 2006a). Following the UN’s request, France was the first EU member state to indicate that it supported the idea. On 10 January, President Chirac gave his new year’s greetings to the French diplomatic corps in Paris. During his speech, Chirac said that ‘the strengthening of the EU’s means of intervention and their commitment to serving peace are more than ever a priority for France’ in 2006 (French Embassy London 2006). He emphasised that, in Africa, and particularly with regards to supporting for the forthcoming general elections in the DRC, ‘we must be credible and prepared to meet any possible requests of the United Nations or African Union’. Although this was not an explicit endorsement of the idea of deploying another EU military operation to the DRC, it indicated that France supported it at least in principle. France’s support for the UN’s request was due to its long-­standing involvement and interests in the Great Lakes region. As Gross (2009: 119) notes, ‘France had also been in favour of sending a UN peacekeeping force to the DRC, and consistently supported the consolidation of MONUC to stabilize the security environment, in particular in the eastern regions’. In other words, France’s principled support for the deployment of another EU operation to the DRC reflected the continuation of its policy towards the country. Although the request for an EU deterrent force had come from the UNDPKO, there were rumours that it actually originated from the French government (Schlamp and Szandar 2006). This seems plausible because, since late 2005, France had been calling for a new initiative in the field of European security and defence that would renew people’s confidence in the European project following the French and the Dutch peoples’ rejection of the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for

Déjà-vu   111 Europe in summer 2005. In December 2005, for example, Defence Minister Michelle Alliot-­Marie wrote in The Financial Times that, while Europeans would manage to overcome the difficulties created by the rejection of the Constitution, ‘a combined initiative in the defence and security field could help revive both confidence and action in Europe’ (Alliot-­Marie 2005). She added that the EU’s European (now Common) Security and Defence Policy (ESDP/CSDP), after all, ‘is the domain that attracts most support across the EU, as demonstrated in the constitutional campaign’. A Eurobarometer survey conducted in autumn 2005, for example, found that 77 per cent of EU citizens were in favour of having a common security and defence policy among EU member states (European Commission 2006: 103). It therefore seems that the UN’s request for an EU operation was part of a French effort to revive EU citizens’ confidence in the Union in the aftermath of the French and Dutch people’s no votes in their national referendums. As Gross (2009: 119) puts it, France’s national interest in pacifying the DRC and the broader Great Lakes region was combined with its interest in ‘pushing the development of ESDP further’. One official who was involved in EUFOR RD Congo’s deployment process also explained that France saw the operation’s deployment as a powerful demonstration of the ESDP’s effectiveness and the EU’s desire to support the UN (Telephone interview with UK official, June 2013). In other words, France expected the operation to facilitate the production of a club good in the form of prestige for the ESDP, which would help convince the EU’s citizens that the Union remained a relevant and an effective international actor. The UN’s request for an EU deterrent force did not come as a complete surprise for the UK. The reason for this was that it was aware the UN might have to call for external assistance to be able to ensure stability in the DRC during the country’s elections (Telephone interview with UK official, June 2013). However, following the UN’s request, the UK took its time before indicating whether or not it supported the proposed deployment. On 24 January, British Defence Minister John Reid met with his French counterpart Alliot-­Marie in London to discuss Franco-­British cooperation. The ministers also discussed the UN’s request for the deployment of an EU military operation to the DRC and agreed that ‘the EU should look to consider the request favourably’ (House of Commons 2006a). However, although this indicated that the UK was prepared to support the deployment in principle, the British government was quick to emphasise that any request for British forces to be involved in the UN requested operation ‘would need to be assessed taking into account our heavy operational commitments at that time’ (House of Commons 2006a). These commitments included maintaining approximately 9,500 troops in Iraq and 3,300 troops in Afghanistan as part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s (NATO) International Security Assistance Force (ISAF ) [IISS 2006: 110–1]. Thus, the UK felt that its ability to contribute to the planned EU operation was constrained by these existing commitments, which were putting a heavy burden on its armed forces. Although Undersecretary-­General Guéhenno’s request had not specified so, the UN was hoping the EU would deploy one of its battle groups. This became

112   Déjà-vu clear when UN military officers specified in early January that they were looking at France and Germany to provide ‘a battle group of some 700–800 soldiers’ (CNN 2006). According to them, the UN would use the battle group as a reserve battalion for MONUC so that it would not have to pull out troops from existing operations around the DRC to have a reserve. Although the battle group concept was not yet fully operational, it had reached an Initial Operational Capability (IOC) in January 2005 when the first two battle groups provided by France and the UK were put on standby. In the first half of 2006, the battle groups that were scheduled to be on standby were a Franco-­German one and a Spanish–Italian one. However, the Spanish–Italian battle group was specialised in amphibious landings, which meant it was not suitable for deployment to the DRC. Thus, the only battle group that the EU could consider deploying to the DRC was the Franco-­German one. Although France favoured the idea of deploying the Franco-­German battle group, the German Defence Ministry expressed early on that that was out of the question (Blechschmidt 2006; Brummer 2013). The reason for this was that Franco-­German battle group consisted of approximately 1,500 German soldiers and only four French staff officers, which meant that, in the event that it would be deployed, Germany would carry out the battle group operation essentially by itself. Due to the country’s general wariness towards out of area operations and lack of national interests in the DRC, Germany was reluctant to send 1,500 soldiers to the DRC. However, this did not mean that Germany was unwilling to consider participating in a non-­battle group operation with a more limited contribution. Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung, for example, said on 23 January that Germany could not stand by idly when there are new dangers of excessive violence in Africa. According to Jung, Germany would participate in an EU operation with its partners if such an operation was deemed necessary (Die Welt 2006). Furthermore, a defence expert from the governing SPD party said that there would be no EU operation in the DRC without fair burden sharing (Blechschmidt 2006). Thus, Germany was willing to consider participation in the UN requested EU operation, but only if the burden of conducting it out would be shared equally. French and German leaders discussed the possible deployment of an EU military operation to the DRC on 23 January at the informal Franco-­German summit in Versailles. In this meeting, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told President Chirac that Germany would consider neither the deployment of the Franco-­German battle group nor assuming a leadership role in a non-­battle group operation (Schlamp and Szandar 2006). However, Merkel proposed a compromise in which Germany would contribute one-­third of the troops to the UN requested EU operation if France would contribute one-­third and the remaining EU member states another (Szandar 2006). If implemented, such a solution would provide for a much fairer distribution of the burden of conducting the operation, which was what Germany wanted. According to reports, Chirac accepted Germany’s offer and promised to Merkel that Germany would not have to carry a disproportionate share of the burden of conducting the operation. This meant that the battle group option was now off the table.

Déjà-vu   113 In the meantime, EU officials continued discussing what to do about the UN’s request. Since the request was formulated vaguely, the Union had not yet been able to dispatch a fact-­finding mission to the DRC to study the feasibility of deploying troops there (Winter 2006b). This is normally the first step in the ESDP planning process, which means that such a mission is generally dispatched very soon after the Union starts discussing the possibility of launching a new operation. After the UN provided initial clarifications on the type of force it was after, the EU dispatched a civil–military fact-­finding mission to the DRC on 29 January. The mission was led by Brigadier General Heinrich Brauss, a German officer who was serving as the Director of the Civilian/Military Cell within the EUMS. It consisted of both civilian and military experts who would assess the needs of a possible EU military operation that would be deployed to provide stability during the DRC’s forthcoming general elections. In addition, the EU dispatched a parallel diplomatic mission to New York to discuss the legal issues relating to the deployment of the proposed operation with the UN (Taylor 2006). Based on the results of these missions, the EU would formulate a concrete response to the UN’s request. Germany emphasised that it would wait for the fact-­finding mission’s results before it would decide on the type of contribution it would make to the planned operation (Bundesregierung 2006a). The country was under particular pressure to contribute to the operation due to its battle group commitment (Gross 2009: 150). Brummer (2013: 11) writes that if Germany had refused to use the Franco-­ German battle group without making a compensating contribution to a non-­battle group operation, it ‘would have strongly undermined the reputation’ of Defence Minister Jung. Although Germany had already ruled out deploying the Franco-­ German battle group, it made clear that it would not shy away from participating in another type of EU operation if such an operation was deemed necessary. Jung, for example, said that if the EU fact-­finding mission concluded that a military deployment would make a positive contribution to the security of the DRC’s forthcoming elections, then Germany would take responsibility in the framework of the possibilities available to it (Bundesregierung 2006b). However, Germany stressed that this would happen only if for conditions were met. According to Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier, the operation would have to be clearly justified, have a strictly limited deployment period of four months, a UN mandate, and receive explicit support from the DRC’s transitional government (Aust, Beste, and Steingart 2006: 29). Despite Germany’s assurances that it would not shy away from participating in the UN requested operation, the government’s discourse had so far been very ambiguous with regards to the interests it saw to be at stake in the DRC. On 1 February, Chancellor Merkel attempted to clarify the issue in a speech to the German diplomatic corps. Merkel explained that strengthening the UN was a priority for German foreign policy and described it as the right framework for a comprehensive foreign policy that tackled many of the pressing challenges of the day (Bundesregierung 2006c). As a result, Merkel saw that it was also right that the EU examined the UN’s request for a deterrent force in a constructive

114   Déjà-vu spirit. She also added that Germany had a clear interest in ensuring that the UN’s stabilisation efforts in the DRC were brought to a successful end. This was the clearest explanation that the government had so far provided on what it saw to be at stake in the DRC. However, as explained in the previous chapters, stability in the DRC is essentially a public good for a country like Germany that does not have any clearly national interests at stake there. As a result, the expectation of facilitating the production of a public good alone created very limited participation incentives for Germany. However, there were also reports Merkel wanted Germany to participate in the planned operation because she wanted to signal her willingness to cooperate with France because she had been in office only since November 2005 (Leersch 2006). Thus, supporting the operation was a good way for her to show intra-­EU solidarity to France. This can be viewed as a private good because its enjoyment would be limited to Germany and it could only be produced if it would actually participate in the operation. In addition to ruling out the option of deploying the Franco-­German battlegroup, Germany had made clear that it would not assume a leadership role in the possible EU operation. On 10 February, Defence Minister Jung told reporters after an informal meeting of NATO defence ministers at Taormina, Italy that ‘there would be no German leadership role’ in the EU operation (Winter and Blechschmidt 2006). In addition, Jung emphasised that carrying out this operation was a joint European responsibility. As Germany had previously emphasised, this meant that there would have to be contributions from more than just a couple of EU member states. However, Germany’s reluctance to lead the operation meant that it still did not have a clear lead nation. France had also expressed that it would not be willing to take on a leadership role in the planned EU operation. France was unwilling because it had already led and provided an overwhelming majority of troops to Operation Artemis, the EU’s previous military operations in the DRC (Winter and Blechschmidt 2006; Martinelli 2008; Brummer 2013). Thus, France felt that it was time for another member state to lead the new operation to ensure the credibility of the ESDP (Gross 2009: 119, Norheim-­Martinsen 2013: 156). In addition, France’s decision not to assume a leadership position in the operation was influenced by the reason that its armed forces were already engaged in several other African countries – that is, Chad, Ivory Coast, Djibouti, Gabon, and Senegal. When all of these deployments were put together, France’s total military presence in Africa was approximately 8,900 troops (IISS 2006: 73–4). Thus, France worried that taking on a leadership role in another operation in Africa would be domestically unpopular. The UK had also expressed that it could not lead the operation either due to its existing military commitments around the world (Brummer 2013: 8). Thus, for the time being, it was unclear which member state would lead the planned operation. Since France and the UK were unwilling to lead the operation, Germany was the only viable leader left (Norheim-­Martinsen 2013: 156). This means that ‘expectations were increasingly directed toward Germany to lead the mission’ (Brummer 2013: 8). After the EU’s civil–military fact-­finding mission returned to Brussels, EU military planners began to draw up options for an operation

Déjà-vu   115 based on its recommendations. The mission found that deploying a full force to the DRC might not be necessary. It concluded it could be sufficient ‘to have a sort of reserve in case of need, that is not an actual operation on the ground’ (Reuters 2006). This meant the EU could deploy a small military presence to the DRC and have a larger force on standby somewhere outside the country. Based on the mission’s report, the EUMS drew up three options for a possible EU military operation. All of them proposed an operation that would be approximately 1,500–2,000 troops strong (Winter 2006c). The main difference between them was the number of troops that would be deployed to the DRC itself. According to the first option, the EU could deploy 250 troops, the Force Headquarters (FHQ), and the necessary intelligence and security specialists to the DRC while the majority of the force would be on standby ‘over the horizon’ (AFP 2006d). The second option proposed adding an additional 200 troops to the element that would be deployed to the DRC and backing it up with air support. The third option proposed adding an additional 800 troops to the element based in the DRC, which would bring the total EU’s military presence in the country up to 1,250 troops. Following a PSC discussion on these options on 14 February, the member states’ ambassadors instructed the EUMC to study further details of the plans and provide military advice on them. The EU had originally hoped to green light the operation at the 27 February GAERC. However, shortfalls in troop commitments and the fact that no member state had offered to lead the operation were casting doubt over the Union’s ability to meet this deadline (John 2006a). The EU was relieved from having to make a decision by this deadline when the DRC’s transitional government announced on 22 February the country’s forthcoming general elections would be postponed until 18 June (Sundaram 2006). Thus, after the GAERC meeting, EU foreign ministers issued a statement saying merely that ‘the Council is considering how best to provide support to the UN in this endeavour. To this end, contacts with the UN and the DRC authorities are being pursued, as well as with the AU’ (CEU 2006a: 15). However, in terms of actual results, Sweden and Belgium confirmed after the meeting that they were ready to join France and Germany in contributing to the security of the DRC’s forthcoming elections. Although this was positive news, EU officials told reporters after the GAERC meeting the Union was still aiming for a broader participation of EU member states (John 2006b). Further progress was achieved at the 6–7 Marchinformal EU defence ministerial in Innsbruck, Austria, where the ministers expressed ‘clear readiness in principle’ to support the MONUC (Austrian EU Presidency 2006). At this meeting, Germany appeared to have changed its mind on leading the operation. This was clear when Defense Minister Jung told reporters that Germany could not assume the mission’s leadership by itself. In other words, Germany was proposing a ‘co-­leadership’ arrangement in which it would provide the Operational Headquarters (OHQ) and serve as the operation’s leader at the strategic level if France provided the FHQ and served as the operation’s leader at the tactical level. This was a compromise solution ‘in light of earlier French requests’ to

116   Déjà-vu send the Franco-­German battlegroup (Gross 2009: 150). However, Germany emphasised this would happen only if all the conditions that it had previously set for the operation would be fulfilled – that is, support of the Congolese government, a UN mandate with clear objectives, an area of operation limited to Kinshasa, a deployment period limited to four months, support of both the African Union (AU) and MONUC, and significant participation from other EU member states (Bundesregierung 2006d). At the meeting, EU defence ministers also tasked High Representative Solana to travel to the DRC to find out what the requirements for the forthcoming EU operation would look like. In addition, they believed that Solana should hold discussions with President Kabila to find out whether the DRC government was actually interested in having the operation. Since there had already been an EU fact-­finding mission in the DRC, Brussels saw this as further delaying tactics from Germany. However, Chancellor Merkel defended the decision to dispatch Solana to the DRC by explaining that it was right to discuss the operation calmly and make decisions at the right time (Bundesregierung 2006e). Her view was that the EU and its member states ‘just have to exist peacefully together, discuss and then decide’. After Germany agreed to lead the operation with France, Paris wanted to ensure that it would be planned as carefully as possible. The reason for this was that France understood that, due to the restrictions that the German Basic Law sets on the deployment German forces abroad, Berlin would have to justify its participation in the EU operation to the Bundestag and other domestic constituencies in much greater detail than France would (US Embassy Paris 2006). Thus, France supported Germany’s demand that a series of conditions had to be met before the operation could be launched. At a meeting of the Franco-­German Ministerial Council on 14 March, for example, Chancellor Merkel and President Chirac expressed ‘full agreement’ on the conditions that should apply to the UN requested EU operation. In addition, a statement released by the Franco-­German Defence and Security Council (FGDSC) emphasised that both countries would be willing to contribute ‘significantly’ to this operation on the basis of joint responsibility and recognition of the criteria mentioned above. After discussing the operation with other EU foreign ministers in GAERC on March 20, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-­Blazy announced that France would make available 500 troops for the operation (AFP 2006e). As discussions on the possible EU operation moved forward, the UK’s reluctance to participate in it grew stronger. On 16 March, for example, Parliamentary Under-­Secretary of State Lord Triesman confirmed that, due to the country’s heavy operational commitments around the world, the UK ‘will be unable to make a contribution to any deployment, but we are playing a leading role in efforts to take forward the overall DRC peace process, and we will continue to do so’ (House of Lords 2006b). However, he also emphasised that the British government nevertheless ‘believes that the EU should consider the request favourably’ (House of Lords 2006b). Thus, although the UN requested operation was in line with the British government’s previous policy commitments, such as

Déjà-vu   117 supporting enhanced EU–UN cooperation in international crisis management and developing the EU’s rapid reaction capabilities, the UK did not have a compelling interest to contribute soldiers to it due to its existing military commitments around the world. Furthermore, as a result of these commitments, the UK could easily resist pressure from other EU member states to get involved in the operation. Table 5.1 summarises the member states’ joint product expectations from the UN requested deterrent force. Following the EU defence ministerial in Austria, Foreign Minister Steinmeier and Defence Minister Jung spoke to the Bundestag’s foreign affairs committee about the on-­going preparations for the EU operation. The ministers explained that several EU member states had expressed readiness to participate in the planned operation, although no actual contributions had yet been pledged. They also said that Jung would host an informal force generation conference in Berlin on 20 March, which would bring together those member states that had already expressed willingness to participate in the operation – that is, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Portugal, Poland, and Sweden – so that they could discuss details and give preliminary estimates on what they could contribute. According to Steinmeier, if a fair sharing of the total burden of the operation could be agreed at this meeting, then Germany could also move to decide how it would participate in it (Auswärtiges Amt 2006). After the member states had promised sufficient contributions at the informal force generation conference, Jung announced the countries had also agreed that ‘the command headquarters in Potsdam will take overall responsibility for the mission’. This means that Germany would lead the operation after all. While the informal force generation conference was taking place in Berlin, EU foreign ministers were simultaneously meeting in GAERC. In this meeting, High Representative Solana briefed the Council on his visit to the DRC and stated that President Kabila had accepted in principle the deployment of a small EU force to the country (House of Lords 2006a). In addition, Solana had obtained the approval of the DRC’s four vice-­presidents as well as the representatives of other important organisations in the transitional government (Deutscher Bundestag 2006a: 3112). This paved the way for Germany’s announcement at the 21 March PSC meeting that it would be willing to lead the EU operation, which also enabled the EU to launch the formal planning process for the operation. Although the Union’s planning process was already under way, this planning had been done informally without any formal planning documents. Table 5.1  Joint product expectations from EUFOR RD Congo Country

Public goods

Club goods

Private goods

France Germany United Kingdom

Stability in DRC Stability in DRC Stability in DRC

Credibility for ESDP Public confidence in EU – French goodwill – –

118   Déjà-vu

Planning and launch On 23 March, the Council approved a concept for the UN requested EU military operation and ‘decided to start military planning and preparation on that basis’ (CEU 2006b). It foresaw ‘the deployment of an advanced element to Kinshasa of circa 400–450 military personnel’ and proposed making available ‘a battalion­size ‘on-­call’ force ‘over the horizon’ outside the country, but quickly deployable’. Following the adoption of the concept, the Austrian Presidency of the EU Council sent a letter to UN Secretary-­General Annan in which Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik informed him that the EU had decided to respond positively to the UN’s request (UNSC 2006a: 4–5). The minister also emphasised the importance of a speedy adoption of a robust UN Security Council mandate for the operation, without which the Union could not continue planning for the operation. It should be noted that the option of conducting the new EU operation in the framework of Berlin Plus, which allows it to use NATO’s command and control and planning assets when conducting military operations, was never seriously discussed. According to Germany, the reason for this was that the UN had addressed its request explicitly to the EU instead of NATO (BMVg 2006). It also emphasised that the operation was not given to NATO partly because the EU had already established a record of engagement in the DRC with Operation Artemis, whereas the Alliance had no such record in the country. Although Berlin Plus would not be used, Germany emphasised that NATO would be kept informed about the operation throughout its planning process. However, in the run up to the adoption of the concept paper on 23 March, a NATO spokesman said that there had been ‘no discussions’ between the Alliance and the EU on the planned operation in the DRC because ‘the EU does not wish to make use of Berlin Plus in this issue’ (NATO 2006). Later in the operation’s planning process, American officials complained about the fact that ‘there had not even been informal NATO-­EU consultations on the EU’s upcoming Congo mission’ (US Embassy Berlin 2006). In fact, American officials felt that ‘the EU often does not consult with the Alliance before launching operations despite 2003 ‘Berlin Plus’ agreement to do so’ (Rumsfeld 2006). After the EU had initiated formal planning for EUFOR RD Congo, the UK maintained that it welcomed the operation ‘as part of wider efforts to ensure a secure and stable environment for free and fair elections’ (House of Commons 2006b). However, behind closed doors, the British government was sceptical about the operation’s ability to make an actual difference in the DRC during its deployment period. Parliamentary Under-­Secretary for Foreign Affairs Lord Triesman, for example, expressed he was ‘not sure if these 800 troops would ultimately be able to make a tangible difference in the DRC, given that they would be in and around Kinshasa but not stationed in the volatile east’ (US Mission UN 2006). To some extent, this comment is surprising because EUFOR’s mission was never to stabilise the entire DRC. When the operation deployed, MONUC would continue to have the overall responsibility of ensuring

Déjà-vu   119 stability in the country whereas EUFOR would focus on Kinshasa and the area around it. In other words, the operation’s main purpose was to make a tangible difference in Kinshasa, not the DRC as a whole. On 29 March, Chancellor Merkel, Foreign Minister Steinmeier and Defence Minister Jung made the case for the EU operation in the Bundestag. They had built their case around two main arguments, one practical and the other humanitarian. First, the government stressed the planned operation represented a continuation of Europe’s engagement in the DRC rather than the beginning of it. Steinmeier pointed out that Europe and Germany had already invested enormous sums of money to the DRC’s democratic future, including €150 million for the upcoming elections alone (Deutscher Bundestag 2006b: 2254). Due to this large investment, he argued that now was not the time to jeopardise the progress that had been achieved. Second, the government highlighted the need to support the DRC’s transition process to avoid further violence in the country. Merkel, for example, emphasised that Germany’s possible involvement in the EU operation needed to be debated intensively before a decision was made. However, she explained that if one day Germany received images from the Straits of Gibraltar that showed African refugees attempting to reach Europe, it could not just look at the pictures and feel sad if the UN had previously requested assistance and the country had said no (Deutscher Bundestag 2006b: 2227). In addition, Steinmeier emphasised that when Germany decided on whether or not to participate in the planned EU operation, it must do its part to ensure that the violence the DRC experienced in the past would not be repeated. Before EUFOR RD Congo’s formal planning process was launched, the UK had let its EU partners know that its ability to contribute to the operation was constrained. This was due to the high level of the country’s existing military commitments around the world, which were putting a heavy burden on its armed forces. As a result, London explained that it could only make a ‘minimal’ contribution to EUFOR. In his 18 April Explanatory Memorandum to the House of Commons’ European Scrutiny Committee, Minster of State for Europe Douglas Alexander explained this contribution was likely to take the form of a staff officer who would serve at EUFOR’s OHQ in Potsdam (ESC 2006a: 48). Any UK contribution to the deployed elements, Alexander noted, ‘would be of a similar scale, although the force generation process is not mature enough for decisions to have been taken in this area’. As EU member states were debating their involvement in the operation, the UN Security Council had been working on a resolution that would authorise its deployment and provide it with a robust Chapter VII mandate. On 25 April, the Security Council adopted unanimously resolution 1671. It authorised ‘for a period ending four months after the date of the first round of the presidential and parliamentary elections, the deployment of Eufor R.D.Congo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’ (UNSC 2006b: 2–3). EUFOR was authorised immediately ‘to take all appropriate steps, including the deployment of advance elements in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in order to prepare its full operational capability’. Furthermore, the Security Council decided that EUFOR

120   Déjà-vu would be authorised to take all necessary measures, within its means and capabilities, to carry out its tasks. These included supporting MONUC in stabilising situations, contributing to the protection of civilians, contributing to airport protection in Kinshasa, ensuring the safety and freedom of its own personnel and installations, and executing limited operations to evacuate civilians in danger. Thus, the operation now had the necessary authorisation from the UN. France ‘welcomed’ the adoption of resolution 1671. According to French UN Ambassador Jean-­Marc de La Sablière, it ‘attests to the commitment of the international community, particularly the United Nations and the European Union, to the peace process in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’ (UNSC 2006c: 2). Furthermore, he saw that the forthcoming deployment ‘will be an important element in ensuring that the elections scheduled for June go smoothly’ (UNSC 2006c: 2). Back in Paris, the French government emphasised that the planned operation is part of the EU’s continuing security engagement in the DRC, which had already resulted in the deployment of Operation Artemis in 2003, and EUPOL Kinshasa and EUSEC RD Congo in 2005 (MAEE 2006a). In addition, Paris saw that the EU’s second military operation in the DRC ‘marks a new stage in the development of ESDP that allows the Union to make an effective contribution to the maintenance of peace and security’. Thus, instead of framing the operation as a standalone deployment, France followed Germany’s example of stressing that it was part of the EU’s continuing engagement in the DRC. The adoption of resolution 1671 enabled the EU to move forward with its own political-­strategic planning process. On 27 April, the Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Council adopted a Joint Action, which established EUFOR RD Congo’s legal framework (CEU 2006c: 37–8). The most important features of this document were that it established a chain of command and appointed the Operation Commander and the Force Commander. Due to Germany’s decision to lead EUFOR, Lieutenant General Karlheinz Viereck was appointed as the Operation Commander (EU 2006a). He had earlier been appointed as the ­commander of the German Armed Forces Operations Command (Einsatzführungskommando der Bundeswehr) in Potsdam, which would serve as EUFOR’s OHQ. The Force Commander’s post, on the other hand, was given to Major General Christian Damay, who would command the operation’s FHQ at N’Dolo Airport in Kinshasa. Damay’s appointment was due to the dual leadership agreement between Germany and France, which divided the burden of leading the operation between the two countries, although the overall responsibility remained with the Germans. Although not mentioned in the document, the EU had also decided that EUFOR’s ‘over the horizon’ component would be stationed in the neighbouring Gabon. There the force would be based in a former French military base in Franceville, which is approximately 400 km away from Kinshasa. This meant that, in case of an emergency, EUFOR’s standby element could be flown from Gabon to the DRC in a relatively short period of time. While the EU’s planning process for EUFOR RD Congo was making progress, the DRC’s transitional government continued to struggle with the huge logistical challenge of organising the elections. At the end of March, the IEC

Déjà-vu   121 had announced that the first round of the presidential elections would have to be pushed back to get more time to complete the process of registering candidates (AFP 2006f ). This process was originally scheduled to finish by 23 March, but the IEC requested that the Congolese parliament extend it by ten days. As a result, the Congolese authorities believed it was also necessary to push back the election date, which had previously been scheduled for 18 June. Thus, on 30 April, the IEC confirmed that the first round of the presidential elections would be delayed and held on 30 July, a month after the final deadline set by GAIA (AP 2006). This change in the DRC’s electoral calendar was also noted by the EU, which urged ‘the Congolese authorities to ensure that the election date is observed’ (CEU 2006d: 31). It also meant the deployment of EUFOR, which was previously scheduled for May, was now likely to be postponed until June. As the force generation process moved forward and the composition of EUFOR RD Congo became clearer, the UK decided to make a small modification to its contribution. In advance of the 15 May GAERC, Parliamentary Under­Secretary Triesman told the House of Lords that the UK would ‘deploy another officer to the French led force HQ’ in Kinshasa in addition to the officer that it had already dispatched to the OHQ (House of Lords 2006c). Geoff Hoon, the new Minister for Europe, subsequently confirmed this contribution in his 17 May Explanatory Memorandum to the House of Commons’ European Scrutiny Committee (ESC 2006b: 77). He also reiterated that the UK fully supported the objective of supporting MONUC during the DRC’s forthcoming elections and that ‘these elections – the first democratic elections for 40 years in DRC – are crucial for the future stability of the Congo and the Great Lakes region’. However, despite this support, the UK’s existing military commitments around the world meant that the country had no compelling reason to make anything beyond a minimal contribution to the operation. After the 15 May GAERC meeting, French Minister for European Affairs Catherine Colonna announced that the size of France’s contribution to the planned EU operation would be approximately 850 personnel. This contribution was significantly larger than the 500 personnel that Foreign Minister Douste-­ Blazy had previously said that France would make available for the operation. Although Colonna did not specify the nature of the forces this contribution would consist of, it is likely that the French government had added the necessary support elements to this contribution like the German government had done. Importantly, the increased size of France’s contribution also meant that France would be the operation’s largest troop contributor even though Germany had agreed to serve as its lead nation. In the first three EU military operations (Operation Concordia, Operation Artemis, Operation Althea), the lead nation had always provided the bulk of the forces on the ground in addition to the necessary command and control structures. Thus, EUFOR RD Congo would be the first EU military operation in which this would not be the case. As in the beginning of 2006, when discussions over the deployment of EUFOR RD Congo had just begun, French officials continued to emphasise in their public statements that EUFOR’s deployment demonstrated that the EU was

122   Déjà-vu on the road to recovery after the failure of the constitutional treaty. Foreign Minister Douste-­Blazy, for example, noted that, despite the French and Dutch ‘no’ votes in their national referendums on the European constitution, the EU continued to make progress in various European projects (MAEE 2006b). One of these projects was the EU’s security and defence policy, which was described by Defence Minister Alliot-­Marie as ‘one of the most active areas in the construction of Europe’ since 2002 (Alliot-­Marie 2006a). In their public statements, both Alliot-­Marie and Douste-­Blazy explicitly used the EU’s forthcoming deployment to the DRC as evidence that the Union was moving forward. Thus, for the French government, the deployment of EUFOR was also a public relations victory that allowed it to maintain that the effects of French and Dutch ‘no’ votes on the constitutional treaty would be marginal for the Union’s long-­term priorities. Despite EUFOR RD Congo’s difficult planning process, France attempted to play down any tensions that it might have created in its relationship with Germany. Defence Minister Alliot-­Marie wrote that the EU’s forthcoming deployment to the DRC was ‘a success of the European Security and Defense Policy and a symbol of the excellent relationship between France and Germany’ (Alliot-­Marie 2006b). In an earlier article that she had written together with German Defence Minister Jung, the two ministers emphasised that the strong partnership between the two countries was ‘indispensable for the future of European defense’ (Alliot-­Marie and Jung 2006). Furthermore, at the informal Franco-­German meeting in Rheinsberg on 6 June, President Chirac thanked Chancellor Merkel for Germany’s decision to the participate in the EU operation, which he described as a guarantee of the DRC’s peaceful, transparent, and democratic development (Bundesregierung 2006g). After Germany felt that all the conditions it had set for its participation in EUFOR RD Congo were fulfilled, it decided on the type of contribution it would make to the operation 17 May. According to the draft mandate that was submitted to the Bundestag, Germany would contribute 500 soldiers and up to 280 support personnel to the operation, which brought Germany’s total contribution up to 780 personnel (Deutscher Bundestag 2006c: 4). In addition, the government’s draft mandate confirmed that German forces would only be stationed in the area of Kinshasa and not be used elsewhere, although EUFOR’s area of operation technically covered the entire DRC. Furthermore, the government estimated that the deployment of the 780-strong contingent it was proposing for a four-­month period would cost approximately €56 million. Following the submission of the draft mandate to the Bundestag, members of the German government appeared again in front of its deputies on 19 May to make the final case for the operation before the deputies would vote on the matter. Foreign Minister Steinmeier highlighted again the importance of supporting the DRC’s general elections and ensuring that they would be a success. He stressed that the only way to ensure that Central Africa would not plunge into war and destruction in future was to have a stable DRC (Deutscher Bundestag 2006d: 3103). In addition, he emphasised the responsibilities to get involved in

Déjà-vu   123 Europe’s neighbouring continent that emanated from Germany’s membership in the UN (Deutscher Bundestag 2006d: 3103). This point was also stressed by Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-­Zeul, who argued that Germany should help when it has the capabilities to do so (Deutscher Bundestag 2006d: 3110). Furthermore, she emphasised that the new EU operation ‘helps the people in Congo and is in our own interest’ because the conflict in the Great Lakes region can ‘radiate’ (Deutscher Bundestag 2006d: 3103). She saw that if it was possible ‘to stabilise the situation in the Great Lakes region and solve the greatest conflict in the heart of Africa peacefully, then the future of entire African continent is greatly affected’ (Deutscher Bundestag 2006d: 3103). In addition to Steinmeir and Wieczorek-­Zeul, the Bundestag was also addressed by Defence Minister Jung. Due to his position, Jung was forced to defend the planned operation much more forcefully than his colleagues. Among other things, the minister was criticised for bringing Germany’s total participation up to 780 personnel, although he had previously indicated that the government would not contribute any more than 500 soldiers. However, Jung responded to these criticisms by pointing out that the referred number of 500 personnel included only soldiers but not the necessary support elements (Deutscher Bundestag 2006d: 3113). Thus, to ensure the safety and security of German soldiers, it was necessary to add the support elements. The Bundestag voted on Germany’s participation in EUFOR RD Congo on 1 June. Despite the highly strained planning process, Germany’s participation in EUFOR was approved with a surprisingly large majority. In the end, 440 deputies voted for the operation, 135 voted against, and six decided to abstain (Deutscher Bundestag 2006e: 3259). Following the vote, High Representative Solana praised Germany’s decision to participate in the operation by saying that ‘the Germans have shown that they are prepared to take on responsibility for Europe’ (Schilz 2006). In addition, he thanked the Germans and their government for their ‘constructive action’ on the matter. In addition to France, Solana had also played a key role in convincing Germany to accept that EUFOR was a worthwhile operation in which it should participate (Interview with Council official in Brussels, May 2011). After Germany’s participation in EUFOR RD Congo was approved, Chancellor Merkel attempted to explain why it was in the country’s interest to participate in it. In a speech to the country’s armed forces, Merkel told her audience that Germany did not take responsibility ‘just for the sake of the people in often-­ remote areas of the world’ (Bundesregierung 2006f ). She explained that it was also about ‘enlightened self-­interest when we keep conflicts at a distance, when we participate in the fight against the causes of a conflict in the country of origin, when we support peaceful and democratic development on the site’. Furthermore, she emphasised that such a policy was in Germany’s own interest, including when it required the use of military capabilities. However, with regards to EUFOR, Merkel explained that Germany’s diplomatic and humanitarian engagement with the country had been going on already for many years. She pointed out that Germany and Europe had helped to ensure that democratic structures

124   Déjà-vu would slowly get a chance in the country and that countless people there would no longer lose their lives. Thus, Merkel framed the operation explicitly as a continuation of Germany’s previous engagement in the DRC. The formal launch of EUFOR RD Congo took place on 12 June when GAERC adopted a Council Decision (CEU 2006e: 20). The document authorised Lieutenant General Viereck, EUFOR’s Operation Commander, to release the ACTORD ‘in order to execute the deployment of the forces, prior to Transfer of Authority following their arrival in theatre, and start execution of the mission’ (EU 2006b). Following the launch of the operation, Operation Commander Viereck attempted to dismiss allegations that new EU force was inadequate and largely irrelevant. He was confident that EUFOR would be able to achieve its goal of providing stability in the DRC during the country’s elections. However, he also reminded everyone that ‘[m]y task is not to build up Congo in the long term… I want to support the elections’ (Dombey and Williamson 2006). This reminder was necessary because, during the operation’s planning process, many people had argued that EUFOR could not stabilise the entire DRC, even though this was never its mission. After EUFOR RD Congo was launched, Defence Minister Alliot-­Marie wrote an article in which she attempted to outline the reasons behind the operation’s deployment. She identified three reasons why the EU had decided to deploy the operation. First, Alliot-­Marie saw that Europe still had a historical duty ‘to help reduce poverty and to work toward sustainable development in Africa, and to help democratically elected governments strengthen their institutions’ (Alliot-­ Marie 2006b). This was due to the ‘historical, economic, cultural, and human links between Africa and Europe’ that have roots in European colonialism. Second, she argued that Europe needed to ensure the availability of certain natural resources, such as oil and mining supplies, which are vital for the economic and technological development of European countries. If the availability of these resources would be blocked by a crisis, then Europe would ‘suffer the consequences’. Third, Alliot-­Marie pointed out that Europe had also become a major trafficking destination, a target of terrorist attacks, and a magnet for refugees and immigrants, all phenomena caused by various conflicts and famine in Africa. According to her, for Europe, ‘such conflicts represent a real risk of uncontrolled migrations as people flee slaughter, war and famine’. Thus, this was why the EU needed to be engaged in the DRC and support the country’s transition process, even with the deployment of a military operation.

Conclusion This chapter analysed the deployment process of EUFOR RD Congo, the EU’s second military operation in the DRC. It argued that EUFOR’s slow and cumbersome planning process was due to the fact that EU member states had no direct interests at stake in the 2006 Congolese general elections. As one official explained to the author, many member states have no political interest in sending their troops to the DRC because they essentially see the country as a ‘total black

Déjà-vu   125 hole’ (Interview with Estonian official in Tallinn, July 2011). Although the member states used the language of interests to justify EUFOR’s deployment, the interests they referred to were often very general and not exclusive to any particular country. An example would be the need to assist the DRC on its way to democracy in order to ensure future stability not just in the country itself, but also in the broader Great Lakes region. This was something that was highlighted not just by Brussels, but also by Paris, Berlin, and London. However, from a European perspective, stability in the Great Lakes region is a relatively pure public good because everyone can enjoy it without restriction regardless of whether or not they chose to participate in EUFOR. As a result, only a few countries should be enthusiastic about investing in the production of that public good if they can expect that somebody else would produce it for them, which was indeed the case. What ultimately tipped the scale in favour of EUFOR’s deployment was a desire to use the operation as a means to produce a European club good – that is, to prove the EU’s effectiveness as a global actor. Since 2005, France had been calling for a new initiative in the field of European security and defence that would show to the EU’s own citizens and to the world that the Union continued to be an effective international actor despite the French and Dutch peoples’ rejection of the much-­hyped Constitutional Treaty. As a result of this, France expressed that it supported the idea of deploying a EU deterrent force to the DRC soon after the UN requested the Union to do so in December 2005. After discussing the plan with the German leadership, France was able to convince Berlin about the merits of deploying the operation. However, Paris also made clear that it would not be willing to lead the operation because it had already led the previous EU military operation in the DRC, Operation Artemis, in 2003. This meant that the role of the lead nation would have to be taken up by Germany because the UK had made clear that it could not lead the operation either due to military overstretch. Although Germany had initially said that it would not be willing to assume a leadership role in the operation, it eventually changed its mind due to pressure from its EU partners. Furthermore, Germany supported the operation also because it saw it as a means to facilitate the production of a private good in the form of French goodwill. Since the government of Chancellor Merkel had been in only since 2005, supporting the deployment of EUFOR was seen as a way to demonstrate the new government’s willingness to cooperate with France. Although the desire to demonstrate the EU’s continuing effectiveness as an international actor was a driving factor behind EUFOR RD Congo’s deployment, its ability to attract contributions was limited at best. This became clear during the operation’s force generation process, which was characterised by a general lack of interest towards making significant capability contributions to it. The UK, for example, told its European partners relatively early in the discussions over the operation that its ability to contribute to EUFOR was limited due to its existing military commitments, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan, which it had to prioritise. Because of this, the UK made only a ‘minimal’ contribution of two staff officers to the operation. Like the UK, Germany had originally

126   Déjà-vu intended to keep its involvement in the operation as minimal as possible and avoid deploying combat troops altogether. However, since Germany was the framework nation of the Franco-­German battlegroup that was on standby duty in the first half of 2006, Germany found it difficult to resist pressure from its European partners to provide a more substantial contribution. Thus, Germany struck a deal with France in which both countries would contribute one third of the operation’s total strength, whereas the remaining one third would come from the remaining EU member states.

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Déjà-vu   129 Hagemann, F., 2010. Strategy Making in the European Union: The Quest for Comprehensive Security in the European Union’s Military Operations: EUFOR RD Congo, EUFOR Tchad/RCA, and EUNAVFOR Somalia. Berlin: Carola Hartmann Miles-­ Verlag. Haine, J.Y. and Giegerich, B., 2006. In Congo, a Cosmetic EU Operation. The International Herald Tribune, 12 June. www.nytimes.com/2006/06/12/opinion/12iht edhaine.1954062.html?_r=0. Handolin, L. and Elomaa, T., 2007. The Finnish Forward Surgical Team Experience During EUFOR Operation RD Congo in 2006. European Journal of Trauma and Emergency Surgery 33 (3), 245–50. Hoebeke, H., Carette, S., and Vlassenroot, K., 2007. EU support to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Centre d’analyse stratégique. www.egmontinstitute.be/wp-­content/ uploads/2013/10/EU_support_to_the_DRC.pdf. House of Commons, 2006a. HC Deb. 31 January 2006 vol. 442 col. 319W. www.publica tions.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/vo060131/text/60131w08.htm. House of Commons, 2006b. HC Deb. 18 April 2006 vol.  445 col.  77W. www.publica tions.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/vo060418/text/60418w23.htm. House of Lords, 2006a. HL Deb. 27 March 2006 vol. 680 col. WS55. www.publications. parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/vo060327/wmstext/60327m02.htm. House of Lords, 2006b. HL Deb. 16 March 2006 vol. 679 col. 1342. www.publications. parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldhansrd/vo060316/text/60316-01.htm. House of Lords, 2006c. HL Deb. 12 May 2006 vol. 681 col. WS68. www.publications. parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldhansrd/vo060512/text/60512-33.htm. IISS (International Institute for Strategic Studies), 2006. The Military Balance 2006. Abingdon: Routledge. IRC (International Rescue Committee), 2004. Mortality in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Results from a Nationwide Survey. www.rescue.org/sites/default/files/resource-­ file/DRC_MortalitySurvey2004_Final_9Dec04.pdf. Jahier, A., 2010. ESDP Operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo: A Realist Analysis. Central European Journal of International and Security Studies 4 (2), 81–92. John, M., 2006a. EU Snagged on UN Request for Congo Force. Reuters, 21 February. http://reliefweb.int/report/democratic-­republic-congo/eu-­snagged-un-­request-congo-­ force. John, M., 2006b. DR Congo: EU Nations Come Forward for Congo Force. Reuters, 27 February. http://reliefweb.int/report/democratic-­republic-congo/dr-­congo-eu-­nationscome-­forward-congo-­force. Knutsen, B.O., 2009. The EU’s security and defense policy (ESDP) and the challenges of civil–military coordination (CMCO): the case of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). European Security 18 (4), 441–59. Koops, J.A., 2011. The European Union as an Integrative Power? Assessing the EU’s ‘Effective Multilateralism’ towards NATO and the United Nations. Brussels: VUBPRESS. Leersch, H.J., 2006. Deutschland schickt Soldaten in den Kongo. Welt Online, 10 February. www.welt.de/print-­welt/article197054/Deutschland-­schickt-Soldaten-­in-den-­Kongo. html. MAEE (Ministère des affaires étrangères et européennes), 2006a. Point de presse: Declarations du porte-­parole. 26 April. http://basedoc.diplomatie.gouv.fr/exl-­php/cadcgp.php ?CMD=CHERCHE&QUERY=1&MODELE=vues/mae_internet___recherche_ avancee/home.html&VUE=mae_internet___recherche_avancee&NOM=cadic__ anonyme&FROM_LOGIN=1.

130   Déjà-vu MAEE, 2006b. Point de presse conjoint du Ministre des affaires étrangères, M. Philippe Douste-­Blazy, et du Ministre Georgien des affaires étrangères, M. Guela Bejouachvili. 30 May. http://basedoc.diplomatie.gouv.fr/exl-­php/cadcgp.php?CMD=CHERCHE&Q UERY=1&MODELE=vues/mae_internet___recherche_avancee/home. html&VUE=mae_internet___recherche_avancee&NOM=cadic__anonyme&FROM_ LOGIN=1. Major, C., 2008. EU-­UN Cooperation in Military Crisis Management: The Experience of EUFOR RD Congo in 2006. Occasional Paper N. 72. Paris: European Union Institute for Security Studies. www.iss.europa.eu/uploads/media/cp067e.pdf. Major, C., 2009. EUFOR RD Congo: The Military Operation EUFOR RD Congo 2006. In: G. Grevi, D. Helly and D. Keohane, eds. European Security and Defence Policy: The First 10 Years (1999–2009). Paris: European Union Institute for Security Studies, 311–24. Martin, M., 2007. A Force for Good? The European Union and Human Security in the Democratic Republic of Congo. African Security Review 16 (2), 64–77. Martinelli, M. 2008. Implementing the ESDP in Africa: The Case of the Democratic Republic of Congo. In: M. Merlingen and R. Ostrauskaite, eds. European Security and Defence Policy: An Implementation Perspective. Abingdon: Routledge, 111–27. Mattelaer, A., 2007. EUFOR RDC and the development of the ESDP. Studia Diplomatica LX (3), 73–89. NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation), 2006. Background Briefing by the NATO Spokesman. 22 March. www.nato.int/docu/speech/2006/s060322b.htm. Norheim-­Martinsen, P.M., 2011. Our Work Here is Done: European Union Peacekeeping in Africa. African Security Review 20 (2), 17–28. Norheim-­Martinsen, P.M., 2013. The European Union and Military Force: Governance and Strategy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Prunier, G., 2009. Africa’s World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Reuters, 2006. EU Likely to Offer Standby Force for Congo – Solana. 9 February. http:// reliefweb.int/report/democratic-­republic-congo/eu-­likely-offer-­standby-force-­congosolana. Rumsfeld, D., 2006. The European Union’s Security and Defence Policy. 19 May. http:// library.rumsfeld.com/doclib/sp/3946/2006-05-18%20to%20Stephen%20J%20 Hadley%20re%20The%20European%20Union%20Security%20and%20Defense%20 Policy-%20Memo%20Attachment.pdf#search=“esdp”. Schilz, C.B., 2006. ‘Das Risiko für die Soldaten im Kongo ist gering’. Welt Online, 3 June. www.welt.de/print-­welt/article221238/Das-­Risiko-fuer-­die-Soldaten-­im-Kongo-­ ist-gering.html. Schlamp, H.J. and Szandar, A., 2006. Fallschirmjäger nach Kinshasa? Der Spiegel 5/2006, p. 25. http://magazin.spiegel.de/EpubDelivery/spiegel/pdf/45624783. Sundaram, A., 2006. Congo Eyes June 18 Elections Date. Associated Press, 22 February. www.apnewsarchive.com/2006/Congo-­Eyes-June-­18-Election-­Date/id-­5ea0112dffd6d 00e4463e217c073bd13. Szandar, A., 2006. Allergrößte Zweifel. Der Spiegel 12/2006, p.  30. http://magazin. spiegel.de/EpubDelivery/spiegel/pdf/46332247. Taylor, P., 2006. DRC: EU Team to Prepare Congo Peace Mission amid Doubts. Reuters, 27 January. http://reliefweb.int/report/democratic-­republic-congo/drc-­eu-team-­preparecongo-­peace-mission-­amid-doubts. Tull, D.M., 2009. EUFOR RD Congo: A Success, But Not a Model. In: M. Asseburg and R. Kempin, eds. The EU as a Strategic Actor in the Realm of Security and Defence? A

Déjà-vu   131 Systematic Assessment of ESDP Missions and Operations. SWP Research Paper 14. Berlin: SWP, 46–56. UNP (United Nations Peacemaker), 2002. Global and Inclusive Agreement on Transition in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Pretoria Agreement). 16 December. http:// peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/CD_021216_Global%20and%20 Inclusive%20Agreement%20on%20Transition%20in%20DRC.pdf. UNSC (United Nations Security Council), 2005a. Special Report of the Secretary-­General on Elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. S/2005/320, 26 May. www. un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2005/320. UNSC, 2005b. Resolution 1635 (2005). S/RES/1635 (2005), 28 October. www.un.org/en/ ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/RES/1635%20(2005). UNSC, 2006a. Letter Dated 12 April 2006 from the Secretary-­General Addressed to the President of the Security Council. S/2006/219, 12 April. www.un.org/en/ga/search/ view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2006/219. UNSC, 2006b. Resolution 1671 (2006). S/RES/1671 (2006), 25 April. www.un.org/en/ ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/RES/1671%20(2006). UNSC, 2006c. 5421st Meeting. S/PV.5421, 25 April. www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_ doc.asp?symbol=S/PV.5421. US Embassy Berlin, 2006. German Views on the ‘Road to Riga’. 06BERLIN1494, 2 June. http://wikileaks.org/cable/2006/06/06BERLIN1494.html. US Embassy Paris, 2006. French AF DAS Discusses Sudan (AMIS/UN), Djibouti (Bilateral Relations), DRC (Possible EU Force). 06PARIS1776, 20 March. http://wikileaks. org/cable/2006/03/06PARIS1776.html. US Mission UN, 2006. African Tour d’Horizon with UK Lord Triesman. 06USUNNEWYORK642, 30 March. http://wikileaks.org/cable/2006/03/06USUNNEWYORK642. html. Winter, M., 2006a. Kriegerisches Kinshasa. Süddeutsche Zeitung, 15 February, p. 2. Winter, M., 2006b. UN-­Anfrage gibt der EU Rätsel auf. Süddeutsche Zeitung, 24 January, p. 8. Winter, M., 2006c. Drei Optionen für den Kongo. Süddeutsche Zeitung, 14 February, p. 8. Winter, M. and Blechschmidt, P., 2006. Jung gegen deutsche Führung bei Kongo-­Einsatz. Süddeutsche Zeitung, 11 February, p. 6.

6 Gangland Operation Atalanta off the coast of Somalia1

Among all military CSDP operations, Atalanta is the one that most clearly reflects EU security concerns. Michael Merlingen

On 8 December 2008, the European Union’s (EU) European (now Common) Security and Defence Policy (ESDP/CSDP) achieved an important first when Operation Atalanta, the EU’s first-­ever naval operation, was launched. Hailed as ‘a significant step in Europe’s nascent security and defence policy’ (Norton-­ Taylor 2008), Atalanta was the EU’s contribution to the intensifying international campaign against Somali piracy, which became a major international security concern in 2008. More specifically, Atalanta’s mission was to protect vessels of the World Food Programme (WFP) ‘delivering food aid to displaced persons in Somalia’, other vulnerable vessels ‘cruising off the Somali coast, and the deterrence, prevention and repression of acts of piracy and armed robbery off the Somali coast’ (EU 2008a). Operation Atalanta has already received a good amount of attention from the literature (Germond and Smith 2009; Helly 2009; Homan and Kamerling 2010; Riddervold 2011; Ehrhart and Petretto 2012ab; Kaunerta and Zwolskib 2012; Midford 2012; Germond 2013; Perry 2013; Engberg 2014; Peters, Wagner, and Glahn 2014; McDonagh 2015; Papastavridis 2015; Dijkstra 2016). This chapter argues that Atalanta was deployed because France, Germany, and the United Kingdom (UK) saw it as a lucrative joint product activity that would facilitate the production of a number of public and private goods. First, Atalanta was expected to facilitate the production of a public good in the form of improved maritime security in the strategic shipping routes off the coast of Somalia and at the Gulf of Aden. This was a non-­excludable benefit that could be enjoyed without restriction by countries in the EU, Africa, and elsewhere regardless of their participation in the operation. Second, Atalanta was also expected to facilitate the production of various contributor specific private goods that could be enjoyed only by the contributors themselves. Most notably, France expected it to reduce domestic opposition to its forthcoming reintegration into the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), Germany saw it would allow it to engage in

Gangland   133 anti-­piracy operations without engaging in the difficult process of constitutional reform, and the UK saw that leading the operation would reaffirm its role as Europe’s leading naval power. Third, the deployment of Atalanta was also expected to facilitate the production of club goods by introducing an active maritime dimension to the ESDP and improving NATO-­EU cooperation as a result of France’s return to NATO.

Background In early 2008, the sudden increase in maritime piracy incidents off the coast of Somalia surprised many. However, piracy in Somalia’s coastal waters has existed for decades. Although earliest reports of the phenomenon date back to the 1950s, it started to become systematic in the 1980s (Murphy 2011: 11). Since the mid-­2000s, the phenomenon began to transform from a mere ‘domestic nuisance’ into a ‘sophisticated and well-­organized industry’ (UNSC 2008a: 27). The roots of the problem lie in the fact that Somalia has been without an effective government since the eruption of the country’s civil war. After the overthrow of the military regime of President Siad Barre in 1991, Somalia’s territory and coastal waters were left largely ungoverned. This allowed various self-­appointed militias and local administrations to roam relatively free in the country’s territory and assert control over parts of its coastal waters. Piracy off the coast of Somalia was a relatively unknown problem during President Barre’s rule. In the late 1980s, Somali pirates tended to pose as law enforcement officers in order to board vessels that were close to the country’s shore (UNSC 2006a: 25). Once on board, they would rob whatever cargo or items they could find from the hijacked vessel. However, they usually did not take the crew as hostages or demand ransom for their release. These early Somali pirates were not as sophisticated or well organised as those who are operating off the country’s coast today. According to the United Nations (UN) Monitoring Group on Somalia, the best term that could be used to describe them would be ‘sea robber’ because they tended to be ‘passengers or crew members of private vessels’ who committed ‘armed robberies of commercial vessels in seaports and territorial waters’ (UNSC 2006a: 25). In the 1990s, Somali piracy continued to receive relatively little attention. This was largely due to the relatively low frequency of attacks and the pirate’s inability to reach major shipping lanes. According to data collected by the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) since 1994, the highest numbers of pirate attacks in Somalia’s territorial waters during the 1990s were recorded in 1994 and 1999 when 14 ships were attacked in both years. These attacks, however, took place relatively close to Somalia’s coastline and, therefore, did not constitute a serious international security issue. During the first half of the 2000s, the number of attacks by Somali pirates continued to grow slowly but gradually. Since the turn of the millennium, the emphasis of these attacks had started to shift from Somalia’s Indian Ocean coast to the Gulf of Aden, which is the narrow sea passage that connects the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean through the Suez Canal. It is one of the world’s

134   Gangland busiest shipping routes and a strategic choke point due to its importance for transporting oil from the Persian Gulf to Europe and beyond. These negative developments led to the first serious calls for addressing the problem. In November 2005, the UN’s International Maritime Organisation (IMO) appealed to ‘all parties which may be able to assist to take action’ to ensure that all future pirate attacks were prevented and any hijacked ships were immediately and unconditionally released (IMO 2005). Four months later, the President of the UN Security Council issued a statement that encouraged all states with naval assets and aircraft near the coast of Somalia ‘to be vigilant to any incident of piracy therein and to take appropriate action to protect merchant shipping, in particular the transportation of humanitarian aid, against any such act, in line with relevant international law’ (UNSC 2006b: 3). These calls for action increased the world’s attention to the problem decreased the number of attacks in 2006 by more than a half from their 2005 level. Despite international efforts to deal with Somali piracy in 2006, piracy incidents reached a new peak in 2007 with a total of 20 actual and attempted attacks. As a result, the international community was forced to consider new measures to ensure the safety of maritime traffic around the Horn of Africa. A particular concern was the safety of the WFP’s vessels delivering aid shipments to Somalia, which provided food assistance to roughly one million Somalis. In the first half of 2007 alone, two WFP chartered vessels were hijacked. This has made it increasingly hard for the WFP to find contractors willing to take the risk of sailing to Somalia. This was a serious problem for the WFP because the organisation transported roughly 80 per cent of its food assistance to Somalia by sea using chartered vessels. Land transportation via Ethiopia or Kenya was out of the question because various militias and criminal gangs controlled much of Somalia outside Mogadishu and maintained checkpoints that demanded ‘fees’ from anyone attempting to pass through. Thus, a quick solution to the problem was needed so that the WFP could continue to provide food assistance to the Somali people. In July 2007, the increasing number of pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia triggered action calls from key UN organisations. On 10 July, IMO Secretary-­ General Efthimios E. Mitropoulos and WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran issued a joint communiqué in London that called for ‘concerted and co-­ordinated international action to address the threat of piracy and armed robbery against ships in waters off the coast of Somalia’ (IMO 2007). They warned that Somali pirates ‘threaten the sea lanes in the region and could endanger the fragile supply line for food assistance to Somalis whose lives have been shattered by more than 15 years of civil conflict, political instability and recurring natural disasters’ (IMO 2007). Mitropoulos had also sent a letter to UN Secretary-­General Ban Ki Moon to urge the organisation to increase its efforts to fight piracy off the coast of Somalia. Ban had already expressed concern for the increased piracy incident. During a report to the Security Council in June, Ban noted that an upsurge in piracy off the Somali coast ‘posed additional challenges to the provision of aid as WFP-­chartered vessels came under attack in mid-­May’ (UNSC 2007a: 12).

Gangland   135 The UN Security Council adopted resolution 1772 on 20 August. In it, the Security Council stressed its concern ‘at the upsurge in piracy off the Somali coast’ and took note of the 10 July IMO/WFP joint communiqué (UNSC 2007b: 2). It also encouraged states whose naval vessels and military aircraft operate in international waters and airspace adjacent to the coast of Somalia to be vigilant to any incident of piracy therein and to take appropriate action to protect merchant shipping, in particular the transportation of humanitarian aid, against any such act, in line with relevant international law. (UNSC 2007b: 5)

Agenda setting After Nicolas Sarkozy was elected as French President in May 2007, France begun to pay increasing attention to piracy around the Horn of Africa. At the time, France saw the phenomenon mainly as a humanitarian problem that threatened the safety of WFP vessels, which had become easy targets for Somali pirates. By August, Sarkozy’s government was actively seeking ways of increasing the provision of humanitarian assistance to Somalia and improving the nascent international anti-­piracy efforts (US Embassy Paris 2007). France was convinced that reducing piracy was key to facilitating the delivery of food assistance and other humanitarian supplies to Somalia because the vast majority of it was transported by sea. During an interview in September, Sarkozy noted that helping the international community to monitor Somalia’s coastal waters in order to ensure that the WFP’s vessels are able to reach the country was in France’s ‘interest’ (NYT 2007). He explained that since the Straits of Gibraltar, the narrowest point between Europe and Africa, is only 12 kilometres wide, ‘Africa’s problems are liable to become our problems’ (NYT 2007). After attending a UN Security Council meeting in New York on 25 September, President Sarkozy announced that ‘France is prepared to send a warship’ to protect the delivery of food assistance and other humanitarian supplies to Somalia (AFP 2007). He explained that ‘France stands ready to ensure security for the assistance provided by the World Food Program in Somalia for a period of two months using naval military resources’ and called all countries ‘who wish to do so to join this initiative’ (AFP 2007). WFP Executive Director Sheeran was certain that naval escorts would ‘reduce the threat of piracy’ to the WFP’s vessels and warmly welcomed the initiative (WFP 2007). The programme became known as Operation Alcyon and became operational on 16 November, carrying out its first escort the following day.2 For its first two months, a French frigate protected WFP vessels on their way to Somalia. Afterwards, however, the responsibility over Alcyon was handed over to Denmark in February 2008. During its existence, Alcyon was also carried out by the Netherlands, Germany, and Canada before it was temporarily taken over by NATO in October 2008 and then finally incorporated into Operation Atalanta in December.

136   Gangland After Operation Alcyon was launched, all WFP vessels were able to deliver their shipments to Somalia without being hijacked. However, Alcyon did not solve the broader problem of Somali piracy that continued to threaten other maritime traffic around the Horn of Africa. In 2007, Somali pirates reportedly hijacked 11 vessels in the Gulf of Aden and Somalia’s Indian Ocean coast. However, the actual number is likely to be higher because ship owners do not report all piracy incidents. The reason for this is that doing so would increase insurance costs and lead to bad publicity for the company in question (Palmer 2014: 14). As a result, the UN Security Council had begun to consider the possibility of adopting a distinct anti-­piracy resolution that would provide states maintaining naval assets in the region with additional powers to deal with the problem. At the time, the US had also begun to consider using Combined Task Force 150 (CTF-­150), Operation Enduring Freedom’s naval component, as a platform for joint anti-­piracy efforts. France expressed interest in the idea (US Mission UN 2007), but it did not make any commitments. Germany’s involvement in anti-­piracy operations around the Horn of Africa became subject to heated domestic debate in November 2007. This debate was triggered by the government’s request that the Bundestag, the German parliament, extend the mandate of the country’s contingent in NATO’s Operation Enduring Freedom for another year. Within the framework of Enduring Freedom, Germany had also been conducting maritime security operations around the Horn of Africa through CTF-­150. These operations served NATO’s objectives in the War on Terror, and their main task was to prevent terrorist from gaining access to the strategically important sea routes around the Horn of Africa. Although piracy in Somalia’s coastal waters was not part of its mission, CTF-­150 had conducted several anti-­piracy operations due to the increased frequency of attacks in its area of operation. At the end of 2007, Germany was participating in CTF-­150 with the F 213 Augsburg, a Bremen class frigate. When explaining the Germany Navy’s tasks in CTF-­150 to the Bundestag, Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung emphasised that its first priority was to secure the sea lanes around the Horn of Africa and prevent terrorists from gaining access to safe havens. The second task was to help secure the important sea passages in the area. According to Jung, the security of international shipping lanes was especially important for Germany because 80 per cent of the country’s foreign trade was transported by sea (BMVg 2008a). Thus, German economic interests were clearly threatened if piracy in these strategically important sea-­lanes would continue to increase. Although Somali piracy clearly threatened Germany’s economic interests, some Bundestag deputies were against the German Navy’s involvement in anti-­ piracy operations, especially in the framework of NATO. The reason for this was that there were uncertainties over whether there was sufficient legal basis in the German Basic Law to allow the German Navy to conduct such operations in the first place. As a result, even some deputies from the governing parties had reservations about endorsing the renewal of the German mandate in Operation Enduring Freedom if it would lead to increased involvement in anti-­piracy operations. A deputy from the governing Social Democratic Party (SPD), for example,

Gangland   137 explained that ‘there is no legal basis’ that would allow the German Navy to monitor the strategically important sea lanes around the Horn of Africa (Deutscher Bundestag 2007: 13,229). However, the extension of Germany’s mandate in Operation Enduring Freedom, and therefore in CTF-­150 as well, was ultimately approved by a majority of 413 of a total of 622 Bundestag deputies (Deutscher Bundestag 2007: 13,111). The following year, France continued to support further international action against Somali pirates. In early 2008, the US was pushing for UN Security Council action on Somali piracy, which France supported (US Embassy Paris 2008a). France was also considering further initiatives to manage the problem, such as expanding the mandate of CTF-­150 to include anti-­piracy operations (US Embassy Paris 2008b). However, Somali piracy became a more urgent problem for France in April. On 4 April, a French luxury yacht named Le Ponant was attacked by pirates in the Gulf of Aden on its way to the Suez Canal. The pirates hijacked the yacht and anchored it in the port of Eyl in Puntland (Duhul 2008). After several days of negotiations between the pirates and the French government, the yacht and its crew were released on 11 April. However, immediately after the hostages were released, France launched a commando operation with helicopters to pursue the pirates on shore and retrieve some of the $2 million that was paid to them as ransom by CMA CGM, the French container transportation and shipping company that owned Le Ponant (Bremner 2008). The operation, which was conducted with the approval of Somalia’s transitional government, resulted in the capture of six pirates on land an hour after the ransom was paid. After being detained on a French warship, the pirates were eventually transported to France to stand trial (Economist 2008). After the hijacking of Le Ponant, France began to advocate more robust policies to solve the problem of Somali piracy. This attitude change was evident in the statements that France began to issue following the release of the hostages, which urged the international community to increase its efforts to manage the problem. Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, for example, stressed that the international community ‘must mobilize to fight resolutely against piracy in the Gulf of Aden and off the coast of Somalia’ (MAEE 2008a). It was also clear that France was advocating a larger UN mandated naval presence around the Horn of Africa that could be used to improve the safety of international maritime traffic in the region (MAEE 2008b). To get the ball rolling, France and the US drafted a resolution on Somali piracy and circulated it at the UN Security Council on 28 April (Lederer 2008a). A month later on 3 June, it was adopted unanimously as resolution 1816. The resolution decided that states may, for a six-­month period and with the approval of Somalia’s transitional government, enter the territorial waters of Somalia ‘for the purpose of repressing acts of piracy and armed robbery at sea’ (UNSC 2008b: 3). Furthermore, it authorised states to use ‘all necessary means to repress acts of piracy and armed robbery’ within Somalia’s territorial waters (UNSC 2008b: 3). As the world began to consider additional measures against Somali pirates in April 2008, the German Navy’s ability to participate in anti-­piracy operations

138   Gangland continued to be restricted. Although German warships in CTF-­150 had occasionally protected vessels that had been attacked by pirates, as in the case when the German frigate Emden prevented the hijacking of Japanese supertanker Takayam on 21 April by scaring off the pirates (DW 2008), the country’s navy was authorised to act only when an attacked ship required emergency help in a situation in which there was no other way of removing the threat to the ship and its crew. The German Navy was not allowed, for example, to track down and hunt suspected pirate vessels. The reason for this was that anti-­piracy operations were neither part of Operation Enduring Freedom’s mission, nor mentioned in the mandate of the German contingent that had been approved by the Bundestag (Presseportal 2008a). This difficult legal problem had started to cause frustration within the higher echelons of the German Navy because commanding officers wanted to enable the country’s warships to engage pirates more effectively. Vice Admiral Wolfgang Nolting, commander of the German Navy, for example, suggested that the country’s Basic Law should be changed to allow German warships to engage pirates on the high seas (Focus Online 2008). This was also the view of high-­ranking officials in the German Ministry of Defence (Presseportal 2008b). In the first half of 2008, British warships continued to engage in anti-­piracy operations in the framework of CTF-­150. By the end of April, they had engaged Somali pirates once since the beginning of the year. There had also been a case in which Somali pirates hijacked a vessel commanded by a British captain as it was sailing in the Gulf of Aden. After holding the vessel and its crew hostage for 46 days, the pirates released them on 18 March after the company owning the ship paid ransom for it (Gillan 2008). Maritime piracy was addressed in the UK’s first-­ever National Security Strategy, which was published in March 2008. According to the document, the UK is ‘committed to multilateral efforts to protect legal economic activity against disruption or attack, whether electronic attack, money-­laundering, or piracy’ (Cabinet Office 2008: 54). It also emphasised that the Royal Navy ‘maintains a presence in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf, to contribute to international work to protect vital sea lanes and choke points against a range of threats, from terrorism to piracy and potential state-­ sponsored disruption’ (Cabinet Office 2008: 54). Although the document did not explain how maritime piracy could be tackled, it was clear that London saw it as part the broader issue of economic security. In parallel with its efforts at the UN, France had begun to consider the possibility of doing something about Somali piracy in the framework of the EU. Since France was scheduled to take over the rotating EU Council Presidency in July, Paris had launched internal considerations on what it could achieve on the issue through the EU during its Presidency (US Embassy Paris 2008c). Also, President Sarkozy had decided to reintegrate France into NATO’s command structures. As a result, France hoped that launching a high-­profile EU anti-­piracy operation during its Presidency would reduce domestic opposition to the move by showing that France remained committed to Europe de la défense, the symbolic goal of the late President Charles de Gaulle, despite its return to NATO

Gangland   139 (Interview with former UK official, August 2012). Before the hijackings of Le Ponant and Playa de Bakio, a Spanish tuna boat that was also hijacked in April, Somali piracy had been ‘the subject of discussion’ in the Political and Security Committee (PSC) ‘on several occasions’ since November 2007 (CEU 2008a: 2). However, these discussions had not produced any concrete outcomes. The General Affairs Council of 10 December 2007 also drew attention to Somali piracy, which had been added to its agenda due to Spanish initiative. In the conclusions, the EU recognised ‘the increasing danger posed by acts of piracy off the Somali coast’ and noted that it ‘will study possible ways to respond to the problem’ (CEU 2007: 15). However, the EU’s approach to the subject started to become more proactive after the April 2008 hijackings. During the 29 April General Affairs and External Relations Council (GAERC), EU member states had ‘an exchange of views at Spain’s initiative on ways to contribute, notably in the framework of the UN, to an international response to prevent and fight against such acts’ (CEU 2008b: 15). This was the first time the EU stated publicly that it was considering ways of supporting the international anti-­piracy campaign. After the adoption of UNSCR 1816, officials from the German ministries of defence and foreign affairs launched discussions at the Heads of Department level on the different options available to improve the German Navy’s ability to participate in the international campaign against Somali piracy (Bundesregierung 2008a). During these discussions, reports began to circulate saying that the German government preferred an option that would allow it to improve the navy’s ability to fight piracy around the Horn of Africa without engaging in constitutional reform. Around the same time, the EU’s PSC had begun discussions on how the Union could contribute to the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1816. The German government noted that, when the discussions in Brussels proceeded further, it would then examine whether Germany could participate in a possible EU anti-­piracy operation. Importantly, it explained there would be no legal obstacles to German participation in an EU anti-­piracy operation because it would be considered a collective security action under Paragraph 2, Article 24 of the German Basic Law, and supported by a UNSCR as well as an EU Joint Action (Bundesregierung 2008b). Thus, by participating in an EU naval operation with a clear mandate, Germany could increase its navy’s leverage vis-­à-vis Somali pirates without reforming its constitution. At the time, maritime piracy around the Horn of Africa was not a priority issue for the UK. It is worth noting that the policy lead for the issue across the British government had so far lain with the Department of Transport, rather than the Ministry of Defence or Foreign Affairs (House of Commons 2008a). After the adoption of resolution 1816, the UK did not rush to propose ways of implementing it. Instead, the British government merely emphasised that they would ‘continue to work with our international partners to tackle the issue of piracy’ (House of Commons 2008b). Unlike France and Germany, the UK was not prepared to support an EU naval operation for implementing the resolution. Since

140   Gangland CTF-­150 and the US Fifth Fleet were already present in the region, London saw that any additional European anti-­piracy efforts should take place in the framework of these existing efforts (Interview with former UK official, August 2012). While the debate over the adoption of UNSCR 1816 was still ongoing, the EU’s External Relations Council issued a formal expression of concern over the growth of maritime piracy off the coast of Somalia on 27 May (CEU 2008c: 13). The member states also expressed that they appreciated the UN Security Council’s commitment to addressing the problem and expressed hope that the resolution under consideration would be adopted swiftly. After the adoption of UNSCR 1816, the EU’s approach to the problem of Somali piracy was shifted up a gear. On 16 June, the EU Council requested both its General Secretariat and the European Commission ‘to study possible options on implementing all commitments contained in its conclusions of 26 May, as well as on how to best contribute to the implementation of UN Security Council resolution 1816’ (CEU 2008d: 11). The member states decided to task the Commission and the Council General Secretariat to study the different options in which the EU could take part in the international campaign against Somali piracy. The purpose of this joint effort was to evaluate broad policy options, including the possibility of providing coast guard training for Somalia and Yemen (US Embassy Paris 2008d). However, although there were no public references to the possibility of deploying an EU naval operation at the time, it was clear that the process that would lead to the deployment of Operation Atalanta had been kicked into motion. Table 6.1 summarises EU member states’ joint product expectations from Atalanta.

Planning and launch A month after the Council tasked its General Secretariat and the Commission to study different options for dealing with Somali piracy, High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) Javier Solana presented the fruits of this labour to the General Affairs Council on 10 July. The result of this effort was a paper that outlined broad policy options, ranging from the establishment of an informal coalition of the willing to the deployment of a full EU operation (US Embassy Hague 2008). However, it soon became clear that strong political forces were pushing the EU towards the latter extreme. These forces Table 6.1  Joint product expectations from Operation Atalanta Country

Public goods

Club goods

Private goods

France

Secure maritime traffic Secure maritime traffic

Prestige for ESDP

Secure maritime traffic

–

Smoother NATO reintegration Avoidance of constitutional reform International prestige

Germany United Kingdom

–

Gangland   141 originated from France and Spain, which had started to rally the support of their EU partners for a united effort to fight piracy around the Horn of Africa (US Embassy Brussels 2008). France and Spain were especially keen to see that this effort would take the form of an EU naval operation (US Embassy Paris 2008e). Undoubtedly, France’s efforts to establish an EU naval force were aided by the fact that some of its EU partners, including Germany, had informed Paris that they could not provide additional naval assets to the fight against Somali piracy unless there was an EU operation that would have a specific mandate to tackle the problem. The reason for this was that an EU deployment would allow them to avoid thorny constitutional issues at home and be more popular among the general public than a NATO operation or a coalition of the willing (US Embassy Paris 2008f ). Although there was no clear picture what this operation would look like at the time, EU planners considered that the most likely option was the deployment of ‘a warship that would travel a set route and at set times to provide protection for any private vessels that wanted to join it voluntarily’ (US Mission EU 2008a). After the EU began to plan for a naval operation, Germany began to consider ways of supporting it (US Embassy Berlin 2008). The reason for this was that an EU operation, with a specific anti-­piracy mandate, would fulfil the legal requirements of the German Basic Law for the country’s participation in the international campaign against Somali pirates. Such an operation would enable Germany to adopt a more robust stance against Somali pirates and allow the government to avoid opening the Pandora’s Box of constitutional reform. As the German government noted on 22 August, the country could participate in the proposed EU operation based on the collective security provisions of Article 24 of the German Basic Law (Bundesregierung 2008c). According to Paragraph 2, Article 24 of the Basic Law, Germany may enter into a system of mutual collective security; in doing so it shall consent to such limitations upon its sovereign powers as will bring about and secure a lasting peace in Europe and among the nations of the world. (Deutscher Bundestag 2008a: 25) According to the German government, if the operation could be made into a case of collective security, then the country could participate in anti-­piracy operation beyond the provision of emergency assistance to vessels that were under attack by pirates. While France and Spain were rallying support for an EU naval operation, the Union was taking steps to initiate its ESDP planning process. In the EU’s standard military planning process, the Crisis Management Concept (CMC) is usually the first step towards the deployment of an operation. The CMC lays out a conceptual framework that outlines the EU’s basic approach and political objectives in relation to a specific situation, which, in this case, was piracy off the coast of Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden. By mid-­July, the EU Military Staff (EUMS) had submitted a draft CMC to the EU Military Committee (EUMC) for

142   Gangland review. After passing through the EUMC and PSC, the CMC was adopted by the Council on 5 August using the written procedure.3 The document stressed that the EU’s political objective in the fight against Somali piracy should be ‘to contribute to improved maritime security in the region’ (Ehrhart and Petretto 2012a: 27). It also emphasised the strategic importance of the area around the Horn of Africa for international trade and the transportation of oil from states in the Persian Gulf (Ehrhart and Petretto 2012a: 27). In other words, this was the foundation on which further military planning would build. At the time when the EU began to plan for a naval operation, the UK maintained officially that it was working with its partners ‘to consider future deployments of naval ships’ to protect WFP shipments to Somalia (House of Commons 2008c). However, the UK was actually seeking to dissuade France and Spain from moving ahead with the idea. Given that NATO and the US Fifth Fleet were already present in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, the UK felt that additional European anti-­piracy efforts should take place within the framework of these existing arrangements. The UK’s opposition towards the EU operation became clear at the EUMC’s meeting on 3 September, where it delayed its planning process. More specifically, the UK tabled a supplemental paper that required the EUMS and the Council General Secretariat to develop additional Military Strategic Options (MSO) for further discussion in the PSC before the EU’s formal planning process could proceed. This move was made deliberately to postpone any consideration of an EU naval operation by the PSC to October. The UK thought this delay would give the EU time to review the need for a naval operation because multiple national and international anti-­piracy efforts had already been deployed around the Horn of Africa to deal with Somali piracy. It was hoping that the forthcoming deployment of the Standing NATO Maritime Group 2 (SNMG-­2) would provide even more incentives for abandoning the ESDP initiative. The reasoning behind the UK’s thinking was that, should the EU see that WFP ships were already protected and ever larger vessels could be used to deliver aid to Somalia due to the security provided by the existing anti-­ piracy efforts, support for an EU operation would wither away. The next major step in the EU’s planning process was taken on 15 September when the General Affairs Council made two important decisions. First, it decided to set up an EU Naval Coordination action (EU NAVCO). Second, it agreed on an MSO for the EU naval force. With regards to the first decision, EU NAVCO was a mechanism that was established to coordinate EU member states’ existing contributions to anti-­piracy operations around the Horn of Africa. It became fully operational four days later after the Council adopted a Joint Action that established EU NAVCO’s legal framework. According to the document, the main objective of EU NAVCO was to support the implementation of UNSCR 1816 (EU 2008b). Its aim was ‘to support the activities of Member States deploying military assets in theatre, with a view to facilitating the availability and operational action of those assets, in particular by setting up a coordination cell in Brussels’ (EU 2008b). At first, it consisted of two warships, one from France and the other from Spain, a Spanish P-­3 Orion maritime reconnaissance

Gangland   143 aircraft, plus a coordination cell situated in the Council General Secretariat. This cell was commanded by Captain Andrés Breijo Claur from the Spanish Navy and included a small officer staff. However, EU NAVCO did not have direct control of any military assets, nor did it serve as a kind of Operational Headquarters (OHQ). Even after EU NAVCO became operational, those member states that had naval assets near Somalia continued to be fully in charge of those assets. In case the Council would later decide to launch a full EU naval operation, EU NAVCO would be terminated and its activities taken over by the new operation’s OHQ. The same Council session also approved an MSO for the EU naval operation. The adoption of an MSO was delayed earlier due to the UK’s political manoeuvring in the EUMC, where the country tabled a supplemental paper that required the EUMS and the Council General Secretariat to develop additional MSOs (US Mission EU 2008b). The option that was adopted envisaged the deployment of an operation that would carry out three primary objectives: first, protecting the vessels of the WFP that were delivering food aid to Somalia; second, safeguarding strategically important shipping routes in the Gulf of Aden; and third, protecting fishing vessels in the Indian Ocean (US Embassy Paris 2008g). The above objectives were chosen primarily to protect the interests of EU member states most affected by Somali piracy, not for humanitarian reasons. The reasons for this are threefold: First, the EU and its member states had long emphasised the importance of protecting the strategically important shipping routes in the Gulf of Aden because the Union’s external trade was heavily reliant on safe passage through this choke point. In addition, the Gulf of Aden was also the region where European citizens had become most directly affected by piracy, as in the case of the hijacking of Le Ponant in April. Second, Spain had been pushing for the EU to protect its fishing vessels in the Indian Ocean, which had become easy targets for Somali pirates. Some member states believed that Spain was interested in an EU naval operation only as far as it would protect its fishing fleet. The UK, for example, saw Spain’s fishing fleet issue primarily as a national problem for Spain and not something that should be dealt in the framework of the EU (US Mission EU 2008b), not least because Spanish vessels were known to engage in illegal fishing in Somalia’s exclusive economic zone (Interview with former UK official, August 2012). Third, after pirate attacks in the Gulf of Aden and Somalia’s Indian Ocean coast surged to record heights in 2008, it became clear that WFP escorts might not be EU member states’ highest priority. France, for example, emphasised the importance of protecting shipping routes in the Gulf of Aden and fishing vessels, even if it would mean that insufficient capabilities would temporarily be available to protect WFP escorts (US Embassy Paris 2008h). Thus, if securing shipping routes in the Gulf of Aden and protecting EU member states’ fishing vessels in the Indian Ocean meant that the EU could not guarantee the safety of the WFP’s convoys, it cannot be argued that Atalanta’s deployment was driven primarily by humanitarian concerns. It is also important to assess the relevance of the EU’s 2007 Integrated Maritime Policy (IMP) in the deployment of Operation Atalanta. In the area of

144   Gangland security, the IMP notes that ‘Maritime surveillance is of the highest importance in ensuring the safe use of the sea and in securing Europe’s maritime borders’ (European Commission 2007: 5). It also notes that ‘Shipping is vital for Europe’s international and domestic trade and remains the backbone of the maritime cluster’ (European Commission 2007: 7). It sees that the shipping industry ‘will only continue to prosper if the Union keeps working to establish a high level of maritime safety and security, helping to safeguard human lives and the environment while promoting an international level playing field’ (European Commission 2007: 7). Germond and Smith (2009: 578) see that the IMP ‘was a critical step on the path to Atalanta’ as it means ‘that the EU conceives of ‘maritime affairs’ in an increasingly comprehensive and coherent way’. Since the IMP discussed the EU’s willingness to ensure safe maritime trade, Germond and Smith see that it was partly the reason why EU member states became inspired to take action against Somali piracy in 2008. However, it is difficult to evaluate the extent to which the IMP influenced EU member states to launch Atalanta’s deployment process because having a strategy does mean that one would act automatically to address the priorities mentioned in that strategy every time they emerge. While it is possible that the factors mentioned in the IMP may have inspired Atalanta, they do not explain the EU’s decision to launch that operation, a point that Germond and Smith (2009: 582) recognise. Despite the UK’s attempt to derail the EU naval operation, political interest towards it continued to be strong among EU member states. As the extent of this interest became clear, the British government was forced to reassess its policy towards the operation. Towards the end of September, the UK began to understand the necessity of adopting a more compromising attitude because some member states, including Germany, continued to emphasise that they needed an EU operation with a specific mandate to fight Somali pirates before they could adopt a more robust stance against Somali piracy and provide additional naval assets (Interview with former UK official, August 2012). In addition, the British government accepted that it should not block the French Council Presidency’s ESDP goals since they would aid President Sarkozy in re-­integrating his country into NATO. The UK also understood that France was almost certain to veto any NATO replacement operation if it continued to block the EU deployment (Interview with former UK official, August 2012). The UK’s more positive approach towards the EU naval operation became clear at the informal meeting of EU defence ministers at Deauville, where then Defence Minister Des Browne suggested for the first time that the UK might be willing to consider participating in it. He even defended the proposed EU deployment by explaining that, ‘as the world’s biggest trading grouping, protecting the EU’s security and way of life depended on being able to secure global trade routes’ (Smyth 2008). However, Browne underlined that this did not mean that the UK’s participation was set in stone because the Royal Navy remained overburdened due to its involvement in multiple naval operations around the world. In the run-­up to the General Affairs Council in September, France had been pushing hard for the establishment of EU NAVCO and the adoption of the MSO.

Gangland   145 Although all EU member states agreed on the desirability of coordinating their existing anti-­piracy efforts around the Horn of Africa, some of them would have preferred EU NAVCO to function as a full EU operation from the outset (US Embassy Paris 2008i). However, due to the increasing number of attacks by Somali pirates, France wanted to have additional anti-­piracy mechanisms in place as soon as possible. The need for such mechanisms was highlighted again in early September when another French yacht was hijacked in the Gulf of Aden. On 2 September, Somali pirates hijacked Carre d’As, a French yacht that was sailing from Australia towards the Suez Canal. After being held hostage for two weeks, the ship and its two passengers were liberated after another French commando operation. After the incident, President Sarkozy issued a strong statement that appealed to the international community to mobilise against Somali piracy and ensure the safety of maritime traffic in the region (Elysee 2008). Thus, France felt that it could not wait until planning for the EU naval operation was completed, which was likely to take at least another two or three months before the operation would be ready to deploy due to unresolved financing and chain of command issues (US Embassy Paris 2008i). At this stage, no member state, not even France or Spain, two of the operation’s strongest supporters, had expressed willingness to serve as its framework nation. As already noted, some member states had told France and Spain that they would have preferred EU NAVCO to function as a full EU operation from the outset. The most notable of these member states was Germany. According to Germany, the establishment of EU NAVCO did not fulfil the German Basic Law’s requirements to allow the country to participate in anti-­piracy operations. Three days before the EU Council established EU NAVCO, the German government noted explicitly that the establishment of an EU military coordination action ‘is not enough for a German participation’ in anti-­piracy operations around the Horn of Africa (Bundesregierung 2008d). The government explained that Germany’s participation in the fight against Somali pirates is dependent on the establishment of a full EU operation with a new mandate, for which it could seek authorisation from the Bundestag. It added that should the EU’s planning for the naval operation progress to the point where the Council would adopt a Joint Action, Germany would definitely contribute to the force. According to Defence Minister Jung, this contribution was likely to be one frigate. In September, the short-­term future of Operation Alcyon looked uncertain. Since 25 June, HMCS Ville de Quebec, a Canadian frigate that was originally deployed to participate in SNMG-­2, had carried out these escorts. However, Canada’s rotation in Alcyon was scheduled to end in late October and Ottawa had no desire to extend its deployment, which it had already done once in August. As a result, it was necessary to find another country or organisation that could take over Alcyon’s responsibilities until the EU’s naval operation deployed. Although France had initiated the escorts, Paris indicated that it did not have the naval capacity to lead them again because its primary concern was the protection of Gulf of Aden shipping routes and fishing vessels in Indian Ocean (US Embassy Paris 2008h). Since no country was stepping up, UN

146   Gangland ­ ecretary General Ban appealed to NATO, whose SNMG-­2 was already schedS uled to sail to the region to conduct a series of port visits in NATO’s partner countries around the Persian Gulf, to take over the WFP escorts until the EU naval operation deployed (NATO 2008). After discussing the UN’s request in Brussels, NATO Defence Ministers agreed 9 on October to alter SNMG-­2’s original mission to include WFP escorts. This was done by splitting the group into two after its arrival in the Gulf of Aden. The first part, which became Operation Allied Provider, started to provide protection to WFP convoys after the official handover ceremony on 23 October, while the second part continued to the Persian Gulf to conduct the originally planned port visits (US Mission NATO 2008a). The same constitutional issues resurfaced in October when the UN made a request for NATO to escort WFP food convoys to Somalia until the EU’s naval operation deployed. At the time when NATO decided to split SNMG-­2 into two and establish Operation Allied Provider, Germany had two vessels in SNMG-­2: the F 212 Karlsruhe, a Bremen class frigate, and a Rhön class tanker. However, these vessels were assigned to the other half of SNMG-­2, which continued to the Persian Gulf to carry out port visits. This was no doubt due to the fact that, had German vessels been assigned to Allied Provider, their use would have been restricted to cases when WFP convoys were in need of emergency assistance during on-­going pirate attacks. As Berlin reminded, no German vessel should be allowed to engage actively in anti-­piracy operations around the Horn of Africa without explicit authorisation from the Bundestag (Bundesregierung 2008e). To change the status quo, then Foreign Minister Frank-­Walter Steinmeier explained that the German government would eventually submit a new anti-­piracy mandate for the Bundestag’s approval, which would regulate the country’s participation in the forthcoming EU operation (Deutscher Bundestag 2008b: 19,757). Defence Minister Jung emphasised that having a mandate to fight terrorism in the framework of Operation Enduring Freedom and eventually another one to fight piracy in the framework of the ESDP ‘serves our maritime security and free maritime trade’ (Deutscher Bundestag 2008b: 19,759). While NATO was getting ready to protect WFP chartered vessels, planning for the EU naval operation continued. At the informal meeting of EU defence ministers at Deauville on 1–2 October, the member states agreed to accelerate planning for the operation in order to deploy it as soon as possible. The urgency to launch the operation was increased by the high-­profile hijacking of MV Faina, a Ukrainian cargo ship carrying 33 Soviet manufactured T-­72 main battle tanks and other military hardware, off the coast of Somalia on 23 September. This hijacking showed that Somali piracy could also create broader international security problems. However, although eight member states promised at Deauville that they would offer capabilities to the EU operation, uncertainties remained over which country would command it and where the OHQ would be located. Although France and Spain had been the most vocal advocates of the EU operation, neither of them had offered to command it. During the meeting at Deauville, then French Defence Minister Herve Morin proposed that the UK

Gangland   147 would take charge of the operation, but admitted that it was not certain that London would accept this because ‘our British colleague told us that his boats are already overused’ (Keaten 2008). The continued uncertainty over the operation’s command and control structures pressured Italy to announce at NATO’s North Atlantic Council that it was considering hosting the OHQ in Rome because counter piracy was extremely important for it (US Mission NATO 2008b). However, this did not happen in the end due to the UK’s offer to host the OHQ at Northwood near London, which was gladly accepted by the PSC on 14 October. After the informal EU defence ministerial at Deauville, the UK’s policy towards the EU’s naval operation continued to evolve. Around mid-­October, ministers from the government departments that shared responsibility for countering maritime piracy around the Horn of Africa decided that the UK ‘should take a more proactive stance on dealing with this issue’ and recognised that ‘this will be best achieved with international partners including NATO, the EU and coalition forces already in the Gulf of Aden’ (House of Commons 2008d). This policy reassessment was driven by the Foreign Office (Interview with former UK official, August 2012), although there were rumours that it originated from Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s office. It resulted in an increasingly positive approach towards the EU operation, which the UK was now willing to command from its Multinational Headquarters at Northwood, and the appointment of Rear Admiral Philip Jones as the first Operation Commander. In strictly military terms, it made sense for the UK to make this offer because it was already serving the deputy commander of NATO’s Fifth Fleet. Thus, by commanding Operation Atalanta, the UK could serve as an effective contact point between NATO and the EU (Interview with former UK official, August 2012). In addition, the UK understood the political value of commanding Atalanta and supporting France’s reintegration into NATO. However, the UK emphasised that the offer was conditional on the EU’s ability to generate sufficient forces for the operation because it wanted the operation to be credible. This condition was noted and the UK’s offer to serve as the framework nation was accepted by the PSC on 10 October. Thus, the UK’s policy towards the EU naval operation had gone through a complete U-­turn. Before it was decided that the new naval operation would be an autonomous EU one, the Union had considered conducting it in the framework of Berlin Plus. However, the idea was rejected because EU member states felt that the operation’s planning process could not be delayed to accommodate the additional two to three months of internal and external negotiations that using Berlin Plus would most likely have required (US Mission EU 2008c). No doubt, they understood that any agreement between the EU and NATO on the use of Berlin Plus would have been extremely difficult to reach due to Turkey’s general hostility towards EU–NATO cooperation ever since the southern part of Cyprus was admitted to the EU in 2004. Although it was decided that the EU naval operation would not be conducted in the framework of Berlin Plus, NATO and the EU decided to establish informal liaison arrangements to coordinate their anti-­piracy

148   Gangland operations around the Horn of Africa. Officials from the Council General Secret­ ariat and the Chairman of the EUMC, for example, held regular meetings with Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe (DSACEUR) General John McColl over the EU naval force. On top of this, the EU also established channels of communication between its own OHQ and NATO’s Allied Maritime Command Headquarters at Northwood (US Mission EU 2008d). Beyond these two examples, NATO also recommended keeping communications open at lower levels to avoid ‘raising flags that would elicit a Turkey–Cyprus roadblock’ (US Mission EU 2008d). In the run-­up to the Council’s adoption of a Joint Action, the UK wanted to ensure maximum cooperation between the EU operation and those anti-­piracy efforts that were already deployed in the vicinity of the Horn of Africa. More specifically, the UK wanted to ensure that, once it would become operational, Operation Atalanta’s cooperation with CTF-­150 and SNMG-­2 would be as smooth as possible. Thus, the EU and NATO established a series of informal channels of communication between each other. Both organisations hoped that these channels would make tactical coordination and information sharing easy once Atalanta would become operational. However, they were treated with certain political sensitivity due to Turkey’s initial insistence that EU–NATO cooperation should take place only in the framework of Berlin Plus. After finding a solution that Turkey could agree on, both organisations were cautious not to cause any trouble that would disrupt them. Thus, when Greece was nominated as the first country to command Atalanta’s tactical Force Headquarters (FHQ), the UK saw the possibility for trouble. It was assumed that the UK was worried that, after so much effort had been put into finding a workable EU-­ NATO liaison arrangement, Greece might use the position as an opportunity to fly political flags that would spark a dispute with Turkey (US Mission EU 2008d). However, the British government ultimately agreed to the appointment of Greece as the first country to command Atalanta’s FHQ because the country occupying this post would change every three months, thus ensuring the mission’s long-­term integrity and continuity (US Embassy London 2008b). After it was agreed that the EU operation would be commanded from Northwood, it became possible for the EU to establish it. This took place on 10 November, when the General Affairs Council adopted a Joint Action that established the legal framework and chain of command for Operation Atalanta. As had been suggested by the MSO, Atalanta was given three primary objectives: first, ‘the protection of vessels of the WFP delivering food aid to displaced persons in Somalia’; second, ‘the protection of vulnerable vessels cruising off the Somali coast’; and third, ‘the deterrence, prevention and repression of acts of piracy and armed robbery off the Somali coast’ (EU 2008a). In order to fulfil these objectives, EU planners estimated that the operation would require at least three ships at all times: one to escort WFP convoys, another to escort commercial ships in the Gulf of Aden, and a third one for conducting surveillance operations in Atalanta’s area of operation, particularly in the important fishing areas (US Mission EU 2008d). Thus, the fact that only one ship was allocated to carry

Gangland   149 out WFP escorts indicates that Atalanta’s main focus was the protection of EU member states’ shipping and fishing interests around the Horn of Africa rather than the safety and security of the WFP’s humanitarian convoys. The fact that Operation Atalanta’s mandate was focused on the protection of maritime trade routes and private vessels was warmly welcomed by the shipping industry. Ever since Somali piracy had grown into a well-­organised criminal industry, shipping companies had regularly called for more international action to guarantee the safety of trade routes around the Horn of Africa. Soon after France launched Operation Alcyon, for example, representatives from the shipping industry expressed frustration that, while being good for Somalia’s humanitarian situation, the initiative did nothing to improve the general security of the waters around the Horn of Africa (US Embassy London 2008a). The shipping industry’s concerns were understandable because the increased risk for commercial vessels to get attacked by Somali pirates had caused insurance premiums to rise dramatically and increased pressure to avoid pirate infested waters. By late 2008, some shipping companies had even decided to avoid the Gulf of Aden entirely by taking the much longer and more expensive route around the Cape of Good Hope (Interview with Estonian official in Brussels, June 2011). However, the biggest shock to the shipping industry came on 15 November when pirates hijacked the Sirius Star, a Saudi Arabian Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) that was sailing 450 nautical miles off the Kenyan coast. The hijacking of the Sirius Star showed that, by using captured vessels as mother ships for long-­range attacks, pirates could threaten shipping lanes that had previously been considered outside their reach. A solution to Germany’s constitutional conundrum arrived in November when the EU Council established the legal framework for Operation Atalanta by adopting a Joint Action. This allowed the German government to go forward and seek a mandate from the Bundestag that would give the necessary authorisation for the country’s participation in anti-­piracy operations. The German government hoped that this mandate would be made as effective as possible to give the German Navy the necessary powers to protect strategic shipping routes in Gulf of Aden and Somalia’s Indian Ocean coast. As the EU’s biggest economy and the world’s largest exporter at the time, Germany had vital economic interests at stake if piracy around the Horn of Africa continued. This point was effectively summarised by Chancellor Merkel during a session of the Bundestag. Merkel observed that [w]hen we speak about open markets, we speak about transportation routes, secure transportation routes. Then we are quickly in a completely different topic that deals with piracy and other issues, in which the federal government is naturally aware of its own responsibility as well. Because how does free trade serve us, if one does not get with a ship where one wants? (Deutscher Bundestag 2008c: 20341). In the final weeks before Operation Atalanta’s launch, the UK was curiously defending the operation as a successor to NATO’s Operation Allied Provider.

150   Gangland Prime Minister Brown’s office, for example, emphasised that the EU naval operation would deploy to the troubled waters around the Horn of Africa to combat Somali piracy ‘as a successor to the NATO mission’ (10 Downing Street 2008). There was an element of truth in this because the protection of WFP chartered vessels, which Allied Provider had carried out since October, was also part of Atalanta’s mandate. However, Atalanta was a new operation with a much broader mandate than Allied Provider. Neither was it conducted in the framework of Berlin Plus, which had been the case with the previous EU military operations that had taken over from existing NATO operations. Thus, it is incorrect to view it as another EU takeover operation. This point was also emphasised by Rear Admiral Philip Jones, Atalanta’s Operation Commander, who explained to the House of Lords in February 2009 that Atalanta ‘took over from no-­one; it was a new operation’ (EUC 2009: 1). On 8 December, the General Affairs Council launched Operation Atalanta by adopting a Council Decision. The same Council session also approved the rules of engagement and the Operation Plan, which reaffirmed that the minimum number of ships required in Atalanta’s area of operation at any given time was three (US Mission EU 2008e). After making these decisions, the Council authorised Operation Commander Jones ‘to release the activation order in order to execute the deployment of the forces and start execution of the mission’ (CEU 2008e). Thus, after six months of planning, Atalanta was finally launched. The successful launch of the EU’s first-­ever naval operation was a political victory for the entire Union, but especially for France. After all, it was France that began to take concrete measures to protect vulnerable ships against pirate attacks by launching Operation Alcyon already in November 2007. After piracy around Somalia’s coastal waters continued to increase in spring 2008, France, together with Spain, pushed its EU partners to become more involved in this effort and organise a coherent EU response. On top of this, the successful launch of a new and relatively high-­profile EU operation was likely to smooth domestic opposition to France’s return into NATO’s integrated command structures, which was formally announced by President Sarkozy in March 2009. Even before France took over the rotating Council Presidency, its European partners understood that Paris considered the development of the ESDP during its Presidency as a necessary precondition for its reintegration into NATO. This would allow the French government to defend its stance to the French public that the country’s return to NATO’s integrated command would not decrease its commitment to Europe and construction of Europe de la Défense. The launch of Atalanta also was also the first time that the ESDP’s maritime dimension was operationalised. It therefore increased the EU’s visibility as an international actor because the Union would eventually cooperate with a large number of other countries and actors in order to fight piracy off the coast of Somalia, such as China, Russia, India, US, and South Korea (Interview with Finnish official in Brussels, March 2011). During Operation Atalanta’s force generation process, the UK contributed one frigate for the first part of the operation. This was to be HMS Northumberland, a Type 23 frigate, which had previously been attached to CTF-­150. After

Gangland   151 Atalanta was declared operational on 8 December, the British frigate stayed in the region and simply changed flags. As Atalanta began to execute its mandate, the British Ministries of Defence and Foreign Affairs emphasised the operation’s importance to the protection of international trade. Then Defence Minister John Hutton, who had succeeded Mr Browne at the beginning of October, declared that [w]e just can’t allow the trade and commerce of the world to be jeopardised by pirates and we have to stand up and defend ourselves. If we do not, we will regret that day. It is a very, very serious threat. (Norton-­Taylor 2008) The same point was made by Foreign Minister David Miliband, who noted that the high number of ships that were being held hostage by Somali piracy was ‘testimony to the current insecurity of shipping that affects all of us through its impact on global trade’ (House of Commons 2008e). Thus, the UK saw that Atalanta also served its own economic interests. Soon after Operation Atalanta was established, the German government began drafting a mandate that would allow the German Navy to participate in the operation. After working on it for a month, the mandate was sent for the Bundestag’s approval on 10 December. As Defence Minister Jung had promised, Germany decided to contribute one frigate, the F 212 Karlsruhe, which had previously been attached to SNMG-­2, to Atalanta. On top of its 200-man crew, the frigate came with two 10-man boarding teams consisting of highly trained Kampfschwimmer elite soldiers, plus two Sea Lynx Mk.88A helicopters. In its draft mandate, the German government requested that the Bundestag set the German contingent’s troop ceiling to 1,400 soldiers (Deutscher Bundestag 2008d: 4). However, Jung emphasised that this did not mean that 1,400 German soldiers would be deployed near the Horn of Africa to fight Somali piracy. Instead, he explained that the government wanted to maintain a degree of flexibility in the execution of the operation. More specifically, the German government wanted to be able to temporarily pull out German warships from SNMG-­2 and CTF-­150 and place them under Atalanta’s flag to carry out anti-­piracy missions when there was a need for them to engage pirate vessels (BMVg 2008b). Since neither SNMG-­2 nor CTF-­150 had a specific mandate to engage in anti-­ piracy operations, this arrangement would increase the number of ships that Germany could use against Somali pirates. On 19 December, the Bundestag overwhelmingly approved Germany’s participation in Operation Atalanta. This gave the green light for FGS Karlsruhe to join Atalanta’s other vessels in conducting anti-­piracy operations around the Horn of Africa. Undoubtedly, the Bundestag’s strong support for Atalanta was due to the fact that many of its members understood that Somali piracy was not only a regional problem, but also a threat to German economic interests. This point was emphasised by both Defence Minister Jung and Foreign Minister Steinmeier during their speeches at the Bundestag before Germany’s participation

152   Gangland in Atalanta was approved. Steinmeier explained that Germany had a strong interest in protecting maritime traffic around the Horn of Africa because many of the ships that pass through the region either belong to German shipping companies or transport cargo to Germany (Auswärtiges Amt 2008). After Steinmeier, Jung added that ‘it is in our own interest to effectively oppose the scourge of piracy in order to ensure maritime security and free maritime trade’ (BMVg 2008b). Thus, by contributing to Atalanta, Germany was serving the humanitarian goal of protecting WFP convoys, but also its own economic interests.

Conclusion This chapter analysed the deployment process of Operation Atalanta, the EU’s first-­ever naval operation. As in the previous chapters, it did so by focusing primarily on the preference formation of France, Germany and the UK. By using the multi-­level collective action approach, it argued that EU member states decided to deploy the operation mainly because they saw it as a lucrative joint product activity, that is, a collective action that was expected to produce varying degrees of public and private goods. First, Atalanta facilitated the production of a public good by contributing to the international campaign against Somali piracy. This contribution increased security in the strategically important trade routes in the Gulf of Aden, which is an important choke point for international trade and the transportation of oil from the Persian Gulf to Europe. Due to the fact that increased maritime security in the Gulf of Aden is something that benefits the vast majority of states in the world, regardless of their participation in Atalanta, it can be considered as a relatively pure public good. Furthermore, the public good of secure sea-­lanes around Somalia was valued by EU member states because it would ensure the safety of their citizens who would be passing through the region. Second, Operation Atalanta also contributed to the production of European club goods, which could be enjoyed only by EU member states. By being the first-­ever maritime EU military operation, the launch of Atalanta opened new avenues for the ESDP and generated a great deal of international prestige for it. More specifically, it demonstrated that the ESDP’s maritime dimension was real and not just something that existed on paper. Although launching the operation contributed to the production of a more robust ESDP that would serve the interests of EU member states more effectively in the future, this was not the main club good that EU member states expected to gain from it. Instead, the main club good that EU member states, especially France, expected to gain from Atalanta was international prestige for the ESDP. The reason for this was that France expected that the prestige generated by the launch of a high-­profile EU operation would smoothen domestic opposition to its reintegration into NATO’s command structures in 2009. For Germany and the UK, however, the possibility of facilitating the production of this club good did not play an equally important role as it did for France in their decision to support Atalanta. Third, by launching Operation Atalanta, EU member states expected it to produce a number of contributor specific private goods that could only be

Gangland   153 enjoyed by the contributors themselves. Like Spain, France had important fishing interests in the Indian Ocean. Thus, the launch of Atalanta helped France share the costs of protecting its fishing fleet. On top of this, French officials expected that the operation would help their efforts to reintegrate France into NATO’s command structures by smoothing domestic opposition to this move. Germany was mainly expecting the operation to enhance its ability to participate in the international campaign against Somali piracy. Before planning for Atalanta began, Germany was considering reforming its Basic Law to provide its navy with the necessary powers it needed to engage in anti-­piracy operations with its European and international partners. When it became clear that the EU was considering the deployment of an EU naval operation, however, Germany immediately became a strong advocate of the idea because it would allow it to participate in the operation without engaging in constitutional reform. Last but not least, the UK received goodwill from its EU partners by offering to command the operation. It also confirmed the UK’s traditional role as the EU’s leading naval power.

Notes 1 Acknowledgement: This chapter is derived in part from an article published in European Security, 21 November 2014, copyright Taylor & Francis, available online: www. tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09662839.2014.982063. 2 Alcyon is French for ‘Halcyon’, a bird in Greek mythology that bred in a floating nest at sea and charmed the wind and waves into calm. 3 The written procedure is a decision-­making procedure that allows the Council of the EU to adopt policies urgently without a formal meeting of the relevant ministers. After the President of the Council proposes the use of the procedure, the Council adopts a decision by a written vote. These written votes may be used where all members of the European Council having the right to vote agree to that procedure.

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Gangland   157 Papastavridis, E., 2015. EUNAVFOR Operation Atalanta off Somalia: The EU in Uncharted Legal Waters? International & Comparative Law Quarterly 64 (3), 533–68. Perry, R.S., 2013. Determining Factors for EU Military Intervention. School of Advanced Military Studies Monograph. Fort Leavenworth: United States Army Command and General Staff College. Peters, D., Wagner, W. and Glahn, C., 2014. Parliamentary control of CSDP: the case of the EU’s fight against piracy off the Somali coast. European Security 23 (4), 430–48. Presseportal, 2008a. Deutsche Marine: Gefahr auf See – Marine hilft. 25 April. www. presseportal.de/meldung/1179123. Presseportal, 2008b. Der Tagesspiegel: Staatsekretär Kossendey will Grundgesetz zum Kampf gegen Piraten ändern. 9 June. www.presseportal.de/pm/2790/1207555/der-­ tagesspiegel-staatsekretaer-­kossendey-will-­grundgesetz-zum-­kampf-gegen-­piratenaendern. Riddervold, M., 2011. Finally Flexing its Muscles? Atalanta – The European Union’s Naval Military Operation against Piracy. European Security 20 (3), 385–404. Smyth, J., 2008. EU Agrees on Mission to Combat Piracy. The Irish Times, 3 October. UNSC (United Nations Security Council), 2006a. Letter dated 4 May 2006 from the Chairman of the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 751 (1992) concerning Somalia addressed to the President of the Security Council. S/2006/229, 4 May. www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2006/229. UNSC, 2006b. Statement by the President of the Security Council. S/PRST/2006/11, 15 March. www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/PRST/2006/11. UNSC, 2007a. Report of the Secretary-­General on the situation in Somalia. S/2007/381, 25 June. www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2007/381. UNSC, 2007b. Resolution 1772 (2007). S/RES/1772 (2007), 20 August. www.un.org/en/ ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/RES/1772%20(2007). UNSC, 2008a. Letter dated 10 December 2008 from the Chairman of the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 751 (1992) concerning Somalia addressed to the President of the Security Council. S/2008/769, 10 December. www. un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2008/769. UNSC, 2008b. Resolution 1816 (2008). S/RES/1816 (2008), 2 June. www.un.org/en/ga/ search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/RES/1816%20(2008). US Embassy Berlin, 2008. German Out-­Of-Area Deployment Update. 08BERLIN1108, 13 August. https://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/08/08BERLIN1108.html. US Embassy Brussels, 2008. Belgium: Support for Implementation of UNSCR 1816 (2008) on Somali Piracy. 08BRUSSELS1065, 15 July. https://wikileaks.org/cable/ 2008/07/08BRUSSELS1065.html. US Embassy Hague, 2008. Netherlands/Somalia: Implementation of UNSCR 1816. 08THEHAGUE607, 18 July. https://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/07/08THEHAGUE607.html. US Embassy London, 2008a. Somalia: Political Solutions Required for Shipping Industry Piracy Concerns. 08LONDON1648, 18 June. https://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/06/08 LONDON1648.html. US Embassy London, 2008b. Horn of Africa Piracy – HMG Shares Additional Information on Operation Atalanta; EU Likely to Request Kenyan Prosecution of Captures Pirates. 08LONDON2898, 19 November. https://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/11/ 08LONDON 2898.html. US Embassy Paris, 2007. AMISOM: French MFA Says New Resources Not Likely to Assist Burundi Concerning Somalia. 07PARIS3342, 8 August. https://wikileaks.org/ cable/2007/08/07PARIS3342.html.

158   Gangland US Embassy Paris, 2008a. French Views on Somalia and Piracy. 08PARIS362, 3 March. https://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/03/08PARIS362.html. US Embassy Paris, 2008b. French Support Anti-­Piracy Efforts, May Want to Expand Role of CTF-­150. 08PARIS574, 27 March. https://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/03/08 PARIS574.html. US Embassy Paris, 2008c. USD/P Edelman’s April 28 Meetings with Elysee and Defence Ministry. 08PARIS858, 2 May. https://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/05/08PARIS858.html. US Embassy Paris, 2008d. French GAERC Response: Cuba, Middle East, Africa. 08PARIS1130, 13 June. https://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/06/08PARIS1130.html. US Embassy Paris, 2008e. French Support for UNSCR 1816 (Somali Piracy). 08PARIS1337, 15 July. https://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/07/08PARIS1337.html. US Embassy Paris, 2008f. The French EU Presidency: Institutional Goals in the Shadow of Crisis Management. 08PARIS1704, 10 September. https://wikileaks.org/cable/ 2008/09/08PARIS1704.html. US Embassy Paris, 2008g. French Expect a Productive September GAERC. 08PARIS1718, 12 September. https://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/09/08PARIS1718.html. US Embassy Paris, 2008h. French Updates on Counter-­Piracy; EU Coordination Cell Operational Today. 08PARIS1753, 19 September. https://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/09/ 08PARIS1753.html. US Embassy Paris, 2008i. Somalia: UNSC Sanctions and Piracy. 08PARIS1721, 15 September. https://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/09/08PARIS1721.html. US Mission EU, 2008a. U.S.-EU Africa Troika Addresses Sudan, Chad, Horn, DRC, Zimbabwe. 08BRUSSELS1090, 17 July. https://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/07/08 BRUSSELS 1090.html. US Mission EU, 2008b. Anti-­Piracy: UK Mission to EU Views on the State of Play. 08BRUSSELS1370, 4 September. https://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/09/08BRUSSELS 1370.html. US Mission EU, 2008c. EU Military Committee Chairman on ESDP and EU-­NATO Relations. 08BRUSSELS1804, 28 November. https://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/11/08 BRUSSELS1804.html. US Mission EU, 2008d. EU Preparing for Piracy Mission, No Plan for Captured Pirates. 08BRUSSELS1745, 17 November. https://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/11/08BRUSSELS 1804.html. US Mission EU, 2008e. EU Launches Anti-­Piracy Operation Despite Unresolved Legal Issues. 08BRUSSELS1937, 22 December. https://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/12/08 BRUSSELS1937.html. US Mission NATO, 2008a. USNATO Today: Readout from 29 October North Atlantic Council. 08USNATO404, 31 October. https://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/10/08 USNATO404.html. US Mission NATO, 2008b. Readout: October 8 North Atlantic Council Meeting. 08 USNATO367, 10 October. https://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/10/08USNATO367.html. US Mission UN, 2007. Next Steps on Piracy off Somalia. 07USUNNEWYORK1067, 26 November. https://wikileaks.org/cable/2007/11/07USUNNEWYORK1067.html. WFP (World Food Programme), 2007. WFP Welcomes French Offer to Protect Ships from Somali Pirates. 26 September. www.wfp.org/news/news-­release/wfp-­welcomesfrench-­offer-protect-­ships-somali-­pirates.

7 The aftermath Conclusions and final thoughts

EU member states ‘cannot be pushed anywhere where they do not want to go’. EEAS official to the author, 14 November 2014

Those who follow the European Union (EU) know that it often takes a long time for it to make decisions, especially historic ones. The genesis of the Lisbon Treaty, for example, can be traced back to the Convention on the Future of Europe (CFE), which drafted the failed Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe (TCE) between 2001 and 2004. After French and Dutch voters rejected the TCE in 2005, the EU salvaged what it could from the wreckage and repackaged it as the Lisbon Treaty in 2007. Due to a difficult ratification process, the Lisbon Treaty entered into force only in December 2009. Thus, if the CFE was the first step towards the Lisbon Treaty, it took the EU a total of eight years to draft, revise, and ratify it. However, as Chapter 1 explained, the creation and operationalisation of the European (now Common) Security and Defence Policy (ESDP/CSDP) has been different to many other historical developments in the EU because it was developed in a short period of time. Although the ESDP’s origins can be traced back to the failed 1950 Pleven Plan, its creation was proposed at the 1998 Franco-­British summit at Saint-­Malo. Following this summit, the ESDP was negotiated and created in 1999 (Rutten 2001: 8). Following its creation, it took the EU only three years to deploy its first military and civilian operations in the ESDP’s framework. Thus, considering the historical significance of the ESDP, the policy was developed extremely quickly by EU standards. Following the ESDP’s creation, the EU took equally quick steps to start the process of launching operations and missions in its framework. Since 2003, the Union has launched over 30 mission and operations, most of which have been deployed to Africa. According to an EU official who has worked on the ESDP/ CSDP for over a decade, the policy’s focus on Africa is simply due to the fact that over 70 per cent of the world’s crises take place in that continent (Interview with EEAS official in Brussels, November 2014). However, although only 12 of the EU missions and operations launched so far have been military in nature, it can be argued that they represent a far more significant addition to the EU’s

160   The aftermath foreign policy toolkit than civilian missions. This is because, for almost half a century, the conventional wisdom in International Relations (IR) maintained that the ‘high politics’ of security and defence was too sensitive to be dealt at the EU level and at odds with the Union’s ‘civilian power’ self-­image (Hoffmann 1966; Duchêne 1972). In other words, the EU’s decision to enter into field of military crisis management has fundamentally changed its nature as an international actor. Furthermore, it has been unprecedented in the history of IR that an organisation that began its life as a regulator of coal and steel production among its member states has developed a capability to deploy military operations to manage crises outside its borders. Thus, due to their historical significance, this book focused on analysing the deployment of EU military operations in order to explain why and under what conditions they are deployed.

Argument This book presented the multi-­level collective action approach for understanding the deployment of EU military operations. It began by providing an overview of the existing theoretical literature on EU operations that have been launched since 2003. Although this literature continues to be descriptive and prescriptive rather than theoretical, it has improved significantly both quantitatively and qualitatively over the past decade. Especially due to the work of scholars such as Pohl (2014) and Dijkstra (2013), our understanding of the factors that drive the deployment of EU operations has improved significantly. However, despite recent theoretical advances in the field, the author identified four problems with the existing literature. First, scholars tend to draw broad conclusions from a single case study, which facilitates indeterminate conclusions and incorrect inferences. Second, their case selection tends to be over inclusive in the sense that they draw broad conclusions about EU military operations from studies that analyse a mixture of civilian and military operations. Third, their primary unit of analysis tends to be ambiguous or, sometimes, even false, such as a unitary EU. Fourth, they tend to focus only on a single level of analysis, which restricts their focus unnecessarily. Fifth, they tend to follow a single theoretical approach and treat other approaches as mutually incompatible. This book argued that the reasons why the EU chooses to deploy military operations can be understood more comprehensively by using a multi level collective action approach. It is based on the assumption that the deployment of EU operations is a highly complex process that cuts across different policy-­making levels from the national to the international and involves multiple actors from within and outside the EU. This means that the deployment of EU operations cannot be understood adequately by focusing on a single level of analysis. Although Ginsberg and Penksa (2012: 47) proposed using up to six different levels of analysis when studying the ESDP, this book argued that it would be sufficient if we focused on three. The reasons for this were that several of the levels that Ginsberg and Penksa proposed are actually different phenomena taking place within the same level of analysis, and analysing six different levels

The aftermath   161 separately would be unnecessarily complicated. The three levels the book focused on were the international level, where events catalyse the deployment processes of EU operations; the state level, where EU member states formulate their initial preferences towards prospective deployments based on national utility expectations; and the EU level, where the member states negotiate with each other to find compromises that would accommodate their different national preferences. The international level is where events catalyse the deployment process of an EU military operation. These events usually take the form of a crisis, which produces or threatens to produce local humanitarian problems in the crisis area and/ or negative externalities that affect the security of other countries. The effects of these crises can be transmitted to the EU in two different ways: first, they can be transmitted indirectly through media reports that raise people’s concern in Europe; and second, they can be transmitted directly through refugee flows, terrorist attacks, and other related phenomena. However, if we accept that the ESDP is ‘a collective instrument for coalitional coercive diplomacy and military crisis management’ defined by the Petersberg Tasks and the European Security Strategy (ESS) and a framework for ‘limited security co-­operation in order to collectively shape the Union’s external milieu’ (Hyde-­Price 2006: 230–1), then we can expect two things: first, if the crises in question produces only local humanitarian problems, then we can expect that the EU is relatively slow to consider the deployment of a military operation to the crisis area; and second, if the crisis creates negative externalities that have direct effects on the security or interests of EU member states, then we can expect that the deployment of a military operation will enter into the EU’s agenda relatively quickly. The national level is where EU member states formulate their national preferences towards the deployment of an operation. After the deployment of an EU military operation has entered into the Union’s agenda, it is up to each member state to decide whether or not it will support the establishment of that operation and participate in it. Collective action theory suggests that the enthusiasm with which the member states will support the deployment of an EU operation will depend on the type of benefits that they expect the operation to produce (Sandler 2004). If the member states expect that the deployment of a military operation will only facilitate the production of a relatively pure public good, such as regional stability, then we can expect relatively little enthusiasm towards that operation among the majority of them. This is because everyone can enjoy the benefits of public goods regardless of their participation in the efforts that produced them (Olson 1971). However, if there is a possibility that the operation in question will also facilitate the production of certain club goods and private goods, then we can expect those member states that benefit the most from them to be enthusiastic about the deployment. The reason for this is that private goods can only be enjoyed by the state that contributed to its production (Sandler 2004). Thus, from an ease of deployment perspective, the ideal EU operation would facilitate the production of both public and private goods. In other words, the member states will formulate their initial national positions towards the

162   The aftermath deployment of an EU operation primarily based on their national utility expectations. The EU level is where the member states discuss the possibility of deploying an EU military operation and, if they find themselves to be at odds with each other, negotiate compromises that would accommodate their different national preferences. Sometimes this negotiation process can take place while certain member states are still formulating their preferences towards the operation in question. However, contrary to what is often suggested, the compromises that the member states reach over the deployment of EU operations do not necessarily reflect the lowest common denominator (Ginsberg and Penksa 2012). If a member state does not expect to gain any private goods from the deployment of an EU operation, it is likely that it will still support and even participate in the operation. This can happen if those member states that do have an interest in the proposed operation use peer pressure and appeal to a sense of European solidarity to shame the reluctant member state into supporting and even participating in the operation. It can also end up getting rhetorically entrapped if it has previously indicated that it would support the deployment of the kind of EU military operation that is being considered (Schimmelfennig 2001). This means it has to support the operation or risk losing face and credibility among its partners. Peer pressure and shaming are likely to be the most effective when two conditions are met: first, the member state that is being shamed does not have a clear reason for staying out of the operation; and second, the operation in question is expected to produce a club good. If these conditions are not met, it is unlikely that peer pressure or shaming will be effective.

Findings Operation Althea In the case of Operation Althea, the international event that catalysed its deployment process was much more ambiguous than in the other case studies. The reason for this was that Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) had already been, to a large extent, stabilised by the time Althea was launched. In fact, the catalyst that triggered Althea’s deployment process is better described as a convergence of two parallel international processes rather than a single event. The first process was the EU’s desire to operationalise the ESDP and demonstrate its ability to command a large military operation on its own. At the time when the EU began to consider the possibility of taking over the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s (NATO) Stabilisation Force (SFOR) in 2002, the Union had not yet launched a single operation. Thus, Althea’s deployment was linked to the EU’s desire to operationalise the ESDP. The second process was the United States’ (US’) desire to withdraw its forces from the Balkans so that it could redeploy them to strategically more important theatres. Following the deployment of American troops to BiH during the Clinton administration, the US had emphasised that it wanted its European partners to eventually assume the overall

The aftermath   163 responsibility for ensuring stability in the region. This process intensified after the election of George W. Bush as US President and the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which led to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Thus, Althea’s deployment was catalysed by the convergence of these two parallel processes. France, Germany, and the United Kingdom (UK) supported Operation Althea’s deployment from 2002 onwards because they expected it to facilitate the production of joint products. The first of these products was the desire to continue the production of stability in BiH, which can be considered as a relatively pure public good. The reason for this was that, by continuing to provide stability in BiH and acting as a deterrent against nationalistic movements and organised crime, Althea was expected to produce a good that could be enjoyed by the EU as well as the broader world. During the period from the 2002 Copenhagen European Council that expressed the EU’s desire to take over SFOR officially for the first time to Althea’s deployment in 2004, France, Germany, and the UK indicated that they all believed that an international military presence should stay in BiH even after SFOR would conclude its mandate. The reason for this was that there were still fears that nationalistic movements and organised crime could exploit the security vacuum that was likely to emerge in the country if the international military presence was to be withdrawn prematurely. Thus, France, Germany, and the UK did not want to see BiH relapse into the type of chaos and ethnic violence that had plagued the entire Balkans throughout the 1990s, costing thousands of lives. It is unlikely, however, that France, Germany, and the UK would have pushed for handing SFOR over to the EU if the move had only facilitated the production of a public good. If this had been the case, it is unlikely that they would not have been interested in investing more resources to the production of stability in BiH, especially since NATO and a large number of American forces were already present in the country. In fact, collective action theory would predict that EU member states would have resisted relieving the American forces in BiH because their departure meant that they would have to replace them and shoulder a greater share of the burden of stabilising the country. However, France, Germany, and the UK were unanimous in supporting the handover of SFOR to the EU from 2002 onwards. This can be explained by the reason that all three countries expected the transfer of authority to facilitate the production of private goods and a club good in addition to a relatively pure public good in the form of regional stability. With regards to the private good, France, Germany, and the UK expected that SFOR’s handover to the EU would allow them to reduce their military presence in BiH. This, in turn, would allow them to save national resources or redeploy their forces in the country to strategically more important theatres. It should be remembered that at the time when the deployment of Operation Althea was planned, France, Germany, and the UK were sustaining large numbers of forces in Iraq and/or Afghanistan, which was putting considerable strain on their armed forces and defence budgets. Thus, the economic rationale to save national resources seems to have been a more compelling reason for their desire to hand over SFOR to the EU than its public goods feature.

164   The aftermath Furthermore, EU member states also supported SFOR’s handover to the Union because they expected the move to facilitate the production of a club good. As already mentioned above, the deployment of Operation Althea cannot be understood without taking into account the EU’s desire to operationalise the ESDP and demonstrate its ability to command a large military operation on its own. Thus, the member states supported the deployment of Althea also because they saw it as a means to test the Union’s recently created military structures and make them more credible. In other words, they expected the deployment of the operation to facilitate the production of a club good in the form of a more robust ESDP. In fact, it seems that the member states’ desire to operationalise the ESDP and gain international recognition for the fact that the Union had become a military actor was the primary factor driving Althea’s deployment. However, the member states had very different ideas on how the Union should develop as a military actor, particularly on the question of what its relationship should be to NATO. These perspectives clashed after the ‘gang of four’ (France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg) proposed setting up an autonomous EU military headquarters in Tervuren. This proposal raised concerns in the UK and the US that France and Germany were pushing for the handover of SFOR to the EU to undermine NATO’s primacy in Europe. Thus, there was a clash between two distinct schools of thought on the role of the ESDP vis-­à-vis NATO, which explains the transatlantic and intra-­European differences over Althea’s deployment in 2003. After they had formed their initial preferences towards SFOR’s handover to the EU, EU member states negotiated with each other at the EU level to seek compromises. In the beginning of Operation Althea’s deployment process, the member states were in agreement over the general desirability of replacing SFOR with an EU operation. However, problems emerged in early 2003 as a result of the transatlantic and intra-­European tensions over the US-­led Iraq War. This issue became especially difficult in April when France, Germany, Belgium, and Luxemburg proposed setting up an autonomous EU Operational Headquarters (OHQ) in Tervuren, Brussels. This proposal angered the US and its closest European partners and raised fears that some EU member states were pushing for SFOR’s handover to the EU because they wanted to undermine NATO’s primacy in Europe. As a result, the EU was able to start formal planning for Althea only after the idea of creating an autonomous EU OHQ was abandoned and NATO and the US were assured that the operation would be planned and conducted in close cooperation with the Alliance in the framework of Berlin Plus. During Althea’s planning process, an issue that was especially difficult was NATO’s desire to maintain a residual presence in BiH to hunt un-­ captured war criminals even after SFOR was wound up. Even though High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) Javier Solana and certain member states, such as France, wanted Althea to assume all of SFOR’s responsibilities, they had to compromise on the issue in favour of those member states, such as the UK, who wanted NATO to maintain a presence in BiH.

The aftermath   165 Operation Artemis Whereas the deployment Operation Althea was not really catalysed by the convergence of two parallel processes, the deployment process of Operation Artemis was catalysed by a clear event at the international level. Following the withdrawal of Ugandan forces from the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) Ituri region in May 2003, a security vacuum emerged in the region that left the tensions between the ethnic Hema and Lendu militias unchecked. The militias took advantage of this vacuum and attempted to take control of Bunia, which resulted in a dramatic escalation of violence between the two ethnic groups against each other and Bunia’s civilian population. Although the United Nations Organisation Mission in the DRC (MONUC) mission had an existing presence in the city, it was unable to stabilise the situation or prevent it from deteriorating further. It is important to note that the violence in Bunia did not have any direct effect on most EU member states’ security interests. Therefore, it was an insufficient catalyst to trigger a response from the EU by itself. Thus, deployment of an operation to the DRC entered into the EU’s agenda only after the then United Nations (UN) Secretary-­General Kofi Annan requested that France and then later the EU deploy an emergency force to Bunia to stabilise the situation. In other words, the violence that erupted in Bunia in May 2003 was a weak catalyst for the deployment of an EU operation because stability in Bunia was a relatively pure public good. Due to the weakness of this catalyst, the deployment of Operation Artemis can be understood only by analysing the preference formation of EU member states. When UN Secretary-­General Annan requested that France lead an emergency force to Bunia, the country expressed its readiness to do so. In addition to its humanitarian desire to help stabilise the situation in Bunia, which can be seen as a relatively pure public good because it benefits the entire world, France’s decision was motivated by its expectation that the operation would facilitate the production of a number of club and private goods. At first, France saw the UN’s request as a convenient way to support a stronger UN and reassert its own credentials as a military power following its campaign against the US-­led Iraq War. Furthermore, due to the problematic legacy of Operation Turquois in Rwanda, France was also keen to make the operation appear as multilateral as possible to obtain support from both Rwanda and Uganda, which exercised influence over the warring militias in Bunia. This is why France was also keen on the EU option from the moment High Representative Solana proposed it to EU defence ministers. However, France also saw that the operation would have the added value of facilitating the production of a club good because it would enhance the credibility of the ESDP. It is important to note that, when the EU began to consider the possibility of deploying Artemis, it had launched only one military operation before. This was Operation Concordia in Macedonia, which was very modest both in terms of its size and mandate. Furthermore, it was deployed to a country that had already been more or less stabilised by NATO. As a result, it could not be considered as a serious test case for the ESDP. Thus, France offered to lead

166   The aftermath the UN-­requested emergency force and advocated turning it into an EU operation because it expected the operation to facilitate the production of a number of club and private goods. The UK supported the UN’s idea of deploying an emergency force to Bunia because it was genuinely concerned about the deterioration of Ituri’s security climate. Furthermore, the UK saw the idea as a means to help restore the UN’s credibility after the organisation had taken a hit to its prestige in the run up to the Iraq War. Yet, given that the UK did not expect the operation to facilitate the production of any private goods, it did not offer to contribute to it. At the time, its armed forces were heavily engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan, which meant that contributing to yet another operation would have diverted resources away from these priority operations. When it was proposed that the emergency force should become an EU operation instead of a UN-­sponsored ‘coalition of the willing’, the UK saw an opportunity to facilitate the production of a number of private benefits by making a modest contribution to the operation. More specifically, the UK saw the operation as a means to repair its damaged relations with France, which had become bruised by in the run-­up to the Iraq War. In addition, the British government saw that the operation would encourage cooperation among EU member states and support a more effective EU foreign policy. In other words, from the UK’s perspective, Operation Artemis was a type of post-­Iraq ‘team building exercise’. Like France and the UK, Germany also supported the UN’s idea of deploying an emergency force to Bunia. However, Germany made clear from the beginning that it could not be expected to contribute anything beyond financial assistance to the operation. The reason for this was that Germany was sustaining a record level of troops in various out of area operations at the time, which meant that the country had no desire to stretch its armed forces even further by taking on an additional mandate. In addition, Germany was reluctant to send soldiers to the DRC because the government feared the prospect that German soldiers might have to engage child soldiers in combat, which would have been a public relations nightmare for the government. In other words, beyond the public good of stabilising Bunia, Germany saw very few gains in the operation. However, when it was proposed that the operation should be turned into an EU operation, Germany was faced with a dilemma. Given that it was championing increased majority voting in foreign and security policy in the CFE, Germany’s long-­term policy goals in the EU would have suffered a setback if it had decided to veto an operation that was supported by the majority of its EU partners. In addition, it was unthinkable that Germany would stay out of the EU’s first-­ever autonomous military operation that was also the Union’s first operation outside Europe due to its symbolical significance. To avoid losing these goods as a result of its recalcitrance, Germany decided to participate in the operation with a modest contribution consisting of logistical capabilities. It is notable that Germany did not provide any combat troops and no German personnel were deployed to the DRC directly. As the model predicted, EU member states also negotiated at the EU level in order to seek compromises after they had formed their initial preferences towards

The aftermath   167 Operation Artemis. Since France expected the operation to facilitate the production of a number of club goods and private goods that it valued, it supported the deployment strongly from the moment it was proposed. However, this was not the case with Germany and the UK. Germany’s initial preference was for the UN-­requested operation to remain as a French-­led coalition of the willing. In such a case, there would have been much less pressure on Germany to contribute to the operation in a more substantial way than providing financial support to it. Thus, when it became clear that France saw significant added value in turning it into an EU operation, Germany’s initial reaction was to resist the move. In the end, however, Germany had no choice but to accept the deployment of an EU operation due to strong pressure from France, the EU, and the UN. In the case of the UK, it also saw that the deployment of an EU operation to the DRC could facilitate the production of a club good. However, due to the country’s heavy military commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq at the time, the UK refrained from making a significant contribution to the operation. In other words, the UK supported the deployment of Artemis because it would facilitate the production of a club good, but did not make a significant contribution due to its pre-­existing military commitments. EUFOR RD Congo As in the case of Operation Artemis, the EU’s first military deployment to the DRC, the deployment process of EUFOR RD Congo was catalysed by an assistance request from the UN. During the course of 2005, the UN came to realise that MONUC did not have sufficient resources to ensure security and stability in the entire the DRC during the country’s forthcoming general elections. Although then UN Secretary-­General Annan estimated that MONUC needed an additional 2,500-strong brigade to be able to secure the country, the UN Security Council decided to reinforce the operation only with a 300-strong battalion. Following this decision, then UN Undersecretary-­General Guéhenno sent a letter to the EU in December in which he requested that the Union deploy a temporary operation to the DRC to assist the UN in maintaining security and stability in the country during the Congolese elections. This letter triggered discussions in Brussels over the possibility of deploying a second EU military operation to the DRC. Thus, the deployment process of EUFOR was catalysed by the UN’s inability to acquire sufficient ‘in house’ resources for MONUC that would have allowed it to ensure stability in the DRC by itself during the Congolese elections. Following Operation Artemis, the EU had taken steps to improve its ability to respond to the UN’s assistance requests, such as creating the battlegroup concept. Thus, based on what the EU had previously said, one would have expected it to respond to UN Undersecretary-­General Guéhenno’s letter quickly and effectively. However, this was not the case. EUFOR RD Congo’s planning process ended up being sluggish and difficult because the majority of EU member states did not have any direct interests at stake in protecting the 2006 Congolese general elections. Although the member states used the language of

168   The aftermath interests frequently to justify EUFOR’s deployment during its planning process, the interests they referred to were often general and not exclusive to any particular country. An example would be the need to assist the DRC on its way to stability and democracy to ensure future stability in the broader Great Lakes region. This was something that was brought up not just by the EU, but also by France, Germany, and the UK. However, the problem is that stability in the Great Lakes region is a relatively pure public good because everyone can enjoy it without restriction regardless of their participation in EUFOR. As a result, only a few countries should be enthusiastic about investing in the production of that public good if they can expect that somebody else would produce it for them, which was indeed the case. If the deployment of EUFOR RD Congo had only facilitated the production of a relatively pure public good, it is unlikely that EU member states would have agreed to it. However, it seems that they became interested in the operation because they saw it as an opportunity to facilitate the production of a club good. Since 2005, France had been calling for a new ESDP initiative that would demonstrate to the world that the EU continues to be a relevant global actor despite the French and Dutch peoples’ rejection of the much-­hyped TCE. Therefore, France supported the idea of deploying an EU force to the DRC soon after the UN requested the Union to do so in December 2005. After discussing the plan with the German leadership, France convinced Berlin about the merits of deploying a new EU operation to the DRC. However, Paris was not interested in leading the operation because it had already led the previous EU military operation in the DRC, Operation Artemis, in 2003. This meant that the role of the framework nation would have to be taken up by Germany because the UK made it clear that it could not lead the operation either due to its existing military commitments, which were stretching its military and defence budget. Although Germany had initially said that it would not be willing to lead EUFOR, it eventually changed its mind due to pressure from its EU partners. Although the desire to demonstrate the EU’s continued relevance as an international actor was an important factor behind EUFOR RD Congo, its ability to inspire EU member states to contribute to the operation was limited. This became clear during EUFOR’s force generation process, which was characterised by the member states’ reluctance to make significant contributions to it. The UK, for example, told its EU partners relatively early on that its ability to contribute to EUFOR was limited due to its existing military commitments, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a result of these commitments, the UK made only a ‘minimal’ contribution of two staff officers to the operation. Like the UK, Germany had originally intended to keep its involvement in the operation as minimal as possible and avoid contributing combat troops altogether. However, since Germany was the framework nation of the Franco-­German battlegroup that was scheduled to be on standby in the first half of 2006, Germany found it difficult to resist pressure from its EU partners to make a more substantial contribution to the operation. Thus, Germany struck a deal with France in which the two countries would each contribute one-­third of the

The aftermath   169 operation’s total strength, whereas the remaining one-­third would come from other member states. After they had formed their initial preferences towards the deployment, EU member states engaged in prolonged negotiations to seek compromises that would accommodate their different national positions. As the chapter on the operation showed, these negotiations were difficult and they delayed EUFOR RD Congo’s launch. The biggest discussion point seems to have been the issue of who would serve as the operation’s framework nation and lead it. Although France was a strong supporter of the deployment, it did not want to lead it because it had already led Operation Artemis. The UK also made it clear that it would not be willing to lead the operation either due to its existing military commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, which were straining the country’s armed forces. At first, Germany followed France and the UK in insisting that it supported the operation but would not be willing to lead it or make a large contribution to it. However, unlike France and the UK, Germany lacked a valid reason that would have allowed it to resist peer pressure and shaming. As a result, other EU member states, but especially France, were able to use peer pressure to change Germany’s initial preference towards EUFOR. In the end, Germany had no other choice but to accept both the role of the framework nation and that of a significant contributor to the operation. Therefore, the case study on EUFOR clearly demonstrates that the deployment of EU military operations does not always reflect the lowest common denominator. If it would have it, it is likely that the operation would not have been deployed at all because the lowest common denominator was no operation at all. Operation Atalanta Compared with the other case studies, the deployment process of Operation Atalanta was unique because it was catalysed by a clear threat to the security of the EU and its member states. In 2007, the frequency of maritime piracy incidents began to increase off the coast of Somalia and the Gulf of Aden. At the time, Somali piracy was seen primarily as a humanitarian problem because it mainly affected the delivery of the World Food Programme’s (WFP) food shipments to Somalia. However, this changed in the first half 2008 when the number of pirate attacks reached record levels. This meant that the security of the strategic shipping routes that pass through the Gulf of Aden and by Somalia’s Indian Ocean coast was threatened. The security of these shipping routes is vital to the delivery of oil from the Persian Gulf to the EU as well as to the Union’s trade with China and India. Thus, Somali piracy posed a clear threat to the EU’s economic interests. Furthermore, several high-­profile hijackings, such as that of the French yacht Le Ponant and the Spanish tuna boat Playa de Bakio in April 2008, demonstrated that Somali piracy was also a threat to EU citizens passing through the region. As a result, EU member states, but especially France and Spain, began to consider the possibility of deploying an EU naval operation to the region that would contribute to the international campaign against Somali piracy.

170   The aftermath Thus, Atalanta’s deployment process was catalysed by the surge in maritime piracy off the coast of Somalia during the first half of 2008. As in the case of previous EU military operations, France, Germany, and the UK formulated their initial preferences towards the deployment of Operation Atalanta based on national utility expectations. The main benefit that they expected to realise through the deployment of the operation was the safety of maritime traffic off the coast of Somalia and the Gulf of Aden, which can be seen as a relatively pure public good because it benefits the entire world. However, although collective action theory predicts that launching an operation that produces mainly a pure public good would be difficult, the member states’ interest towards the deployment of Atalanta can be explained by the fact that Somali piracy threatened their trading and economic interests. Since the number of attacks carried out by Somali piracy increased at the same time as the global economic crisis was deepening, it was very important to the member states and the broader world that the safety of the strategic shipping routes passing through the Gulf of Aden would be ensured. If nothing were done, Somali pirates could cause serious disruptions to international trade and add to the already high number of economic problems that the world was dealing with in 2008. Therefore, Atalanta is unique compared with the other case studies analysed in this book because its deployment process was catalysed a by a clear threat to the member states’ core interests. Although Operation Atalanta’s deployment was driven by a desire to protect EU member states’ interests against Somali pirates, this does not explain why they chose a relatively novel solution, an EU naval operation, rather than doing something in the framework the arrangements that were already present in the region, such as Operation Enduring Freedom’s Combined Task Force 150 (CTF-­ 150) or Standing NATO Maritime Group 2 (SNMG-­2). The analysis suggested that a big reason why the member states decided to go with an EU operation was that some of them expected it to facilitate the production of a club good, which could not have been realised through another kind of operation. France especially saw that the deployment of Atalanta would facilitate the production of club goods in the form of enhancing the EU’s prestige as a global actor. Although this would benefit all member states, it was considered especially important by France because President Sarkozy was planning to reintegrate his country into NATO’s command structures in 2009. Thus, by demonstrating to the French public that France would remain committed to l’Europe de la défense even after its NATO reintegration, France thought that a high-­profile ESDP initiative, such as Atalanta, would make its reintegration into the Alliance easier. Operation Atalanta’s launch was also aided by the fact that EU member states expected it to facilitate the production of private goods. Like Spain, France had important fishing interests in the Indian Ocean. Thus, the launch of Atalanta helped France share the costs of protecting its fishing fleet. Furthermore, as already explained above, France expected that the launch of the operation would help its efforts to reintegrate into NATO’s command structures by smoothing domestic opposition to this move. Germany, on the other hand, expected the

The aftermath   171 operation to enhance its ability to participate in the international campaign against Somali piracy. Before planning for Atalanta began, Germany was considering the option of reforming its Basic Law to grant its navy the necessary powers to engage in anti-­piracy operations with its European and international partners. However, when the EU began to consider the deployment of Atalanta, Germany became a strong advocate of the idea because an EU operation would allow it to participate in the fight against Somali pirates without engaging in constitutional reform. And last but not least, the UK received a tremendous amount of goodwill from its EU partners by offering to command the operation. In addition, it confirmed the UK’s traditional role as Europe’s leading naval power. After EU member states had formulated their initial national preferences towards the deployment of Operation Atalanta, they engaged in negotiations to seek compromises that would accommodate their differences. In the case of Atalanta, the UK was initially against the deployment of an EU operation because NATO and the US Fifth Fleet were already present in the Horn of Africa region. Therefore, instead of creating something completely new, the UK would have preferred that additional European anti-­piracy measures would have taken place in the framework of these existing arrangements. However, the UK eventually changed its position on the idea of deploying an EU operation because most of its EU partners clearly stated that they wanted it. France had a clear preference for an EU operation not just because it wanted to fight piracy, but also because a high-­profile ESDP initiative was expected to reduce domestic opposition to its reintegration into NATO. Germany also made clear that it preferred an EU operation because such an operation would allow it to participate in the international anti-­piracy campaign without engaging in the difficult process of constitutional reform. Therefore, the UK changed its position on the deployment of Atalanta due to strong peer pressure from its EU partners. Table 7.1 summarises France, Germany, and the UK’s joint product expectations from the case studies. The table shows that the deployment of EU military operations is the easiest when EU member states expect to gain private and club goods from them in addition to public goods. Conversely, it is the most difficult when the member states expect to gain only public goods from them. Despite the transatlantic divisions created by the Iraq War and disagreements over the division of labour in BiH between the EU and NATO, Operation Althea was the easiest operation to deploy. The reason for this was the member states understood early on that it would facilitate the production multiple joint products. In addition to the private good of US goodwill, France, Germany, and the UK expected SFOR’s handover to the EU to make the ESDP more credible and create international prestige for it. Operations Artemis and Atalanta were also relatively easy to deploy because they were also expected to facilitate the production joint products. However, not all member states expected to benefit from them equally. Artemis’s deployment was initially uncertain because Germany objected transforming the UN-­ requested emergency force into an EU operation because it did not expect to gain any private goods from it and did not value the club good that it was expected to produce. In the case of Atalanta, the UK was initially against the

US goodwill US goodwill US goodwill

France Germany United Kingdom

France

Germany

United Kingdom

Club goods

Private goods

Prestige for ESDP Prestige for ESDP Credibility for ESDP

Stability in Bosnia Stability in Bosnia Stability in Bosnia

France Germany United Kingdom

Public goods

Operation Althea

Country

Type of goods

Table 7.1  Overview of joint product expectations

UN goodwill

Multilateral cover; UN goodwill –

Credibility for ESDP – Credibility for ESDP

Stability in Bunia Stability in Bunia Stability in Bunia

Operation Artemis

Prestige for ESDP – –

Maritime security Maritime security Maritime security

Operation Atalanta

Public confidence in EU Smoother NATO reintegration French goodwill Avoidance of constitutional reform – International prestige

Credibility for ESDP – –

Stability in DRC Stability in DRC Stability in DRC

EUFOR RD Congo

The aftermath   173 operation for the same reasons, although it realised later in the operation’s planning process that it would gain private benefits from it. The most difficult operation was EUFOR RD Congo because, in addition to France, neither Germany nor the UK expected to gain clear benefits from it. It was only after France had applied a significant amount of pressure on Germany to accept and lead the operation that Berlin agreed.

Final reflections The book’s findings have several important implications for future EU military operations. These implications concern the strength of the catalyst that triggers the deployment process of these operations, the joint product expectations of EU member states, and their willingness to reach compromises. First, the case studies showed that the event that catalyses the deployment process of an EU operation is stronger the more directly it affects the member states. Thus, the catalyst that triggered the deployment process of Operation Atalanta was the strongest, whereas the catalyst that triggered the deployment process of EUFOR RD Congo was the weakest. Since piracy off the coast of Somalia was seen as a real threat to international shipping and maritime security around the Horn of Africa, it entered into the EU’s agenda relatively quickly. In the case of EUFOR, however, the catalyst was relatively weak because there was no crisis or humanitarian emergency in the DRC when the UN requested the EU to deploy a second military operation to the country to ensure stability during the 2006 Congolese elections. In the case of Operation Artemis, the security implications of the crisis in Bunia for the member states were indirect at best. However, the crisis in Bunia entered into the Union’s agenda relatively quickly because Bunia was suffering from a real humanitarian emergency, which many member states wanted to end. Furthermore, the crisis was seen as an opportunity to further operationalise the ESDP and increase the EU’s prestige as an international actor, which played an important role in the Union’s decision to launch Artemis. Operation Althea was different from the other case studies in the sense that there was no single event that would have catalysed the operation’s deployment process. Instead, Althea’s deployment process was catalysed by the convergence of two parallel processes: on the one hand, it was catalysed by the US’ desire to withdraw its remaining forces from the Balkans; on the other hand, it was catalysed by the EU’s desire to test and operationalise its recently created military crisis management structures and increase its prestige as an international actor. Second, the case studies also showed that EU member states are more willing to support the deployment of an EU military operation the more they can expect that operation to facilitate the production of club and private goods in addition to public goods. Thus, it can be argued that the deployment of EU military operations is ‘demand driven’ (Interview with former EU official in Brussels, June 2012). Although there was no crisis in BiH at the time when the EU began to consider the possibility of taking over SFOR in 2002, France, Germany, and the UK supported the move because they expected it to facilitate the production of

174   The aftermath certain goods that could not be produced if SFOR would remain in the country. More specifically, all three expected that SFOR’s handover to the EU would make the ESDP more credible because the structures of the policy had not yet been seriously tested at the time. Furthermore, since SFOR’s handover to the EU would also help the US in withdrawing its forces from the Balkans, it was also expected that the handover would facilitate the production of American goodwill. By contrast, the deployment process of EUFOR RD Congo was the most difficult one because neither Germany nor the UK expected the operation to facilitate the production of any club or private goods that would benefit them. France was the only member state that saw potential gains to be made from the operation, which explains why it was its strongest supporter. It should be noted that, after the deployment of the two pioneering operations, operations Althea and Artemis, the member states’ desire to launch EU military operations for the purpose of testing or adding credibility to the Union’s military structures has decreased. Of the three member states analysed, only France saw this as a factor worth considering when EUFOR and Atalanta’s deployments were discussed. Thus, the member states’ desire to test or add credibility to the ESDP will be less of a factor in the deployment of future of EU military operation. In more recent operations, such as EUFOR RCA and Operation Sophia, this factor has all but disappeared from the member states’ national utility calculations (Interviews in Brussels with national officials, 2014–15). Third, the case studies also showed that EU member states could change their initial preferences after discussing the possible deployment of an EU military operation with their partners at the EU level. The most striking example of this was the way Germany changed its position on both Operation Artemis and EUFOR RD Congo after discussing the deployments with its EU partners. In the case of Artemis, Germany’s initial preference was for the operation to remain as a French-­led coalition of the willing, as it was originally intended. Since Germany did not have any direct interests at stake in the DRC, it would have been politically easier for it to stay out of a coalition of the willing than an EU operation. However, Germany’s resistance to the idea of turning the UN-­ requested force into an EU operation became unsustainable after it became clear that a majority of its EU partners supported the move. Thus, if Germany had continued to resist the EU operation, it would have appeared hypocritical because it was simultaneously supporting increased use of Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) in CFSP matters at the CFE. In the case of EUFOR, Germany was initially willing to consider only limited support for the operation again due to its limited interests in the DRC. However, given that France had led the EU’s previous operation in the DRC and the UK’s armed forces were overstretched due to its large deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, Germany received strong political pressure from its EU partners to lead the operation. Since it did not have a valid excuse not to do so, Germany was left with no other option but to lead the operation. In the future, the ease in which the EU is able to launch new military operations will depend crucially on geography. The reason for this is that EU member

The aftermath   175 states are far more likely to see private benefits in operations that are deployed in the vicinity of Europe rather than to sub-­Saharan Africa, for example. This has already been demonstrated by more recent military operations, such as EUFOR RCA and Operation Sophia. Although the EU frequently states that supporting peace and security in Africa is a high priority for it, in practice it continues to struggle to deploy even modest crisis management operations to the continent. EUFOR RCA, for example, required only 1,000 troops but it took five separate force generation conferences for the member states to contribute to them (Nováky 2016). The reason for this is that most member states simply do not have direct interests at stake in countries such as the Central African Republic. As a result, they will continue to be unenthusiastic about contributing to future operations that are deployed to remote areas outside Europe that have little strategic significance for them. They will be willing to support the deployment of such operations, however, but only if those member states that have the most at stake in them will provide the majority of their forces. It is far easier for the EU to deploy operations to its immediate vicinity or to areas where its member states have clear interests. Sophia, for example, was planned and launched very quickly in 2015 because many member states had a clear interest in destroying the business model of the human traffickers and smugglers who are shipping migrants to Europe across the Mediterranean. Thus, the same is likely to continue in the future. The deployment of future EU military operations will also be shaped by Brexit – that is, the UK’s exit from the EU. On 23 June 2016, 51.9 per cent of British voters voted in favour leaving the EU. The UK formally notified the EU of its intention to the leave on 29 March 2017, which triggered Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and set the deadline for Brexit for 29 March 2019. Following a snap general election on 8 June that cost the ruling Conservative party its absolute majority in the House of Commons, formal Brexit negotiations between the UK and the EU began on 19 June. The consensus among experts seems to be that, overall, Brexit will have a relatively minor impact on CSDP. The reasons for this are twofold. First, the UK’s departure from CSDP will be relatively straightforward due to its intergovernmental nature (Heisbourg 2016; Whitman 2016; Major and Voss 2017). Given that CSDP decisions are taken on a case-­by-case basis and EU member states have not delegated sovereignty over it to supranational institutions, there is ‘no European omelette’ to unscramble (Heisbourg 2016: 13). Second, the UK has been relatively disengaged from CSDP since 2003 (Faleg 2016; Heisbourg 2016; Whitman 2016; Major and Voss 2017). Although it is a joint Franco-­British creation, the UK has opposed most proposals to develop CSDP further institutionally, such as the establishment of an autonomous EU Operational Headquarters (OHQ) in Brussels. In fact, most of the UK’s EU partners have come to view it as an obstacle rather than a constructive partner in CSDP. Given its clear preference for NATO, the UK has made only minor contributions to most recent EU military operations. This is why Claudia Major and Alicia von Voss (2017: 2) noted that ‘Brexit thus formalises the reluctance that the UK has had towards the CSDP’.

176   The aftermath However, Brexit is likely to have two contradictory effects on the deployment of future EU military operations. First, given that the UK has always emphasised NATO’s primacy over CSDP, Brexit may speed up the planning processes of EU operations that would deploy to regions in which NATO is already involved. The case studies on operations Althea and Atalanta clearly showed that the UK is willing to slow, or even completely block, the CSDP planning process if it believes that the planned operation will undermine NATO’s primacy. In the case of Althea, the UK was concerned that France and Germany might use SFOR’s handover to the EU to boost the ESDP so that it would develop independently from NATO. In the case of Atalanta, the UK delayed the operation’s planning process because it expected that other member states would eventually realise there was no need for an EU operation because NATO was already present in the Horn of Africa region. Second, given that the UK is the one of the most capable EU member states militarily, Brexit will make it more difficult for the EU to realise its ambition of conducting high intensity operations in the future. So far, the EU has deployed operations only to low intensity environments in which European troops have not faced serious challenges. Thus, the EU has been purposely risk averse. However, the EU is currently planning to develop CSDP so that it would be able to conduct ‘high-­end operations’ by 2025 (EC 2017: 17). This would presumably mean that EU would conduct operations similar to NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF ), for example. If this were to be the case, the absence of British capabilities from the table would be felt more concretely. The reason for this is that, in addition to the UK, the only other member states that maintains large numbers of well-­equipped expeditionary forces is France. Despite the results of this book, the multi level collective action approach it introduced has certain weaknesses. First, it can be applied only to cases of which there is a relatively large amount of empirical data available. The case studies of this book were on EU military operations with an executive mandate, which generally receive a good amount of attention from both policy makers and the media. This means that there tends to be sufficient data available on them to analyse the various stages of their deployment processes as well as EU member states’ preference formation towards them. However, other types of operations do not generate an equal amount of data that could be analysed. EU training and capacity building missions, for example, tend to receive only a fraction of the attention that military operations receive because they are less controversial and there is less public interest towards them. In other words, there might not sufficient data available to analyse the various stages of their deployment processes in the level of detail the multi level collective action approach would require. Second, a framework of analysis is less elegant and more cumbersome to apply than a theory. While the multi level collective action approach is able to identify and analyse the impact of various factors on the deployment of EU operations, it does not propose clear causal processes. Therefore, future research could build on this book by developing a stand-­alone collective action theory on the deployment of EU operations. Such a theory would add greatly to existing body of theoretical literature on the subject.

The aftermath   177

Bibliography Dijkstra, H., 2013. Policy-­making in EU Security and Defense: An Institutional Perspective. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Duchêne, F., 1972. Europe’s Role in World Peace. In: R.J. Mayne, ed. Europe Tomorrow: Sixteen Europeans Look Ahead. London: Fontana, 32–47. EC (European Commission), 2017. Reflection Paper on the Future of European Defence. COM(2017) 315, 7 June. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-­political/files/ reflection-­paper-defence_en.pdf. Faleg, G., 2016. The Implications of Brexit for the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy. CEPS Commentary, 26 July. www.ceps.eu/publications/implications-­brexiteu%E2%80%99s-common-­security-and-­defence-policy. Ginsberg, R.H. and Penksa, S.E., 2012. The European Union in Global Security: The Politics of Impact. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Heisbourg, F., 2016. Brexit and European Security. Survival 58 (3), 13–22. Hoffmann, S., 1966. Obstinate or Obsolete? The Fate of the Nation-­State and the Case of Western Europe. Daedalus 95 (3), 862–915. Hyde-­Price, A., 2006. ‘Normative’ Power Europe: A Realist Critique. Journal of European Public Policy 13 (2), 217–34. Major, C. and Voss, A., 2017. European Defence in View of Brexit: Europe’s military power might not suffer, but its political clout is at risk. SWP Comments 10. Berlin: Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik. www.swp-­berlin.org/fileadmin/contents/products/ comments/2017C10_mjr_vos.pdf. Nováky, N.I.M., 2016. From EUFOR to EUMAM: The European Union in the Central African Republic. European Foreign Affairs Review 21 (1), 95–114. Olson, M., 1971. The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and Theory of Groups. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Pohl, B., 2014. EU Foreign Policy and Crisis Management Operations: Power, Purpose and Domestic Politics. London: Routledge. Rutten, M., 2001. From St-­Malo to Nice – European Defence: Core Documents. Chaillot Paper N. 47. Paris: Institute for Security Studies of WEU. Sandler, T., 2004. Global Collective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schimmelfennig, F., 2001. The Community Trap: Liberal Norms, Rhetorical Action, and the Eastern Enlargement of the European Union. International Organization 55 (1), 47–80. Whitman, R.G., 2016. The UK and EU Foreign and Security Policy: An Optional Extra. The Political Quarterly 87 (2), 254–61.

Index

Note: page numbers in bold type refer to Tables. 11 September 2001 26, 163 Abkhazia 33 Aceh Monitoring Mission 38 ACTORD (Activation Order) 94, 124 Afghanistan 11, 27, 57, 58, 111 African Union (AU) 16, 116 agenda setting stage of EU military operations 17, 18; EUFOR RD Congo 108–17, 117; Operation Althea 53–63, 60; Operation Artemis 79–86; Operation Atalanta 135–40, 140 AGFISH (Agricultural and Fisheries Council) 94 al Qaeda 26, 27 al Shabaab 27 Albanian National Liberation Army 9 Alexander, Douglas 119 Allied Harmony (NATO) 9 Alliot-Marie, Michèle 54–5, 60–71, 63, 65, 68, 86, 92, 111, 122, 124 Amber Fox 54 Amos, Valerie 82 Amsterdam Treaty 1997 3, 21 Angola 77 Annan, Kofi 76, 78, 80–1, 82, 88, 95–6, 108–9, 118, 165, 167 Ashdown, Lord 57, 59 Ashton, Catherine 22n3 Athena mechanism 8, 19, 39 Atlanticist member states 45, 83 AU (African Union) 16, 116 Austria 94, 117 balance of threat theory 26, 28 Balkan Wars 25 Ban Ki Moon 134, 146

Bangui, CAR (Central African Republic) 11, 20, 28 Banja Luka 57 Barre, Siad 133 battle tanks 35 Battlegroup Concept 2004 5–6, 9, 167 battlegroups 111–12, 116, 126 Belgium 94, 115, 117, 164 Berlin Plus framework 7, 9, 10, 16, 26, 40, 44, 57, 60, 62, 64, 91, 118, 147, 148, 150, 164; see also NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) BiH (Bosnia and Herzegovina) 6, 9–10, 16, 19–20, 26; see also Operation Althea Blair, Tony 3, 56–7, 59, 60, 61, 84, 85, 87, 88, 93 Bosnia see BiH (Bosnia and Herzegovina); FBH (Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina) Brauss, Heinrich 113 Brazil 94 Brexit 20, 175–6 Brown, Gordon 147, 150 Browne, Des 144, 151 Brussels European Council 63 Bunia, DRC see DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo); Operation Artemis Bush, George W. 53, 163 Canada 135, 145 CAR (Central African Republic) 1, 9, 10, 11, 21, 22; see also EUFOR RCA; EUFOR Tchad/RCA; EUMAM RCA; EUTM RCA Carre d’As 145

Index   179 CDU/CSU (Christian Democratic Union of Germany and Christian Social Union of Bavaria) 88 Central Europe, and EU enlargement, 2004 5 CFE (Convention on the Future of Europe) 84, 86, 95, 159, 166, 174 CFSP (Common Foreign and Security Policy) 3, 5, 6, 21, 40, 41, 88; High Representative of the CFSP 3, 6, 14–15, 38, 53–4, 57, 59, 63, 64, 82–3, 84, 85–6, 94, 96, 105, 116, 117, 123, 140, 164, 165 Chad 10, 21, 114; see also EUFOR Tchad/RCA Chatham House Rule 46 cheap ride see free ride child soldiers, DRC 83, 96–7, 166 China, veto rights 40 Chirac, Jacques 3, 54, 59, 60, 61, 81, 82, 85, 86, 89, 95–6, 110, 112, 116, 122 civil wars 26, 27, 28 climate change 29 Clinton, Bill 162 club goods 20, 36, 43, 47, 161, 171, 173; EUFOR RD Congo 106, 117, 125, 168, 172, 174; Operation Althea 51, 55, 56, 60, 70, 164, 172; Operation Artemis 76, 77, 83, 93, 96, 165, 167, 172; Operation Atalanta 133, 140, 152, 170, 172 CMC (Crisis Management Concept) 65, 86, 89–90, 141–2 Cold War era 2–3, 26, 27 collective action theory 2, 32, 35–6, 47, 163, 170; prisoner’s dilemma 32, 34; see also multi-level collective approach collective milieu goals 28, 30, 33–4 Cologne European Council 1999 4, 5, 21 Colombia 27 Colonna, Catherine 121 Combined Task Force (CTF)-150 136, 137, 138, 140, 148, 150, 151, 170 Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) 3, 5, 6, 21, 40, 41, 88 Common Security and Defence Policy see CSDP (Common Security and Defence Policy) COMPET (Competitiveness Council) 68 conflict prevention tasks, permitted by Lisbon Treaty 29 Congo see DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo) CONOPS (Concept of Operations) 67, 68 Constitutional Treaty see TCE (Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe)

constructivist perspective on EU military operations 13 constructivists 18 Convention on the Future of Europe (CFE) 84, 86, 95, 159, 166, 174 conventional weapons 35 Copenhagen European Council 56, 57, 69, 163 Council, decision-making role in military operations 37–8 Council General Secretariat 19, 140, 142, 148 Cowen, Brian 66 Crimea 27 crisis management: EU military operations 8; as joint product activity 35–6; permitted by Petersberg Tasks 29; WEU 5 Crisis Management Concept (CMC) 65, 86, 89–90, 141–2 Croatia 51 CSDP (Common Security and Defence Policy) 1, 15, 16, 17, 22, 25, 30, 37, 38, 46, 159; case study countries’ perspectives on 45; impact of Brexit on 175–6; military operations 8; Operation Althea 50, 60; Operation Atalanta 132; veto rights 39–40 CTF (Combined Task Force) 150 136, 137, 138, 140, 148, 150, 151, 170 cyber security 29 Daesh see ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) Damay, Christian 120 Darfur region, Sudan 10, 21, 30 data sources 46 Dayton Agreement 1995 9, 51–2, 53, 65, 67–8 defence expenditure, NATO member countries 34 democracy, as a value protected by the EU 30 Democratic Republic of the Congo see DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo) Denmark 8, 22n4, 135 deployment: definition 8–9; overview of 6, 7, 8–11 Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe (DSACEUR) 63, 148 Dijkstra, H. 2, 14–15, 38, 160 disarmament: joint disarmament tasks, permitted by Lisbon Treaty 29 Djibouti 114

180   Index Döring, Walter 88 Douste-Blazy, Philippe 116, 121, 122 DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo) 5, 9, 10, 13, 20, 21; natural resources 78; Second Congo War 77–8, 106–7; see also EUFOR RD Congo; MONUC (United Nations Organisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo); Operation Artemis DSACEUR (Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe) 63, 148 Eastern Europe, and EU enlargement, 2004 5 easy ride see free ride EC (European Community) ECSC (European Coal and Steel Community) 12, 22, 160 EDC (European Defence Community) 3 EEA (European Economic Area) 28 EEAS (European External Action Service) 1, 6, 8 EEC (European Economic Community) 3, 12, 21 EFTA (European Free Trade Association) 28 energy security 29 Engberg, K. 2 ‘enhanced cooperation’ 5 ENP (European Neighbourhood Policy) 28 EPC (European Political Cooperation) 2, 3, 21 Eriksen, E.O. 13 ESDP (European Security and Defence Policy) 5, 6, 8, 14–15, 16, 17, 20, 22, 37, 38, 40, 41, 46, 159, 161; establishment of 4–5, 21, 25; EU enlargement 12–13; EUFOR RD Congo 111, 113, 120, 125; goals of 29–30; institutional framework 4, 5; Operation Althea 50, 54, 55, 64, 70, 162, 164, 174; Operation Artemis 76, 83–4, 85, 88, 93, 93, 96; Operation Atalanta 132, 150, 152, 170, 171; veto rights 39–40 ESS (European Security Strategy) 5, 29–30, 46, 161 EU (European Union) 12, 21, 22; Abkhazia and South Ossetia 33; enlargement 5, 12–13; national interests of member states 17–18; peer pressure between member states 41–2, 47, 162, 169, 171; solidarity, between member states 41–2, 43, 47, 114, 162

EU (European Union) level of analysis 15, 17, 18, 19, 26, 37–43, 47, 162 EU (European Union) military operations: argument 15–19, 18, 160–2; benefits of as public good 32; Council’s role 37–8; definition 8; deployment of 6, 7, 8–11; development of 2–6; EU level of analysis 15, 17, 18, 19, 26, 37–43, 47, 162; existing literature on 13–15; financing of 8, 19, 38; future research directions 20, 176; goals of 27–8; international level of analysis 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 25, 26–30, 46–7, 161; member state compromises on 40–1; member states’ common interests 42–3; mutually beneficial outcomes 18–19; officials’ role 38–9; resource requirements 19, 39; state level of analysis 15, 16–17, 18, 19, 25–6, 30–7, 37, 47, 161–2; study of 11–13; type of operation permitted 29; values protected by 29–30; veto rights 39–40; see also agenda setting stage of EU military operations; planning and launch stage of EU military operations EU NAVCO (European Union Naval Coordination action) 142–3, 144–5 EU NAVFOR (European Union Naval Force) EUFOR (European Union Force) 67–8 EUFOR RCA 7, 9, 11, 12, 21, 27–8, 174, 175 EUFOR RD Congo 7, 10, 13, 14, 20, 21, 44, 105–6, 124–6, 173, 174; agenda setting 108–17, 117; background 106–8; findings 167–9, 172; planning and launch 113, 118–24 EUFOR Tchad/RCA 7, 10, 14, 21, 38 EULEX Kosovo 38 EUMAM RCA 7, 21 EUMC (European Union Military Committee) 4, 5, 17, 86, 90, 141–2, 148 EUMS (European Union Military Staff) 4, 5, 17, 61, 66, 67, 115, 141, 142 EUPOL Kinshasa 120 European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) 12, 22, 160 European colonialism 124 European Commission 140 European Council 57 European Defence Community (EDC) 3 European Economic Area (EEA) 28 European Economic Community (EEC) 3, 12, 21

Index   181 European External Action Service (EEAS) 1, 6, 8 European Free Trade Association (EFTA) 28 European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) 28 European Political Cooperation (EPC) 2, 3, 21 European Security and Defence Policy see ESDP (European Security and Defence Policy) European Security Strategy (ESS) 5, 29–30, 46, 161 European Union Force (EUFOR) 67–8; see also EUFOR RCA; EUFOR RD Congo; EUFOR Tchad/RCA European Union Military Committee (EUMC) 4, 5, 17, 86, 90, 141–2, 148 European Union Military Staff (EUMS) 4, 5, 17, 61, 66, 67, 115, 141, 142 European Union Naval Coordination action (EU NAVCO) 142–3, 144–5 Europeanist member states 45, 83, 84 EUSEC RD Congo 120 EUTM (European Union Training Mission): EUTM Mali 7, 21; EUTM RCA 1, 7, 21; EUTM Somalia 7, 21 exclusivity of private goods 35, 36, 37 External Relations Commissioner 6 External Relations Council 63, 64, 65, 82, 140 FAC (Foreign Affairs Council) 6, 11 failed states 5, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 42 FBH (Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina) 51–2, 57; see also BiH (Bosnia and Herzegovina) FDP (Free Democratic Party) 88 Feist, Rainer 63, 67 FGDSC (Franco-German Defence and Security Council) 116 FHQ (Force Headquarters) 115, 148 Finland 67 First Congo War 106 Fischer, J.M. 84, 85–6, 95 Force Commander position 8, 67, 68, 76, 91, 120 Force Headquarters (FHQ) 115, 148 Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) 6, 11 foreign policy elites 16 Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) see Macedonia (FYROM/ Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) Framework for EU Action in Response to the Crisis in Bunia 89–90

France: Battlefield Concept 2004 5–6; CAR (Central African Republic) 11; as case study country 45; CFSP (Common Foreign and Security Policy) 3; ESDP (European Security and Defence Policy) 3, 4; EUFOR RD Congo 14, 20, 110–11, 112, 114, 115–16, 117, 117, 120, 121–2, 123, 125, 126, 168–9, 172, 174; EUFOR Tchad/RCA 10, 14, 38; as a Europeanist member state 45; Iraq war, 2003 60–1; Le Touquet Summit 59, 82, 85; military expenditure 45; military forces 45; OHQ (Operational Headquarters) 37; Operation Althea 54–5, 58, 59, 60, 60–1, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68–9, 69–70, 163, 164, 172, 173–4, 176; Operation Artemis 12, 14, 76–7, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 85, 86–7, 89, 91–2, 93, 93–4, 95–6, 165–6, 167, 172; Operation Atalanta 10, 20, 132, 135, 136, 137, 138–9, 140, 141, 142, 144–5, 147, 149, 150, 152, 153, 169, 170, 172, 173; Saint-Malo Declaration 3–4, 21, 25, 82, 159; TCE (Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe) 6, 20, 106, 110–11, 122, 125, 159, 168 Franco-German Defence and Security Council (FGDSC) 116 Free Democratic Party (FDP) 88 free ride 31–2, 34, 35 Friesendorf, C. 68 FYROM (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) see Macedonia (FYROM/ Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) Gabon 10, 114, 120 GAERC (General Affairs and External Relations Council) 59, 66–7, 90–1, 94, 109–10, 115, 116, 117, 121, 124, 139 GAIA (Global and All-Inclusive Agreement in the Democratic Republic of the Congo) 107, 121 Gegout, C. 14, 45 General Affairs and External Relations Council (GAERC) 59, 66–7, 90–1, 94, 109–10, 115, 116, 117, 121, 124, 139 General Affairs Council, ESDP 4, 139, 140, 148 General Concept, Operation Althea 65–6 General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina see Dayton Agreement 1995

182   Index General Secretariat see Council General Secretariat Georgia 33 Germany 14; as case study country 45; CFSP 3; CSDP 45; EU Council Presidency 1999 4; EUFOR RD Congo 20, 112, 113–16, 117, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122–4, 125–6, 168–9, 172, 174; Iraq war, 2003 60; military expenditure 45; military forces 45; Operation Althea 55–6, 57–8, 59, 60, 61–2, 63–4, 65, 67, 69–70, 163, 164, 172, 173–4, 176; Operation Artemis 12, 20, 77, 83–4, 85–6, 88–9, 93, 94–5, 96–7, 166, 167, 172, 174; Operation Atalanta 20, 132–3, 136–7, 137–8, 139, 140, 141, 144, 145, 146, 149, 151–2, 153, 170–1, 172, 173 Germond, B. 144 Giegerich, B. 105 Ginsberg, R.H. 15, 40, 160 Global and All-Inclusive Agreement in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (GAIA) 107, 121 GNI (Gross National Income), and Athena mechanism 8, 19, 39 good governance, as a value protected by the EU 30 Gore, Al 53 Greece 22n2, 94, 148 Gross, E. 45, 110, 111 Guéhenno, Jean-Marie 80, 109–10, 167 Gulf of Aden see Somali piracy Haine, J.Y. 105 Headline Goal 2010 6 Helsinki European Council 1999 4–5, 21 Helsinki Headline Goal (HHG) 4–5, 54 Herzegovina see BiH (Bosnia and Herzegovina); FBH (Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina) Hezbollah 27 HHG (Helsinki Headline Goal) 4–5, 54 High Representative of the CFSP 3, 6, 14–15, 38, 53–4, 57, 59, 63, 64, 82–3, 84, 85–6, 94, 96, 105, 116, 117, 123, 140, 164, 165; see also Solana, Javier High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy 6 Hoffmann, S. 12 Hoon, Geoffrey 64–5, 93, 121 Horn of Africa see Somali piracy host countries of EU military actions, veto rights of 40

Howarth, J. 45 human trafficking 12, 124, 175; see also Operation Sophia humanitarian tasks, permitted by Petersberg Tasks 29 Hungary 94 Hutton, John 151 Hyde-Price, A. 30, 40 ICD (Inter-Congolese Dialogue) 79, 80, 107 ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia) 64 IEC (Independent Electoral Commission) 109, 110, 120–1 IEMF (Interim Emergency Multinational Force) 87 IFOR (Implementation Force) 52, 53, 68 IMB (International Maritime Bureau) 133 IMO (International Maritime Organisation) 134 IMP (Integrated Maritime Policy) 143–4 Implementation Force (IFOR) 52, 53, 68 impure public goods 34, 35, 36; see also public goods Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) 109, 110, 120–1 Indian Ocean see Somali piracy Ingram, Adam 92–3 Initial Operational Capability (IOC) 112 Institute for Security Studies, ESDP 4 institutionalist perspective on EU military operations 13, 14–15 Integrated Maritime Policy (IMP) 143–4 Inter-Congolese Dialogue (ICD) 79, 80, 107 Interim Emergency Multinational Force (IEMF) 87 International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) 64 international level of analysis 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 25, 26–30, 46–7, 161 International Maritime Bureau (IMB) 133 International Maritime Organisation (IMO) 134 International Organisation for Migration 11 International Police Task Force (IPTF), UN 53 international prestige 14, 36, 43, 54, 55, 56, 64, 152, 171 International Relations (IR) 1, 13, 18, 25, 32, 160 International Rescue Committee (IRC) 106 International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) 89, 111, 176

Index   183 IO (International Organisation) 18 IOC (Initial Operational Capability) 112 IPTF (International Police Task Force), UN 53 IR (International Relations) 1, 13, 18, 25, 32, 160 Iraq War 2003 5, 11, 21, 57, 58, 60–1, 83, 164 IRC (International Rescue Committee) 106 Ireland 10, 94 ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) 89, 111, 176 ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) 12, 27 Italy 94 Ivory Coast 114 JHA (Justice and Home Affairs) 90–1, 120 JNA (Yugoslav People’s Army) 51 Joint Action 90, 91, 120, 142, 148, 149 joint disarmament tasks, permitted by Lisbon Treaty 29 joint products 34–7, 43, 171; EUFOR RD Congo 117, 117, 172; Operation Althea 50, 59, 60, 163, 172; Operation Artemis 76, 93, 93, 172; Operation Atalanta 132, 140, 140, 152, 172 Jones, Philip 147, 150 Jung, Franz Joseph 112, 113, 114, 115, 117, 119, 122, 123, 145, 151 Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) 90–1, 120 Kabila, Joseph 88, 107, 116, 117 Kagame, Paul 86 Karadžić, Radovan 64 Kelche, Jean-Pierre 55 Kirchner, E. 28 Kolbow, Walter 56 Kosovo 26, 53, 55 Kouchner, Bernard 137 La Sablière, Jean-Marc de 87, 120 Le Ponant 137, 139, 143, 169 Le Touquet Summit 59, 82, 85 Leakey, David 67 Lebanon 27 liberal intergovernmentalist perspective on EU military operations 13, 14 Lisbon Treaty 2009 6, 22n1, 29, 159 lowest common denominator approach to EU military operations 40–1, 47, 162 Luanda Agreement 78 Lusaka Agreement 77–8 Luxembourg 61, 164

Maastricht Treaty 1992 3, 6, 21, 22n4 Macedonia (FYROM/Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) 1, 9, 16, 22n2, 54, 55, 58, 91, 165; see also Operation Concordia Major, Claudia 175 Mali see EUTM Mali Malta 39 Manners, I. 13 Mbabazi, Amama 86 McColl, John 148 Mediterranean: migrants 11, 12, 22, 28, 175; see also Operation Sophia Merkel, Angela 112, 113–14, 116, 119, 122, 123, 125, 149 Merlingen, M. 12 migrants, Mediterranean 11, 12, 22, 28, 175; see also Operation Sophia Miliband, David 151 milieu goals 28, 30–1; benefits of 32–4; collective 28, 30, 33–4 military advice and assistance tasks, permitted by Lisbon Treaty 29 military chain of command, in EU military operations 8 military expenditure, in case study countries 45 Military Strategic Options (MSO) 66, 89–90, 142, 143, 144, 148 Mitropoulos, Efthimios E. 134 Mladić, Ratko 64 MND-N (Multinational Division – North) 55, 58; see also SFOR (Stabilisation Force) MND-SE (Multinational Division Southeast) 54; see also SFOR (Stabilisation Force) MND-SW (Multinational Division Southwest) 57; see also SFOR (Stabilisation Force) MNTF-N (Multinational Task Force North) 67; see also SFOR (Stabilisation Force) MNTF-SE (Multinational Task Force Southeast) 68, 69; see also SFOR (Stabilisation Force) Mobutu Sese Seko 106 Mogherini, Federica 22n3 MONUC (United Nations Organisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo) 13, 77, 80, 81, 87, 90, 105, 106, 108–10, 112, 115, 116, 118–19, 120, 121, 165, 167 Moravcsik, A. 13

184   Index Morin, Herve 146–7 Mostar 54, 68, 69 MSO (Military Strategic Options) 66, 89–90, 142, 143, 144, 148 Müller, Kerstin 85, 88, 89 multi-level analysis 15, 43–6 multi-level collective approach 2, 19, 20, 25–6, 46–7, 160–2, 176; EU level of analysis 15, 17, 18, 19, 26, 37–43, 47, 162; international level of analysis 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 25, 26–30, 46–7, 161; state level of analysis 15, 16–17, 18, 19, 25–6, 30–7, 37, 47, 161–2; see also collective action theory Murigande, Charles 86 MV Faina 146 NAC (North Atlantic Council) 52, 53, 62 Namanga, Amos 79 Namibia 77 national interests of EU member states 17–18 National Security Strategy, UK 138 NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) 4, 16, 20, 26, 37, 44, 111; Atlanticist member states 45; burden-sharing in 34–5; Cold War era 2, 32; DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo) 91, 118; flexible response strategy 34, 35; Macedonia 9, 91; massive retaliation strategy 34, 35; member countries’ defence expenditure 34; Operation Deliberate Force 51; Somali piracy 132, 133, 135, 136, 138, 141, 144, 146, 147–8, 150, 153; see also Berlin Plus framework; IFOR (Implementation Force); SFOR (Stabilisation Force) Netherlands 94, 135; TCE (Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe) 6, 20, 106, 110–11, 122, 125, 159, 168 Neveux, Bruno 91, 94 NGO (Non-Governmental Organisation) 16, 30 Nice Treaty 2000 5, 6 Nolting, Wolfgang 138 non-exclusivity of public goods 31, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) 16, 30 non-rival characteristic of public goods 31, 33, 34, 36, 37 Norheim-Martinsen, P.M. 60, 93 normative power 1, 14 North Atlantic Council (NAC) 52, 53, 62

North Atlantic Treaty Organisation see NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) Norton-Taylor, R. 151 nuclear war, Cold War era risk of 26, 34–5 O’Brien, Mike 58–9 OHQ (Operational Headquarters) 37, 115, 120, 143, 147, 148; Tervuren proposal 61, 70, 164 Ohrid Framework Agreement 2001 9 Okitunda, She 88 Olson, Mancur 31, 33, 34 Operation Alcyon 135–6, 145, 149, 150 Operation Allied Harmony 91 Operation Allied Provider 146, 149, 150 Operation Althea 7, 9–10, 19–20, 21, 38, 43–4, 50–1, 69–70, 173–4, 176; agenda setting 53–63, 60; background 51–3; findings 162–4, 172; planning and launch 63–9; see also BiH (Bosnia and Herzegovina) Operation Artemis 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 14, 20, 21, 29, 39, 44, 45, 50, 76–7, 95–7, 105, 114, 118, 120, 125, 171, 173, 176; agenda setting 79–86; background 77–9; findings 165–7, 172; planning and launch 86–95, 93; see also DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo) Operation Atalanta 7, 10–11, 12, 19, 20, 22, 44, 132–3, 152–3, 173, 174; agenda setting 135–40, 140; background 133–5; findings 169–71, 172, 173; planning and launch 140–52; see also Somali piracy Operation Commander position 8, 67, 68, 91, 94, 120, 124, 147, 150 Operation Concordia 1, 7, 9, 10, 11, 21, 39, 50, 58, 60, 76, 91, 165; see also Macedonia (FYROM/Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) Operation Deliberate Force 51 Operation Enduring Freedom 136–7, 138, 146, 170 Operation Iraqi Freedom 57, 60; see also Iraq War 2003 Operation Mamba 92 Operation Sangaris 11 Operation Sophia 7, 11, 12, 22, 174, 175 Operation Turquoise 83, 96, 165 Operational Headquarters see OHQ (Operational Headquarters) organised crime 5, 26, 27, 29; Darfur region, Sudan 30; Operation Althea 50; see also Somali piracy

Index   185 Partnership for Peace 59 PCS (Political and Security Council), ESDP 4, 17 peacekeeping: as joint product activity 35–6; permitted by Petersberg Tasks 29 peer pressure, between member states 41–2, 47, 162, 169, 171 Penska, S.E. 15, 40, 68, 160 Petersberg Tasks 3, 6, 8, 21, 29, 30, 46, 161 Pflüger, Friedbert 88 piracy see Somali piracy planning and launch stage of EU military operations 16, 17, 18, 19, 26; EUFOR RD Congo 113, 118–24; Operation Althea 63–9; Operation Artemis 86–95, 93; Operation Atalanta 140–52 Plassnik, Ursula 118 Playa de Bakio 139, 169 Pleuger, Gunter 88 Pleven Plan 1950 3, 159 PMG (Politico-Military Group) 38 Pohl, B. 2, 14, 160 Poland 117 Political and Security Committee (PSC) 5, 38, 85, 86, 90, 110, 141, 147 Political and Security Council (PCS), ESDP 4, 17 Political Military Objective 90 Politico-Military Group (PMG) 38 Portugal 117 possession goals 27, 30 Pretoria Agreement 78, 107 prisoner’s dilemma 32, 34 private goods 31, 34, 35, 36, 40, 43, 47, 161, 162, 171, 173; EUFOR RD Congo 106, 117, 172, 174; Operation Althea 50, 60, 163, 172; Operation Artemis 76, 77, 93, 96, 165, 167, 172; Operation Atalanta 132, 140, 152–3, 170, 172 process tracing 44 Prunier, G. 108 PSC (Political and Security Committee) 5, 38, 85, 86, 90, 110, 141, 147 public goods 31–7, 37, 47, 161, 171, 173; EUFOR RD Congo 106, 114, 117, 125, 168, 172; Operation Althea 50, 60, 69, 163, 172; Operation Artemis 76, 93, 97, 165, 166, 172; Operation Atalanta 132, 140, 152, 170, 172; pure 32, 34, 36, 47 QMV (Qualified Majority Voting) 84, 86, 95, 166, 174 Rammell, Bill 88, 93

realist perspective on EU military operations 13–14 regional conflicts, as threat 5, 29, 42–3 regional stability: as a milieu goal 32–3; as a public good 43, 47, 163; as a pure public good 36; as a value protected by the EU 30 Reid, John 111 Reith, Sir John 67, 68 RELEX (Working Party of the Foreign Relations Counsellors) 38 Republika Srpska 51–2, 57 rescue tasks, permitted by Petersberg Tasks 29 Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia 27 rival characteristics 37, 37 Robertson, George 62, 91 Rocca, F.X. 13 rule of law, as a value protected by the EU 30 Rumsfeld, Donald 53 Russia 27, 33, 40; see also Soviet Union Rutten, M. 4 Rwanda 26, 83; and the DRC 77, 78, 79, 80, 82, 85, 86, 96, 165 Saint-Malo Declaration 3–4, 21, 25, 82, 159 Samuelson, Paul A. 31 Sandler, T. 34–5 Sarajevo 54, 68, 69 Sarkozy, Nicolas 135, 138, 144, 145, 150, 170 SAS (Special Air Service) 87 Satellite Centre, ESDP 4 Schaefer, Michael 65 Scharping, Rudolf 55 Schnabel, R.A. 13 Schröder, Gerhard 55, 61, 88–9, 94 Schuman, Robert 12 Second Congo War 77–8, 106 Security Sector Reform (SSR) 38 Senegal 114 Serb militias 51 SFOR (Stabilisation Force) 9, 10, 19, 50, 52–3, 54, 55–6, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67–8, 69–70, 162–4, 173, 176 SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Power Europe) 61 Sheeran, Josette 134, 135 Sirius Star 149 Slovenia 3, 51, 107

186   Index Smith, M.E. 27, 41, 42, 144 SNMG-2 (Standing NATO Maritime Group 2) 142, 145, 148, 151, 170 Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) 136–7 SOFA (Status of Force Agreement) 68 Solana, Javier 14–15, 38, 54, 57, 59, 63, 64, 82–3, 84, 85–6, 94, 96, 105, 116, 117, 123, 140, 164, 165 Somali piracy 10–11, 12, 19, 20, 22, 132–53, 169–71, 173; see also Operation Atalanta Somalia 10–11, 20, 26, 27; see also EUTM Somalia; Operation Atalanta; Somali piracy South Africa 94 South Ossetia 33 Soviet Union 2–3, 34–5; see also Cold War era; Russia Spain 94; Somali piracy 10, 139, 141, 142–3, 145, 169 SPD (Social Democratic Party of Germany) 136–7 Special Air Service (SAS) 87 Sperling, J. 28 SSR (Security Sector Reform) 38 Stabilisation Force (SFOR) 9, 10, 19, 50, 52–3, 54, 55–6, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67–8, 69–70, 162–4, 173, 176 Standing NATO Maritime Group 2 (SNMG-2) 142, 145, 148, 151, 170 state failure 5, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 42 state/national level of analysis 15, 16–17, 18, 19, 25–6, 30–7, 37, 47, 161–2 Status of Force Agreement (SOFA) 68 Steinmeier, Frank Walter 113, 117, 119, 122–3, 146, 151–2 Straw, Jack 59, 80, 109–10 Struck, Peter 56, 57–8, 60, 63, 69, 84, 89, 95 Supreme Headquarters Allied Power Europe (SHAPE) 61 Sweden 94, 115, 117 Syrian civil war 12, 22 Task Force North 67 TCE (Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe) 6, 20, 37, 106, 110–11, 122, 125, 159, 168 terrorism 5, 26, 27, 29–30, 42 TEU (Treaty on European Union) 3, 5, 12, 19, 21, 29, 175 TFG (Transitional Federal Government)

Thonier, Jean-Paul 76, 91 Toje, A. 13 Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe (TCE) 6, 20, 37, 106, 110–11, 122, 125, 159, 168 Triesman, Lord 116, 118, 121 Turkey 40, 148 Uganda, and the DRC 77, 78–9, 80, 82, 85, 86, 92, 96, 165 Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) 78–9, 80 UK (United Kingdom) 14; as an Atlanticist member state 45; Battlefield Concept 2004 5–6; as case study country 45; ESDP (European Security and Defence Policy) 3, 4; EUFOR RD Congo 20, 109–10, 111, 112, 114, 116–17, 117, 118–19, 121, 125, 168, 169, 172, 174; Iraq war, 2003 60; Le Touquet Summit 59, 82, 85; military expenditure 45; military forces 45; OHQ (Operational Headquarters) 37; Operation Althea 56–7, 58–9, 60, 60, 61, 62, 64–5, 66, 67, 69–70, 163, 164, 172, 173–4, 176; Operation Artemis 76–7, 80, 82, 83, 84–5, 87–8, 92–3, 93, 94, 96, 166, 167, 172; Operation Atalanta 20, 133, 138, 139–40, 140, 142, 143, 144, 146–7, 148, 149–50, 150–1, 152, 170, 171, 172, 173, 176; Saint-Malo Declaration 3–4, 21, 25, 82, 159 Ukraine crisis 2014 12, 22 UN (United Nations) 16, 20, 26, 44; DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo) 10, 13, 76, 77, 78, 80–3, 84, 87, 93, 95–6, 105, 108–9, 109–10, 111–12, 118, 119–20; IPTF (International Police Task Force) 53; peacekeeping operations 27; Somali piracy 134, 146; see also MONUC (United Nations Organisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo) UNDPKO (United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations) 80, 81, 110 UNHCR 11 Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) 79 United Nations Organisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) 13, 77, 80, 81, 87, 90, 105, 106, 108–10, 112, 115, 116, 118–19, 120, 121, 165, 167 UNPROFOR (United Nations Protection Force) 51, 52

Index   187 UNSC (United Nations Security Council) 66, 67–8, 80–1, 86–7; BiH (Bosnia and Herzegovina) 52, 53, 66, 67; DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo) 77, 80–2, 87, 88, 108–9, 118, 119–20, 167; Iraq war 2003 60; Somali piracy 134–5, 136, 137, 139, 140; veto rights 40 UNSCR (United Nations Security Council Resolution): Resolution 743 51; Resolution 1031 52; Resolution 1088 52; Resolution 1279 77; Resolution 1484 87, 88, 91, 92; Resolution 1551 66; Resolution 1575 67–8; Resolution 1671 119–20; Resolution 1772 135; Resolution 1816 137, 139, 140, 142 UPC (Union of Congolese Patriots) 79 UPDF (Uganda People’s Defence Forces) 78–9, 80 USA (United States of America) 32, 33, 34, 40; Afghanistan war 57, 58; BiH (Bosnia and Herzegovina) 53, 162–3; Cold War era 2–3, 32; Iraq War 2003 5, 11, 21, 57, 58, 60–1, 164; Operation Althea 53, 57, 58, 60, 62, 64, 65, 67, 70; Operation Atalanta 136, 137, 140, 142 Vance Plan 51 Viereck, Karlheinz 120, 124

Villepin, Dominique de 59, 80, 81, 83, 85–6 VLCC (Very Large Crude Carrier) 149 Voss, Alicia von 175 Warsaw Pact 32 Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) 5, 29, 42 WEU (Western European Union) 3, 5, 29 WFP (World Food Programme) 132, 134, 135, 136, 142, 143, 146, 148, 149, 150, 169 Wieczorek-Zeul, Heidemarie 85, 123 WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) 5, 29, 42 Wolfers, A. 18, 27, 28, 29 Working Party of the Foreign Relations Counsellors (RELEX) 38 World Food Programme (WFP) 132, 134, 135, 136, 142, 143, 146, 148, 149, 150, 169 world peace, as a pure public good 36 Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) 51 Zeckhauser, R. 34 Zielonka, J. 13 Zimbabwe, and the DRC 77, 78