The Importance of a Common
Strategic Culture
for CSDP
CONTENTS
What is strategic culture?
Strategic cultures within the EU
A common strategic culture for the EU
What is strategic culture?
-No generally accepted definition
-First used in a study of Soviet nuclear strategy by Jack
Snyder in 1977
-Colin Gray: “a shorthand expression to denote the
emotional and attitudinal environment within which the
defence community operates”.
-Paul Cornish and Geoffrey Edwards: “institutional
confidence and processes to manage and deploy military
forces as part of the accepted range of legitimate and
effective policy instrument.”
-Christoph Meyer: “Comprising the socially transmitted
identity derived norms, ideas, and patterns of behavior
[…] which helps to shape a ranked set of options for a
communities pursuit of security and defense goals.”
-Kerry Longhurst: a strategic culture is “a distinctive
body of beliefs, attitudes, and practices regarding
use of force…”
-Bruno Colson: strategic culture is “the set of attitudes
and beliefs professed within the military concerning the
political aims of war, as well as the most effective
strategic and operational methods for achieving them.”
Six factors of a strategic culture:
-The geopolitical settings
-Military history
-International relationships
-Political culture and ideology
-The nature of civil-military relations
-Military technology
Strategic Cultures within the EU
Peter Rosen: “frame […] choices about
international military behavior, particularly those
concerning decisions to go to war […] and levels of
wartime casualties that would be acceptable.”
-Stephen
-Lack of integration on security and defence policy
Iraq crisis
Mali crisis
Libya
crisis
-Different member states have different predominant
strategic cultures:
1.Atlanticist, Europeanist, neutral tendencies
2.Allied/neutral, professional power projection/
conscript-based territorial defence,
nuclear/non-nuclear, military/civilian instruments,
large/small states, weapon providers/consumers
3. Smaller and non-aligned states/former colonial powers
Strategic culture reflect the security environment of the
20th century:
Cold war
Two world
wars
Strategic
culture
US/USSR
subordinate
allies status
Holocaust
Views about the role of the armed forces and the use of
military force vary from country to country:
-in
self defence: e.g.Germany,Italy
-in order to protect national interests or international
peace and order: e.g. France, UK, Poland
-only for UN peacekeeping and peacemaking
operations: e.g.Austria, Ireland
A common strategic culture for the EU
Can it be assumed that all member countries,
Regardless of their particular histrical experience,
share the same strategic perspectives?
-Common values and principles
-European approach to the use of force
-European way of crisis management
-Increasing institutionalization of the CSDP
-Adoption of the European Security Strategy
European strategic culture will be based on:
-Enlarged vision of security
-Comprehensive and internationally legitimate approach
to threats
-The use of force as a last resort
-Comprehensive approach to crisis management
-Effective multilateralism