| Publication |
2011.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Evidence that the European Union has acquired a distinctive strategic culture must be sought in the realms both of ideas and of action. Elements of a declaratory European Union strategic culture are to be found in the 2003 European Security Strategy and the subsequent reflections of officials and academics. A supplementary but perhaps more reliable guide to its central features may lie in how the European Union has conducted itself in the 24 European Security and Defence Policy missions, both military and civilian, that it has created since 2003. Overviews of these missions reveal some consistent themes and patterns of behaviour roughly congruent with the discourse of EU strategic culture. A closer analysis of the two Balkan military operations - Concordia in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Althea in Bosnia-Herzegovina - gives a richer and more nuanced picture of the relationship between words and deeds. The aim in studying strategic culture should be not to reveal causality as much as to explore consistency between ideas and action.
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