ABSTRACT

For a long time, strategic studies and Euro pean studies appeared to mutu­ ally ignore, if not disdain, each other. In the con text of the Cold War, stra­ tegic studies concentrated on the exercise of hard power as an instrument of foreign pol icy. Their nat ural focus was the United States and the Soviet Union, the two superpowers. It came equally nat urally to ignore the Euro­ pean Economic Community (EEC), which except for the informal consul­ tation mech an ism of Euro pean Political Coopera tion (EPC) did not venture into the realm of foreign pol icy, let alone security and defence pol icy. Euro pean studies themselves for the most part did not look at the EEC as an actor in the field of security and defence pol icy, turning instead to conceptualizations of the Community as a “civilian power” or, more recently, a “norm ative” or “transform at ive power”, i.e. an actor that con­ sciously refutes the use of power to achieve its ob ject ives in favour of the power of attraction and other indirect methods. Even when the Euro pean Union came into exist ence and with it the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), to be followed by the Euro pean, now Common Security and Defence Policy (ESDP and CSDP), many Euro pean scholars focused their efforts on trying to explain how these de velopments did not detract from Europe’s status as a civilian or norm ative power. Others, who thought these de velopments did just that, offered re com mendations to put things right, as if somehow it would be wrong for the EU to venture onto another path and become a fully fledged actor in the field of security and defence (see e.g. Manners 2009; Smith 2006). Many strategic studies scholars meanwhile, if they could be convinced at all to allow themselves to be distracted for a moment and take a look at the EU, did not take the tent at ive steps of the CFSP and CSDP very ser iously (see e.g. Heisbourg 2004; Toje 2005; Wyllie 2006).