ABSTRACT
In his remarkable treatise on political realism, The Prince, Niccolò Machiavelli argued that ‘princes’ (i.e. strategic actors) needed to learn how to act like Chiron the Centaur, ‘half beast and half man’. Unless they knew ‘how to act according to the nature of both’, they would be vulnerable to predators and ineffective as political actors. The allegory of the Centaur is one that seems particularly apposite for the European Union (EU) as it moves from being a one-dimensional ‘civilian power’ to a more rounded international actor equipped not only with the instruments of declaratory diplomacy and economic statecraft, but also the means for military and civilian crisis management. With the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) and the creation of the ‘battlegroups’, the EU now appears to be providing itself with the means to act ‘like a beast’ as well as like ‘a man’.
