ABSTRACT
The arrival of the European Security Strategy (ESS) has raised questions about its collective nature, its capacity for autonomy, its capability to deliver and its ability to create a European security culture. Answers to these questions can be sought by exploring why and how the ESS arose, how its threat perception and means of institutional response compares with that of France, Germany, Italy and the UK and how it has performed or can potentially perform. Furthermore, such a comparison not only offers the possibility of examining the degree of convergence between national and EU perspectives on type of threats – for example, new security threats, or type of response such as non-military versus military – it also provides an indication of whether the ESS is closer to the British and French position, which is generally considered as more interventionist in military terms, than the German and Italian one. It is accepted that by only considering the leading countries, the scope and depth of all the EU member states is somewhat compromised. However, some of the cleavage dimensions found EU-wide1 are nonetheless captured or reflected by the four leading countries. For example, the pacifist trends of the so-called non-aligned member states are explicated by Germany, the pro-NATO/US stance of the UK reflects that of many of the newer EU member states, and the pro-EU perspective of France and Germany is shared by some of the smaller EU countries and Spain. The four leading countries will therefore be considered as proxies for the entire EU.
