ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the implications of this and how national priorities could enable or constrain a joined up EU strategy. It looks at Britain, France and Germany. This is a pragmatic choice based on their military capabilities and the level of their defence spending. The chapter explains what the current national priorities of Britain, France and Germany are and the extent to which they fit with the CSDP. The European Union (EU) has no army. It does not own military assets. Sometimes the large and growing academic literature on the Common Security and Defence Policy's (CSDP) institutions, procedures, operations and policies loses sight of these facts. De France and Witney point out that when France agitated in 2008 for a reopening of the ESS, the decisive opposition came from Britain, which did not want to talk about Europe, and Germany, which did not want to talk about Russia.
