European Security and Defense Policy

Baby tiger or paper tiger? Transatlantic Roundtable and Crisis Management Simulation.

25.11.2004 · Improving Responsiveness

On Monday, 22 November 2004, the Council of Defense Ministers of the European Union decided to launch European tactical battle groups in order to give teeth to the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP). Just days before this summit, security and defense oriented transatlantic young professionals met at C·A·P to discuss the shortcomings, opportunities, limits, and prospects of ESDP in the transatlantic context. The participants came from think tanks, universities, foreign policy and defense journals, and business corporations from Europe and the United States and followed an invitation by C·A·P's "Improving Responsiveness" project in the framework of its Transatlantic Roundtable series.

The roundtable which was chaired by C·A·P fellow for transatlantic relations, Sebastian Brökelmann, consisted of three parts which were especially designed for a better understanding of the scope, chances, and problems of ESDP in a transatlantic setting of topics and participants: After an introduction into ESDP with special focus on involved bodies and organizations the main part of the roundtable was filled by a simulation on European crisis management. This simulation was originally created in the context of C·A·P’s Research Group on Youth and Europe and was guided by its research fellow and simulation expert Eva Feldmann-Wojtachnia. The simulation covered a crisis scenario of terrorism and civil war in Algeria spreading into Europe and urged for immediate action by the EU foreign ministers. The roundtable was then concluded by discussing necessary political steps towards improving the efficiency of ESDP decision-making and relating ESDP and its future to transatlantic security relations.

View of the Transatlantic Roundtable at C·A·P’s conference room

Special input to discussions and the simulation came from high-level experts on ESDP: Antonio Missiroli, Senior Research Fellow at the European Union Institute for Security Studies in Paris and Jolyon Howorth, Professor at the University of Bath (UK) and currently visiting professor at Yale University (U.S.) boosted discussions on the current state of ESDP and were supported by Alison Weston, expert on civilian crisis management at the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union in Brussels, and Fraser Cameron, Director of Studies at The European Policy Center in Brussels, in providing substantial input on all technical and political questions about ESDP arising during the simulation.

The overall result of this Roundtable which was a pilot project for integrating elements of C·A·P's own simulation expertise into the Transatlantic Roundtable series was very positive: Not only did all participants develop a better understanding of the complexity of ESDP decision-making and its resulting inefficiency as far as quick operational action is concerned, they also approved of the simulation as an essential part of this learning experience. The Roundtable resulted in an in-depth discussion of action and legitimacy where U.S. and European opinions drifted widely apart; European and U.S. political leaders will have to engage in a strategic dialogue not only about their respective goals in foreign policy and the technical means how to achieve them, but also in a dialogue about the importance of international law and the United Nations as the guarantor of international legitimacy for any kind of military action. But the question of legitimacy proved twofold difficult: Not only do Americans and Europeans have a different approach towards legitimacy of military action, but all ESDP actors have the additional problem of getting domestic legitimacy before any action can be taken.

A more detailed conference report will be published on this website within the upcoming days.

This Transatlantic Roundtable conference was already the twelfth of its kind of the "Improving Responsiveness" project. It was made possible by the support of the key institution program of the German Marshall Fund of the United States and by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation. The German Marshall Fund of the United States is an American institution that stimulates the exchange of ideas and promotes cooperation between the United States and Europe in the spirit of the post-war Marshall Plan. The Fritz Thyssen Foundation is a private foundation in memory of Fritz and August Thyssen for the advancement of sciences.

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