3 - The capacity for autonomous action?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 February 2011
Summary
Military reformation is, predictably, taking place primarily within the framework of European nation-states. States have directed and funded military reforms and sanctioned increased transnational interaction between their forces on operations. However, although European states remain substantially autonomous in the realm of defence policy, military reforms within each nation have not occurred in isolation. On the contrary, European military transformation has been facilitated by wider institutional frameworks which transcend the state. In particular, national military development has occurred within existing international structures and, above all, NATO and the EU. States have not autonomously developed their own military reform strategies. On the contrary, they have interacted through NATO and the EU and sought actively to converge with each other on the basis of cues from other member states and alliance partners. Britain and France have conducted a number of autonomous missions since the end of the Cold War but, for the most part, European nations have conducted operations as part of a coalition. In order to gain an accurate perspective on European military development, the relative importance of NATO and the EU for European military development must be ascertained. It is necessary to establish where the key international influence for military reform lies and which of these international organisations has been primary in encouraging European militaries to converge on a similar expeditionary form for global stabilisation missions.
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- The Transformation of Europe's Armed ForcesFrom the Rhine to Afghanistan, pp. 46 - 62Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011