The EUISS – in close cooperation with the Strategic Planning Division of the European External Action Service (EEAS) – has carried out a wide-ranging outreach and consultation process involving the broader expert community represented by think tankers and academics from across Europe (and beyond). 

As part of this process, the EUISS asked 50 well-known analysts and commentators – roughly half from inside and half from outside the Union – to give their opinion in less than 1,000 words on the priorities that the forthcoming EU Global Strategy should address and how. The resulting contributions, published daily between 15 January and 31 March are collectively reproduced in this volume and offer a rich selection of independent views intended to nurture the drafting of the strategy.

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In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), hybrid warfare differs somewhat from that of state actors like Russia. In this region, it is non-state actors (which often harbour state-like ambitions) that employ hybrid tactics to target governments they deem illegitimate. And, more often than not, their use is determined by resource constraints rather than tactical considerations.

Though hybrid tactics have long been present in the MENA, it was in the summer of 2006 during Hizbullah’s conflict with Israel that they really came to the fore. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which gained notoriety in the summer of 2014 following its rapid expansion, is taking this regional hybrid trend to the next level of territoriality.

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The year 2014 was dubbed a ‘game-changer’ for European security. Is 2015 going to be a game-changer for European defence spending? After Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania and the Baltic states, France has now announced it is planning to raise national defence spending from 2016 onwards.

The significance of such commitments should not be downplayed. Defence expenditure has been shrinking in Europe for the best part of two decades, and public spending has fallen sharply with the onset of the financial crisis in 2008. The current efforts to boost defence budgets do more than simply buck the trend: they look like they will have a visible effect on real spending over coming years in some key European states. Yet such reports should also not be overblown: what this buys Europe in terms of output is as yet uncertain. In parallel, some European countries have in fact embarked on further cuts. As such, the overall picture as yet far from clear.

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With the EU facing increasingly hostile environments to its east and south, defence collaboration is once again back at the centre of European integration efforts. In December 2013, the European Council held a debate on defence for the first time since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty.

In its conclusions, the European Council identified priorities for stronger cooperation: improving EU rapid response capabilities, enhancing the development of military capabilities, and bolstering Europe’s defence industry. After decades of defence cutbacks across the continent, there are a growing number of shortfalls in European military capabilities.

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Produced for the occasion of the EUISS conference with HR/VP Mogherini in April 2015, the leaflet goes back to basics on the EU’s external action.

Infographics and illustrations, as well as a glossary of terms and relevant actors, present facts and figures about the European Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), as well as its broader external action activities – in an easily accessible manner.

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A variety of new political and security challenges seem to be emerging in the Arctic, including military developments which are particularly worrying at a time of heightened tension between Russia and the West.

Yet these signs of a resurgent geopolitical rivalry are matched by equally strong incentives for continuing cooperation across the polar region.

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Jihadist militants have long operated in the ­pockets of instability which stretch from Bamako to Bagdad. However, they have also been making the most of governance problems in the world’s biggest open space: the internet.

Forced to confront this fact, the governments of France, the UK and the US, among others, have already announced their intention to reinforce the powers of their intelligence agencies and ­strengthen cooperation with the private sector in a joint effort to spot and eradicate online ­extremist safe havens.

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Islamism today has many faces: militant groups in Iraq and Lebanon, political parties in Tunisia and Egypt, and regimes in Iran and Saudi Arabia. But this umbrella term conceals the fact that these groups use different tactics, tap into different grievances and have different political goals. Lumping them together is a gross oversimplification – it is time for an overview.

Although often associated with terrorist groups, the term Islamism simply denotes a political project inspired by Islam. Current streams of political Islam all belong to a wave of Islamist revivalism, the likes of which was last seen on several occasions between the 11th and 14th centuries. Their goal is the re-Islamisation of their respective societies, and ultimately a state based on the principles of Islam. The three major currents belonging to this wave, however, differ starkly on religious doctrine, on what kind of state to establish, and how to fulfil their objectives. In contrast to adherents of ­authoritarian Islamism, who believe they have already accomplished the goal of creating an Islamic state, advocates of both revolutionary and electoral Islamism are ‘changists’, seeking to replace incumbent regimes. The latter two disagree, however, on the means to bring about the desired change, as well as on the form of the Islamic state to be achieved.

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The US is determined to remain the world leader in defence technology. After several years of procurement and research cuts (a 14% reduction to $168 billion in fiscal year 2013 and a further 4% to $162 billion in 2014), the US is now planning to stabilise spending levels in this field. To ensure that it stays ahead in the technology game even in times of tighter budgets, the Pentagon will shift more money to basic research and early stage developments – the level where concepts are turned into prototypes.

The trade-off is that the budget for system development and demonstration is being reduced, meaning that many promising new technologies may never materialise or enter production. Meanwhile, the US will continue producing systems of incrementally improved levels of technology so as to ensure that its military keeps its edge until new breakthrough technology can be fielded.

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Without much fanfare, the Heavy Airlift Wing of the independent multinational Strategic Airlift Capability (SAC) Programme turned five years old in the autumn of 2014. There was a low-key ‘birthday celebration’ on 29 August last which did not attract much media attention.

But the truth is that the Heavy Airlift Wing is a rare and remarkable achievement of pooling and sharing that has delivered tangible and new operational military capability in Europe. As such, the Heavy Airlift Wing demonstrates that not only can multinational pooling and sharing work – but that it is also a smart way of jointly procuring and owning new capabilities for countries too small to do it alone.

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18/11/2014 EUISS - IRSEM

One of the priorities of the 2014 EU Chairmanship of the Contact Group on ­Piracy off the Coast of Somalia (CGPCS) has been to adequately document the lessons learned from the Contact Group. This includes both the unfiltered accounts of people affected by piracy or involved in the fight against piracy and the more academic, analytical work whose aim is to generate conclusions, observations and recommendations. To achieve the objective of documenting the CGPCS lessons learned, a CGPCS Lessons Learned Consortium was established in 2013 consisting of the EU Institute for Security Studies (EUISS), Cardiff University and Oceans Beyond Piracy. These three organisations have initiated and developed several work strands to ensure that the lessons learned from the Contact Group are not only preserved for future students, scholars and practitioners, but also placed in a broader societal and intellectual framework, allowing for further analysis and study.

This report is one of the core products of the CGPCS Lessons Learned Project. The EUISS has brought together a number of authors who have been involved in the ­CGPCS from the outset to document the genesis and evolution of the Contact Group since its inception in 2009. These contributions offer an overview of the work of the Contact Group and illustrate the road the CGPCS stakeholders have travelled together as well as the manner in which the international counter-piracy strategy has evolved.

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In the field of CSDP, some provisions enshrined in the Lisbon Treaty are yet to be implemented. Article 44 is one of them. It posits that within the framework of the decisions adopted in accordance with Article 43, the Council may ‘entrust the implementation of a task to a group of Member States which are willing and have the necessary capability for such a task’.

In this context, the EU and its member states have recently started to look into what Article 44 is – or is not – potentially about. Ideas have been brought to the table from various angles, even in discussions on the response to the Ebola crisis. Yet there are still many unknowns surrounding the purpose, implications and added-value of the Article.

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