Stuart Croft

The governance of European security

This article seeks to develop a concept of ‘security governance’ in the context of post-Cold War Europe. The validity of a governance approach lies in its ability to locate some of the distinctive ways in which European security has been coordinated, managed and regulated. Based on an examination of the way governance is utilised in other political fields of political analysis, the article identifies the concept of security governance as involving the coordinated management and regulation of issues by multiple and separate authorities, the interventions of both public and private actors (depending upon the issue), formal and informal arrangements, in turn structured by discourse and norms, and purposefully directed toward particular policy outcomes. Three issues are examined to demonstrate the utility of the concept of security governance for understanding security in post-Cold War Europe: the transformation of NATO, the Europeanisation of security accomplished through EU-led initiatives and, finally, the resultant dynamic relationship between forms of exclusion and inclusion in governance.

Constructing Ontological Insecurity: The Insecuritization of Britain's Muslims

The development of ontological security studies, for example by Mitzen, Steele, and Berenskoetter and Giegerich, has been an important innovation in the field. However, by focusing on the level of the state rather than that of the individual, this new tradition is somewhat different from the intellectual origins of ontological security in sociology and psychology. Drawing on those disciplines, I argue that the key focus should be on the understandings of individuals about their own security, intersubjectively constructed. Ontological security can be understood in terms of the need to construct biographical continuity, to construct a web of trust relations, to act in accordance with self-integrity, and to struggle against ontological insecurity, or dread, in Kierkegaards sense. I then take and apply this framework to understand the process by which British Muslims have become insecuritized (understood as a term through which dominant power can decide who should be protected and who should be designated as those to be controlled, objectified, and feared) in the period since 9/11.

The Enlargement of Europe

Organizations, Europe and enlargement the enlargement of NATO the enlargement of the European Union the enlargement of the Western European Union the enlargement of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe the enlargement of the Council of Europe.

NATO's Triple Challenge

NATOs future is again the subject of speculation and debate despite its having fought a recent and apparently successful war in Kosovo. This article proposes that there are three aspects to this challenge. First, NATO is facing a series of dilemmas in its relations with non-members: how should it manage relations with Russia, and with the applicants for membership? The authors argue that NATO should seek to develop a consolidationist posture. The second challenge is that of developing an EU–NATO partnership in the light of the Helsinki Headline Goals. This, it is proposed, can be developed through a division of labour. The third task, that of military restructuring, is overshadowed by the complexities of processing a working European military structure. In conclusion, the authors suggest that a strategy for the alliance, a key component of the Cold War, but subsequently lost, can be refashioned from the above elements.

The EU, NATO and Europeanisation: The return of architectural debate

In international relations, ideas matter. Not only are ideas important, and rooted in a relationship with interests, but present ideas are shaped by the outcome of past ideational battles. It is the impact of conflict between the ideas of the early 1990s upon the present that concerns this article. The first section of this article suggests that ideas matter. The second then examines the interplay of those ideas of European security in the early 1990s. The third and fourth sections trace the inevitable move to NATO enlargement that arose as a consequence. And the conclusion will examine how this contemporary history has shaped the debates of today.

Guaranteeing Europe’s security? Enlarging NATO again

At the end of 2002, NATO will again decide to enlarge its membership. This process of enlargement of the Alliance is driven by summit timetables; summits require commitments and grand gestures, and in Prague that could involve invitations to seven or more states to accede to the Washington Treaty. But there are three sets of issues into which this plays uncomfortably. First, there is an EU-NATO and EU security agenda (also including enlargement) which is a significant and difficult set of issues. Second, NATO itself is undergoing change, particularly after the attacks of 11 September 2001 and enlargement complicates those reform processes. Third, the wide European agenda, and in particular relations with Russia, throw out complicating factors. Is there a way of managing all of these dilemmas?

The common European security and defence policy and the ‘third‐country’ issue

The Common European Security and Defence Policy (CESDP) of the European Union (EU) was launched in 1999 and has been perceived as a landmark step toward European security cooperation, particularly in the field of crisis management. Still in its early stages, some difficult issues have become apparent. Of these, the so‐called ‘third‐country’ issue may prove to be among the most significant. This problem refers to the necessity of associating states outside the EU with CESDP. In this regard, three states stand out — the United States, Turkey and Russia — and this article considers their concerns and the European response in detail. This is prefaced by a general overview of how the third‐country problem emerged and what the EU has done to address it. It concludes by suggesting that third‐country considerations could well determine where and how EU‐led missions operating under the auspices of CESDP are deployed.

Continuity and Change in British Thinking about Nuclear Weapons

For almost fifty years there has been constant argument between those who have supported the development and possession of nuclear weapons by Britain and those opposed to those policies. This article argues that there has been a continuity in the arguments made by policy-makers and their critics, both operating within an unchanging series of linked assumptions forming a paradigm or mind-set. This article sets out the character of the assumptions of the orthodox and alternative thinkers, as they are termed in the article, examining their coherence and differences, particularly during the cold war. It concludes by attempting to draw out some implications for the British security policy debate in the post-cold war period.

British policy towards Western Europe, 1947–9: the best of possible worlds?

The course of postwar British relations with the countries of Western Europe is often seen as having been set by the developments of 1947-9. In early 1948, Britain was regarded as the leader of Western Europe; a year later the British had not only lost that leadership, but with hindsight had lost their place in future European political developments. How and why did such a transformation come about? During 1947 and 1948, the British government took a leading role in bringing about West European union. This represented an attempt to achieve a close association of West European states working at intergovernmental level. Concrete examples of Britains leading role were the signing of the Dunkirk Treaty on 4 March 1947 between Britain and France and the Brussels Treaty on 17 March 1948 between Britain, France and the Benelux countries. The concept of West European union to which the British were committed, and which was explicitly espoused in the Brussels Treaty, seemed to imply a greater commitment of the United Kingdom to European affairs than had existed in British foreign policy hitherto. Yet during 1948 and early 1949, when the governments of France, Benelux and Italy started to propose some form of West European unity, they found that they were faced by implacable British opposition. This unity sought to go beyond the intergovernmental level towards West European federation. Even when the US government supported West European unity strongly, British opposition to it did not lessen. The distinctions between union and unity seem to have been clearly conceptualized by the British by 1948. This failure of the British government to move from working for European union towards working for European unity has widely been regarded as a missed opportunity. During the late 1940s, the policy of the British government on the issue of unity was opposed by everybody; abroad by the major European governments and the United States, and at home by the Conservative Party. Many historians have since sided, in varying degrees, with this contemporary criticism of the Labour government. 1 However, this article will argue that such a critical approach does not allow for

In Defence of Arms Control

Arms control has been strongly attacked from two quarters since the end of the Cold War. Some argue that it is flawed in essence, elaborating a conservative critique developed over 25 years. Others argue that arms control was a Cold War institution, and therefore its time has passed. Both are wrong, fundamentally because arms control is defined too narrowly. A typology of arms control is proposed with five distinct forms: the traditional interpretation, focusing on strategic stability; arms control at the end of major conflicts; arms control to develop the laws of war; controls on proliferation; and arms control by international organization. Arms control has a long history, and when seen in this broader perspective, it is clear that it has a future.