EU crisis management missions as sites for strategic (sub)cultures competition

This paper examines the European Union's (EU) crisis management missions and operations as sites for competition, overlap, and change of EU strategic culture(s). With over 40 civilian and military missions and operations mandated since the early 2000s, crisis management has reached a mature age as operationalisation of the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). As such, it has been scrutinised as key evidence or lack thereof of gradually strengthening EU strategic culture. Challenging the expectation of linearity in EU strategic culture evolution, this article draws on the notion of strategic subcultures to better understand the nature and change in EU CSDP agency. The paper argues that the EU’s agency in security and defence is shaped by competition between diverse EU strategic subcultures, the dominance of which varies over time and across issues space. Empirically, the paper examines new data covering all EU CSDP missions and operations since 2003. Through systematically mapping and tracing strategic cultural attributes of EU identity, values, norms, and strategic environment perceptions, the analysis points to three distinctive CSDP agencies: EU as a peacemaker, security provider, and standard setting partner. These are simultaneously present yet vary in dominance, particularly in response to external shocks.