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The absence of a common and operational security strategy has been viewed a critical weakness of the European Union as an international actor. This is true in particular when the Union is faced with political and military issues and conflicts where its wide array of non-military instruments may prove insufficient or irrelevant, indicating that the Union is lacking not only in the clarity of its goals but also in the efficiency of its means. A comparison on both accounts is most often made with the United States. Not unexpectedly, in the aftermath of its most recent debacle in the Iraq crisis, the Union has formulated its first common security strategy (European Security Strategy, 2003). The paper reviews the ideational, institutional and structural factors that determine the culture, function and power of the Union as a strategic actor. More closely, the paper assesses the construction of strategy and the determinants of strategic behaviour, and the consequent growth of EU actorness. The convergence of strategic cultures among the members, the institutional capability of the Union as the basis of its functional position, and its power to affect the structure of the international order provide elements in the emergence of strategy. In the context of strategic behaviour, the paper looks at the management by the Union of the strategic triangle of idealism, functionalism and realism as guidelines for action. In dealing with the strategic responses of the European Union to the hegemony or pre-eminence of the United States, the paper notes their differing approaches to the relationship between Hobbesian, Lockean and Kantian strategic cultures as the basis for international change. The strategic policy of the Union, based on its institutional strengths in soft power complemented with nascent hard power, is outlined as the combination of engaging the United States in binding multilateralism and pursuing equal partnership in global issues, consequently providing a restrained U.S. power with legitimacy. How the United States will respond to the transformation of power in international security remains a complex and open issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThe European Union as a critic of the international order: the power of a normative powerKari Mottola, MFA, HelsinkiThe footprint of the European Union on the structure and functioning of the international order originates from strategies of change that fall, respectively, under the principal theoretical categories: management of multilateral institutions (liberalism); coercion of behaviour through political-diplomatic-military actions (realism); and construction of normative regimes by socialisation and conditionality (traditional or liberal-constructivism); change of power structures and normative circumstances through persuasion, reflecting criticism of the international order (post-structural or realist-constructivism).The survey, combining action and theory, brings forth the juxtaposition of norms and power in the strategic profile of the EU. In addition to its role as a proponent of effective multilateralism, the EU performs as a normative power par excellence, a driver of rules adoption, and a prosecutor of non-compliance, while as a wielder of structural power in the realist sense it is a novice. On the other hand, while the liberal institutional and constitutive strategies are predicated on the idea that structural power can be transcended by progressive normative policies, persuasion aims at distributing roles and benefits by the use of ideational power and occurs in a recurrent or indefinite pattern. Analysing the interaction of power and norms as driving factors in strategic behaviour, the paper evaluates the liberal and realistic forms of the normative power of the European Union, both measuring its credibility as a critic in the international order. The emergence of the EU as a global normative actor sui generis with a dualistic character is challenged by the adversity of the democratic peace project, caused by governance failures and cultural relativism, on the normative side and the reconfiguration of power politics, together with weakening of multilateral institutions, on the structural side.Of the four strategies of the European Union, tackling the complexity of governance and the transformation of structure as forms of change in international order, construction and persuasion, representing constructivist theory, wield the greatest and smallest impact, respectively, indicating the volatility of normative and ideational politics. Persuasion may be a growth strategy, however. Note: Statements of fact and opinion are those the author and do not imply endorsement by the Government of Finland. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]