Security Integration in Europe: How Knowledge-based Networks Are Transforming the European Union

5. The Military Community

chapter 5 The Military Community “Around the world, militaries are identical, not just very similar. If you have a group like the [EU] military committee and have a question of organization or ef‹ciency of organization or a particular military operation, there will be consensus around the table.” —general jo coelmont, former belgian eumc representative1 In the context of EU security integration, the military representatives (milreps) of the European Union Military Committee (EUMC) lie at the core of a wider epistemic community that extends below them in the military hierarchy, above them in the capitals, around them in their national and EU-level defense staff of‹ces, and horizontally to their counterparts in other international organizations and third-country operations. Each representative in the EUMC rarely acts as an individual.2 Together they form a hub of in›uence, but feeding into their decisions are a variety of actors. The dynamic between the chiefs of defense and their milreps in Brussels is not unlike that between member states’ ministers and the Brussels-based Coreper ambassadors on the political-diplomatic side. A relatively strong transnational network of high-level military of‹cials exists in Europe, although they have only recently coalesced into an epistemic community. With the combined newness of both external security policy and an emerging EU military capability, the EUMC has so far had a minimal impact on hard integration in terms of concrete outcomes. However, the cohesiveness and persuasiveness of this network are high, and they have triggered processes of Europeanization or soft integration. Of the EU’s various transnational security actors, the EUMC is a good indicator of the future trajectory of security integration on the external side and is therefore an important group to which to pay attention. Milreps meet frequently in informal settings, share tangible profes145 sional norms, bene‹t from similar training, and have a strong common culture. In particular, the EUMC’s internal processes of cooperation result in very quick consensus, even on nuances, and evidence suggests that its long-term impact on capabilities planning may be signi‹cant.3 Yet the military representatives are not simply ful‹lling national instructions but are also exercising collective agency. One of the central qualities underlying the strength of this epistemic community is that although it is relatively new and has yet to have a wide-ranging impact, it bene‹ts from centuries of military culture and tradition in Europe. Karen Dunivin de‹nes military culture as “learned (via socialization training such as boot camp); broadly shared by its members (e.g., saluting); adaptive to changing conditions . . . ; and symbolic in nature (e.g., rank insignia and language jargon make sense only within a military context).”4 Military culture is distinctive from strategic culture, which Paul Cornish and Geoffrey Edwards de‹ne as “the institutional con‹dence and processes to manage and deploy military force as part of the accepted range of legitimate and effective policy instruments.”5 Strategic culture, for example, might indicate the extent to which a particular society is militaristic. In this sense, it is more closely related to a country’s overarching military doctrine. Military culture, by contrast, shapes the practice of daily life in the military and the context in which of‹cers carry out tactical decisions. The historical backdrop for military culture in Europe—and to a lesser extent strategic culture, among other things—‹rmly differentiates the military epistemic community from other relatively new epistemic communities, such as that of technology experts (chapter 6). The rich historical background underpinning military culture today does not necessarily lead to a strong epistemic community, just as the shared background of Coreper and the Political and Security Committee (PSC) has not led both of those groups to form strong epistemic communities. Given that countries in Europe have fought many long and violent wars, it might be hard to imagine that any element of transnational military culture could lend support to some level of normative convergence. While this chapter focuses on the current military epistemic community, European military transnationalism has a basis in the seventeenth century . Prior to early state building, evidence also shows a kind of transgeographic diffusion of military culture and expertise. The spread of ideas and level of interaction among military of‹cials might not have been strong enough to constitute an epistemic community per se, but shifting alliance 146 security integration in europe formations and professional learning at times brought...