An Cosantóir

An Cosantóir May 2020 www.dfmagazine.ie 20 | BY PROFESSOR BEN TONRA PART 1 With a decade having passed since the Defence Forces lead EU operation to Chad and the Central African Repoublic (EUTM Tchad/RCA), the EU research group Globus recently published an analysis of the mission, under the title 'The (In)Justices of Peacekeeping'. This was authored by Professor Ben Tonra of the UCD School of Politics and International Relations. INTRODUCTION The European Union's (EU) stated goal is to play a significant part in global security governance. The Lisbon Treaty (Art.42.1) provides that the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) will create an 'operational capacity drawing on civilian and military assets' to be deployed on 'missions outside the Union for peacekeeping, conflict prevention and strengthening inter- national security in accordance with the principles of the United Nations Charter'. The nature of this capacity is more precisely defined (Art 43.1) as being 'joint disarmament operations, humanitarian and rescue tasks, military advice and assistance tasks, conflict prevention and peacekeeping tasks, tasks of com- bat forces in crisis management, including peace-making and post-conflict stabilisation'. The Union's ambitions in the field of security and crisis man- agement have been variously ascribed (Forsberg 2006; Pohl 2012) to an attempt to balance against the preponderance of US power, to create a clearer political identity for the Union and/or as a pragmatic attempt by member states to address proximate security challenges. The Union has created a substantial bu- reaucratic and policy making infrastructure to sustain its efforts to apply civilian and military resources to the management and resolution of international security crises. While the preponder- ance of these efforts has been civilian, the military contribution has not been insubstantial. The EU has a by now significant track record in the deploy- ment of military forces in support of internation- al security. The old claim that the Union was an economic giant, political dwarf and military worm no longer applies (New York Times 1991). Since 1999 the Union has deployed on 34 operations and missions through the Common Security and Defence Policy (EEAS 2017). Of these, ten have been wholly military in character and these have entailed the deploy- ment of a total of more than 20,000 military personnel.1 These missions have ranged from crisis management missions with coercive tasks/potential (e.g. physically to protect vulnerable populations or to threaten/intimidate adversaries) to capacity- building efforts designed to strengthen local actors facing security threats. In these military operations, the Union has been circumspect and cautious, even 'modest' (Tardy 2015: 21). While structures have been created, they have not always been used – as in the case of EU battlegroups which have been available as a crisis management tool since 2007, but have not yet been deployed. Moreover, crisis management as practiced by the EU to date has evidenced clear characteristics which place it at the minimalist end of a spectrum of engagement. First, EU crisis management has always entailed the consent of all state parties to a dispute. The potential use of military force has thereby been limited to non-state third parties. Second, the use of force has never been central to an EU crisis management operation. The military force deployment has always been part of a much wider political/strategic effort which is directed towards specific political/diplomatic goals ostensibly as part of a conflict resolution strategy. Most often, this entails the use or threat- ened use of military force in support of the security of local actors or to forestall threats from hostile non-state actors. Finally, such military operations are generally presented as be- ing impartial in as much as they are not parti pris to the dispute itself but are seen as offering support to the parties in pursuit of dispute resolution. Cumulatively, then, the traditional picture of any military component to EU crisis management to date is that of consensual, non-coercive and impartial intervention. The critical question for this paper is the extent to which, if at all, these crisis management prin- ciples are consistent with the principles of justice and whether they have actually pertained in the field. Even in principle, the line between crisis management and warfare can be permeable. In the field, that line is even less visible as troops face hostile combatants threaten- ing them or the vulnerable An Cosantóir May 2020 www.dfmagazine.ie 20 |

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