Europe's Defence Diplomacy

Defence diplomacy is one of those elements that play a decisive role in the general defence policy of countries. Having changed their defence policies from deterrence and territorial defence to participatory/collaborative and collective security, European states have enhanced the application of defence strategies in their foreign policy-making. Thus the object of European defence diplomacy consists in the use of democratic military forces to manage crises and resolve conflicts. This writing will endeavour at first to provide a theoretical explanation of defence diplomacy and examine the practical measures and functional aspects of European defence diplomacy during the 1990s, with special emphasis on the four categories of mutual military relations, reinvigoration of democratic processes, augmentation of the ability to act reciprocally, and provision of support for unchangeable security objectives. It will then consider the post-9/11 security threats and the resultant change in Europe’s security strategy from collaborative regional security to collaborative trans-regional security, and eventually will explore the European defence diplomacy in terms of NATO’s activities and EU “Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP)” in Afghanistan and Iraq.